Revelation Study Ch16 Cont B

That's the way to make sure it picks up. I don't know what the live streams Jack got down here.

You're good. He's done the last of the things that he does. Well, good morning.

Morning. Would one of you gentlemen like to open us up with a word of prayer?

Mr. Berry, Mr. Smith, Mr. Burt, paper, scissor, rock. Who wants to do it? I'll pray.

OK. Dear Lord, we thank you for this day. Thank you for your love for us. Thank you for the fellowship that we have in you.

Thank you for your word. We pray that you'd be with Brother Mike as he shares, that you would bless his time of study, and bless us as we receive.

Pray that you would use this time to strengthen us in our faith and grow us in our love for you and for one another.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We'll take your Bible. Turn to Revelation 16.

I was a little overambitious last week thinking we would finish. Silly Mike. We'll give it another...

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Read the whole chapter again.

Revelation 16, beginning in verse 1. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple say, To the seven angels go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of wrath of God.

So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth and it became loathsome and malignant swords on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshipped his image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea and it became like blood, that of a dead man.

And every living thing in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water and they became blood.

I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous are you who are and who were,

O holy one, because you judged these things and they have poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets and you have given them blood to drink.

They deserve it. And then I heard from the altar a voice saying, Yes, O Lord God, the

Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. And the fourth angel poured out his bowl from the sun and it was given to him to scorch men with fire and men were scorched with a fierce heat and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues and they did not repent so as to give him glory.

Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and the kingdom of it became dark and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain and they blasphemed the

God of heaven because of their pains and their swords and they did not repent of their deeds.

And the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, Euphrates, and its waters were dried up so that it could prepare the ways for the kings of the east.

And then I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs, for they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them together for the great war of the great day of God the

Almighty. Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes so that he will not walk about naked and men will see his shame.

And they gathered them together to the place which is in Hebrew called Har -Megidion. And then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying,

It is done. And there was flashes of lightning, sounds, peals of thunder, and there was a great earthquake.

Such there had not been since man came upon the earth so great an earthquake was it and so mighty.

The great city was split into three parts. The cities of the nation fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath.

And every island fled away and every mountain were not found and huge hailstorms that of about a hundred pounds each came down from heaven and the men blasting

God because of the plague of the hail because its plague was extremely severe.

So, last week we did a run through of the

Armageddon, Har -Megidion, Valley of Jezreel and how that plain is not really a mountain, it's a plain and how we should understand it based on how the flow of redemption and history happened bringing from the

Old Testament into what is it trying to convey here. Now, I do want to let you know that there is a mountain here.

Obviously, there is a mountain here. It is Mount Carmel.

And anybody remember what happens at Mount Carmel? Or Car - sorry? Yes, that's exactly right.

And if we're looking at what's being conveyed here, okay? If what's being conveyed here is these demonic spirits were going out to gather together these people for a showdown with God.

What happened at the Mount Carmel? It was a showdown.

And it was somewhat funny. I mean, I guess if you've got a twisted sense of humor like me,

I think it was somewhat hilarious. That's it. And he begins to mock those gods.

And I've often been told, and in recent days there was something on the news. It's funny, it's the first thing I thought about. A well -known guy who claims to be a

Christian. I'm not saying he's not. Don't know. But he's one of the talking heads that think they have the answers to life.

And he says, you know, we shouldn't mock. We have, as Christians, we should never mock another religion.

I'm like, man, they did it pretty often in the

Old Testament. I mean, you had them... How did

Elijah deal with the false prophets? Yeah, and on top of that, they would make fun of them. Hey, you go down, you cut down a piece of wood, you chop it, you make it into pieces, then you take some of that wood, you then put it on the fire to cook your wood, you cook your food over, then you sweep up all the refuse, you throw it in the trash can, and then you bow down and talk to the very thing that you whittled.

I mean, that's mockery. But in the sense of what took place at Mount Carmel, this was a showdown between Baal and God.

And this is what they want. You want it, you got it. Once again, God says, okay, go ahead. You want it?

And time and time again, they had their opportunity to go, okay, we're done. Our God's not real.

I mean, they cut themselves, they flogged themselves, they did all kinds of things. And then finally,

God says, okay, watch this. And what happens in a split second? It consumes them and it's over.

What's being conveyed here? I mean, if we take what takes place...

This battle doesn't last long. And remember, we've got these parallels.

So if you go back to chapter 11, remember, it talks about the two witnesses and how they're going to be prophesying.

And can anything happen to these two witnesses? How do I understand the two witnesses?

I understand the two witnesses. Good morning. How do I understand the two witnesses?

I'm teaching. I don't care what you think about the two witnesses yet. Well, how do I see the two witnesses? The church, remember.

Okay? Now, if you think they're really Enoch and Elijah, okay. We can still get along and be friends.

But I believe it's a picture of the church. It says as long as they're prophesying, they're what? In the

Mike Collier translation, indestructible. They can do whatever they want. They have the power to stop rain.

Hey, and even in that, if you remember, I said, hey, these guys have Elijah -like qualities.

Okay? They can call down fire. They can stop rain. They're doing all these things. They were basically miracle workers to testify that they were

God's appointed people. Well, once that you get, you follow that through in chapter 11 and you get what happens once they're done prophesying.

The beast comes up out of the abyss, wages war with them. And when it looks like they're about to be defeated by the armies of the world, what happens?

Boom! Jesus appears and it's over. Okay? Same thing. Now you move forward to chapter 16.

You have the battle of Armageddon with a gathering together of the great of all these people of the world.

I mean, it's all the nations of the world. I do believe this is talking about the final day, the final battle.

Now, do I think it's going to be armies against armies? That's not what's being conveyed here.

Okay? How did overthrowing kingdoms happen in ancient times? By two people having a face -off.

Okay? That's what's being conveyed here. You have the powers of darkness, the prince of the power of the air, and the powers of the gospel and they're converging and they're fighting.

How long does that fight take? The whole intertestamental time. I mean, the whole interadvent time.

Look, we are in the church age and we are fighting against the prince of the power of the air.

Now, are we winning? We're winning in the sense of the gospels making great ends.

Look, we often think, and look, my post -millennial brothers, they have a huge problem when you see that evil is continuing to progress.

But what happens is, I just had this conversation with somebody and he's like, well,

I like your perspective better. I was like, oh, so you're now going to convert over one conversation. You have two lines.

Two parallel lines. You've got evil, it's progression until, and I'm just going to put here until Armageddon.

Let's just do that. This, I do believe, Armageddon is demonstrating the final day.

It's it. It's over. Jesus descends. He speaks the word. As Micah said last week, when he was talking about the man of lawlessness, how is the man of lawlessness killed?

By the word of his mouth. It says by the breath of Christ's mouth. Well, what happens in Revelation 19?

It's the sword that comes out of the mouth. And this is going to be it. Well, as evil's progressing, so's the gospel.

It doesn't mean that one, that these can't run together. Well, the post -millennials say eventually this is going to overcome this, okay, to where there's no evil in the world.

I'm sorry you read your Bible. It ain't nowhere. You can do hermeneutical hopscotch to some of the mustard seed.

You can say, hey, talk about the little stone cut without hands in Daniel. And what is it talking about?

Well, that's talking about the Christianization of the world. No, it's not. It's talking about the kingdom of Messiah going out and making a difference in the world, not conquering the world.

Hey, I just want you to know, it's not here to beat up on post -millennialism, because when we get to that in a few weeks or months, whatever long it is, when we get there,

I will deal with every one of them, okay? There's nowhere in Scripture where it says that things get better.

Don't get better. Things get worse. Does Jesus return to a Christianized world? Show me that chapter and verse anywhere in any, hey, even in any of Jesus' parables at the end of the

Olivet Discourse. Does he return to a saved world? Just take this passage right here.

When Jesus returns at the Battle of Armageddon, if he's returning to a saved world, why have a battle?

Okay? So, how I understand it, evil is extending on a parallel line that the gospel is going out.

And they will converge one day, right here, when the last martyr is killed and when the last of the elect is called in.

And that's it. There's no reason to continue on, is there? That's it. So, when we finished last week, we ended at the end of verse 14, and I said

I would pick up in verse 15. And it says here, Behold, I am coming like a thief.

What does it mean when somebody says, I'm coming like a thief? Sneaky. And they're coming in a time which you don't know.

Hey, it's not like you got the Comcast guy, or the Xfinity guy, sorry. You got the cable splicer coming and he says, hey,

I'm going to be there between 12 and 4. At least you know he's coming sometime between 12 and 4, but they normally show up at 5 .30.

But, you got, he says, hey, I'll be here between here and here. At least you're home, you're prepared.

When a thief's coming, he doesn't say, hey, check it out, Brian, I think

I'm going to come rob you and your family somewhere around 2 .30. So make sure y 'all are away. Make sure your gun's put in a safe so I don't get shot.

No, the point is, I'm coming and it's going to happen in such a way that you don't know when it happens.

This could very well be Christ speaking. Says, behold,

I am coming quickly. Or, I am coming like a thief in a time in which you will not know.

And then he says this. This is one of the Beatitudes in the book of Revelation. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes so that he will not walk about naked and men not see his shame.

So, first of all, why should you stay awake? Sure. What does it mean to stay awake?

Does anybody's pastor say stay sober or alert? Anybody? That's the idea.

Yours says awake. Mike? Watchful. Okay. That's the idea. So even in the parables when

Jesus was saying, hey, be alert. You don't know when the Son of Man is coming. Stay awake.

Be alert. Remember the virgins and all that, how they weren't prepared. They weren't ready.

They weren't, all these things and people weren't ready. Just like the guy who says I'll build more barns and do this, but he was not prepared when he says today your soul is required of you.

So the idea is not hey, let's just take a bunch of five hour energy drinks or cellulose or whatever garbage y 'all drink to stay awake.

Coffee. Whatever it is, that's not what he's talking about. Be alert. Be prepared and be ready at all times because you don't know when he's coming.

When that thief comes, he's coming and he's going to take away your goods.

So if you were awake you would be prepared to put a bullet in his eyes when he comes through the door. In this case, be prepared because when

Christ comes, it's over. There's no more time to prepare. No putting off till the next week.

No putting off, oh, well I'll do it when I get old. You know what, I've heard that. Every time I do evangelism,

I'll do it when I get old, but you keep moving the bar of old. I remember when 30 was old. I'm 52 and go wow,

I remember when 50 was old. Yeah, then I hear my dad talk.

He's 77. Mike, I'm really not that old. Say it again, Dad. You know, it's like we move the bar.

So if those people are waiting till they get older, that day may not come.

That day may not come. So be awake. It says, and he keeps his clothes.

What does it mean to keep clothes? Why should you keep your clothes on?

It's not hard. The text tells us. So that he will not walk about naked and men see his shame.

If you remember back in the beginning of the book, however long that's been, I think it was in the

Church of Laodicea, it said that these people would be clothed so that they would not show their shame.

What is it about showing your shame? What does it mean so that you do not, so that people do not see your shamefulness?

Shame began, were you raising your hand? Oh, shame began where? In the garden.

Hey, one of the best verses to me in all of the

Bible is when you get to the end of creation and you have Adam and Eve and their creator walking in the garden of whom

I believe was the pre -incarnate Christ. I believe he is the one that was walking in the garden with them and it says that everything was very good and they were naked and what?

Unashamed. Unashamed. But what happens when they join forces with the serpent?

Shame. So certainly we can talk about all the things but what was the result of that immediately it was shame and then they thought that they could then hide from the all -seeing

God and it's not like Jesus was walking around in the garden going,

Adam where are you at? And he didn't know. He was actually calling out to Adam so that Adam would say okay,

I'm hiding because I did something wrong. Okay? Jesus knew where they were at but they didn't, once again, hey this could be the effectual, you could use this for the effectual call of God.

Did Adam reach out to God and say hey I screwed up? They hid.

So who had to go do the searching? God did. Same thing with man. It's been that way from the beginning. If God doesn't go do the searching and the catching and the arresting, it ain't happening.

Men don't seek God. Men don't search for God. Men don't want to be made right with God until first what?

God reaches out with his hand of grace to the human being.

So in this case it says so that they will not walk about naked and men will not see their shame and I do believe this in its, the imagery is that they be clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Okay? That's how I understand it. Somebody has another idea of what this is being said because look, if we're if in our sinful state we're ashamed what has to happen for us not to be ashamed?

Just like Adam and Eve. I want to make that correlation. Adam and Eve what made them no longer being ashamed to walk out?

They were covered. And we know what took place in that. Obviously the inference is that God had to shed the blood of an animal.

It doesn't say that but how do you get a skin? Yeah, something's got to be and we know this through even when you get to the murder of Abel, the opportunity for Cain to then make a sacrifice for his sin a covering and how

I understand that, look it says the offering is at the door okay?

You remember that? If you go back and you read that that word means sin offering. It's at the door.

And what he says, all you have to do is take it seize it. God provided that for Cain and he said, nope,

I'll go this way. Okay, so in this case God provides for us in Christ to be clothed in his righteousness so that we can walk around what?

Unashamed. Unashamed. And then it says in verse 16 and they gathered them together to that place which is called

Armageddon. We already did all that. No reason to regurgitate all that again. And then you get to verse 17 and it says and then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying it is done.

Now this is it. When I say this is it, we have gone through seven seals.

We have gone through seven trumpets. We have now seen the pouring out of the seventh bowl or in the

King James the vial. It is over. Meaning God's revelation of his progressive parallelism of the destruction of the wicked is over.

It's it. Not saying that this is the end of history.

This is the end of the revelation of the end of history. You understand me? Is that confusing? No? Yay?

Nay? Clear as mud? Okay. So this is the end of the revelation. So let's just say this.

When you get to the seventh bowl because you may be thinking this in your mind. Mike are you saying when we get to the seventh bowl that is the end of the world?

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Has the seventh bowl been poured out?

No. It hasn't because we're not done yet. In the sense of end of history. Has the seventh seal been broken?

No. It hasn't been broken because if each one of these ends in final judgment it ain't happened yet.

It ain't happened. But it will. The book of Revelation proleptically.

Anybody ever heard that weird funny word? It's either I prefer the prophetic perfect.

It's a lot of times speaking as if it is already done. That's what proleptic means.

It's speaking as if this is already over. Technically speaking, seventh seal, seventh trumpet, seventh bowl have not been poured out because they are the final judgment.

Obviously we don't want to have time to do it now because we want to finish today. We can go back through and I can show you where those breaks are and how

I understand where those gaps are. Look, we don't insert gaps where gaps aren't.

Like our dispensational brothers who put a huge gap between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel.

We don't do that because the Bible doesn't do that. But we do see where there is a gap where it says how long before you judge these people?

And remember way back in the seals until what? Until all of your brethren died just like you.

Wow. So now we know that gap is legitimate. So how long is that going to take for the martyrs to die just like those ones that were calling out from under the altar in the fifth seal?

All of church age. All of church age. That's why I just said earlier when you get to the end of the church age it will be because the last martyrs died and the last of the elect is called in, justified, given the

Holy Spirit, adopted into the beloved, and it's over. There's no reason to continue on because that which had been decreed in eternity past has now culminated in the personal work of Christ and in the calling in of His people.

So when this seventh bowl is poured out, it's over. It's done. Meaning this is the end of all things and how do we know it's the end of all things?

Because the same thing that takes place in the seventh seal, seventh trumpet, and now in the seventh bowl you see these same characteristics.

Lightning, flashes, sounds, peals of thunder. How many times have we seen that already in the book?

And every time that is supposed to be a what we would call a theophany.

All through the Old Testament when you've seen lightning, thunder, smoke, an earthquake, who usually appeared?

God. Think about Mount Sinai. Remember when they came out? They came out.

They told, he sprinkled them with, when he got the ten words, remember the ten commandments came before the tablets and he got the ten words.

He sprinkled them with the blood of an animal and they told Moses, hey it's a little scary up there.

You just go, hey, y 'all remember what he tells them? You go up there and they don't even know the terms and conditions yet.

Never sign a document until you know the terms and conditions, even if the print's that small. That's why they talk real fast.

They do that because they're trying to set the hook on it. Well, they didn't even give the opportunity.

Hey, you go up there Moses and whatever God tells us to do, we're gonna do. Well, one of those will be don't make any graven images.

He ain't gone but 40 days and what are they doing? They're down there partying. He says, hey, it sounds like war.

He says, no, that sounds like dancing. And he says, they're down there making sport and they wasn't playing bad knitting.

That's not what they were doing. Making sport means they were having an orgy. That's what they were doing.

So when they come down, you see in anger, he slams the tablets down, which

I do believe is a picture of him going, you have broken the covenant.

And when he slams that down, he gets angry. Some people believe that Moses flew off the handle.

I do not. You remember what Moses says? He says, whoever's on my side, come over here. And then he says, get you a sword.

You remember what he said? Anybody remember that? He says, you go through each tent. Basically, if they don't repent, you strike them down.

Remember how many he killed that day? 3 ,000 people. 3 ,000. That was not

Moses flying off the handle. That was Moses saying, look, let me show you what God's law says you do to idolaters.

You kill them. Yes, ma 'am? In a way, like when Jesus, when he was into the temple, they were selling everything and had all the animals and he wasn't having it.

He started tearing all their stuff down and releasing the animals. Yeah, because he said, you're not going to make my house, meaning he was speaking of actually speaking of what

Jeremiah said, you're not going to make my father's house a den of thieves, you robbers. This is supposed to be a house of prayer of nations.

Hey, if you remember where he did that, you remember where that took place? That took place in the court of the Gentiles, which is where?

That's where the nations were. That's where the Gentiles were supposed to come in and be able to pray. Now, dude,

I love at the end of that, well, it's not the end of that week. That happens on Monday. On Wednesday, remember what he says then right before he goes over to the other side of the

Mount of Olives to give the Olivet Discourse? He says, I leave your house.

So at the beginning of the week, he says my house. At the end of the week, you want your house? You can have it.

Your house is left desolate, meaning the glory of God is leaving. You'll be talking about that in Ezekiel. And what happened?

Just as in the book of Ezekiel, right before the destruction of Jerusalem, he saw the glory of God go and sit on the

Mount of Olives. The same thing happens that week. Jesus does what? He leaves the Temple Mount, walks down through the

Kidron Valley. He goes up 2 ,640 feet. He sits on the Mount of Olives and calls condemnation down on Jerusalem.

That's good stuff, even if you don't think so. Now, we see those theophanies of earthquake such as there had never been upon the earth.

Great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. So we've seen, like even in the 7th trumpet, we saw lightning, thunder.

But guess what it's saying here? This is intensifying. It's the same things, but so mighty that this has never happened before.

So great an earthquake that it has never happened since men have been on the earth. And it's great, and it's so great, now this can get complicated.

So great that the city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.

Mike, does yours say nation fell? Everybody says nation? If I remember correctly, and Burt might have the

Greek text right there. If I remember correctly, it's the cities of the nation fell. Is that right?

Yeah. And we'll talk, we'll get more into that when we get into 17 and 18.

But this is the city of the nation, this is speaking of one, the complete destruction.

Now, how do we understand the three parts? I'm going to give you a couple of how it has looked at in the past.

Just because I think it's fun to look at. Now, if you were a full preterist, and if you don't know those categories, don't worry, next week we'll go through all of those because I have to go through those as we go through the

Whore of Babylon. Preterist means in the past. So, if you're a preterist, you see the city is split into three parts, right?

The preterist would say that this is historically speaking about Jerusalem.

Anybody remember what happened when Jerusalem what happened? It was in many ways split into three parts.

You say, well, how? Not like it was, they went through there and they put out boundary lines, but you had

John of Gishallah, you had Simon who was a zealot.

Actually, technically all of these were zealots. Three -way civil war in Jerusalem.

That's what was going on in Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.

We often think, I've said this how many times, and it is important to understand that historically what was going on at the destruction of Jerusalem the

Jews were killing themselves, okay? The Jews were slaughtering themselves.

You had the Jewish wars that started up in Galilee around 966. They were working their way down.

They made it to Jerusalem trying to get away from one, trying to get away from Vespasian who was the general at the time.

I've got to speak a little faster. Trying to get away from the

Romans as they made their way down from Galilee they had the big battle that you can read of in Josephus where it says the sea was made like blood and there was like 6 ,500 bodies, they said.

Forget about his numbers, okay? There was enough blood to make that sea look red and it ran down the

Jordan River, okay? I don't care how many bodies. Hey, I'll just say this. Y 'all remember when they decapitated when

ISIS decapitated those 20 men on the shore of Saudi Arabia, I think it was? Libya.

Anybody see how much blood of 20 men on the shore? Imagine let's just say

Josephus was wrong and it was half. They were cutting their heads off as they came in the boats and their hands off so they would bleed out.

Imagine let's just say it was 3 ,500. That's going to be pretty red, okay?

So, as they were making their way from that civil war to Jerusalem, you had these 3 factions that were fighting one another in the temple complex.

And I'll be honest with you, if these guys would have quit fighting and killing each other, they probably could have overthrown

Rome. They were bad to the bone. But they were fighting each other. They were trying to usurp the authority and get people to lead.

Ultimately, he rises to the power because he sets himself up to be sovereign monarch the only one to stand in the temple and claim himself to be

God. He gets captured. He disappears.

We don't know what happened to Eliezer. He finally says, hey man, I'm out. The siege is coming. I'm done.

I'm gone. They catch Simon at the siege. Once they break through the wall in 70, they catch him, execute him.

He is hauled off as a prisoner. The preterist would say that that is how it was broken up into 3 parts.

And y 'all know I am a preterist partial. So let me tell you what I think about this.

I don't think that's good enough. Ezekiel talks about and remember, everything is rooted in the

Old Testament. Everything is rooted in the Old Testament. I'm not trying to do your sermons or whatever, but Ezekiel chapter 5.

If you go read Ezekiel chapter 5, he's told before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, he says, hey, here's what

I want you to do. I want you to cut your hair. I want you to cut it into 3 parts. And he says, here's the 3 parts

I want you to do. Pestilence, sword, and famine. That's what's going to happen to the city.

And nobody's going to be left over. The only thing that's going to be left over is going to be the wren that I haul off into captivity.

That's it. So if that's the imagery that is to be conveyed at the end of the world, is anybody left over from pestilence, famine, and the sword?

Nah, everybody's dead. Everybody's dead. And that's the point. That's how I understand it. I understand it to be as a nation is broken under the great city.

Remember, it's typological. What was the great city? Let's just be honest. It was Jerusalem. And everything that Jerusalem is winds up being the rest of the world.

Look, the rest of the world winds up following the way of the system of Babylon.

What did Jerusalem do? They followed the way of Babylon, which is what?

Idolatry. What was the first place of idolatry, organized idolatry? Babylon.

Tower of Babel. We'll go. We'll reach God on our own merits.

Remember? We'll build something. That is the first organized place of idolatry.

And it continued on all the way on. And in certain ways does Babylon fall as a world empire?

Yes, certainly. But does its idolatrous idea carry on?

Of course it does. Of course it does. So, here it is.

And then it says the great city, three parts, nations fell. And then it says here, it gives an excerpt.

And Babylon, the great, was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath.

Okay. How I understand this, this is speaking of the destruction at the end of the age, the world.

But in the middle, he goes, wait a minute, don't think I forgot about Babylon. Because if you go back,

Babylon is already mentioned about falling back in chapter 14. I think it's 14.

Yeah. Back in chapter 14. Remember, it says in chapter 14 verse 8, and another angel, a second one, followed saying, fallen, fallen is

Babylon the great. She who has made all the nations drink of the wine of her passion, of her immorality.

So here it is. He's like, wait a minute, I know I'm talking about the end of the world, but don't think

I have forgotten about Jerusalem. Yes. I just want to make sure

I'm thinking this right. Because I've always kind of, I've always looked at it like this. The wine, the wine of the, the wine of her fornication is an analogy, right?

It is. And next week, we're going to get into all of that. Because if you, when we get into 17 and 18, the one that sits there that's got a name written on her head, whore!

Let's just be honest, that's what it says! Okay? That's what it says. And what does she have in her hand?

If anybody's ever had a head, she's got a golden cup of the abominations that caused all the nations of the world to commit fornication with her.

And when I will get into, we are going to do a biblical theology of whoredom next week.

We're going to, I'm going to show you how time and time and time again, beginning in the

Pentateuch that God calls his covenant people, don't become a whore. Don't be a harlot.

Don't play the prostitute. Don't sell yourself. And what does he, what happens? What do they do?

They continually do it. Time and time and time again. And then we have, we have biblical precedent that God says, you know what?

I'm tired of you committing adultery on me. I'm going to put you away with a writ of divorce. And he executes the northern kingdom.

These ain't my words. This is, well. Well, I want y 'all to go home in preparation for next week.

And I want you to read Ezekiel 16. And I want you to read Ezekiel 23.

And if you don't like graphic language, you're not going to like the prophet. He don't hold no punches.

Okay? And you don't have to worry about me going, well Mike's making a connection that I don't think the prophet did.

He says this is Samaria. This is Jerusalem. And you're both are whores.

Read it. 23 is tough. Yes ma 'am. Ezekiel 16.

And Ezekiel 23. Yes ma 'am. Okay. So, he says he's remembered

Babylon. And we will get into who Babylon is over the next few weeks. Okay? He's going to remember

Babylon. And then, just as he has given us information on what takes place through redemptive history, now for the first time in the book, coming 17 and 18, we're going to get extensive criteria to who

Babylon is, her destruction, and why it was needed. All those things take place in 17 and 18.

And I've said it before, there's no other subject in all of Revelation that takes up two chapters than the whore and destruction of Babylon.

And then he says here in verse 20, and every island fled away and the mountains were not found and huge hailstones about that of a hundred pounds came down from each came down from heaven upon men and blasphemed

God because of the plague. And because of its plague, it was extremely severe.

Hey, if mountains are fleeting away, they're not to be found.

Everything's gone. Look, there's one thing even in the Psalms that you can say when it, we'll just take

Psalm 46, it says that the mountains melted. Look, if you're standing on a boat, on a cruise ship, and I'm looking over at an island and it falls into the ocean,

I don't know about y 'all, that's going to make you tremble a little bit. Why? Because, well, that too.

Hey, but what's not supposed to move? Yeah, I mean, if you're,

I mean, the biggest place I've ever seen is maybe the Smokies, okay? Those are huge. Okay, as you're going in, if those things begin to drop, that would be scary because mountains are supposed to be unmovable.

But at the presence of God, earthquakes, lightning, peals of thunder, mountains fall. They're gone away.

And when they go away, just as we saw earlier in the book, when the mountains fleet away and the seals, what happened? That was it.

That was the end of the world. It was over. It's it. You almost put that, too. You almost kind of get the analogy of a flood -like analogy with that great judgment on the earth.

Sure. It's like the earth is actually bearing the judgment of God. God uses the earth in that many ways.

I mean, when you think about, I don't have time to get into all that because I've only got four minutes, twenty -one seconds to, but earthquakes, tsunamis, there's no way you could tell me that when the

Sri Lanka tidal wave that popped underneath the earth sent a wall of water 500 feet tall moving 500 miles an hour and it killed 90 % of the people that it killed were

Muslim. Look, God can do what he wants. Okay? You can't tell me that's not a judgment. There's no way.

One, because anytime someone dies, believer or non -believer, that's God being true to his word that the soul that sins will surely die.

There's only going to be one generation. That'll be that terminal one when he descends and he doesn't die.

Okay? That'll be the only ones. And we're probably not that. Okay? You're going to die. All right. So it says mountains fled away.

I do want to make just a point about this because I think it's because sometimes there's correspondence with the destruction of Jerusalem, hailstones that were about 100 pounds or one talent.

Miss Jackie, did you just say one talent? In verse 20? 21?

100 pounds? And yours said 1600 stadia last time, didn't it? I was hoping hers was right.

I like the talent is actually better because that was the terminologies that were used in that time.

Those were the measurements. But I don't believe that this is specifically talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, but I do want to make something.

I've said it before. If you go to Book 5,

Chapter 6, Paragraph 3, Jewish Wars. Had to find it in my brain real quick. They had called the 10th

Legion from Euphrates bringing the engines. Me and you talked about this before. They brought the engines, the catapults.

They began to launch one talent stones. 100 pound stones.

That's how they were able to then overthrow Jerusalem through these launching of those.

They were white. And the reason why they were white? They were painted white so they launched a lot of them at night so that they didn't have

GPS coordinates. So as they painted them white, as they were hitting the sky, they could see the huge white boulder against the sky and about where it would land.

So if they needed to adjust their coordinates on their catapult, that's what they would do. There is something that is said, that is written in Josephus.

Josephus was not a believer. He said this, as they launched those huge hail stones, the word was, the sun cometh.

Now, gotta do this. Just give me just a couple more minutes. They said, no, it's a misprint.

Now, I can see where that would be a misprint, right?

Could that be something? The problem is in Greek, those two words don't even look close.

Is that correct? And I'm going to transliterate this.

It can't be a misprint.

Those don't even look the same. I can see how it would do it in English. And I know he gives me a

D plus on my Greek. But it ain't even close. Now, it is believed that because the disciples did preach, and I'll finish, just give me another minute.

Because the disciples preached that Jesus was going to come and he would destroy the temple. They believed, even

Stephen believed, not you, you ain't that old. Even Stephen believed that God's going to come.

We don't need this temple anymore. It needs to be destroyed because it's a place of idolatry. And they gnashed their teeth, they took him outside and they stoned him to death.

In Acts chapter 7. So, as a mockery, how

I understand it, because these people weren't Christians, Josephus didn't even know anything about this book being written.

He's probably writing this from Rome in 73 -ish, maybe?

Masada fell in 73? Yeah, maybe 75. The sun cometh.

They had heard, and as that happened, as a mockery, oh, the sun cometh, meaning who?

Jesus. The sun cometh. What did he tell Caiaphas? Next time you see me, it'll be power and glory.

Next time you see me, it'll be in power and glory. Alright, we've got to go. We've got to go listen to somebody more important than me.

Keith Foskey. Will you close us in prayer? We will begin 17 and 18.

We won't begin an exposition of it, but just be prepared to do... I'm not a flipper, but we've got to do some flippin'.

Y 'all know I don't like flippin', but we've got to do some flippin' next week. Alright, pray for us. See the continuity of your word and how the

Old Testament speaks to the New Testament. Lord, we just thank you for preserving both of us for us. We ask that you be with us in the name of the