The Great Tribulation | Living in the Last Days - #4 | Pastor John Lindell

[Music] if you have your Bibles I'm fight you to turn with me if you would to Mark's Gospel chapter 13 Mark's Gospel chapter 13 and as you turn there perhaps you're new today let me just say this what we do at James River is all things being equal we're going to go through the Bible verse by verse and so we've done that now for 25 years we've made our way through the New Testament when we finish the Gospel of Mark we'll have preached all the way through the New Testament the hand parts of the Old Testament and we're in a series on Mark's Gospel in a little mini series on the end times called living in the last day so if you're joining us I'll try to get you up to speed as we come to Mark's Gospel chapter 13 when we come there it is the last week of Jesus life he's teaching up at the temple as he's teaching at the temple they're getting ready to leave the temple area and it's the beautiful buildings and as they leaving the disciples comment on the buildings and Jesus says we'll do you see these buildings there's coming a day when not one stones gonna be left on top of another and with that as they walk out of the city the disciples are absolutely stunned they are shocked they make their way out of the city and up to the hill of the Mount of Olives and so they're looking across as the Sun is setting it's the end of the day the temple area is right there you can't miss it it's it's glistening in the Sun and the disciples come to Jesus and Matthew's Gospel tells us in chapter 24 they ask when is that gonna happen when when is that going to happen in fact they say when will this happen talking about the destruction of the temple what will be the sign of your coming in other words the disciples understood this clearly that Jesus came the first time and he would come a second time scripture is very very clear there will be a second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and so we'll be covering that in this series then they asked and what will be the sign of the end of the age how's everything going to end Jesus in response to that answers that question and we have a part of that answer in Matthew 24 we have part of it in Luke's Gospel chapter 21 and we have it here in Mark's Gospel chapter 13 we saw that verses 1 through 13 is essentially Jesus saying from his time up to our own here's what's gonna happen then in verse 13 between verse 13 and 14 in that white space something really wonderful called the rapture of the church is going to take place that's where Jesus himself is gonna come mid mid heaven up in the sky call us and we will be captured in a moment and the twinkling of an eye the Bible says we'll be caught up in the clouds to be with the Lord forever following that that will usher in a period of time known as the tribulation it's a seven-year period of time preceding the second coming the raptures not the second coming the rapture is Jesus coming to take the church take Christians out of the earth that then is followed by seven years where God pours out his judgment on the earth and the inhabitants of the earth for rejecting him and that culminates in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ halfway through that seven-year period there is the last three-and-a-half is just so cataclysmic in such rapid-fire succession these different events these destructions in these judgments that it's called the Great Tribulation now let me say this people often ask they ask you know what what signs have to be fulfilled before Jesus can come back I want to suggest to you that there's only one sign left Jesus talked about it in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 14 he said in this gospel shall be preached to all the earth and then the end will come so as soon as the last person on the earth has had the opportunity the gospel and you think with all of our broadcast ability you think with all of the the different missions agencies and networks scattered around the globe we are very very close to that moment when every single person on the globe will have had an opportunity to hear the gospel and when that happens the end will come all that to say we are closer to the coming of the Lord than we've ever been we are closer to these endtime events than we've ever been and neither you nor I can know when that moment comes and the gospel has gone out into all the earth but Jesus is coming soon so these events that we're talking about we don't want to set dates we don't want to set times but we can know this we are we are in those final moments before the coming of the lord jesus said behold i come quickly and that is the next thing on his timetable now we read this in mark chapter 13 following that there's the tribulation in the middle of the tribulation Jesus says this is what it's going to be like verse 19 for in those days there will be such tribulation has has not been from the beginning of creation that God created until now and never will be and if the Lord had not cut short the days no human being would be saved but for the sake of the elect whom he chose he's shortened the days so the church is raptured the Antichrist begins to reign and now there's a series of judgments that span those seven years what I would like to do is I'd like to take you to the book of Revelation and really kind of make a jet tour if we could have very rapid tour through those judgments the judgments come in three phases there are what are known as the seal se al judgments think of a scroll back in Roman times there'd be a scroll of will maybe a deed of trust for a piece of property and it would have a seal stamp on it and you could roll it unroll it break the first seal open it up there'd be another seal you break it open it up and it'd be a way of protecting the security of the document so that you could tell it never been tampered with so there are seals that are broken each one of them leading to a judgment later we see in the book of Revelation that there's another series of seven judgments and each one of those judgments is initiated by an angel blowing a trumpet so those are called the seven trumpet judgments finally in Revelation chapter 16 there are seven bull judgments bo WL and it is initiated each one of those by an angel if you will taking a bowl and dumping it out and pouring out if you will judgment upon the earth now when we think and I want to make a couple of observations when we look at these events it is cataclysmic I think really beyond our ability to to really be able to assimilate that and the destructive nature of that in our mind but we know this as believers we don't need to be afraid that Jesus has made a plan to take us to be with him so we don't have to be afraid of that time but we do need to be aware of that time because an awareness of that time causes some things in terms of a response on our part it causes us to say you know what I want to live ready for the rapture when Jesus comes I want to make sure I'm right with him so that I can go to be with him second it also would cause me to want to share the good news of the gospel with people around me because if you love somebody you're never going to want them to be here during that seven-year time of tribulation we make this as an observation that when you come to the book of Revelation one of the things we have to keep in mind is that within the Bible there are different kinds of literature for example there are poems there are songs there our stories what is known as narratives there's the wisdom literature the proverbs which are like sayings that that incorporate the wisdom that Solomon saw and observed as he lived and then there's a type of literature called apocalyptic literature daniel has some of it Ezekiel has some of it the book of Revelation obviously has some of it and all of that to say this that for example when you're reading the newspaper if you still read the newspaper maybe you do use an online version but when you're reading the news you understand that there's different types of literature within the newspaper there's the front page which should be a straight reporting of the facts then there then there are the editorials which is somebody's opinion and their interpretation of what's happening in the world and then there's the funny paper you do well not to read the funny paper like you read the front page however it could make you happier I don't know but all that to say you understand as you're reading through the newspaper there's different styles of literature that affect how you interpret what you're reading everybody with me so when you get to apocalyptic literature it's a little bit different it's very it's got a lot of imagery there's a lot of things that are very visual that are designed to to elicit different kinds of responses and we have to be careful that when we come to apocalyptic literature some of it can be understood it's very straightforward some of its mysterious we don't really know about some things so when we come to things that we don't understand or we don't know we we accept the mystery we don't go beyond what's written we say listen I don't really understand that it's not really clear to me on the other hand there are some things that are very clear and just because some things are missing doesn't mean that everything's mysterious and because some things are clear doesn't mean everything's clear right so when I hear somebody who says well there's so much mystery I don't even they gotta go to' because I don't think we can really understand it that's not a good response and when there's other people that come and say well you know here it is and it goes like this and like this and like this and they can they can assign a meaning and an understanding to everything then that's not so wise either so we we don't go beyond what's written we don't go beyond what's clear and we we rest in the mystery of what's mysterious and at the same time don't shy away from what can be clearly understood now that being said what happens when you're looking at the tribulation we have a tendency to look at it from a Western mindset and a Western mindset Western civilization very very methodical and we have a linear way of looking at things so we start here and we end up over here and that's how we that's how we think that's how we process life that's how we process information it's linear so for example when you look at the tribulation this would be a linear perspective of the tribulation what you have is you have the seven sealed judgments which really in many respects cover the whole seven years and then as a part of them there are the seven trumpet judgments and the seven bull judgments it all kind of culminates together so that would be a linear perspective some would put the trumpet judgments after the seal judgments and the bull judgements after the trumpet judgments but I think that I mean I would have some question about that in some ways though I understand what they're trying to do there is a circular view for example in in Middle Eastern thought when you're an oriental mindset you don't think of things in a linear fashion you have a tendency to think more in a circular fashion so you end up where you started everything comes full circle we use that that's that saying so what John is saying see you've got the sealed judgments you've got the trumpet judgments you've got the bull judgments and there it's a circle within a circle within a circle that telescopes out so that you would have the seals telescoping out over the length of it so I'm trying to give you some so what John is doing here John's been given these visions and he's like watching all of these things are swirling around him so the idea is that he is in this literally a almost a vortex of end time events and he's singing it all and he's wandering it at all and he's trying to write it down and he sings something that's an absolutely different world than our own so it's a little hard to put it all into words but he does the best he can all of that to simply say as you read revelation you've got to understand it's not just all then this then this then this then this though part of that applies there's a circular understanding to it as well have I confused you enough yet okay now we're gonna approach it just taking it verse by verse and chapter by chapter and it will have a linear view to it but part of it there's an overlapping of things and I think you'll see that as we go along so there are seal judgments in revelation 6 there are trumpet judgments from Revelation chapter 8 to Revelation chapter 11 and there are bold judgments in Revelation chapter 16 we're gonna look at each one of them briefly make a couple of comments and the the goal of this is simply to help you understand what Jesus is saying when he says in verse 19 for in those days there will be such tribulation S has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be and if the Lord had not cut short the days no human being would be saved we're talking about Cataclysm that's unimaginable let's pick it up in Revelation chapter 6 with the first seal and we read this in verse one and I watched as the lamb this is Jesus the start the raptures happened now suddenly the tribulation is in effect seven years the lamb is Jesus he opens that first seal and I heard one of the four living creatures that's an angelic being saying a voice like thunder Calma and I looked and there before me was a white horse and it's rider held a bow and he was given a crown and he wrote out as a conqueror bent on conquest and we saw this as both the one world system and the one who will lead at the Antichrist we looked at that last time in her in Time series had who he is what do you be like how he'll govern the world don't be fooled by the nationalism that we see in our world today in fact I would suggest to you that it is a brief that is only a passing season and that it is simply helping those who would desire a global community sharpen their arguments for that kind of reality that the world will welcome a one-world ruler that they will do it on the basis of it will bring peace and it will bring prosperity and certainly there's truth in the fact that when the the world is governed by King Jesus it will be peaceful and it will be prosperous but until then there's no peace that will last so there is an antichrist who comes on the heels of the Antichrist there is a second seal and we read about that in verse 3 of Revelation chapter 6 the lamb opened the second seal and I heard the second living creature say come then another horse came out a fiery red one and it's rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other to him was given a large sword Jesus said there'll be wars and rumors of wars these are the beginning of birth pangs in other words what do we know about birth pains they happen more frequently and with greater intensity Jesus says closer to it the closer we get to his coming the greater frequency the greater intensity there will be in wars and that's what you see here fiery red the color of war the color of blood there will be wars on the earth we would understand that if there's more wars the more wars you have that leads to the third seal the more famine and death you have look at it when the lamb opened the third seal I heard the third living creature say come and I looked and there before me was a black horse and it's rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures what's the scales mean well when you have war you're gonna have famine you can have crops destroyed you can have people not able to tan then roots of shipment and spoilage and all those things and so when you have scales we're talking about rationing then everything's going to be rationed out and notice what else a port of wheat for a day's wage in other words you work all day just have enough to eat what are we talking about there how does that play into our understanding you're talking about hyperinflation you're talking about where if the median income in Greene County is forty one thousand it takes forty one thousand to buy what 4100 would buy today in other words everything's super expensive I mean and that's happening in places today in the world on a limited basis like Venezuela happened previously in Brazil it's happened in other countries you remember in Nazi Germany in the prelude to Nazi Germany before Hitler came to power people were pushing wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf of bread so what happens after a season of war after World War one the economy was broken their hyperinflation set in that's what you have happening here and that leads to the fourth seal the fourth seal is opened and there before me was a pale horse and it's rider was named death when you have war when you have fail then you're gonna have death and what follows death hell for people who don't know Jesus was following close behind him and they were given power of 1/4 of the earth to kill by sword famine plague and by the wild beasts of the earth that's a really interesting statement I mean think about the reality of this that if the world today has somewhere between 7.4 7.5 billion people on the earth you're talking about 1/4 of the Earth's population annihilated you're talking about a death toll that's staggering talking about 1.8 billion people dying I mean imagine that in a very short period of time all of the death all of the devastation and there's famine and there's plague because anytime you have that kind of death you're gonna have sanitation issues and then and all the problems accompanying war you got sanitation issues you got illness and disease that's rampant you say what about the wild beasts what does that mean I would suggest to you that the most dangerous animal on the planet is is not some fearsome beast you can think of but would be a rat that rats killed 1/3 of Europe in the 1400s of bubonic plague that rats you could eradicate 95% of the rats in an area and if you left 5% in a year it would be the population of rats will be back 100 percent that rats and in this kind of scenario are flourishing or carrying disease and and they're very possibly the wild beasts pictured there mentioned there may in fact be not alligators or lions or bears or whatever wild beasts you want to think of or snakes but could very well be wrath send rat borne illness that would come that way and at this point you're really just getting to the middle of the tribulation from here on out it gets bad in fact when you look at the fifth seal he opened the fifth seal I saw under the altar the souls of those had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony they had maintained that's talking about believers in the Lord Jesus Christ you say but I thought believers were already raptured up well the ones who were serving Christ and knowing Christ and loving Christ before the tribulation started at the rapture of the church they're gone but there'll be a lot of people who didn't put their faith in Christ who said no you know I don't think I'm ready or own you the truth but we're living the truth and days after the rapture they're gonna they're gonna realize the Bible's true the Word of God is true and people will come to know Jesus but it will be a different reality then because it will be a whole different day and the people in that time who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and it will hold to the truth will be martyred and that's what you see in the fifth seal and then there's a six seal and I watched as he opened the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake the Sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair the whole moon turned blood red so what you have is you have all kinds of things happening up in the skies we're going to look and more in more detail at that give me the next verses on that and people are calling out they're wanting to die fall on us hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne from the wrath of the Lamb so there's his earthquakes there's signs in the heavens there's as we're going to see in a moment asteroids meteorites comets slamming into the earth creating all kinds of devastation not to mention the earthquakes in fact it's interesting each set of judgments ends with an earthquake some of them begin with an earthquake so there's this constant earthquake this constant upheaval this constant rending and tearing at earth and then you come to Revelation chapter 8 and we come to the seventh seal and when the lamb opened the Seventh Seal There was silence in heaven for about half an hour you say what's that about I would suggest to you that after after the initial judgments have happened heaven is shot I mean it's stunning this is the silence of awe this is the silence of of just overwhelmed stunned by what happens and now in the next three and a half years of the tribulation the Great Tribulation now there's going to be a series of fourteen different judgments that are going to be poured out that are gonna be swirling around on the earth and the devastation is hard for you and I to fathom and let me just suggest to you this that it's much easier for us to fathom than it would have been for the people that initially received this revelation part of the reason is because we've had movies that have have shown us things and we've seen simulations on the news or we've seen the devastation in places far away so we're a well we're well aware of things globally and we have an understanding visually of what some things would do and scientifically how some things would work so we make our way through trumpet judgments beginning in verse 2 of Revelation chapter 8 and I saw the seven angels who stand before God it's a very very interesting thing you stand before God seven angels first of all I point that out is because you're going to you there revelation is full of angels doing different things but these angels are unique these angels are marked out as standing before God and many scholars theorize that these may in fact be Archangels the reason why they say that is because you remember in Luke chapter one the start of Luke's Gospel we meet this godly old priest named Zechariah and he and his wife Elizabeth she's barren not been able to have a child and Sakurai goes into the temple and he's offering incense and he's offering incense the Archangel Gabriel appears to him and and the angel says I stand in the presence of God and so some theorize that Gabriel is one of these angels and and the rabbi's thought there were seven Archangels Ariel and Michael and and so all of their names ending in a yell and so this may in fact be the Archangels and they were given seven trumpets and another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar the angel took the censer filled it with fire from the altar hurled it to the earth and there came peals of thunder rumbling flashes of lightning what are you talking about there you're talking about a global storm I don't know about you but I've seen storms in other parts of the country or we've had storms here and it was nice in other parts of the country but this is a global storm this is the earth enveloped in a storm I mean that is going to be a first for the world the global storm followed by an earthquake and resulting from this earthquake you have to believe are the catechisms that accompany such an event in fact I suggest to you that in in part of all of this there are no doubt tsunamis that are happening for example after though the last tsunami that happened in Phuket and damaged that part of the world Southeast Asia over into Sri Lanka they're scientists that are very very worried about the next tsunami that they say is the impending tsunami tsunami a recent tsunami offered some practical lessons and disaster planning and the need for flood insurance however according to Lloyds of London Lloyd's of London consultant this tsunami could be nothing compared to what could happen to Britain in the u.s. East Coast at any time quote another global disaster is already in progress are inexorably priming a tsunami that could kill millions of people and devastate the south coast of Britain and the eastern seaboard of the United States it's happening now and nothing can stop it says the London academic professor bill McGuire the trigger is a volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands normally it erupts at 2020 to 200 years and has not done so since 1971 the next eruption may dislodge an unstable half-mile-long slab of rock the size of the Isle of Man which will crash into the seabed causing a dome of water a mile high the rock is already slipping down by infant is --ml degrees when it goes and will likely collapse in 90 seconds McGuire says the resulting tsunami traveling at 500 miles an hour would reach Britain in six hours with waves reaching up to 33 feet it's the same sort of size as the waters that caused the deaths in the Indian Ocean the pump the La Palma tsunami would reach the Americas at nine to twelve hours after the dislodgement laying waste to the eastern seaboard of the United States with waves of a hundred and sixty-five feet Boston New York and Miami would be destroyed and the Caribbean islands overwhelmed now I'm just saying that when you read the word earthquake in the book of Revelation you have to believe there's a lot of attendant disaster that's happening we live in a very very uncertain unstable world and don't you forget it we have a tendency to think that because of our technology that somehow we have tamed mother nature not so we have learned to mitigate some of the variances that Mother Nature deals out but mother nature's still is able to overwhelm our technology in generations in in previous years have encountered these kinds of things in fact lipoma if there was a tsunami that did hit England back centuries before they'd have records of it so we know these Saints can happen and the fact we haven't seen it today doesn't mean that disaster natural disaster couldn't happen even before the tribulation but how much more during the tribulation well that's not even starting the first seal there's a global storm there's an earthquake who knows if there's a tsunami and as people crawl out and are like what in the world went down the first trumpet is blown revelation 8 and verse 7 the first angel sounded his trumpet and there came hail and fire mixed with blood and it was hurled down to the earth 1/3 of the earth was burned up 1/3 of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up I don't care if you're a prepper or not you're not getting out of that one listen you say that that just sounds bizarre I I mean explain how how hey land and blood is hurtled to the earth Henry Morris scientist says this it is possible that worldwide volcanic explosions would be a normal consequence of a worldwide violent earthquake the masses of water vapor blown skyward might well convince in the intense updraft into hailstones and showers of burning lava might well be cast upon the earth the blood of entrapment and animals might be mingled with them or possibly showers of liquid water drops might be so contaminated with the sand dust and gases as to appear blood-red so you have a you have a legitimate scientific explanation for what you read as happening with the first seal and 1/3 of the vegetation the Earth's vegetation is gone now that alone is going to introduce a massive disruption to the hydrological cycles which are dependent upon vegetation for the movement of the way moisture moves around the earth I mean it's it's shocking then we come to the second trumpet verse 8 the angel sounded his trumpet and something like a huge mountain all the blaze was into the sea well this isn't take a rocket science this doesn't take some PhD to figure this out talking about a meteor we're talking about an asteroid hitting the earth say what are the odds of that USA Today says the odds in 2032 are one in sixty two thousand so I don't think that's very good odds let me tell you what if there was a 600 million dollar lottery and your odds were 1 in 6 to 2000 you'd be like I'm all over that because people stand in line to buy tickets when the odds are one in 250 million if that asteroid which they have named and the New York Times had a headline what happens is if an asteroid hits the Atlantic the the byline is you don't want to know this asteroid if it hits it's 1,300 feet wide if it hits in the Atlantic it will shoot a tidal wave this is in USA Today so I'm not I'm not going to some Fringe place to find this it's in the New York Times it's in USA Today if it happens 1,300 miles wide hits and they in the Atlantic Ocean it will send a tidal wave taller than the Empire State Building moving at the speed of a jet and will wipe out the East Coast and again no amount of prepping or or you know hanging out in the tents going to help you not saying you shouldn't try to be wise and be prepared in whatever I'm just saying when you talk about these cataclysms there is no escaping this kind of global disaster shocking to think about he says this and a third of the sea turned into blood and a third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed obviously we understand that if you have a tsunami that's as tall as the Empire State Building moving at the speed of a jet anything in its past gone number three third trumpet the third angel sounded his trumpet and a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water in the name of the star is wormwood it's interesting that that word wormwood is only used one time in the New Testaments translated as hemlock what's hemlock it's poison so this is a poisonous comet perhaps a third of the waters turned bitter and many people died from the waters that had become bitter all of a sudden you've got the contaminated water supply and then a fourth trumpet the fourth angel sounded his trumpet and a third of the Sun was struck and a third of the moon and a third of the stars so the third of them turned dark and a third of the day was without light and a third of the ninth is that is that the result of volcanic activity of these meteors hitting and the dust that goes up into the atmosphere and it covers the Sun and it covers listen that has happened in the history of the earth not that long ago and it caused a Reformation it caused a mini ice age you you block out a part of the Sun because of volcanic ash and what happens is the earth begins to cool and when the earth begins to cool what you're going to have is you're gonna have increasingly violent storms because of the cooling of the earth and yet and the way that interacts with the atmosphere not to mention an absolute disruption of all of the growing seasons and the biological cycle instantly the seasons as we know them and life as as people on the earth would know them gone and then just when you thought it couldn't get any worse verse 13 and what hurt an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice woe woe woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other angels in other words you think it was bad up to this point get ready it's it's going to get really bad in Luke's account of of Jesus talking about it Jesus says men's hearts will fail them for fear not fear of what's going to happen fear what is happening of what is happening people see it and they're like what in the world what is going on the world literally turned upside down and then we come revelation chapter 9 to the fifth trumpet that's ha star that had fallen from the sky to the earth many theologians believe this is the devil we don't know for sure star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss what is the abyss you remember when Jesus met the gadarene demoniac and he said what is your name and the demoniac said legion for we are many and the demons inside the man begged Jesus not to send them into the abyss what is the abyss the abyss is a prison for demons gone really bad and if a demon goes really bad you know they got to be really really bad and they're like don't put us in the abyss don't put his in the appears it's an eternal lockdown what happens is Satan opens the abyss and the worst of the worst of the demonic horde demons not yet seen on the earth or seen on the earth and punished by being put in there are released give it just an idea without what that might be like think of every prison in the world was opened and all of the criminally insane and all of the worst of the worst were allowed to have to roam the earth it would literally overwhelm the earth first season here you have a demonic horde who comes out on the earth and when they come out on the earth they are given ability they're given power to inflict pain mix verse says this verse 5 they were not give they were not given power to kill them though only to torture them for five months during those days mental seek death but will not find it very very interesting for a brief period of time the tribulation death takes a holiday death goes on vacation I think all of us understand there are some fates worse than death there's for some who have suffered so much a relief that comes by way of death but now death is absent and people suffer it's shocking and then there's a sixth trumpet the six angel sounded his trumpet and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God and it said released the four angels who are bound at the great river euphrates and the four angels who'd been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind and you know listen I'm no big mathematician but we if you had a fourth of people killed earlier and now you have a third of people you're talking over half of the Earth's population dead gone you're talking 3.5 to 4 billion people dead can you imagine in that short a period of time how do you bury that many people you're talking mass graves you're talking a disaster in terms of disease sanitation becomes virtually impossible and then there's a seventh trumpet the seventh angel sounded his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven which said the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his christ and he will reign forever and ever in other words every Olive Heaven understands the purpose of this is to once again make the the earth the Lord's and and those those are the words that were incorporated into that famous oratorio Handel's Messiah and he shall reign forever and ever and then it says in God's temple in heaven was opened and within his temple was seeing the Ark of the Covenant and there came flashes of lightning rumblings peals of thunder what is that another global storm and then what follows earthquake another worldwide earthquake another worldwide Cataclysm and then a ginormous hailstorm miss it's unimaginable listen to the person who says you know how does it go take my chances are you sure are you crazy I mean what we're talking here I'm not stretching I'm not contorting this scripture to give you this understanding I'm just taking what it says and saying that's what it means it's not a stretch why does God tell us this because we are curious he understands that he's made us this way and he would be you and I would understand that you and I would know - you and I would understand that this world is headed toward judgment Jesus himself warned people to escape the coming judgement John the Baptist warned people to escape the coming judgement in God's heart his justice demands that sin and evil be judged and yet his love wants no one to be there and so he gives every single person in the Word of God the ability to know to see to understand you say I've never heard this before you have now then we might understand the truth and we might understand where this is headed to understand that judgment is coming oh sure there are scoffers there people say well you know I don't know and I think pastors just trying to scare people you're right I'm not I'm not embarrassed to say that I hope it scares you I think it's designed to scare I think it's designed to say to people you don't want to be here when judgments poured out give your heart to Jesus you say I'm not motivated by that I'm motivated by love awesome he loves you more than you can imagine either way you're here at the altar you know I mean come on to the person who says I just don't I just don't know let me remind you that Peter talks about this he says first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following their own sinful desires and they'll say where is this promise of his coming for ever since father's fell asleep all things continue increasing for they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluge and with water and perished it's talking about Noah's day thus by the same word the heavens and earth that now exists are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly listen God wants you to know this God wants you to to hear the word and if you know him to share with people and to have an urgency to say listen I don't want you I love you too much to have you on the earth at that time and and if you if you don't know the Lord that you would hear this and you would say you know what I'm gonna flee the coming judgment I don't want to be there that's not an invalid motivation to be saved Scripture is in God's love he's not he's not beyond saying listen judgment is coming I don't want you to be there it's gonna be bad here's what it looks like repent back to where we were at I don't even know which one we're on so you just have to bring it out there we go where it bowls bowl judgments first full judgment and I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels go pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth the first angel went poured out his bowl on the land an ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped His image I mean it's talking about a massive contagion a massive epidemic that that medicines if you could get them can't stop and everybody who has the mark of the beast gets it so it's a divine judgment it sounds just a natural event that's a result of God may use natural forces there's a divine element to it because it strikes those who have the mark of the beast then the second Bowl happens and what happens here is the oceans become a putrid rotting stench filled body of water look at it the second angel poured out his bowl on the scene it turned into blood like that of a dead man and every living thing in the sea died everything it's a red tide dead say well at least people can drink water well then the third bowl is poured out and the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs water and they became blood you know there's the person who reads this and says well how in the world can a loving God do this because always that's people's default that somehow God can't be loving and be just and that's that's a philosophical argument that would take us too long to fully explain but let me just say this the angels are watching this and as the angels are watching this the ones who know him the ones who love him this is what they say then I heard the angel in charge of the waters safe and isn't that interesting an angel in charge of the waters that God has angels who superintend different areas different regions and there's an angel over the waters and this angel who has kept the waters clean and kept the waters pure and kept watched over the water says you're just in these judgments you who are and who were the holy one because you have so judged for they shed the blood of your saints and your prophets and you've given them blood to drink as they deserve and then the next Bowl is poured out and in this one the son was given power to scorch people with fire and they were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God listen I don't know where you stand on global warming my purpose is not to argue that with anybody but one of the things we do know it's not just a result of what's released into the atmosphere from us but it is also a matter of the Sun is burning hotter and as the Sun during the the tribulation the Sun will burn a lot hotter hot enough that people will recognize it people will feel it it doesn't give us a degree or a temperature it doesn't say what's going to burn this Celsius or this this Fahrenheit it doesn't tell us that but it tells us the sun's gonna be so hard it's going to scorch people and honestly if the Sun burns hotter here's what happens in the natural this is what we know happens the polar ice caps melt if the polar ice caps totally melt the sea Rises by 200 feet sea rises by 200 feet New York London Tokyo Hong Kong I mean you can just go to Amsterdam just start naming all the great cities the world gone flooded under 200 feet of water there's a lot of Cataclysm that's involved in these we read through this too fast but you just start to think well now what happens if that goes on well flooded massive flooding massive devastation whole city's gone and then there's a fifth bowl and the fifth bowl is poured out on the throne of the Beast and his kingdom was plunged into darkness men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because their pains in those sores but they refused to repent and what they had done in other words they know who's doing it but the hardness of their heart is evident by the fact that they say god I know you're doing it but if you think I'm gonna repent you got another thing coming I'll curse you before I'll repent you say what's that darkness what are we talking about well is it well Kenna cash is it some kind of atmospheric change that happens or is it possible that there is a solar flare much like happened in 1859 and when it hit the earth if that same solar flare that they know hit the earth in 1859 hit today it would cause an electromagnetic pulse that would darken the world every electronic would be useless instantly the kingdom would be plunged into darkness if we had a solar flare and this moment we would be knocked back to the 1700s we wouldn't have we wouldn't have any electricity any kind of man you'd be a hand-pump horse and buggy you'd be maybe old cars keep your classic car incidentally be a good thing to have sixth Bowl the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river euphrates and slaughter was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from these you've heard about Armageddon lot of here like when's Armageddon gonna happen at the end of the tribulation a lot happens before Armageddon a lot of things that are really horrible happened before Armageddon but the sixth seal is demonic spirits that come out of the mouth of the Dragon that's Satan out of the beast that's the Antichrist out of his assistant his spokesman the false prophet and they gathered together demonically the kings of the earth the armies of the world to a valley in Israel the Megiddo Valarie her valley the valley of Armageddon which is what Armageddon means it's Armagh valley of Megiddo and there is a massive battle and then there's a seventh Bowl the seventh angel pours out his bowl and now the temple came a loud voice from the throne saying it is done and there came flashes of lightning rumblings peals of thunder what are we talking a global storm here comes again as it comes there is a severe earthquake only this is different than every other earthquake because this is an earthquake unlike the world has ever seen this is an earthquake that is so tremendous it does what no earthquakes ever done you say what does it do read on every island fled away and the mountains could not be found what is an island it is a it's a plate pushed up out of the ocean it could be a volcano it's the result of the moving of the plates and the pressure underneath the Earth's crust that forces up these formations and now what happens is the valleys are lifted up the mountains are flattened the Andes and the Alps gone the Himalayas gone the Rocky Mountains gone the Pacific Ocean gone the Atlantic Ocean gone say what in the world is going on I would suggest to you that in this moment what is happening is God by way of this earthquake is reconfiguring the earth back to its pre flood condition when the earth many theorized was like a terrarium and hence there was long life on the earth and people live much longer than they do today and there was a vapor canopy and water came up subterranean water watered the earth and so the earth was much different and now it's put back to that and and there is one mountain and that is Mountain Zion and the kings of the earth and the people of Eire go to worship at Mount Zion but there are no other mountains the earth is radically reconfigured in preparation for the coming of the king and his ruling at that capital and when he touches down on the Mount of Olives the Bible says it will split in half and again he reconfigures the last part of his earth and his kingdom and that all leads up to the culmination all of history leading to this one moment when Jesus Christ the king of kings and Lord of lords returns to the earth you say what's that going to be like come back next week and I'll tell you I mean you read this and I'll close with this and you're thinking wow what in the world this is unbelievable you know the day of the Lord's gonna come Peter says this since all these things are thus are to be dissolved what sort of people ought you to be and then he answers it living lives of holiness and godliness and waiting and hastening the coming of the day of God in other words we should live a holy life a godly life a life of readiness we're gonna talk about that that's what Jesus counsels be ready watch for it's coming it's coming in today you don't expect it we don't need to be afraid but we need to be ready and we don't we don't need to be afraid but we need to be warning others so that they can know the truth so that hopefully they repent now but even if they don't repent now when the day comes they know something of what's upon them and what to do in that moment shocking to think that people would be listening to this message after the rapture of the church to try to ascertain some understanding of what's going to happen and I'm simply saying as a believer and as a pastor I don't want anybody to miss the rapture and neither should any believer in this room and if you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you're away from him you don't need to miss the rapture that's the good news because the invitation is the same whosoever will may come but you have to come if you want to escape the coming judgment and you come by putting your faith in Christ or rededicating your life to him let's pray

Channel: James River Church

Views: 28,135

Keywords: James river church, John Lindell, living in the last days, end times, end of the world, revelations, biblical end times, what does the Bible say about the end of the world, return of Jesus, sermon, preaching, christianity, apocalypse

Id: I-NwiSdPbqE

Length: 56min 22sec (3382 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2017