Latest / THE BELIEVER'S CHURCH | Let’s Build Our Faith Together / Fear of the Wrath to Come, Part 1 (Revelation 612–14) John MacArthur

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Fear of the Wrath to Come, Part 1 (Revelation 612–14) John MacArthur · THE BELIEVER'S CHURCH | Let’s Build Our Faith Together

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  Speaker 1: Open your Bible now to the sixth chapter of Revelation,
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  Speaker 1: Revelation chapter 6. And we'll be looking at verses 12
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  Speaker 1: through 17. As I noted for you earlier in the service,
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe we can get all the way through
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  Speaker 1: these verses in tonight's message. There is just too much here,
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  Speaker 1: so we're not going to press for that. But I
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  Speaker 1: want to read this text to you, Revelation 6, 12
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  Speaker 1: through 17. And I looked when he broke the sixth seal,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a great earthquake. And the sun became
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  Speaker 1: black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon
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  Speaker 1: became like blood. And the stars of the sky fell
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  Speaker 1: to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe
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  Speaker 1: figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky
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  Speaker 1: was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up.
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  Speaker 1: And every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
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  Speaker 1: And the kings of the earth and the great men
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  Speaker 1: and the commanders and the rich and the strong and
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  Speaker 1: every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves
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  Speaker 1: and among the rocks of the mountains. And they said
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  Speaker 1: to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us
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  Speaker 1: and hide us from the presence of him who sits
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  Speaker 1: on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.
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  Speaker 1: For the great day of their wrath has come, and
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  Speaker 1: who is able to to stand. Here we have recorded
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  Speaker 1: the description of the sixth seal out of seven. If
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  Speaker 1: we were to title the message, we might title it,
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  Speaker 1: Scared to Death. The sixth seal opens another force. Now remember,
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  Speaker 1: there is a seven-sealed book or scroll that contains the
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  Speaker 1: information about Christ taking over the universe. As each seal
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  Speaker 1: is broken, another scene develops. These seven seals unfold in
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  Speaker 1: a seven-year period yet to come in the future that
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  Speaker 1: we know as the time of tribulation, the time of
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  Speaker 1: Jacob's trouble, Daniel's 70th week. And during this period of time,
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  Speaker 1: the Lamb, the Son of God, is unrolling the scroll
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  Speaker 1: because He has both the authority to do so as
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  Speaker 1: the heir of everything, and the power to do so
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  Speaker 1: as God of very God. So the Lamb of God,
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  Speaker 1: the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, here in this vision
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  Speaker 1: that John sees, is unrolling this scroll which describes the
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  Speaker 1: events as He takes over the universe from Satan and
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  Speaker 1: the demons and sinners who occupy it and control it.
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  Speaker 1: The first force we saw was false peace. The second
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  Speaker 1: force we saw was war. The third force we saw
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  Speaker 1: was famine. The fourth force was pestilence, which could also
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  Speaker 1: include natural disasters as described by the Lord, including an earthquake.
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  Speaker 1: The fifth force we saw was vengeance, which is articulated
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  Speaker 1: in the fifth seal as those who have been martyred
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  Speaker 1: for the sake of Christ pray that God would bring
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  Speaker 1: about vengeance. The force being exemplified and described in the
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  Speaker 1: sixth seal is fear. Fear. Fear is a powerful emotion,
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  Speaker 1: powerful enough in this scene for people to begin the
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  Speaker 1: world's largest prayer meeting. Only they don't pray to God,
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  Speaker 1: they pray to the mountains and the rocks. And they
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  Speaker 1: pray for the mountains and the rocks to fall on them.
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  Speaker 1: prayer for suicide, a prayer for destruction. They're so afraid
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  Speaker 1: they would rather die than face the wrath of God,
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  Speaker 1: the wrath of the Lamb. Fear is a powerful emotion.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is an overpowering feeling that takes control of
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  Speaker 1: the mind and makes one desire what is irrational It
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  Speaker 1: takes control sometimes of the will and makes people behave
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  Speaker 1: in ways that are inexplicable. Fear, frankly, can create all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of responses, everything from cowardice to heroism, from strength
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  Speaker 1: to weakness, aggression to passivity, reason to confusion, clear thinking
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  Speaker 1: to total panic. Fear can strengthen the heart and make
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  Speaker 1: it beat faster. Fear can stop it dead. Fear can
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  Speaker 1: lead a person to have a total change in what
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  Speaker 1: he thinks and feels and does. Fear is certainly a
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  Speaker 1: part of the human factor. It's a part of life.
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  Speaker 1: There are normal fears that all of us have, and
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  Speaker 1: God has given us the capacity to fear certain things
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  Speaker 1: for the sake of self-preservation and the protection of others.
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  Speaker 1: Normal fears that everybody has, like the fear of disease,
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  Speaker 1: the fear of injury, The fear of the loss of
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  Speaker 1: family or the loss of love, the loss of a job,
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  Speaker 1: the loss of money, fear of death, and then as
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  Speaker 1: some tests have indicated, the most dominant fear, the fear
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  Speaker 1: of public speaking. Such common fears are usually handled somewhat
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  Speaker 1: adequately by most people. If a person can't handle normal fear,
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  Speaker 1: we say that person has a phobia. By phobia, we
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  Speaker 1: basically mean an abnormal response to a normal fear or
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  Speaker 1: the invention of an abnormal and bizarre fear. A phobia
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  Speaker 1: is fear exaggerated. It is fear that disables a person.
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  Speaker 1: It is fear that is uncontrollable and unconquerable. It is
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  Speaker 1: fear that totally takes control of a person so that
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  Speaker 1: they cannot function normally. Such phobia leads to paranoia, panic attacks,
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  Speaker 1: and various kinds of deviant and antisocial behavior. When you
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  Speaker 1: look at people and examine what they're afraid of, it
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  Speaker 1: is quite amazing. Ann Landers, interestingly enough, through all the
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  Speaker 1: years accumulating her mail, has listed what people are afraid of.
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  Speaker 1: She's got a list of the things people fear most.
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  Speaker 1: She says, first of all, there are very bizarre fears
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  Speaker 1: about which people have written me, such as the fear
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  Speaker 1: of falling into the toilet, the fear of certain colors,
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  Speaker 1: the fear of being buried alive, or the fear of
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  Speaker 1: calling someone by his given name. But the most common fears,
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  Speaker 1: according to my mail, she said, are the following. Animals, bees,
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  Speaker 1: being alone, being stared at, blood, blushing, cancer, cats, choking, corpses, crowds, darkness, death, deformity, demons, dirt, dogs, dreams, elevators,
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  Speaker 1: enclosed space, flying, germs, height, horses, illness, insanity, insects, lightning, mice, nakedness, noise, pain, poverty, pregnancy, robbers, school,
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  Speaker 1: sexual intercourse, sleep, smothering, snakes, spiders, strangers, surgical operations, syphilis, thunder, travel, vomiting, work,
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  Speaker 1: and worms. Frankly, that list is a list of fairly
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  Speaker 1: normal things, just stuff that's part of life. But it
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  Speaker 1: is amazing how people have phobias about normal things as
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  Speaker 1: well as inventing bizarre things like fearing certain colors and
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  Speaker 1: so forth. People fear all kinds of things. They fear
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  Speaker 1: normal things abnormally and they fear abnormal things. But rarely
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  Speaker 1: are they afraid of what they really ought to be
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  Speaker 1: afraid of. Rarely. In Hebrews chapter 10, let me read
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  Speaker 1: you a verse. You don't need to look it up.
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  Speaker 1: Hebrews 10, 31. It is a terrifying thing to fall
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  Speaker 1: into the hands of the living God. The prior verse says,
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  Speaker 1: God said, vengeance is mine. I will repay. The Lord
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  Speaker 1: will judge His people. Now that is something people ought
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  Speaker 1: to be afraid of. Cats and dogs and mice and
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  Speaker 1: lightning and noise and pain and pregnancy, those are minimal.
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  Speaker 1: Those are the normal issues of life. If people are
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  Speaker 1: going to have a phobia, if they're going to have
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  Speaker 1: an uncontrollable debilitating disabling exaggerated unconquerable fear let it be
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  Speaker 1: the fear of falling into the hands of the Living
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  Speaker 1: God in Luke chapter 12 there is a familiar statement
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  Speaker 1: that follows the same thought Luke 12 5 I will
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  Speaker 1: warn you whom to fear Jesus is talking I want
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  Speaker 1: to tell you who to fear in the verse before
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  Speaker 1: he said don't be afraid of those who kill the
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  Speaker 1: body don't be afraid of anything that could harm you
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  Speaker 1: physically let me tell you who to fear Fear the
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  Speaker 1: one who after he has killed has authority to cast
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  Speaker 1: into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Who's that?
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  Speaker 1: It's God. Fear God. With all of the phobias and
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  Speaker 1: all of the fears that people have, here's one they
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  Speaker 1: rarely have but should have. And in fact, I sometimes
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  Speaker 1: wonder if the church isn't busy today trying to make
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  Speaker 1: sure they don't have it, trying to make them feel
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  Speaker 1: that God is a benign grandfather who is this all-time
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  Speaker 1: ultimate cosmic good guy. Jesus knew His Father well. He said,
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  Speaker 1: fear Him, because after He's killed, He has the authority
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  Speaker 1: to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. We just read, you can
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  Speaker 1: go back to Revelation 6, we just read about a
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  Speaker 1: day when everybody will have that fear. They'll have it
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  Speaker 1: to the phobia category. It'll be the ultimate paranoia It'll
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  Speaker 1: be the universal panic attack. There is coming a day
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  Speaker 1: when the world will all have the same debilitating, uncontrollable, disabling,
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  Speaker 1: unconquerable phobia. A fear so overpowering that they will be
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  Speaker 1: scared to death. What do you mean by that? Jesus
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  Speaker 1: said of that coming day, in Luke 21-26. You want
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  Speaker 1: to write that down. Luke 21-26. Jesus said, men will
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  Speaker 1: faint from fear. Men will faint from fear. The word faint, apatsoukou,
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  Speaker 1: apatsoukou in Greek, appears only in that verse. You know
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  Speaker 1: what it means? to die to literally breathe out their
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  Speaker 1: last when that day comes there will be such fear
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  Speaker 1: that people will be scared to death some will die
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  Speaker 1: on the spot they will die from sheer terror because
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  Speaker 1: they will realize They have fallen into the hands of
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  Speaker 1: the living God. It is His day of wrath, and
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  Speaker 1: that is so terrifying it'll stop their hearts. And those
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  Speaker 1: who survive the initial fear will cry for the rocks
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  Speaker 1: to crush them to death before they have to face
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  Speaker 1: God as if that could be a means of escape.
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  Speaker 1: What is it that could cause this level of panic?
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  Speaker 1: It is the sixth seal being opened. And the dominant
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  Speaker 1: force you see here is fear. Now, at least for tonight,
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  Speaker 1: I want to speak to you about the reason for fear.
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  Speaker 1: Why are they so afraid? And the answer comes in
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  Speaker 1: verses 12 to 14. Then we'll talk about the range
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  Speaker 1: of fear And then we'll talk about the response of fear.
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  Speaker 1: But first of all, the reason for fear. Let's see
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  Speaker 1: the reason for their fear. Verse 12. John, remember, is
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  Speaker 1: in a vision. God is revealing these things to him.
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  Speaker 1: And he sees visions that dramatize the future scenes. I
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  Speaker 1: looked when he broke the sixth seal. And there was
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  Speaker 1: a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth
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  Speaker 1: made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood.
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  Speaker 1: And the stars of the sky fell to the earth
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  Speaker 1: as a fig tree cast its unripe figs when shaken
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  Speaker 1: by a great wind. And the sky was split apart
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  Speaker 1: like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every
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  Speaker 1: mountain and island removed out of their places. It's an
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  Speaker 1: absolutely unbelievable scenario. Let's start at the beginning. I looked
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  Speaker 1: when He broke the sixth seal. The Lamb who has
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  Speaker 1: the seven-sealed scroll, you remember? The scroll first appeared back
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  Speaker 1: in chapters 4 and 5 when we were in heaven
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  Speaker 1: with John. The scroll showed up in the Father's hand
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  Speaker 1: at the end of chapter 5. He hands it to
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  Speaker 1: His Son in chapter 6, saying to Him, The world
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  Speaker 1: and the universe is Yours. Unroll this scroll. It gives
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  Speaker 1: you the title deed to it and describes the action
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  Speaker 1: that must take place as you take it back. As
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  Speaker 1: each of the seals have been broken, we have seen
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  Speaker 1: what is to come. First, there is a false peace
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  Speaker 1: orchestrated by false prophets and false Christs led by the
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  Speaker 1: Antichrist leading the world to an imaginary utopia which is
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  Speaker 1: immediately shattered by the second seal which is war, worldwide war,
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  Speaker 1: war all over the globe, followed by famine, the very
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  Speaker 1: obvious result of war, the scarcity of food, followed by
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  Speaker 1: death through pestilence and disaster so that one-fourth of the
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  Speaker 1: population of the whole world perish in a very brief time.
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  Speaker 1: And then we saw the fifth, the breaking out of persecution.
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  Speaker 1: And then we saw the martyrs praying for God's vengeance.
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  Speaker 1: All of those first five, mark this, had an element
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  Speaker 1: of human agency. There were human agents in orchestrating the peace.
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  Speaker 1: There are human agents involved in the war, the famine,
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  Speaker 1: the death that comes through pestilence. There are human beings
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  Speaker 1: involved even in the vengeance as the There are believers
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  Speaker 1: praying for this to come. They, of course, are men
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  Speaker 1: and women, even though glorified at that point. Now when
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  Speaker 1: you come to the sixth seal, God acts without men.
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  Speaker 1: You've come to a level of intervention by God that
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  Speaker 1: is wholly and solely His own. And the paralyzing, terrifying
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  Speaker 1: act is inconceivable and devastating. Obviously, by this time, as
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  Speaker 1: we have learned in chapter 6, the world has been
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  Speaker 1: filled with ongoing violence. The world has been filled with
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  Speaker 1: disaster after disaster, with death everywhere since the false peace
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  Speaker 1: was shattered. This thing is moving rapidly, faster and faster,
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  Speaker 1: more intense, with greater and greater holocausts as the birth
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  Speaker 1: pains increase toward the big event. All through this time,
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  Speaker 1: believers have been proclaiming the Word of God. They have
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  Speaker 1: been telling the world what you're seeing and what you're
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  Speaker 1: experiencing is written in the Scripture. It's all in the Scripture.
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  Speaker 1: They've also been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ because
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  Speaker 1: it was for the testimony of Christ and the Word
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  Speaker 1: of God, verse 9 says that they were killed in
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  Speaker 1: the first place. So as all of these events are unfolding,
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  Speaker 1: those who believe are explaining to the world, this is
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  Speaker 1: in the Scripture, this is in the Scripture. We can
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  Speaker 1: show it to you. See what's happening. See what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: And here is the saving gospel of Jesus Christ that
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  Speaker 1: can deliver you. But what does the world do? It
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  Speaker 1: does everything it can to massacre the Christians and massacre
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  Speaker 1: the preachers and all who follow Christ. And the world
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  Speaker 1: follows Antichrist. They are deceived by Satan. They follow the deception.
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  Speaker 1: They disbelieve the Bible. They disbelieve the gospel. They believe
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  Speaker 1: the Antichrist. Even though they've heard the testimony of the
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  Speaker 1: witnessing martyrs that they have killed, they will not believe.
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  Speaker 1: And they will believe Antichrist. Look at chapter 13 for
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  Speaker 1: a moment so that you can see how this happens.
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  Speaker 1: In verse 5 of 13, it says that the Antichrist
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  Speaker 1: speaks arrogant words and blasphemies. And He operates for 42 months.
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  Speaker 1: That's the last three and a half years of this
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  Speaker 1: time period. He opened His mouth in blasphemies against God
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  Speaker 1: to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle. He blasphemes even
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  Speaker 1: those who dwell in heaven. He makes war with the saints.
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  Speaker 1: He overcomes them. He has authority over every tribe and
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  Speaker 1: people and tongue and nation. Verse 8, all who dwell
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  Speaker 1: on the earth will worship Him. Everyone whose name has
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  Speaker 1: not been written from the foundation of the world in
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  Speaker 1: the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
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  Speaker 1: The whole world follows this guy. They all go after him.
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  Speaker 1: He has a partner, another beast, in verse 11, comes along.
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  Speaker 1: In verse 13, he performs great signs. Fire comes down
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  Speaker 1: from heaven. And verse 14, he deceives those who dwell
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  Speaker 1: on the earth because of the signs which it was
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  Speaker 1: given him to perform in the presence of the beast,
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  Speaker 1: telling those who dwell on the earth to make an
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  Speaker 1: image to the beast who had the wound of the
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  Speaker 1: sword and has come to life. Here comes one known
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  Speaker 1: as the false prophet, and he does these wondrous things
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  Speaker 1: and calls the whole world to worship the Antichrist, and
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  Speaker 1: they buy the deception. In spite of what is going
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  Speaker 1: on all around them, the terrors, the judgments, in spite
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  Speaker 1: of all of this, they believe the Antichrist, they believe
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  Speaker 1: the false prophet, and they just carry on business as usual.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, there are prophets running all over the place,
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  Speaker 1: even at the time all of this starts to happen,
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  Speaker 1: at the time of the war and the famine and
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  Speaker 1: the pestilence and death, at the time that all of
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  Speaker 1: that persecution and slaughter is going on of believers and
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  Speaker 1: of Jews, and they're crying out the gospel. In the
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  Speaker 1: midst of all of this stuff, these people will be
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  Speaker 1: just going along life as usual. So how do you
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  Speaker 1: know that? Because Jesus said it in Matthew chapter 24.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to what he said. As it was in the
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  Speaker 1: days of Noah, so it will be at the coming
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  Speaker 1: of the Son of Man. They will be eating and drinking,
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  Speaker 1: marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah entered
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  Speaker 1: the ark. And they didn't understand until the flood came
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  Speaker 1: and took them all away. So it'll be at the
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  Speaker 1: coming of the Son of Man. Just like in Noah's day,
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  Speaker 1: no matter what he said, and he preached righteousness for
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  Speaker 1: 120 years, no matter how many warnings he gave them,
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  Speaker 1: no matter what he told them, they just went on eating, drinking, marrying,
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  Speaker 1: giving in marriage, like life as usual, and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: know until it hit, and they were drowned. And that's
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  Speaker 1: how it's going to be at the coming of the
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  Speaker 1: Son of Man. In spite of all of this, the
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  Speaker 1: world is going to be deceived. They're not going to
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  Speaker 1: believe what Christians are saying. The deception will carry right
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  Speaker 1: to the end. Kind of exacerbating that deception is going
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  Speaker 1: to be a plethora of false prophets, false Christs, Jesus says,
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  Speaker 1: will be all over the place. One will be saying,
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  Speaker 1: I'm over here, and another will be saying, I'm over here,
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  Speaker 1: and another will be saying, I'm over here. I'm the
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  Speaker 1: true Christ. I'm the true Christ. They'll be all over
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  Speaker 1: giving answers and telling what's happening and explaining it and
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  Speaker 1: giving their opinions. And their message is going to be
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  Speaker 1: pretty much the same. verse 3 of 1 Thessalonians 5,
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  Speaker 1: while they're saying, peace and safety. They're going to say, listen, folks,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to work this out. Peace is coming. The
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  Speaker 1: utopia is around the corner. Don't worry about this. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to take care of it. And you know what
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  Speaker 1: they're going to be saying? As soon as we have
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  Speaker 1: massacred all these Christians, we'll get our utopia. Right? We
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  Speaker 1: just got to get rid of them. And then peace
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  Speaker 1: and safety. And while they're saying it, 1 Thessalonians 5,
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  Speaker 1: 3 says, destruction will come on them suddenly like birth
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  Speaker 1: pains on a woman with child, and they shall not escape.
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  Speaker 1: The final birth pains will come excruciating and sudden. And
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  Speaker 1: when it hits, back to Revelation 6, when it hits,
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  Speaker 1: for the first time, the world knows, the Christians know,
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  Speaker 1: were right. Say, how do you know that? Because in
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  Speaker 1: verse 16, they say, hide us from the presence of
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  Speaker 1: Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath
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  Speaker 1: of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath
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  Speaker 1: has come. What does that tell you? It tells you
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  Speaker 1: the whole world has been told that the wrath of
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  Speaker 1: God and the wrath of the Lamb is coming. They've
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  Speaker 1: heard it. They've heard it. And they've heard the gospel
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  Speaker 1: because it will be preached to the ends of the earth,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse. And that everlasting angel
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: will make sure everybody hears as he flies through the sky.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: But not until the sixth seal, after they've tried to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: silence all the Christians by massacring them, will they suddenly
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: wake up to the fact that what those Christians were
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: saying was true. And what hits is unavoidably attributable only
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: to God. And a more frightening scene and realization couldn't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: even be imagined. By the way, as a footnote, this
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: sequence in Revelation 6 also fits exactly with the sequence
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: in Matthew 24. Because it follows the same chronology. You
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: come through Matthew 24, you come to verse 29. Immediately
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: after the tribulation of those days, all the things they've
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: been suffering, I don't take it there that tribulation is
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: some technical term. Even after all that they've been suffering,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: its light, the stars will fall from the sky, the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: It's the same event. And the phenomena described in Revelation
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: 6 about the sky and is similar to the phenomenon
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24. It's the same sequence.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: You'll notice just prior to that, in verse 24 of
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Matthew 24, the false Christ and the false prophets come
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: along again and they say, here I am, here I am,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: here I am. And of course, they're promising the utopia
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: if we can just continue to get rid of the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: believers and along with them the Jews. Luke 21 follows
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the same pattern, the same sequence. That's verse 25 that says,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: There will be signs in sun and moon and stars,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and upon the earth dismay among nations, perplexity at the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: roaring of the sea and the waves. And then it says,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Men will die from fear and the expectation of the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: things which are coming on the world, for the powers
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: see the Son of Man coming. Same pattern. Joel the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: prophet saw it. Take the time to go back and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: study Joel chapter 2. Looking clear from the Old Testament,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Joel saw it. In Joel 2, he described this day
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: as a day of darkness. Verse 2, a day of gloom,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a day of clouds, thick darkness. Down in verse 10,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a time when the earth quakes and the heavens tremble
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and the sun and the moon grow dark and the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: stars lose their brightness. Verse 32, Wonders in the sky,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: wonders on the earth, blood, fire, columns of smoke, the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: sun turned to darkness, the moon to blood, before the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: great and awesome day of the Lord comes. Same event.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: And Joel saw it. Isaiah saw it. He writes about
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: it in chapter 29. In just a brief statement in
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: verse 6, the Lord of hosts will come and you
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, whirlwind, tempest,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: and the flame of a consuming fire. Now, this particular
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: scene really cannot be described. We can make an attempt
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: at it. And I believe that we should because the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Scripture outlines six frightening features. And the detail here is
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: given by the Lord in order that we might understand
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: something of the horror of this day. Let's take the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: first of the six. And maybe we won't even go
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: beyond this one. Verse 12, I looked when he broke
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake. Stop there.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: First of all, he says there was an earthquake. There
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: have always been earthquakes. They come now and then, here
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and there. Even in the first half of this time
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of tribulation, the time known as the beginning of birth pains,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: according to Matthew 24, 7, there were to be earthquakes.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: So they've experienced some earthquakes more than they would be
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: used to. But this isn't really talking about just an earthquake.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I know that's the way the word is translated. And
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: interestingly enough, it's probably as close a translation as you
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: can get because there isn't really an English equivalent. The
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: cataclysm that comes here as the great tribulation has begun,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the second half, is more powerful and more intense and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: more destructive than all the earthquakes of all time put together.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: It is a single, massive, final event. God's wrath at
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: full operation. Now, God, at His own discretion, likes to
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: shake the world now and then. He shook it at
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Sinai when He gave the law. He shook it when
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Elijah called on Him. He shook it when Jesus, His Son,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: was murdered before Him. He shook it when He wanted
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to release Paul and Silas from jail. And He shakes
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: it now and then through history for His own purposes.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: But this is more than any earthquake, like even any
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: of those that God Himself did. This is something beyond that.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: You'll be interested to know that the Greek word is seismos,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: from which we get the English word seismograph, which is
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: an instrument to measure shaking. It means a quaking, a shaking,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: an agitating. But the word earth is not here. The
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: word earth is not here. It would have been better
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to translate it, and there was a great shaking. Because frankly,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: it isn't just the earth. The first thing he mentions
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: is the sun, and then the moon, and then the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: stars careening out of the sky, and then the sky
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: splitting apart like a scroll, and only then does he
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: say every mountain and island start to move. This is
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a shaking more than an earthquake. This is a seismos.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: in the universe Matthew 8 translates the same word seismos
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: tempest to describe what happened on the sea of Galilee
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it's a shaking an agitation a severe agitation Joel 2
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: uses this same word in the Septuagint, which is the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Greek version of the Old Testament. In the prophet Haggai,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that small little prophecy, chapter 2, verses 6 and 7
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: describe the same event. Listen to what it says. For
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: thus says the Lord of hosts, once more, in a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: little while, I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the sea also, and the dry land, and I will
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: shake all peoples. Earthquakes frighten people. They create phobias, believe me.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: We constantly are being told about the big one out
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: here in California. We've been told for years that one
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: day we're going to shake right off into the ocean.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: And we have a sort of fear of that. I mean,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: our population fears that. Every time there's a little shake,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: all the appointments in the psychological, psychiatric offices go up
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: as people run their to deal with their phobias and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: their fears. But whatever little shakings we experience are nothing
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to be compared with this. This is more erratic a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: shaking than anything imaginable. But you have to understand these
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: people have already been through so much. This is going
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to really be a devastating thing. They've been dragged in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the last few years through global wars, worldwide famine, worldwide
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: plagues and pestilences, and some other natural disasters, including earthquakes,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: that have killed one-fourth of the population of the world.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And it all happened just at the time they thought
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: they had reached world peace. And the false prophets are
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: still crying, peace, peace, peace and safety. We're nearly at utopia.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: As soon as we get the Christians massacred, utopia will come.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: They're the problem. And also, through this time period, remember,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: 2 Thessalonians 2 says the restrainer is removed. That's the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, most likely, who holds back sin. And so
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: sin is unrestrained, immorality unrestrained, wickedness, vice, godlessness, Christlessness rampant.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Satan is running the world. Antichrist is demanding that everybody
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: worship him in his deceptive wickedness. The world is plunged
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: into deep sin, and all the time while it's literally
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: following all of its lusts and impulses, being promised utopia
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to come around. out of the chaos that exists. A
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: great host of people are being saved. According to chapter 6,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: verses 9 to 11, they're under the altar praying for
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: God's vengeance. According to chapter 7, verse 9, there are
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: so many of them converted during that time period, they
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: can't even be numbered. So there will be a great revival.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: A great host will be saved. But the rest of
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the world goes on in sin and deception, following Antichrist
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and killing the Christians.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Some
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: are playing tennis and some are at home and others
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: are in a hotel. Some are in an auditorium. Some
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: are at a sporting event. Some are at school. The
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: whole universe starts to shake. A seismos from God that
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: no seismograph could ever measure. And you see, this is
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: such a frightening thing because man always counts on the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: stable universe. He always counts on dawn and darkness, on
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the cycle of the rotation of the earth and the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: seasons as it moves in orbit. Man demands uniformity in
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: his world, and that's what evolution tells him. It always
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: goes on the same way. Remember Peter's words about the scoffers,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: all things continue as they have from the beginning. It
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: all goes on the same way. In a moment that
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: theory is utterly exploded and the seismos hits. The first
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: thing that John describes is the second element. The sun
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: became black as sackcloth made of hair. Sackcloth is what
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: people wore to a funeral. Sackcloth was a rough garment
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that you wore when you wanted to mourn somebody. You
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: put it over you like a robe and it went
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: all the way to the floor so that none of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you was seen. You wouldn't want to draw attention to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: yourself while mourning the death of someone. Black sackcloth of
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: hair simply means that the sackcloth was woven most likely
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: out of black goat's hair. It was very dark, very black,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and that's how the sun will be. as black as
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: a black mourner's robe woven out of black goat's hair.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: The upheaval, the shaking shakes everything, and the upheaval is
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: so enormous that it blackens out the sun. What does
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: blacken out the sun? Why does the sun go black? Dr.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Henry Morris, a wonderful scientist, creationist, writes this, The seismos
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: described here is worldwide in scope for the first time
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in history. Seismologists and geophysicists in recent years have learned
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a great deal about the structure of the earth and
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: about the cause and nature of earthquakes. The earth's solid
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: crust is traversed with a complex network of faults, with
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: all resting on a plastic mantle whose structure is still
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: largely unknown. Whether the crust consists of great moving plates
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: is a current matter of controversy among geophysicists, so the
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: ultimate cause of earthquakes is still not known. In all likelihood,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the entire complex of crustal instabilities is a remnant of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the phenomena of the great flood, especially the breakup of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the fountains of the great deep. In any case... The
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: vast network of unstable earthquake belts around the world suddenly
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: begin to slip and fracture on a global basis and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: a gigantic earthquake ensues. This is evidently and naturally accompanied
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: by tremendous volcanic eruptions spewing vast quantities of dust and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: steam and gases into the upper atmosphere. It is probably
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: these that will cause the sun to be darkened and
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the moon to appear blood red. That fits what the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: prophet said, fire and smoke, doesn't it? Blackness and darkness
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is often associated with judgment. When God judged Egypt, He
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: brought thick blackness. When God came to Mount Sinai to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: lay down the law, it was shrouded in black smoke.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: When God judged His Son, you remember, on the cross
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: for our sins, from noon till three o'clock, the world
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: went black. And Isaiah looked at this judgment time, and
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he saw this blackness. It was revealed to him in
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Isaiah chapter 13 and verse 9, Behold, the day of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: the Lord is coming. Cruel with fury and burning anger
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to make the land a desolation. He will exterminate its
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: sinners from it. The stars of heaven and their constellations
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: will not flash forth their light. The sun will be
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: dark when it rises. The moon will not shed its light.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Thus I will punish the world for its evil and
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of the ruthless. Down in verse 13, I will make
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the heavens tremble, the earth will be shaken from its
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: place at the fury of the Lord of hosts in
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the day of His burning anger. A blackness, a darkness
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: comes over the universe. The third thing that he notes
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: is that the moon becomes like blood. Literally, the text
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: says the whole moon, you have a total eclipse. Whatever
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: it is that causes it, it's vivid. The blackened sun,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: of course, then hides the moon because it only reflects
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the sun. Joel the prophet said, the sun and the
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: moon grow dark. And as I read you earlier, Joel said,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: God says, I'll display wonders in the sky and the earth, blood, fire,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: columns of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the moon to blood before that great and awesome day
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: of the Lord. Now you understand that when this begins
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: to happen, it affects everything. It affects daylight and darkness.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: There will be no daylight. It affects plant life. It
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: affects man. It affects the animal world. All the cycles
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: by which animals function, plants function, humans function, thrown into
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: total chaos. And then a fourth feature, out of that blackness,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: verse 13, the stars of the sky fell to the earth.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Fiery balls come careening out of the darkness. And I
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: guess you might say, if you remember the fairy tale,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Chicken Little's fear comes true. The word stars, would you note, asterace.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: It can refer to any celestial body, large or small,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: not limited to what we know as a It could
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: be a star, a star that is millions of times
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: larger than our sun, as some are. It also could
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: refer to an asteroid, a meteor. Perhaps that's the best
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: understanding of it here. The earth is going to get
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: showered by asterisks plummeting out of the sky. Obviously, if
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: that meant stars, it would burn us up long before
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: it ever got here. So this is probably an asteroid
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: shower or a meteor shower. Scientists, by the way, have
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: speculated for years what a massive asteroid meteor shower hitting
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the earth would be like, the unbelievable destruction that it
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: would create. Certainly the stars are involved as the whole
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: universe shakes and they begin to move out of their
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: orbits and they begin to function in a random way,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: spinning and whirling around in space as the whole collapsing
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: universe begins to disintegrate. The earth is then plummeted with
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: fiery balls coming out of the sky. It's analogous, he says,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to make it vivid to a fig tree casting its
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. Fig tree
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: can be covered with figs, and when the wind hits it,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: they just come down in mass. And where are people
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: going to go? Where are they going to go in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the panic of this? All over the globe. Where are
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: they going to go? No way can they escape. Zechariah
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: chapter 14 looks at the same scene. And it says,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: verse 6, it will come about in a day, in
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: that day that there will be no light. The luminaries
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: will dwindle. Verse 6. It'll be a unique day, verse 7,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: which is known to the Lord. It's not day and
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: it's not night. It's the same time. Then in terms
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: that John can't even describe, verse 14, the sky was
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: split apart like a scroll when it's rolled up. A
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: couple of times in my life I've had an opportunity
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: to see a scroll. I mean a really old scroll.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I've seen the Dead Sea Scrolls, the actual ones in Jerusalem.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I have held ancient scrolls. And one of the interesting
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: things about a scroll is that as it's unrolled and
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: rolled and unrolled and rolled and unrolled and rolled, it
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: wears and ages. And as it sits, it dries out.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: And it's frequently the case that when you unroll a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: scroll and you get it out at its tension point,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: because it's been rolled up so long and dried in
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: that position, it'll crack. And John says it would be
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: like rolling out a scroll and having it just rip
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: in the middle and then roll up in two separate places.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: It says the sky was split apart in John's vision,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: literally ripped apart. It pictures the whole of the sky
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: like a scroll held open at tension. And all of
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: a sudden, it's just ripped down the middle, and the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: whole sky disappears. It's all gone. The stars are flying
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: all over the place, careening. The whole universe is shaking.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: No sun, no moon. And the earth is being blasted
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: with asteroids, meteorites plummeting out of the sky as the
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: universe breaks up. The heaven that was so familiar to
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: us is ripped to pieces. This is the scene. Certainly
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Isaiah again had it in mind in chapter 34. The
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Lord's indignation is against all the nations. His wrath against
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: all their armies. He's utterly destroyed them, given them over
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out. Their corpses
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: will give off their stench. The mountains will be drenched
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: with their blood. All the hosts of heaven will wear
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: away and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: All their hosts, that's the stars, will wither away like
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a leaf withers from a vine or as one withers
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: from the fig tree. For my sword, He says, is
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: satiated in heaven. I'm going to strike the heavens. Why?
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Because that's been the domain of Satan, the prince of
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the power of the air. The whole universe is coming down.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: So this kind of a quaking isn't just the earth.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: He gets to the earth in the sixth feature of it.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Verse 14, And every mountain and island were moved out
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of their places. This is hard to conceive. Every mountain
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and island. The whole unstable crust of the earth begins
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to move and shift. And the faults split and the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: volcanic gases come out. Dr. Morris further says, the earth's crust,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: highly unstable ever since the great flood, will be so
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: disturbed by the impacting asteroids, the volcanic explosions, and the earthquakes,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: that great segments of it will actually begin to slip
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and slide over the earth's deep plastic mantle. Geophysicists for
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: many years have been fascinated with the idea of continental drift.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Several have published theories of a past naturalistic catastrophism involving
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: what they call the Earth's shifting crust. Some such phenomenon
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: may actually be triggered under this judgment of the sixth seal,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: dwarfing the damage occasioned by all the mighty earthquakes of
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the past. Those who reside in regions above such shifting
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: crustal plates will observe the heavens appearing to move in
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the opposite direction He says. Everything shaking. Can I stop
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: here and give a word to the environmentalists? Can I
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: give a word to the Save the Earth group? If
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you think man has messed up this earth, well, you
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: see what God does to it. This is a disposable planet,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: my friend. It was made disposable by sin. You wait
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: till you see what its creator does to it. He
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: made it. Sin devastated it. And he'll destroy it. It's
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a throwaway world now. It's a throwaway universe. The cosmos
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that came out of the chaos is going back to chaos.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: And out of the chaos will come a new cosmos.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: The new heavens and the new earth. Peter wrote about
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: that in 2 Peter chapter 3. Well, Jesus summed all
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: of this up that we've just seen in those verses
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: when He said in Luke 21 11, and there will
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: be terrors and great signs from heaven. And when it happens,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: people will die of fright. They will be scared to death.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Can you understand that? Of course you can. I say
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to you then, in bringing this to a conclusion tonight.
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  Speaker 1: People are afraid of a lot of things, aren't they?
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: They're afraid of a lot of things they shouldn't be
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: afraid of. And usually, commonly, normally, they're not afraid of
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the one person they should be afraid of. Romans 2.5
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  Speaker 1: says that sinners are accumulating are accumulating sin that someday
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: is going to feel the wrath of God. And those
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  Speaker 1: who have never feared Him will fear Him then. But
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  Speaker 1: you don't need to be afraid. We don't have fear.
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  Speaker 1: We are Christians, do we? Because we have escaped the
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  Speaker 1: wrath of God. We have been delivered from the wrath
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: to come through Jesus Christ. You heard some people give
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: testimonies in baptism tonight and they talked about how Christ
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: has changed their life. That's true. Let me also tell
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you He has changed their future destiny from wrath to blessing,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: from hell to heaven, from terror to rejoicing. We're not
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: looking for this wrath. We're going to be caught up
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: to be with the Lord before it ever hits. Amen? Amen.
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  Speaker 1: If you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 1: you will escape the wrath to come. Fear Him. who
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: after he has killed has the authority to cast you
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  Speaker 1: into hell. Yes, I say, fear him. Let's pray. Lord,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: this is so powerful, so frightening, and yet the world
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: is so deceived in This kind of truth often rolls
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: off without even a conviction. May it not be. For
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: those who hear this word tonight, may they feel the
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: terror of the Lord. And may they know that there
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: is a God of wrath and vengeance who is someday
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: going to hit the deceived world with reality. And then
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: it's too late. And may folks know that they only
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: have their lifetime to come to Christ, to escape the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: wrath to come. We thank you that we as Christians
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: are waiting for Christ to come from heaven, Jesus who
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: delivers us from the wrath to come. We thank you
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: that we're looking for Christ. We don't fear you anymore.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: as a God of vengeance and a God of wrath,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: because we've put our trust in Christ, who has felt
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Your wrath for us on the cross. I pray, Lord,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that any here who don't know Christ would come to
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Him now as Savior and Lord, so they will feel
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: nothing of Your wrath. but all of your goodness. And
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: for those who are Christians, Father, may we first of
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: all be thankful, and secondly, may we warn the world
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: as those dear saints will someday who lose their lives
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: because they stand for the gospel. Help us to be
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: willing in our time to warn sinners of your wrath.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Make us faithful in Christ's name. Amen. You've been listening
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: to John MacArthur, Bible teacher with Grace To You. For
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: free access to all of John's lessons and a listing
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of study Bibles and books available for sale, visit Grace
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: To You's website at gty.org. John MacArthur and Grace To
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: You reserve all copyright protection under applicable law. Our copyright
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: policy is available at gty.org. and it includes instructions for
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and limitations on duplicating this digital file.