75 - Between the Rapture and the Return, Part 2 | Striving for Eternity | Andrew Rappaport

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76 - Between the Rapture and the Return, Part 3 | Striving for Eternity | Andrew Rappaport

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Welcome to the

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Striving for Eternity Academy. This is another one of our many in a series of classes that we offer at Striving for Eternity.

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You can get all the information about the ministry and the other classes we offer at strivingforeternity .org.

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Today's class is a class in the topic of or the class of the

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School of Systematic Theology. We're in right now what we're calling

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God's Program for the Ages. This is the fourth of the syllabuses and the topics in this series of lectures is going to be on the doctrines of the

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Church and the doctrines of last things. That's our end times. Today's lesson specifically will be lesson number eight where we will talk about the events between the rapture and the return.

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I understand some of you don't believe in a rapture. Well we'll get to that. So I will say just as a programming note if I keep looking in different ways we have changed the where things are.

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People were complaining that I'm always looking down at my notes and so to do that we've now changed and I have this big screen above the camera so that I can be looking up.

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I don't know why any of you would want to be looking at this ugly mug just saying I got a great face for podcasts right.

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So well yeah it's true there are some podcasts that are video. So okay well saying a great face for radio just doesn't work anymore because who listens to the radio anyway just saying.

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No but if you would like to get the syllabus that I mentioned earlier you can get that at our store at strivingforeternity .org.

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If you have a syllabus I encourage you to grab it now turn to lesson eight so you can follow along.

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So with that we do want to go through and talk about where we looked at last time.

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We looked at the events of that basically the the issues or the events that were happening in heaven prior and as we looked at that we saw that in heaven there was the judgment seat of Christ.

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We saw that we saw the marriage feast of the lamb and we looked at that as two events that happened between this time.

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Now granted as I mentioned I'm holding to a position that would be known as well it's known as dispensational theology okay and I understand not everyone's holding to that and therefore

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I'm going to have a view which is called pre -millennialism and that causes problems for folks.

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Don't let it cause you a problem okay. One of the things that we really want to emphasize here at least in these classes is the fact that we want you to recognize the fact that there's a lot of people that make a lot of issues here a lot of debates here.

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We're going to give you our position but you know the fact that the marriage supper of the lamb occurs yeah

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I don't think anyone disputes that. The fact that there's going to be a judgment seat of Christ I don't think anyone's disputing that and so the point is is that there's things here we all would agree on and we're trying to show that agreement.

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I understand when it comes 10 times that just doesn't seem to be possible. Well it is possible and one of the ways it's possible is when we stop thinking that we are automatically right.

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There is this thing where there's an element that we have to recognize that all of us in our theology have areas that we're going to be wrong.

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The area of end times is one that we should have the most grace and most leniency with and yet for some it does seem to be like it is the least.

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So with that in mind I say that we really should consider having a little bit of grace in this area and so I'm giving my position and what

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I think and you're going to see that a little bit more with today's lesson because I'm going to talk about the things the events that happen well on earth during the tribulation and I understand that not everyone believes in a tribulation and it is for that reason that I'm cautious to say that this is a particular view of end times that not everyone is going to hold to.

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Not everyone is going to believe and so you just keep that in mind as you're listening and as you're following along know that there are differing views.

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We did a class of several weeks ago, several classes ago where we talked about the different overview of all the different views.

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I encourage you to do that. Look at them. It is an area where every one of these differing views of end times they have their strengths and their weaknesses.

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Anybody that tells you that their view is the only view that's supported by the

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Bible probably hasn't read the Bible well enough.

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I'm saying that as someone do I feel strongly about my view? Well, yeah, I wouldn't hold to it if I didn't, right?

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Everyone holds strongly to their view. The issue is do we realize that other views have some strengths and weaknesses?

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Yeah, there are. This is the view that obviously I think has more strengths than weaknesses.

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I have a lot of other friends who have differing views that think that their view has more strengths than weaknesses.

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Really, it comes down to how we interpret the scriptures that we're going to see that and there's some things that we end up seeing when it comes to prophecies and how people handle that.

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That's really what it comes down to. I'm going to give you my views. I hope you don't stone me over it because the reality is

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I don't think the future things are as clear in the second coming of Christ as they were in the first coming.

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I think in the first coming there was a lot of things that people didn't quite get and there's going to be a lot of things in the second coming we don't quite get.

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I'm going to keep looking that way for you. I'm speaking to the engineer. You used to have the engineer's monitor over there, now over here.

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I will get used to it, I'm sure. If we could put that slide up of the graph with the chart.

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Yeah, there we go. This is what you have. You have your syllabus. You're going to see this in the end where we're going to look at all the different things that we're going to look at today.

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Really what I want to focus here on and just so we can recognize is

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I want you to notice all these things we're going to talk about today. What I think we're going to end up doing in this is we're going to look at these different views and we're going to take a look at every one of these.

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You see the arrow, the first arrow where it says where it's talking about the rapture.

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You see the arrow at the rightmost side where it's talking about the return. So the rapture being an arrow up being the church is captured into heaven.

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The return when Christ returns to earth and then you see that there's this point of a seven -year tribulation.

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This would be known as what's called pre -millennial. In other words, pre -millennial meaning that the tribulational period happens before the return of Christ in the millennial kingdom.

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This is going to be a view called pre -tribulationalism. What you have there is that the rapture itself occurs at the beginning or before this seven -year tribulation.

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So there is in scripture a seven -year period whether people take it literal or not. Now in my view

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I would take it as literal and that's why I'm seeing it as a literal seven years. It's cut in half three and a half years and three and a half years.

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I think that what we see here is that you see the seal judgments and the bold judgments and the trumpet judgments.

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You see seven sealed judgments that are going to be there and you'll see at the first four there are going to be rapid fire and then there's going to be time periods.

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Then you're going to see the next series of seven is going to be the trumpet judgments and you're going to see they're going to be rapid fire and then there's going be these bold judgments, they again, you're going to see the first several of them are rapid fire and what you end up seeing is that there's a little bit of overlap between the trumpets judgments and the bold judgments and they culminate with the coming of the return of Christ.

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Now, this is a view that I'm holding. Do I believe everyone must hold to this view?

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No, there's like I'm trying to say, I say this in each one of these classes because I think this is one of the areas that I find most interesting in theology that people get dogmatic on when there's certain things we can be dogmatic on.

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Christ is returning. There is a final judgment. Everyone agrees on that, okay?

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There are major things that are very, very clear in Scripture. The things that aren't so clear are these areas that we're going to be discussing now based on the view you have is going to determine how you're going to view some of these things and I'm trying to show over and over again that we need to show grace in these areas and not be dogmatic, okay?

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So let us begin. The events on earth known as the tribulation. This is like I said, the seven year period where you're going to see this in Scripture and we'll take a look at some of these things.

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This is going to be Daniel 9 verse 27 and Revelation 12, 6,

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Revelation 13, 5. These indicate for us that the tribulation will be over a seven year period.

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The first half of that is going to be the judgment is going to, the first half of the judgment is focused primarily on the nations outside of Israel and the second half is for Israel itself and so we're going to give this overview where we're going to look at this.

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So that's kind of where you see that there's a, I'm not getting into all of it.

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Now I realize that there's a lot of people who do get into all this. I know that some of my covenant theologian friends, new covenant theologian friends will make fun of me for throwing a chart up.

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Dispensationalism is known for its end time charts. There are some. Do I still? Yeah I do.

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I still have the one here. Good. I've showed this before but if you're watching, let me pull this out.

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This is just an example of some of the charts that you end up seeing and you see here

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God's dispensationalism for the prophetic plans and you see all the detail that are in these type of charts and they are,

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I mean some people focus so much time on this and trying to get all the details just right and yet I am one of these guys that I don't think we're going to get those details just right.

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I think we might come close in some areas and a lot of us are going to have things that are well way off.

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And it's for that reason that I don't get dogmatic on this. I don't think that it's something we should be dividing over but it is something that we do need to just understand one another's views and the positions that each other holds to it and see really what does the scripture say and let's examine that.

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That's the issue. So with that, we really want to see that there's two purposes that I think for the tribulation.

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One is to prepare the way for the Messiah and the other is to judge the unbelieving world for their sin.

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So those are going to be the two areas. One is going to prepare, actually prepare Israel for the

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Messiah I should say. Because Messiah came but Israel didn't recognize them. And so you're going to see a lot in this tribulation period where I think the church is taken up.

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There is going to be then without the restraining force of the church in the world, the

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Holy Spirit is going to remove that influence of the church and I think what you're going to see is well, you're going to see the world doing what the world wants to do and Israel is going to rise up and be really the enemy of the world as they're going to be prepared to receive the second coming, the

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Messiah who came the first time when they didn't recognize. So since neither purpose applies to the church, it only follows that the tribulation would be after the rapture in my view, right?

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So I'm saying that I believe that this is why I'm pre -tribulational. I believe the church is removed because when

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I look at these things, I don't see the church being referred to.

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I see Israel being referred to. Now this is where you get into differing views. If you followed with us on other classes, we talked about covenant theology and dispensational theology and we talked about different ways of interpreting.

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When you see that Israel is the church, a covenant theologian will look at these events and have no problem saying this is the church because they see the church and Israel interchanged at times.

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Now, I believe there is overlap, which means I'm not a classical dispensationalist if you understand those terms.

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But I'd be more of a progressive dispensationalist. But the thing is that when we look at it, if you're mixing those two, then you're not going to have a problem with these things that are in the future being referred to as the church because when it mentions

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Israel, you're going to read in church. I don't do that. I think the church is an organization separate from the nation of Israel and as such,

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I'm going to see these as two separate entities, not completely separate. The reason I say not completely separate is because there is overlap.

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There is a people of God that was part of the nation of Israel, but they were not the real

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Israel. And that real Israel is the believing body within Israel. And that you're going to see within Christianity as well.

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That is the universal church versus the local church. Universal church is all those who believe that they believe and they are in that belief.

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They are the true Israel, you could say.

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But then there's those who attend a local church, where in a local church you have people that attend in a building and yet they're not all the church.

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So let's take a look at Daniel, could we? All right.

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And now I've got to see if I can read this with the new format. I used to have it right in front of me.

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All right. Daniel 9, 27. We see here as it says, and he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week.

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Now keeping in mind here, one week is one seven year period. It's actually one Sabbath is how it is.

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And so therefore when we see that, just read that as one week, as one seven year period.

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So let me read again. Daniel 9, 27. And he shall make a strong covenant with them for one week.

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And for half of the week he shall put an end to the sacrifice and offering.

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And on the, and on the, I'm having trouble reading that.

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And on the wing of abomination shall come one who makes desolate until the decree end is poured out on the desolator.

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So what you have here in this passage is you end up seeing that there is a, you see if there's a one week period that is, is where it's going to be cut in half.

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You see that for half a week, that's a three and a half year period. Let's take a look. If we look at Revelation now, and we see in Revelation, the book of Revelation, and we look at chapter 12,

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Revelation chapter 12 and verse 6, and what we see here is it says, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she had, has a place prepared by God in which she will be nourished for 12 ,060 days.

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Now the woman here in context is speaking of Israel, the 1260 days is speaking of a three and a half year period by the reckoning of Judaism.

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In Judaism, you have a period that is going to be usually 12, 30 day months.

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Now there's always an extra, every few years they add another month in, another 30 day month.

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So that's how you do that reckoning. So in Revelation 13 .5 it says, and the beast was given a mouth to utter, a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

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And so what you see here, again you're seeing one reference to a seven year period and half of that, three and a half.

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You're seeing another reference to the number of days, 1 ,270 days.

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You're seeing now here a reference in Revelation 13 to the number of months, okay?

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Being 42 months. Three different ways of illustrating that there's this half, there's a seven year period and it's broken in half, okay?

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That's the emphasis that we end up seeing in those passages. So let's take a look now at the events.

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So the first thing we have is the revealing of the Antichrist in his power.

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That's your blank there. The revealing of the Antichrist in his power. This we'll see in Daniel 7.

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We're going to see this in Daniel 7, 7 to 8. And if we read that, it says there,

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I consider the horns and behold there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by its roots.

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And behold in this horn were eyes like a man and a mouth which speaks great things.

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Now this is very descriptive language in Daniel and what you're seeing here is, and I'm taking a verse which is always dangerous to do, is to take just one verse but we don't have time to look at the entire chapter.

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But I encourage you to do that. But what I think this is referring to in Daniel 7 as we look at the context is a referencing to a particular person that we know as the

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Antichrist. And it talks about his rise to power. We see this in the

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New Testament in 2 Thessalonians 2 .8. And in 2

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Thessalonians 2 .8 it says, and then the lawless one will be revealed whom the

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Lord Jesus will kill with breath in his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

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So here what you see in this passage, this lawless one, speaking of this individual.

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And so again you see I think the rise of this, of an individual person. You see this in Revelation 13 verse 1.

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Then I saw the beast rising out of the sea and the ten horns and the horns with ten horns and seven heads with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names in its head.

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So it's this one beast. Revelation 17 .12 and the ten horns that you saw were ten kings and not yet received royal power but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast.

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And so you have here I think a reference to this rise of this one ruler that will rule.

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And so that is what we end up seeing there. We saw in Daniel 7, if you look actually at verses 7 and 8, when we look at that, when we look at verse 7 and 8, we're going to see that he is a gentle leader.

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Okay, after this, I saw a night vision and behold the fourth beast terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong.

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It had a great iron in its teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces what was left as feet.

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It was different from the other beasts that were before it. Sorry, I said gentle.

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It should be Gentile. Sometimes I misread. But you see that this is coming from outside of the nation of Israel.

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This is not someone from within Israel. It's not an Israelite, okay?

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This is a Gentile ruler. So the one thing that we could see is this is someone from outside of Israel that's going to be this one world ruler.

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In fact, we kind of know he's going to be from Rome. And the reason we know that is in Daniel, I don't think

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I have this. I keep looking that way for you. I'm going to keep doing that. So we got to remove that monitor is what we got to do.

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All right, sorry. So what you see in Revelation, in Daniel's Revelation on 70 weeks, he talks about that those who destroy the temple, that this one world ruler will rise up from the nation that destroyed the temple.

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And that was Rome that did that. Now, so is it actually Italy? And many people in times past said this is why the

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Pope is the Antichrist because he represents Rome. Will it be Rome specifically or Europe being the

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Roman Empire? I don't know. Lots of people take guesses. I'm not going there. But one thing we do know in Daniel 11 is that he's a military leader.

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Let's not put that up because we just don't have time. But Daniel 11 verses 36 to 38, if you look that up,

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Daniel 11, 36 to 38, you're going to see that he will be a military leader. You're going to see in 2

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Thessalonians 2, 8, he's going to be a wicked leader. And in 2

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Thessalonians 2, 9, he's going to be a powerful leader. So what do we know about this Antichrist?

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Well, as we see that things are going to be revealed here, we're going to see that this is going to, the first thing we're going to see, the first half of the tribulation is going to be the rise of this

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Antichrist. He's going to rise to power. I think what you end up seeing when you look at all the picturesque language in Daniel and elsewhere, you see this reference to a seven -headed beast with 10 horns on it.

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You see several references to 10 kingdoms. The idea is that there will probably be, in this time period, 10 nations or 10 kingdoms that will rise up.

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And out of those 10, one will rise above the others and one will become really, bring the others together, they think.

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Now, some people, people have differing views. One of the things you do see though here is that Israel is going to be in the temple worshipping.

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So what many think is that the way that this one world leader is going to bring peace in the

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Middle East, which some people think will never happen, they think he'll bring peace by allowing a temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem that will appease the

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Israelites, the Jewish people, and they will probably be willing to get along with that person.

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And so I think you'll have someone that can bring peace between the Muslim and Jewish peoples.

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And so many do think that since there's talk about a prophet that will work with this one world leader, many think that this one world leader will be from Europe area, but that the prophet, now in years past and people before the rise of Islam, many thought that it would be

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Roman Catholicism, that it would be the Pope that would be this false prophet that rises and works with the one world leader.

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Some thought the one world leader, the Antichrist, was the Pope. You'll see Puritans speak of that, the

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Reformers. But I actually kind of think that with the rise of Islam and being that Islam is dominant in the area of Israel, that I think that the false religion will be

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Islam. I base that also on the fact that if you actually study Islam and you look at what

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Islam is looking for in their Messiah, in their 12th Imam, it matches very similar to this

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Antichrist, that there would be a one world leader who would gather the world together, that he would be a powerful military leader.

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That's what they're looking for. And so with that, many of the prophecies that you see of the

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Antichrist seem to be similar prophecies to the 12th

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Imam. There's many people who make this argument. Can we be dogmatic about that? No, we can't.

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If you're speaking to a Muslim and you're going to make that a case, you may find some egg on your face. It's not going to be something that's going to be strong because not everyone believes in a 12th

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Imam. So it's a certain sect within Islam. But there is some things that become kind of interesting there because there is some similarities there.

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So we see that this Antichrist, he's going to be Gentile. He's going to be military.

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He's going to be wicked and he's going to be powerful. Those are your blanks there for number one, or actually letter

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A through D there under number one, I should say. Number two, that there will be a covenant with the

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Antichrist with Israel for seven years. This is in Daniel 9, 27.

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If we could put that one up anytime.

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Okay, so that's the one. All right, so it says here in Daniel 9, 27, and he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week.

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That's all we actually want to see in that. So what you see is you see that he's going to make a covenant.

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This one world leader is going to make a covenant with Israel for one week, one week, one

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Sabbath. Sabbath is seven. That's really what it is. Seventh. It is the seventh day, the seventh year.

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In this case, it is a seventh year. Okay, that's what it's referring to.

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So one of the other things that we see here is that the tribulation, the number three in your syllabus, the tribulation is introduced with the four seal judgments occurring at the beginning of the seventh, the seven years.

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So if you look in, let's look in Revelation 6, we're going to see here the first four seal judgments.

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Okay, so in Revelation 6, what you see here, Revelation 6, we're in verses one and two to start.

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We're going to look at more, but verses one and two. Now, I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, come.

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And I looked and behold a white horse and its rider had a bow and a crown was given to him and he came out conquering and to conquer.

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So we see here, we're going to see the first seal is going to be intimidation.

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I'm going to try to give a label to each of the seven seals, but the tribulation is introduced with the first four of these seal judgments that are going to be broken.

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It's described as being on a scroll. One of the things that you do on a scroll is you would write something out and you would fold it up or roll it up and you'd put wax on it and you'd put a ring imprint that would have your ring showing who sealed it and only the person whose name is on that is able to break the seal.

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So God writes this, he seals it himself and he writes it to himself to open the seals and there's seven seals.

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So what the idea here is that this would have been a long sheet of paper or that's sealed together that they'd scroll up and each one they would seal one page to another and seal it shut or that it's a judgment and they're breaking a seal, reading part of a judgment, breaking the next seal, reading the next part of the judgment and so on for seven seals.

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That's the picture here. And so the first seal is one of intimidation.

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Let's look at the next seal if we look at the next two verses. This is Revelation chapter 6 still and verses 3 and 4.

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When he opened the second seal I heard the second living creature say, Come and out came another horse bright red.

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Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so people should slay one another and he was given a great sword.

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So what you see in the second seal is warfare. The second seal would be one of warfare.

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The third seal would be one of famine and we see this in verses 5 and 6.

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So Revelation 6 verses 5 and 6 and here we see it says when he opened the third seal

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I heard the third living creature say, Come and I looked and behold a black horse and its rider had a pair of scales in his hand.

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And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of four living creatures say,

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A quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius and do not harm the oil and the wine.

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And so what you see here is famine. This is a quart of wheat for a denarius.

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A denarius is one day's wage. The idea here is that for one day's wage you're going to get a quart of wheat and three quarts of barley.

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In other words, you're barely getting enough to survive on per person.

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You need two days wages to pay for enough to survive on for one day, for one person.

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That's the idea there that you don't have enough food for one person to live on.

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That's a famine. That's when people start getting desperate. Verses 6 and 7 talks about the fourth seal, one of death.

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So, Revelation 6, 7 and 8 says,

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When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say,

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Come, and I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was

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Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over the fourth of the earth to kill with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and with wild beasts of the earth.

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And so what you see here is you see now the fourth seal of death.

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So, we see the tribulation begins. You have this covenant that's made with the

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Antichrist. And then all of a sudden you see intimidation, warfare, famine, and death.

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In rapid fire is the idea that this is going to be rapid fire.

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And so when we see that, well,

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I believe that we as Christians won't see that. But if you're still here and you see that, yeah, time to repent.

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But I think that these are going to be rapid fire. And I think the next number four what we're going to see is the rise of 144 ,000

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Jewish missionaries that are going to evangelize the world outside of Palestine, right at the beginning of the tribulation.

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We see this in Revelation now chapter 7 and the first eight verses.

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So, if you turn to Revelation chapter 7 and the first eight verses, you're going to see that 144 ,000 are made up of each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

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12 ,000 from each of the 12 tribes. This is how that we gather to them.

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And so what we see here in Revelation chapter 7 verses 1 to 8. After this

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I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of the earth.

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That no wind might blow on the earth or sea or against any tree.

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When I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living

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God and he called with a loud voice to four angels who had been given the power to harm earth and sea saying, do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our

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God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed 144 ,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Reuben.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Gad. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Asher. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Naphtali.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Manasseh. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Simeon.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Levi. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Asachar.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Zebulun. 12 ,000 from the tribe of Joseph.

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12 ,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. And so what you see here is the idea that there is these 12 ,000 from each of the tribes.

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This is also, by the way, one of the reasons I think it's literal is because God is giving specifics like this.

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And so what I'm saying here is that there's going to be 144 ,000 Jewish missionaries. So what do we see?

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We see here that we're going to see the first period, this first half, three and a half year period, 42 months, 1 ,270 days, that first half of the tribulation.

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You're going to see the rise of an Antichrist. That Antichrist is going to be a Gentile, military, wicked, powerful leader.

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You are going to see that there's going to be a covenant made with the

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Antichrist in Israel. You're going to see that there's going to be four rapid fire judgments on the earth that are going to start with intimidation and warfare and famine and death.

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You're also going to see the rise of 144 ,000 Jewish missionaries that the destruction doesn't begin until they're sealed on their foreheads.

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Can you see that seal? No, I don't think people will be able to seal it. But God is basically saying there's a timetable for these things and when

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He is ready with His missionaries, then things are going to move forward.

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And then the last, the fifth thing that we have here is that the participants, sorry, that there will be martyrdom.

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There will be martyrdom among the nations through the first half of the tribulation in connection with the fifth seal.

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So we're going to see, can we throw that chart up again just real quick, just so now we can see some of these things.

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So you see, we're going to see the beginning of that, those, the seal judgments are at the very early part after the rapture, the first part of that year.

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And then you see that there is that some time gap now as those first four rapid fire judgments but now we're going to see the martyrdoms throughout the nations in that first half in connection with the fifth seal.

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And so that fifth seal that we see is going to be still in Revelation chapter 6 but verses 9 to 11.

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So Revelation 6, 9 to 11. If we looked there, actually we were in verse chapter 7 before, so Revelation 6, 9 to 11.

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Now we're getting back to the seal judgments and we're going to get back to these later on but we see here now verse 9, when he opened the fifth seal,

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I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness that they had bore.

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They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.

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They then, then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

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And so what you see here is you see the martyrdom now of those who are suffering during that period of time.

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Okay, you're going to see that that's going to be part of the fifth seal. This is now going to be in the midst of that first half of the year.

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So is this one year in? Is it two years in? Who knows? Not really sure. I know there's some people that try to figure all that out.

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Like I said, that's not me. Not going to give you all those details. I don't have them.

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I don't try to do that. I try to lay out what I do see in scripture as we look at each of these seal judgments.

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I don't think if we look in history, do we see periods of time in history where there were, where there were some of the things that we saw there?

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Is there times where we've seen intimidation by world leaders? Yes, but there wasn't one world leader.

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Some people would try to argue that, well, maybe the number 10 isn't exact and we should look at the fact that there was different leaders during World War I or World War II.

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Many people saw World War I and thought that was this time period. You had all the world gathering together.

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Some were looking for a man to rise up and to bring peace.

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The irony there was that there wasn't a nation of Israel at the time of World War I nor World War II, but there were people,

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I think, that were trying to figure these things out and they were looking at it and they were, oh. I think after World War II, a nation of Israel was actually reformed and then there was a lot of speculation.

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But what you see is you do see periods of time where there's intimidation, there's warfare, there's been times of famine, there's been death, but it has not been worldwide.

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They've been in areas. Even we call it the World War, you know, there wasn't war everywhere.

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We don't see it, there were areas, even in World War I and World War II, that not everyone was involved in the war.

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I think that in this war, I believe that this will be a time where there is universal warfare, there is universal famine, there is universal death.

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I think that the Word of God will go out by these 144 ,000, 12 ,000 from each of the 12 tribes, 144 ,000 missionaries, and they will go out and they will evangelize because they will recognize what the

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Scriptures say. They will recognize that Christ was the Messiah. They'll recognize He's coming again and they will call out to people to repent.

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And they'll go out throughout the world, but that will cause martyrdom. And many of those 144 ,000 will be killed.

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They will be martyred for the faith. And God says there in Revelation 6, 9 to 11, to wait.

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He's going to be waiting until all of those martyrs, all the ones that He has, again, you're seeing He's got a timetable.

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He's going to wait until all of them, what's done is done, and He's going to then return.

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I'm not going to have time to finish this lesson, so we're going to end up picking this up not next week if you watch live, but next time.

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We'll look at the middle period of the Tribulation and then the end time of the Tribulation. We're going to look at those two time periods.

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So with that, if you have questions about this or any other thing related to these classes, you can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org,

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academyatstrivingforeternity .org. If you would like to get our syllabus, you can go to strivingforeternity .org

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and pick up the syllabus there. We'd be happy to get that to you.

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So those are available. Also, when you're at the website, you could pick up my book,

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What Do They Believe? A Systematic Theology of the Major Western Religions. You can also host a

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Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar in your area. Get us to come to your church and have one of these seminars to teach people how to interpret the

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Bible. It is something we do in one weekend. We'll do it over a Friday night and Saturday.

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It's six sessions, eight hours of training to teach you how to interpret the

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Bible. Now, just as a note, programming note, we will have no class next week.

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I will be in Dallas, Texas for the debate between Matt Slick and David Smalley.

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That will be Saturday night, October 1st, followed Sunday night,

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October 2nd. Also in Dallas, Texas will be Matt Slick versus Matt Dillahunty.

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I will be out there to help Matt Slick out with things, not to help him with the debate. He can handle that all on his own, but we will be there in the back to help out with different things.

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So I will not be returning until I will actually be in the air at the time that this class would be going live.

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So there will be no class next week. So I am sorry about that. But until the next time when we pick up again these period of time that happens in on the earth during the second half, the middle and the latter part of this tribulation period, the seven year period, we're going to pick that up next time.

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And until next time, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.