Latest / But is it Biblical? / Episode 62: Enoch Part 4 - The Archangels and the Revelation of John

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Episode 62: Enoch Part 4 - The Archangels and the Revelation of John · But is it Biblical?

0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm Glenn.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Lydia.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: And you're listening to, but is it biblical?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: We invite you to join in as we evaluate church tradition and discover what scripture truly teaches.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to But Is It Biblical.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: We are only one week away from Theology Beer Camp at the time this episode will air.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting excited.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Are you?
0:55
SPEAKER_01: As much as I can.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I I have not been able to keep up with as much of the announcements as they've been releasing and little teasers and all that.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: So I wish I could know more walking into it, but at the same time, I didn't know any more last year and I loved it last year.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I just need to let that go and go have fun, which I know I will.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that part.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what are we doing?
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Trying to figure out an outfit for that.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Maybe after this episode, we'll have a better idea of what we can go at.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Shoot.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: This is episode 62, and it's gonna be a long one.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: So you might need to take it in bits and pieces.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it'll be here as long as you need it.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry that it's dropping into your podcast cue.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: At, you know, whatever this'll be.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing around two hours or so.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: All right.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: But it'll it'll be there.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Buckle up buttercup.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And remember, test everything.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Take this study with a heavy dose of prayer.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Because we're not only in Enoch this week, we're also going through revelation.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of interpretations out there on what all of the symbolism is and and everything.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I'm not gonna get everything right.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would bet money that I have some of this wrong.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Pray about it and listen to God and study this stuff.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: It's it's rich.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we continue in Enoch, we're gonna talk about something called Tartarus.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of Tartarus before?
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I think only because you've mentioned it before.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Although there's Oh, you're right.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: I think I I inserted Tartarus for the word hell last week.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: In random rabbit trail, if you want to go there, it reminds me of the word from that TV show, Doctor.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Is it Doctor Who?
3:23
SPEAKER_01: What's the name of his time travel machine?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's right.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: What's the name of the time travel machine?
3:28
SPEAKER_00: It's the TARDIS.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, so close.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: It rhymes.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I missed a syllable.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Or I added a syllable.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: In Greek mythology, they had two places where dead people go.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, they had Hades and Tartarus.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And Hades was either permanent or temporary, depending on who you asked.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: But early Christians believed it was temporary.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And Tartarus is described as being as far below Hades as Earth is below the sky or the heavens.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: So the worst of the worst go there.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But Tartarus was also a Greek god.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, most religious belief systems have what's called a cosmogony, which is an explanation of the origins of the universe.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And it usually starts with chaos, which is an unorganized and disordered void.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: In Judaism and Christianity, we see this in Genesis 1.2, which says, The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Gotquestions.org has an article that describes the world as being in a chaotic state.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: In Greek mythology, when it tries to explain the origins of the world, chaos is considered to be the first being to exist.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: There was an ancient Greek poet, Hesiod, who lived in the 8th century BC, so the 700s, and he wrote something called Theogony.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Theogony explained the Greek creation story and the origins of the Greek gods.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: So Chaos was the first being, and then three gods emerged from Chaos.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: They were Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Gaia?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the word Aselgaya.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's okay.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Which means that figure.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it basically means earthly.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: It's most often translated as sensuality in English, but that's a gross mistranslation.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Gaia was earth in Greek mythology, and As El Gaia means like the goddess of earth.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So when you're acting in an earthly way, it's a selgaya.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: So here we have Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Tartarus was the depth of the earth, a very specialized underworld for the worst of the worst.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And then Eros, who was Eros?
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Wait, isn't that la no, that's not that's Eros.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Well Love?
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm just pronouncing it differently.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe wrong.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: So Eros, yeah.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Love.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Relationship.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Sort of.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the words for love.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's one of the four Greek terms for love.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: It's the physical love, the erotic.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's the root.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: But in Greek mythology, it was actually much more complex than that.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Plato wrote something called symposium, which describes Eros, or what'd you say?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Eros.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Don't count on me for pronunciation.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: No, I I pronounce lots of things differently and weird and sometimes two different ways in the same sentence.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: So don't hold me to pronunciations.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Or me.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Um it describes Eros as a spiritual and intellectual yearning or aspiration toward ultimate truth and beauty.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Wait, but spiritual as well as intellectual.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's a universal force, and that force moves all things toward peace, perfection, and divinity.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: So I would consider a good Eros, because you mentioned, you know, one's intellectual and spiritual.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: There is good and bad ways that Eros manifests itself.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And the good way would be a yearning for peace in truth, right?
7:42
SPEAKER_00: As long as those are found in the Creator.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: But a bad Eros would be the desire that moves people toward divinity.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: In English terms, the best word to understand that bad Eros would be greed or selfishness.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: It's all about us.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Moves to divinity, like trying to be like God.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's humans trying to be gods.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: We're elevating ourselves.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: And this is all under the umbrella of Eros.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Plato writes that Eros transcends its earthly origins and attains spiritual heights.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: So according to the ancient Greeks, the world began with Chaos, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And there's one more god that we need to know about, Uranus, who was both the son and husband of Gaia.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: So while Gaia represents the earth, Uranus represents the sky.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Is all this sinking in?
8:48
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's some more.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: So Tartarus was the place of torment and suffering for the wicked and also a prison for the Titans.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So who are the Titans?
9:01
SPEAKER_01: That's a movie.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Just kidding.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: In Greek mythology, the Titans were the twelve children of Uranus and Gaia.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, not the twelve, but they are twelve of their children.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So they are the kids of the sky and earth.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: The Titans were the generation of gods that gave birth to the Olympians.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: So the Titans were the parents of Zeus, Artemis, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and all the other Olympians.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: But Uranus didn't like his children, the Titans.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So he hid them away inside of Gaia, inside of Earth.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: And this stressed Gaia out.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: So she convinced one of these Titan kids, Cronus, to castrate Uranus.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh Greek mythology.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And then as a result, the Titans were freed, and blood dripped down from Uranus from the sky and fell on Earth, and that created more children, which were called giants.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: But the Olympians, so the kids of the Titans, led by Zeus, they eventually overthrew their parents, the Titans, and then Gaia convinced the giants, so this third set of kids, to try to overthrow the Olympians.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: But the giants were not able to be killed by gods, so the Olympians enlisted the help of Heracles, which is the Greek name for Hercules.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And with the help of Heracles, the Olympians defeated the giants.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And the Olympians then imprisoned both the Titans, their parents, and the giants, basically their brothers and sisters, in Tartarus.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Hesiod said that they were earth-born and therefore now dwell beneath the earth.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure all of this is crystal clear.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's my very rushed summary of a story that has a lot more details, and well, you you get the gist.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: But does it sound a little familiar?
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, every people group has stories to explain things.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: So this one's sounding a lot like what we've heard in Enoch.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: In Enoch, we have the intermingling of earth and sky.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Humans and angels.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, three generations of children are born to them.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Giants, Nephilim, and Aeliud.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: In the Greek story, sky and earth unite and produce the Titans, Olympians, and Giants.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: It's important to know this Greek origin story, at least to know that it exists, in order to understand what the New Testament authors were dealing with.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: We've talked before about how Jesus, the disciples, and Paul, really all of the New Testament authors would use what their audience knew in order to explain spiritual truth to them.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, this Greek mythology is the kind of stuff that their audience knew.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting, and it really opens your eyes when you study the New Testament books, when you try to put yourself in the shoes of the audience.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: The concepts of Hades and Tartarus and Gaia.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the authors took these concepts and then placed the truth inside them so that it could be understood.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: They were analogies.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: For example, let's look at 2 Peter.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I personally believe that this letter was written to the Corinthians, and the Corinthian church heavily leaned Gentile.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but they were very Greek-oriented Gentiles, even after the Romans took control.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So they were quite familiar with Greek mythology.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Peter 1 16, Peter says, For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: So he starts out by saying, Hey, we actually saw this stuff happen.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that someone made up, like the gods that you grew up with.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And then Peter talks about the transfiguration when God told them to listen to Jesus.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 says, We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, We were on Mount Hermon, the Holy Mountain, and we saw it for ourselves.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just a made-up story.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: But even though Peter is basically telling them that their stories about their gods aren't real, he then goes on to use those stories as an analogy.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: He says that Tartarus, the deepest, darkest pit, is where the fallen angels are kept.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: 2 Peter 2.4 says, For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the day of judgment.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: That's the only mention of Tartarus in the Bible, by the way.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: But Peter is using the story found in Enoch and playing off of the religion of his Greek audience to help them understand a truth.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: He was talking about false teachers, the same way Jude was, when he mentioned the same story of the fallen angels.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Some heavenly beings did wrong, they taught selfishness, false teachers do the same thing.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: But get this, two verses earlier, in verse 2, Peter said, And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: There's that word sensuality.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: It's asselga, or earthly ways.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: And in verse three, Peter says, And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So their Aselgiah, or earthly ways, and their greed, which is the best way to understand bad eros, the desire to elevate themselves to be God, caused them to be cast into Tartarus, which he mentions in the next verse, verse 4.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: So Peter, in three verses, 2 Peter 2, verses 2, 3, and 4, is alluding to the first three Greek gods to emerge from chaos at the beginning of the world Gaia, Eros, and Tartarus.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And he did this because his audience understood it.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And he's using this analogy to explain the dangers of people who teach selfishness.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: They are just like the angels who fell and are now in Tartarus.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Peter explains that these teachers love to gain from wrongdoing.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: They love the money and the power that they get from teaching people the wrong things.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And we know what those wrong things are.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: It's the opposite of humility.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: In verse 21, Peter says, For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: The holy commandment, selfless love.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: We simply don't understand the message from 2 Peter when we don't understand the belief system of the Greeks.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Or if we don't understand the one commandment that is required of us.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: When we read this passage in English, it says the angels were thrown into hell.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that Peter was talking about Tartarus?
17:21
SPEAKER_00: That's the actual word he used.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I would have had no clue.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Did you know what that meant to his audience?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: A deep, dark, cosmic prison for fallen gods?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Or in this case, fallen angels?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: This is called Bible study.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And it takes work.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: A lot of work.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: But God doesn't expect you to know all of this, especially if it doesn't interest you.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: All he expects is humility and selfless love.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: That's the only sacrifice that he accepts.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: But if you're gonna call the Bible your sole authority and inerrant and infallible and the only place where truth can be found, then buck up and do the work to understand what it is actually saying, and use the Holy Spirit to interpret.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Peter actually said that in this same book.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: 2 Peter 1, 20 through 21 says, No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Use love to interpret, because if you don't, then you will never understand what you're reading.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And you may find yourself on a stage with two or three thousand or more people in your congregation, and you'll tell them that it's good to start wars with people we don't like, our enemies, or to deport families that don't belong on our side of the fence, or to look down at the ground whenever a good-looking person crosses our path because that's lust, and we're supposed to do everything we can to not lust.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to go to hell, even though Jesus lusted in Luke 22, 15.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: This is the danger in following your own interpretations of your English translation.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: And as a pastor, you'll teach all of this while wishing your newest book brings in the money.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: You have the secrets to life, and you'll let people know what those are for a cost.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: The sad fact is that a lot of what is preached in churches today adds to the message of love.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: We have turned back from the holy commandment delivered to us, delivered by the Holy Spirit, and we have relied on our own understanding of ancient letters that weren't written to us, and as a result, we misinterpret them.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're just right enough to be dangerous and to twist the good news or the gospel of Christ.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to continue our study by going back to the writing that Peter was referencing.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Enoch.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, once Enoch had denied the petition of the fallen angels, this is when he is taken on a journey of the heavens.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: We're starting in chapter 17 of Enoch.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: He starts with a summary of his journey, and then he goes on to give more details after that.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: He says that the archangels took him to a place, and he saw other angels there, angels that appeared like flaming fire, but those angels could also take on human form.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And then he went to a tall mountain that reached into heaven, where he saw the stars and the whole universe, and then they took him west where there were living waters, but there was also a river of fire that never goes out.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: He saw the foundation, the cornerstone, and the ends of the earth.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: He saw mountains of precious stones and pillars of fire and great darkness, and among those pillars of fire was a chasm, an abyss.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: And the pillars of fire descended down into the chasm.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And then Uriel starts talking.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about the three generations of kids there, bring destruction on men and lead them astray to sacrifice to demons as to gods, until the day of great judgment, in which they will be judged with finality.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And the wives of the transgressing angels will become sirens.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: So the fallen angels and their human wives basically seduce humanity into rejecting the creator.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: And humans do that by worshiping demons who are masquerading as gods.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: We already looked at where Peter talks about Tartarus, but if we keep reading in 2 Peter 2, he describes this same scene that Enoch just described.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: In verse 14, Peter says, They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin, they entice unsteady souls, they have hearts trained in greed, accursed children.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And remember, to Jews, adultery was the betrayal and rejection of your owner.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: So they betray their owner and entice people in greed.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15 in 2 Peter there says that they love gain from wrongdoing.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 17 says, For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's clear to me that Peter knew this book of Enoch backwards and forwards.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And Peter is using this story to say, false teachers do what these fallen angels do.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: They teach greed and selfishness, the opposite of humility and selfless love.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: In verse 19, Peter says, They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: So anything can be your false God.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Whatever causes you to reject your owner and live a life of selfishness, that is your God.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: That is your demon.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing Paul taught.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not about what you do, it's about your heart.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not about following a list of rules, it's about selfless love and humility.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Whatever causes you, whatever it is that causes you to reject God, that's not a good thing.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Even though for somebody else, it might not matter.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So Enoch sees this prison for fallen angels.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And Uriel talks about angels being stars.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And he says these particular stars did not come out at their appointed time.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And we saw the same concept a couple of weeks ago.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: All of creation does what they're supposed to, but these angels did not, right?
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And humanity does not.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Peter actually mentions the same concept in 2 Peter 2.15.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, forsaking the right way, they have gone astray.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: In Enoch 18, 15 through 16, Uriel says they transgressed the command of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, for they did not come out in their appointed times, and he was angry with them and bound them until the time of the consummation of their sins, 10,000 years.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: So they've been bound for 10,000 years now, which to ancient writers basically meant a really long time.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's not a literal number there.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And they'll be there until their judgment.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: He judged them.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: 70 generations removed from Enoch.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: That was their judgment.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But their sentencing is yet to come.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Just like with the criminal justice system here in the U.S., for felonies and federal cases, sometimes it can be months in between being found guilty and the actual sentencing.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus visited them.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Peter 3, 18 through 20, Peter talks about how Jesus was dead in the flesh, but alive in the spirit.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And in that spirit he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey during the days of Noah.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: And in Matthew 12, 40, Jesus himself said, Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And in Ephesians 4:9, Paul talks about how Jesus descended into the lower regions of the earth.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus judged the angels, but their sentence is yet to be carried out.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: We move into chapter 20 of 1 Enoch, and now Enoch is going to introduce us to all seven of the archangels before going into a more detailed account of his journey.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Random question.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: Archangel.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a phrase that you know obviously you and I are familiar with.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: What is what does it mean?
27:12
SPEAKER_01: You Archangel, Angel.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: They're the angels that are in charge.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm about to tell you.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm sorry.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, you've mentioned it before, so that's why I was asking now.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: First, let's introduce them.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: The first one is Uriel.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: The name Uriel means fire of God or God is fire.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And Uriel has been put in charge of the cosmos in Tartarus.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: So he's in charge of the whole universe, the cosmos with all of its celestial beings, and he's the warden of the prison that the fallen angels are in.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you said cosmos and Tartarus.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: I heard.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Next we have Raphael.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Raphael, before I continue, no, these are not the Ninja Turtles.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: I there it is.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: They are the archangels.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Raphael means healing of God.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Michelangelo, Donatello.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: All right, I got out of my system.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Healing of God or God is healer.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a cool name, Raphael.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that's what it meant.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And he has been put in charge of the spirits of humanity.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Anthropos or Adam.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: And isn't that great?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: The fire of God is for the fallen angels, and the healing of God is for the humans.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: We need it.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that comes into play later on when we talk about Revelation.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Next, we have Reuel.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Now, Rayuel means friend of God or God is friend.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: So someone who does what God wants and opposes evil.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And Rayuel has been put in charge of taking vengeance on the Fallen Watchers.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Next is Michael.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Now the name Michael or Mikael is actually a question.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: It means who is like God?
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a question that implies a deep humility because no one is actually like God.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: But Michael has been put in charge of the good people, the chosen, those who live in love, like God.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And then next we have Sariel.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Sariel means commander of God, or God is ruler.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And he has been put in charge of the spirits who sin against the spirit.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: So while Michael is in charge of the ones who do what's right, Sariel is in charge of the ones who do the opposite.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, dude.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Next is Gabriel.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: All right, it means strength of God, or God is strength.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, Enoch here says that Gabriel is in charge of paradise and the serpents and cherubim, which is a little misleading in English, because we think of something bad when we think of serpents.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: That's not what this means.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 6, 1 through 2 says, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: So Seraphim here is a group of angels.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: The word is H eighty three fourteen, and it literally means fiery serpents or venomous serpents.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: So they've got spunk.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Enoch is saying that Gabriel is in charge of the Seraphim and Cherubim, which together, those two groups, guard the inner sanctum of God, his throne.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: They are basically the angelic secret service of heaven.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: The seraphim have six wings.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: All right.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: They cover their face, their feet, and they fly.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: The cherubim have four wings in the book of Ezekiel, but six wings in Revelation.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: They also have four faces: human, lion, ox, and eagle.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: In Ezekiel, each one has all four faces, but in Revelation, they each only have one of the faces, and they're covered in ice.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: This just goes to show you that all of this symbolism has a deeper meaning.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not meant to be taken completely literally.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: All right, but these two groups of angels guard God's throne.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And Gabriel is in charge of paradise and the secret service.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: The last archangel is Remiel.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Remiel means mercy of God or God is mercy.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: It comes from the Hebrew word Raham.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: It's H7355, and it means to love deeply, to be merciful, or to be compassionate.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And Remyel is in charge of them that rise, the resurrected dead.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: So while Michael is in charge of the good ones and Sariel is in charge of the bad ones, Remiel is in charge of them all once they've been resurrected.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Mercy and compassion and deep love is in charge of all of resurrected humanity.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, we see this description of the archangels here in Enoch.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: But this is more than just a literal account.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I believe it is literal or it could be, but just like everything else with God, there is a deeper, more spiritual message here.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation, the archangels are called the seven spirits of God.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: They are the essence of God, his core nature.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: He created them that way, to represent his very nature and character.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: God is fire.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: God is healer.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: God is friend, shepherd, and there's no one like him.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: He is ruler, he is strength, and last but certainly not least, he is mercy.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: He is deep compassion and love.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I can understand all that.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the seven angels represent.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: And they also tell the history of the world, the history of life and humanity and redemption.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: First comes the cosmos, the universe, creation, that's Uriel.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Then comes humanity, that's Raphael.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And then the Watcher's Fall, Rayuel.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Then the earth has both good and evil, Michael and Sariel.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Then God shows his strength, and you have paradise.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Picture Jesus on the cross here, telling the other man, today you will be with me in paradise.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: That was the day that God showed his strength through weakness.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: That's Gabriel.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And finally you have the resurrection and mercy is shown.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: That's Remail.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Seven archangels, seven spirits of God, the fullness of God, shown in the number seven, the fullness of creation and history.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: We have completion, the number seven.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: And now we're going to pause Enoch's journey for a second, and we're going to go on a little, well, I say little, we're going to go on a journey for ourselves to the book of Revelation.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: We're going to take a second look at these archangels, but we're going to look at what John wrote about them in his vision.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Because believe it or not, the entirety of Revelation hinges on Enoch's description of these seven archangels.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: When we open Revelation, John sees Jesus holding seven spirits in his right hand, the place of honor.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And out of his mouth comes the sword of the spirit.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus tells John to write seven letters, one to each spirit of the seven churches.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of this imagery that we read here is both literal and symbolic, but the symbolic part is the important part.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: It's the main point.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So these literal churches have personalities or characteristics, and there are seven spirits or angels over these churches.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells John what to write to the first angel, who is over the first church.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And he says, The people of this church have tested the false teachers and found them to be false.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: But even so, they have abandoned their first love and they have fallen.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: And Revelation 2, 7 says, To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, to understand the dual meaning here, the literal church has tested false teachers correctly.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: But they have fallen and abandoned God, right?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And they need to shape up.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: If they do, they will be granted entrance to paradise.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: But the symbolic meaning here, it talks about false teachers being judged.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Who are the false teachers compared to in Peter and Jude?
36:54
SPEAKER_00: The fallen angels.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: And they abandoned their first love.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the first church which has a corresponding angel.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Who is the first archangel?
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Uriel.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And what is he in charge of?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: As it pertains to this church.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Fire.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: He's the warden of Tartarus.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that too.
37:16
unknown: Okay.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Where the fallen angels are.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: There's the fire.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, his name is Fire of God.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, the second church.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't fear what's about to happen.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: The devil is going to test you for a time, but if you're faithful, I will give you the crown of life.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And we're only going to look at the symbolic meanings from here on out.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to humanity here.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: You will be tested for a time by the devil.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: The demons that we talked about last week.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: They test us, they lead us astray.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: But if we conquer that test, we are given the crown of life.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And who is the second archangel for this church?
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Raphael.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: In charge of the spirits of all of humanity, which require God's healing.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: God is healer.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: If you conquer this test, your soul is healed.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Now the third church, he says, You dwell on earth where the adversary is, but you have kept faith.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, some of you are false teachers who teach people to reject God, who follow the teaching of Balaam.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: So the thing against this church, the third church, is the false teachers.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus references Balaam here, just like Peter did in 2 Peter 2.15.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Peter said, forsaking the way, they have gone astray, they have followed the way of Balaam, who loved gain from wrongdoing.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Alright, both of these comparisons are talking about the fallen angels.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And the third archangel is Reuel, who is in charge of taking vengeance on the fallen angels.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: The fourth church, Jesus lauds their work, their faith, their love, their service, and their patience, but they tolerate unloving people, who are represented by Jezebel here.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: So most of the people in this church are good, but they tolerate the bad ones.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I gave them time to repent, the bad ones, but they refused.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to throw them into a sick bed, and they will go through tribulation unless they repent.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And then everyone will know that I am he who searches mind and heart.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: But those of you who reject the adversary and live in love, I don't lay on you any other burden.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Just continue doing what you're doing until I come.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: So the people in this church are the good ones, but they tolerate people who reject God and live in unloving ways, in a manner contrary to who God is.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And the archangel for this church, Michael, who is like God, he's the angel in charge of the good people, which is the majority of this church.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Next, the fifth church.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: We're in Revelation 3 now.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: If you don't wake up, I will come against you like a thief without warning.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: And even though most of you are bad, there are a few of you who follow me, and they will walk with me in white garments, for they are worthy.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: All right, unfortunately, most of this church is bad, and their angel is Sariel, the angel in charge of the ones who sin against the Spirit.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: All right, moving on to the sixth church, Jesus says, I hold the keys of David, and what I open stays open, and what I shut stays shut, and I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: I will make those of the synagogue of the adversary come and bow before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you because you have kept my word about patient endurance.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on earth.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: So this church has done what's right, and wouldn't you know it?
41:54
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Church of Philadelphia, which means the Church of Brotherly Love.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: But the more symbolic meaning here is who Jesus is talking to, because all of these letters are being written to the seven angels.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: And this letter was written to the archangel Gabriel, who is in charge of the holy angels in paradise who guard the throne of God.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: They stayed humble and prostrate before God, as Jesus said, They have but little power, and yet they kept his word and did not deny him.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Unlike those angels of the adversary who tried to lift themselves up but fell and now dwell on the earth.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: And then Revelation 3 10 says, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: He's going to test those who dwell on earth.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Keep that in the back of your mind.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the seventh church.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: The church of Laodicea, which means judgment of the people.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: It's G twenty nine ninety-three.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: I guess we should brace ourselves for what's coming.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, the Amen, which means the Amen.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: It means may it be fulfilled.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation, says this.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is calling himself the only true and faithful witness who was in the beginning of creation and he is the fulfillment.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: He continues, I know your works.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: You are neither cold nor hot.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Would that you were either cold or hot.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'm gonna spit you out.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Of my mouth.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And why?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: For you say I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: So it's because they think they are something when they are nothing.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: They should have realized they are nothing.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Humility.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Instead they exalted themselves, and then Jesus says, I advise you to get your treasures from me.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Treasures that are refined by fire, so that you can truly be rich, and clothed in white garments, and allow me to open your eyes.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I convict and correct and teach those I love.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: So be zealous and repent, because I'm here standing at the door, knocking.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is open the door and let me in.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: The one who conquers, I will allow him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered, and sat down with my Father on his throne.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: And then he ends by saying, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, today, in modern evangelical thought, the church is the body of believers, people who believe the right facts about Christ.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: At that moment, when you believe and say, I believe Jesus is God and He died for my sins, you become a member of the church, right?
45:47
SPEAKER_00: But it is clear in these letters to these churches that Jesus is not just talking to believers.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: He is talking to both people who have humbled themselves and those who have not yet.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: But they are all his church.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: And this last church in particular is made up of the people who he spits out of his mouth.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: But that isn't the end of his letter because he keeps knocking.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: He keeps reaching out.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: He wants to refine them.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: And why?
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Because the angel of the church of judgment of the people, Laodicea, is Remyel.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: God is mercy.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: The angel in charge of the resurrected dead.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is in charge of humanity, in charge of humanity's judgment.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: And in this story of history, the last angel is where we find this judgment and fulfillment on the cross and mercy and resurrection.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: When he was done writing the letters, John turned and he saw an open door.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: And a voice said, Come here, I'll show you what happens next.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: So he went through the door, the same door that an angel had to help Enoch walk through.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that last week.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: And just like Enoch, John saw God's throne, and he saw the cherubim surrounding the throne.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: But John saw some extra things that Enoch didn't see because Enoch had his vision before the flood and before the promise God made to Noah.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: John saw a rainbow around the throne of God.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: And he also saw 24 elders on their thrones.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: And maybe those represent the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples of Jesus, or maybe some prophets.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: But that rainbow, we talked about that in episode 42.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: It was a sign of the covenant God made with Noah.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 9, 5 through 6, God tells Noah and his family that their lifeblood requires a reckoning.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: He said, From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man, meaning, there will be justice.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: When a man falls, another man's life must be taken in return.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: And the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, was our reckoning.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: Verses 12 through 13 says, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, this covenant is for everybody until the end of time, period.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: And God Himself came to earth as a man to be that reckoning that you require and to provide justice through mercy.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: John then looks at the one on the throne.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: And this time in Jesus' right hand is a scroll with seven seals.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: All right, so the first time God has these seven spirits in his right hand, now he has the seven seals.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Both of them represent the archangels.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is the only one capable of opening that scroll.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: He appears as a lamb in Revelation 5.6, and on that lamb are the seven spirits of God that had been sent out to all of the earth.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: All right, we already know those spirits, they're the same angels that represented all of humanity with the churches, the archangels, they are the character of God, and they are the history of the world.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: Jesus takes the scroll and opens it one seal at a time.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: And we see the same thing we did with the churches here.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: He opens Uriel, the first archangel and seal, the fire or the light of God, and out comes a rider on a white horse.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: This horse represents the message of God, love personified by its rider, Jesus Christ, the only light in this dark world, which has been there from the beginning, from the beginning of the history of the world.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: A white horse with sacrificial love as the rider, represented by the light of God, Uriel.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the first seal, the beginning.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then breaks the second seal.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Raphael, in charge of the spirits of men.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: This time a red horse comes out.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: Blood red, and wars break out, and people start killing each other.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: This is humanity.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: Think of the fall in the Garden of Eden, and Cain was killing Abel.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: The third seal, Rayuel, the friend of God, the one who opposes evil and takes vengeance on the fallen angels.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: This time it's a black horse, the color of darkness.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: And the rider is holding a pair of scales to measure, and the rider is offering a minuscule amount of food for a whole day's wage.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: It was twelve times the normal cost.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Some people simply interpret this as a coming famine.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: And I mean I tend to agree there will be famine, but the famine is caused by greed, not natural causes.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: I see someone trying to take advantage of other people, just like the fallen angels, charging them too much, being greedy.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: And the writer says, Do not harm the oil and wine.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: This writer is bent on his own pleasure and taking advantage of others.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: The poor can barely afford to eat while the rich ones who own the olive groves and the vineyards get plenty.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: And all of this happens when the angels fall and teach humanity.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: They are no friends of God.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: Reguel has his work cut out for him to take vengeance on these fallen angels.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: The fourth seal is broken.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Michael, who is like God.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: The horse is pale this time, and the rider is named Death, and Hades followed him.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: And together they killed a quarter of the earth with disease and famine and wild animals.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: Alright, at this point in history, this is when the half breeds devour and kill a great deal of humanity.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: The earth is in desperate need of love, in desperate need of one like God.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: And God found one.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Noah, a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: That's Genesis six nine.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: That was the fourth seal.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Who is like God?
53:15
SPEAKER_00: And then comes the fifth seal, Sariel.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: God is ruler.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: God is sovereign.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: The angel in charge of waging war against evil.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: No horse this time.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: But all of the people who have died at the hands of evil people cry out.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6 10 says they cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
53:48
SPEAKER_00: In other words, mighty ruler, how long before you wage war against these evil creatures that are living on earth and shouldn't be?
53:59
SPEAKER_00: And we see this happen in Enoch 9 when the cries of the souls of humanity reach the gates of heaven and ask for judgment to be made, and the archangels intervene.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus opened the sixth seal, Gabriel, the strength of God, the angel in command of all of the holy angels around the throne.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: And remember, in Enoch, stars represent angels.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: There was a great earthquake, and the stars then fell down to earth, and the sky vanished.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: Every mountain and island was removed from its place.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: That means the proud and haughty and the ones who think they are good enough on their own.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: Pride was exposed.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: And we know this is metaphorical, not literal, because the literal mountains actually were still there.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: The rich and powerful people of earth, the kings and generals and everyone else hid in the caves of the mountains.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: And they begged the mountains to fall on them and kill them.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6, 16 to 17 says, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?
55:17
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel had brought his legions of angels from the throne to earth in a war against pride and pornea, the rejection of God.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: So I'm noticing you're speaking past tense, the way these seals are being opened by Jesus.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: They're pouring out a biblical history as opposed to how I've always read Revelation or, you know, as much as I have studied it, which is like a drop in a bucket.
55:48
SPEAKER_01: Not even that.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: But my point is, I always thought it was future speaking to the things that are to come.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, the way you're interpreting it right now is it it reveals what was happening, what has happened.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: And then it sounds like it's all three.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: Past, present, future.
56:06
SPEAKER_01: But I always thought it was all things to come.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: No, it it's it's a good bit of all three.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: And I actually get into that a little bit later on.
56:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:15
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, even like the book of Revelation, he wrote it in the past.
56:19
SPEAKER_00: He was seeing it at the time, but he was seeing the past, and it's but it's also going to happen in the future.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: I always thought it was only God is not restricted by time.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: The future, though.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a bigger spiritual meaning here, and it's not saying literally this happens, and then that's the end.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: This there's a bigger, broader meaning in all of it.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I thought that was an interesting interruption.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: So that was the sixth seal, and then we arrive at chapter seven, uh, which is the passage that we read in episode 60, the judgment, right?
56:58
SPEAKER_00: Where the the multitude were there.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: And when we read Enoch's summary of the final judgment, which is Enoch chapters one through five, we saw that the righteous were saved and the wicked had a curse, and we reminded ourselves that Jesus Christ took on that curse.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: While Enoch's summary in chapters one through five was a summary of the final judgment without Christ, what we see in Revelation is the judgment in the light of Christ.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's important to understand how John writes here.
57:33
SPEAKER_00: A theme pops up in how his vision takes place.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: He tends to hear one thing, and then when he actually looks, he sees something else.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: He'll hear a description of something magnificent or symbolic, but when he turns to look, he sees a visual representation that is either different or unexpected.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: For example, in chapter one of Revelation, John hears a voice like a trumpet.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: But when he turns to see the source of this powerful voice, he finds a man who talked to him in a calm voice and said, Fear not.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: In chapter five, we see the same thing.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: An elder tells John that the lion has conquered, and he can open the scroll.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: So John turns to see the lion, and instead he sees a lamb.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: You get this pattern here, power, weakness.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: And then we see the same thing in chapter seven.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: God seals his people on their forehead.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: And those people are supposed to be the Israelites, which is 12,000 from each tribe, totaling 144,000.
58:43
SPEAKER_00: And John actually hears that number in his head of those that were sealed.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: He hears 144,000 people, that's in Revelation 7:4.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: But then when he turns around and looks, it's not what he expects.
58:57
SPEAKER_00: Instead of 144,000 Jews, it's a great multitude that nobody could number, all wearing white.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: And the angel tells John that these are the ones who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: We see the judgment, but we see it in the light of Jesus Christ.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: But revelation doesn't end there.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: We talked about Yom Kippur last week, how God opens the three books of Rosh Hashanah, the book of life, the book of death, and the intermediate book for the majority of people.
59:35
SPEAKER_00: And then the trumpets sound.
59:38
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a time of repentance that allows people to redeem themselves.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: And then it all culminates on Yom Kippur, when the books are sealed and the sins are placed on the scapegoat.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where we are here in Revelation.
59:57
SPEAKER_00: The trumpets are about to sound.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: Before the time of repentance or refinement.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus opens the seventh seal at the start of chapter 8, the seventh archangel, Remyel, the mercy of God, in charge of the resurrected dead, when Jesus opens the seal, there is silence in heaven for one hour.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: And then all seven archangels appeared, and a trumpet was given to each one of them.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: And then another angel shows up with incense.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: And that incense represented the prayers of all of the saints.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: Their prayers were for justice to be done.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_00: You remember in Enoch, the cries of the souls of humanity went up, begging for justice to be done on earth.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: And as the archangels prepared to blow their trumpets, the other angel with the incense lit it, and he threw it down to earth, and there was massive thunder and lightning and an earthquake because of these prayers of the saints.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_00: And we go through the history of the world once again.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: Uriel, the first archangel, blows his trumpet.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: The fire or light of God, and fire and hail mixed with blood, was thrown down to the earth.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Fire and hail, good and evil, mixed with humanity, was thrown down to the earth, and a third of the trees and grass were burned up.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: And something we need to understand here: a third in Hebrew thought is symbolic of divine completeness.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: It acts as a bridge between two opposing sides, bringing harmony and truth.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: It's a uniting balance.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: The number three is actually represented by the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, gimel.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: And it's also how camels got their name, or vice versa, it's possible camels came first.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: Gimel, camel.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: Because camels can go really far without water, and they carry provisions through the desert.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: They symbolize the act of giving and generosity, the rich helping the needy.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: So we need to know that here because this fire of God in the first trumpet is compassion and mercy for the ones who need it.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: Fire and hail, evil and good.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: But this fire is actually compassion.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: It provides harmony and balance and truth.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: And that is how the universe was created.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: Everything in harmony.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: Fire and hell represent two opposite extremes, good and evil.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_00: You can't have one without the other.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: You don't even know what one is without the other.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: The first trumpet represents when the universe was created.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: And then Raphael blows his trumpet, the healing of God, the spirits of humanity, and a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so already on earth we have good and evil and humanity, but now a big mountain, pride, is sent to the earth.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_00: Pride and selfishness were thrown into the sea and it polluted everything.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_00: A third of the sea became blood, and a third of the creatures died, a third of the ships were destroyed.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: The spirits of humanity are in desperate need of the healing of God here.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: What's happening is humanity is being slowly destroyed.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: And then Rayuel blows his trumpet, the friend of God, and the one who takes vengeance on the fallen angels.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_00: And with this trumpet blast, John saw an angel fall from heaven.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: It fell into a third of the waters and rivers, and it made them bitter.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: A mighty angel, the adversary, fell and polluted the earth.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: And then Michael blows his trumpet, who is like God?
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: And then more celestial bodies fall from heaven, following the first one.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: Here we see the fallen angels.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: A third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, and their light was darkened.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: Who is like God?
1:04:30
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw an eagle fly overhead, and it cried out in Revelation 8 13, Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: At this point in history, we are at the point where humanity is about to be tormented by the half-breeds.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Sariel blew his trumpet, God is ruler, the angel who wages war on evil, and he's in charge of those who sin against the Spirit.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw an angel fall to earth.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: And that angel was given the key to unlock the abyss.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_00: This is a good angel, not a bad angel.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_00: And then smoke rose up from the abyss and darkened the whole planet.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_00: And from the smoke came locusts who were given power, like scorpions, to sting the people of Earth.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about the half-breeds here, the demons that came out of the abyss, the children that came out of the fallen angels.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: And these locusts have the appearance of horses prepared for battle.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: They have faces like human faces, hair like a woman's hair, the teeth of a lion, and breastplates of iron.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: That's a crazy picture if you think of that literally.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_00: But what it's saying is that they take on the appearance of humans.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: And then lovely hair, sharp teeth, and tools of war.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: That's vanity, power, and violence.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: The very things that they taught humans to do.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: The noises of their wings sounded like chariots with horses going to war, and their tails were like scorpions used to sting people.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_00: They were given the power to torment humanity for a time.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_00: They were not allowed to touch anything else on earth.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_00: No grass or plant or tree.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_00: Those things continued to operate the way God created them.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_00: The only thing they were allowed to torment were the humans.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_00: But not the good humans.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_00: They can only harm the ones without the seal of God on their foreheads.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_00: And now, wait a minute.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_00: I thought demons could afflict everyone.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, they do physically.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_00: But if you're protected by the seal of God, selfless love, there is no harm that can be done to your soul.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit does the fighting for you.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_00: These good people who are not harmed by the demons are the ones who have realized that they are indeed nothing on their own and that their treasures are in heaven, not on earth.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_00: The selfish souls of humanity are tormented, but they're not allowed to die.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_00: They'll want to die, but during that time they won't be able to.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_00: And those people will be ruled over by the angel from the abyss.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew, his name is Abaddon.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_00: In Greek it's Apollyon.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_00: Both words mean the destroyer.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_00: This is not a proper name, it's a description.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: This is probably Asiel or Shemihaza.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_00: Whoever it is, they represent evil and selfishness, and it will rule over the selfish souls of humanity.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_00: In verse 5, it says they will be tormented.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word there is basanidzo.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: It's G928, and it's the word that was used to describe testing metals on a touchstone.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_00: It was a stone that was used to test the purity of gold and silver.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_00: You rub the metal on the stone, and you could tell if it was pure based on the color of the streak it left behind.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: So all of humanity will be tested for purity, except those who already belong to God, who have already passed the purity test.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_00: And then Gabriel blows his trumpet, the strength of God, the angel who stands guard by the throne of God, and a voice came from the golden altar before God and said, Release the four angels that are bound at the river Euphrates, and they were released to kill a third of mankind.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: And the word for kill there is Apuctino.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: It's G615, and it means to destroy.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_00: There was an uncountable number of mounted troops.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_00: And fire and smoke and sulfur came out of the horses' mouths.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we've seen fire, smoke, and now we're adding sulfur to that.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: All three of those sound horrible until you realize what they can do.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: Fire refines, smoke preserves and cures flesh.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_00: And sulfur, it was used in ancient times as medicine to heal wounds.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: You can also burn sulfur to drive away pests and insects.
1:10:00
SPEAKER_00: It was used to sterilize equipment and preserve the quality of wine.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_00: And get this, the fumes of burning sulfur were used to bleach garments white.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 3 5 says, The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_00: I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 4, the elders are in white.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 6, the martyrs are given a white robe.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 7, the multitude were clothed in white robes, and in Revelation 19 we see the armies of heaven dressed in pure white linen.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_00: It's not always sulfur that makes clothes white, but it's always an uncomfortable process.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: Fullers would place dirty garments in a large vat with various cleansing agents, and they would trample the clothes to get the impurities out, leaving pure white garments.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_00: But this army, led by the four angels, was spewing fire, smoke, and sulfur, and killing or destroying a third of mankind.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_00: Fear the one who can destroy your soul, because a destroyed soul is the only sacrifice God accepts.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_00: And here is one of the many reasons that I believe these humans who were being killed were actually being refined and accepted by God.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_00: Because Revelation 920 says the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, who were not destroyed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons, and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their pornea or their thefts.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_00: You see, the fire, smoke, and sulfur wasn't punishing humans.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_00: It was refining them.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_00: Because the ones who were left were the ones who refused to repent.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_00: They still rejected God and they rejected selfless love and humility.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_00: They're in the time of repentance and between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but they're not quite ready to make that decision yet.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_00: In Enoch chapter 15, God allows and permits the evil spirits of the half-breeds to torment humanity.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_00: And in 2 Corinthians 12 7, an evil tormenting spirit is what kept Paul humble, and God repeatedly refused to remove it.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_00: Trials and tribulations bring us closer to God.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_00: That's when people tend to return to him or to find him.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_00: But some people will use those things to blame God.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_00: They dig themselves in deeper, and I believe that's what's happening here in Trumpet 6.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_00: And then in Revelation 10, Jesus makes another appearance, coming down on a cloud with a rainbow over his head, and in his hand was a little scroll, something small and simple, but powerful.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 6, Jesus said, There will be no more delay.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_00: We've gone through the history of the world, and now humans have been given a chance to repent, to make a choice, but now the delay is over.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more choice.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_00: The mystery is no longer there to be found and chosen because it will now be revealed.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7 says, But in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God will be fulfilled.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: Just as he announced to his servants, the prophets.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_00: And then a voice told John to go take the scroll from Jesus.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_00: So he walked up to Jesus, and Jesus gave him the scroll, and he told John to eat it.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_00: So John ate it, and it was very sweet, like honey, but it made his stomach turn.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_00: It was a sweet message, but it filled John with sorrow.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: And then John was told that two witnesses will appear, and for three and a half years they will prophesy.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_00: They're prophesying to the holdouts.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_00: Fire will pour from their mouths, and they will be unable to be killed.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_00: It's possible this is Elijah and Moses, but some scholars believe it's Elijah and Enoch, since they're the only two humans who haven't tasted death.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't matter.
1:15:20
SPEAKER_00: The signs they do, causing rain to stop and turning water to blood and causing plagues, it does sound like Elijah and Moses, but it doesn't matter.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_00: When their time of prophesying is over, a beast is going to rise from the abyss and the two witnesses will be killed.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_00: And the humans who are left on earth will rejoice over their deaths.
1:15:42
SPEAKER_00: But then after three and a half days, the two witnesses will be resurrected, and they will rise up to heaven as their enemies watch.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_00: And then there will be an earthquake, and seven thousand people will be destroyed.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_00: That's the number of completion times a thousand.
1:16:06
SPEAKER_00: And then Revelation 11, 13 says, The rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
1:16:16
SPEAKER_00: And then the final trumpet sounds.
1:16:21
SPEAKER_00: Remiel blows his trumpet, the mercy of God, the angel in charge of the resurrected dead, and loud voices from heaven cried, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.
1:16:42
SPEAKER_00: The twenty-four elders fell on their faces, and the temple of heaven was opened, and there was thunder and lightning and hail and an earthquake.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: And then John sees a vision of a woman, a pregnant woman, with a crown that had twelve stars.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_00: This woman symbolizes both the nation of Israel and all of humanity, the chosen.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_00: The child inside her is Jesus, born from the Jews, from the twelve tribes.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul later explained in Galatians 3 that all of humanity is now God's people, grafted in.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_00: So this woman is humanity, and she, humanity, was having birth pains and was crying out in agony.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_00: And then the adversary appeared, described in Revelation as a dragon, and he brings the other fallen angels with him, and he stood next to the pregnant woman, waiting for her to give birth so he could devour the child.
1:17:46
SPEAKER_00: The child who is to rule all of the nations with a rod of iron.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_00: This was from a prophecy found in Psalm 2, where it talks about Jesus ruling with a rod of iron.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_00: Michael, the angel in charge of fighting for the chosen, he was at war with our true enemy, not flesh and blood, but the cosmic powers over this present darkness in the heavenly places.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_00: Michael defeated the adversary, the deceiver of the whole world, and threw him and his angels down to earth.
1:18:52
SPEAKER_00: We're in chapter twelve here.
1:18:54
SPEAKER_00: And then a voice from heaven cried out, The kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.
1:19:03
SPEAKER_00: And heaven rejoiced because the holy angels fought without regard to their own well-being.
1:19:11
SPEAKER_00: They remained faithful to God even under threat of death.
1:19:17
SPEAKER_00: But the voice continued, and in verse twelve it says, But woe to you, earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: So the adversary then went after the woman who had fled to the wilderness.
1:19:40
SPEAKER_00: He went after God's chosen people, humanity.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: He even sent a flood to wipe them out, but they survived.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: The woman survived.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_00: Are you seeing the parallels with Enoch here?
1:19:56
SPEAKER_00: There's a battle in heaven, the angels fall to earth, they go after humans, and then they try to destroy them with a flood, but the humans survive.
1:20:08
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 17 says, Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: And then he stood on the sand of the sea.
1:20:28
SPEAKER_00: So once humanity survived the flood, the adversary made war on those who follow the commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus, those who love God and love others.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to regroup and set the stage a little bit here because all of this symbolism can make your head explode.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_00: People have debated its meaning ever since it was written.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_00: My advice is chill out and focus on the main point.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_00: Try to look past the analogies and metaphors and allegory and ask God, what is the point being made here?
1:21:09
SPEAKER_00: These visions of a pregnant woman, a dragon, the beasts that we're about to talk about, they symbolize a spiritual truth.
1:21:18
SPEAKER_00: And the purpose is to get across the same message that is in all of the other writings of the New Testament authors, and frankly, the whole Bible.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_00: This newest vision that John is seeing with the trumpets is basically a summary of the whole history of life and humanity and where our struggle lies.
1:21:36
SPEAKER_00: And he does these things in groups of seven.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_00: Maybe one was before the flood, one was the flood, one was when Jesus came, and one is at the end.
1:21:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:21:45
SPEAKER_00: But here's what we have so far: it started with creation and the fall of man, and then the fall of angels who corrupted humanity.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus shows up with a tiny scroll.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_00: Not 66 books, not 73 books, not 88 books, no room for a ton of rules, just a tiny little scroll in the hands of Jesus.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_00: John is given the scroll, and the short message that it contained made him both joyful as well as sorrowful, almost like a mighty power that requires weakness.
1:22:19
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw the two prophets, God's witnesses, who spread this simple message to the whole world.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they are the law and the prophets, the two things that Jesus came to fulfill with his simple message of sacrificial love and humility, weakness, which is all they taught.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_00: But this simple message that was taught by the law and the prophets was proclaimed from the very beginning of creation.
1:22:43
SPEAKER_00: It didn't start with Moses and Elijah, because it's all God has ever wanted.
1:22:49
SPEAKER_00: But then this message was attacked and killed by the adversary.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_00: The two witnesses were dead, and the message they proclaimed was corrupted, and the people just stared at them for a while, refusing to do anything.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_00: But after three days they came back to life, and God called them up to heaven, while the enemies of their message just watched.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what would later happen with Jesus.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_00: He was the law and the prophets.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_00: But history repeats itself.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_00: God repeats himself.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_00: We have seen this same story before.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_00: The story of the flood.
1:23:40
SPEAKER_00: The message of love was on earth with humanity, but it got corrupted by evil.
1:23:46
SPEAKER_00: When the seventh trumpet blew, John's vision told the story that repeats itself.
1:23:52
SPEAKER_00: In the time just before the flood, humanity, the pregnant woman, she was in agony.
1:23:59
SPEAKER_00: In a struggle between good and evil, humans had love inside of them, but it was painful because the adversary stood right there ready to devour that love.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_00: So love, the child in her womb, was called back to heaven because humanity had failed.
1:24:15
SPEAKER_00: So in Genesis 6, God took his spirit from man.
1:24:18
SPEAKER_00: And Genesis 6, 6 says, And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
1:24:27
SPEAKER_00: Just like God took the baby from the woman up to heaven, away from earth, God took his spirit back before the flood.
1:24:35
SPEAKER_00: There was war in heaven, and angels fell to earth, and then the adversary pursued humanity.
1:24:41
SPEAKER_00: There was a flood, but humanity survived.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_00: And while God initiated the flood, the ultimate responsibility was with the adversary, because he, evil, was the cause of it.
1:24:54
SPEAKER_00: And now that humanity has survived, the adversary continues to pursue humanity, making war.
1:25:02
SPEAKER_00: And as verse 1217 says, he especially makes war on those who understand the true commandments of God, which is to live in selfless love.
1:25:14
SPEAKER_00: So continuing on, we're in chapter 13 now.
1:25:18
SPEAKER_00: When we left, the adversary was left standing on the sea, and then a beast comes out of the sea, a strong and powerful beast that gets its authority from the adversary, and it has a mortal wound in its head, meaning at one point it had no power, but that wound has been healed.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_00: The beast has been revived, and the whole world worshipped both the adversary and the beast.
1:25:48
SPEAKER_00: Can you take a guess at what this beast symbolizes?
1:25:52
SPEAKER_00: The thing that the adversary revived and gave power over humanity?
1:25:58
SPEAKER_00: Verse five says, And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority over the world.
1:26:09
SPEAKER_00: This beast is pride, selfishness, and the rejection of God.
1:26:20
SPEAKER_00: It is the method that the adversary chose to use to torment humanity.
1:26:27
SPEAKER_00: Pride and the rejection of God.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_00: Revelation says, and authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it.
1:26:43
SPEAKER_00: Everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
1:26:52
SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind here, this is post-flood and pre-Jesus, and it's saying that the beast had authority over everyone except the few who chose to empty self, who didn't worship self, also known as the beast, but everyone else was full of pride.
1:27:15
SPEAKER_00: They worshipped the beast.
1:27:18
SPEAKER_00: And then John takes a two-verse break from his vision here and gives a warning to his reader, to fellow followers of Christ.
1:27:27
SPEAKER_00: He says, If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
1:27:32
SPEAKER_00: If you are taken to prison for your beliefs, so be it.
1:27:36
SPEAKER_00: If you are to die for your beliefs, so be it.
1:27:40
SPEAKER_00: Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.
1:27:45
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets back to the vision.
1:27:47
SPEAKER_00: A second beast emerges.
1:27:50
SPEAKER_00: And while the first beast is pride, the second beast is greed.
1:27:56
SPEAKER_00: And the second beast makes humanity worship the first beast.
1:28:01
SPEAKER_00: Greed causes you to worship self because it celebrates personal abilities and accomplishments.
1:28:09
SPEAKER_00: You want, you get, and you gain, and it puffs up.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_00: You get rich and powerful, and you think you're better than the poor and needy.
1:28:19
SPEAKER_00: This beast, greed, performs powerful signs, giving humanity luxury and comfort and pleasure.
1:28:30
SPEAKER_00: And by the signs that greed performs in the presence of pride, it deceives humanity, telling them to worship self.
1:28:41
SPEAKER_00: That's Revelation 13, 14.
1:28:43
SPEAKER_00: Greed gives breath to pride.
1:28:48
SPEAKER_00: And greed affects everyone, both rich and poor.
1:28:54
SPEAKER_00: The poor want to get rich, and the rich want more.
1:29:00
SPEAKER_00: And people are marked by greed, either on the right hand or on the forehead.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_00: The forehead because it's all you think about.
1:29:11
SPEAKER_00: Your whole life is driven by what you want, or on the right hand, which symbolizes high honor.
1:29:18
SPEAKER_00: You are marked by greed because you elevate it above others.
1:29:24
SPEAKER_00: And this process of selling and buying to build your wealth is carried out by people who live with a desire for more, and they elevate that wealth above other people.
1:29:40
SPEAKER_00: The mark of the beast.
1:29:42
SPEAKER_00: And that mark is six six, the number of humanity three times.
1:29:50
SPEAKER_00: Greed and self became synonymous with humanity.
1:29:56
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation thirteen eighteen, John says, This calls for wisdom.
1:30:02
SPEAKER_00: Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is six six six.
1:30:13
SPEAKER_00: But greed and pride is not your only choice.
1:30:17
SPEAKER_00: You can have a different mark on your forehead.
1:30:22
SPEAKER_00: After John sees this disturbing vision of humanity, he turned and saw Jesus, and the multitude from chapter seven were with him.
1:30:31
SPEAKER_00: The quote unquote hundred and forty four thousand.
1:30:35
SPEAKER_00: And they had a mark on their foreheads too, but it was a different mark.
1:30:42
SPEAKER_00: It was the name of the Father, the name of selfless, sacrificial love and humility.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: John had previously explained this in different words in 1 John.
1:30:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
1:31:03
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation 14, 4, John tells us that this multitude with the mark on their forehead, they are the ones who did not live in selfishness and greed like the fallen angels who defiled the women.
1:31:24
SPEAKER_00: The multitude are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.
1:31:29
SPEAKER_00: The ones who made the choice to obey the command of God to deny self and live in love.
1:31:38
SPEAKER_00: And then three angels appear.
1:31:41
SPEAKER_00: At this point in the history of the world, we've reached the time of Jesus.
1:31:46
SPEAKER_00: The first angel flies overhead, proclaiming the good news to everyone on earth.
1:31:52
SPEAKER_00: He cries out, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.
1:32:04
SPEAKER_00: Then the second angel flies by, yelling, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the wrath of her pornea.
1:32:15
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, Babylon was the city known for haughtiness.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_00: They were proud and selfish, and they abandoned God in favor of self.
1:32:24
SPEAKER_00: And then the third angel flies by and cries, If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name.
1:32:58
SPEAKER_00: So here we see fire, smoke, and sulfur again, and people are being tormented, Basanidzo tested on the touchstone for purity.
1:33:10
SPEAKER_00: And we're back in the lull now between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, between the sixth and seventh trumpets, between God's strength and God's mercy, Gabriel and Remyel, and have no doubt this is not a pleasant process.
1:33:30
SPEAKER_00: Being refined by fire, preserved by smoke, and made white by sulfur, it's not pleasant.
1:33:40
SPEAKER_00: So the three angels the first declares the good news, the second declares that pride has fallen, and the third declares that the time for refinement is here.
1:33:52
SPEAKER_00: And then John looked and saw Jesus on a cloud with a crown on his head and a sickle in his hand.
1:34:03
SPEAKER_00: And then an angel cried out, The earth is ripe for harvest.
1:34:09
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus swung his sickle across the earth and reaped those who chose to live in love and follow the message of Christ.
1:34:18
SPEAKER_00: And then another angel came out carrying a different sickle.
1:34:22
SPEAKER_00: And Uriel, the fire of God, told the angel with the sickle to gather those who were left, and he did.
1:34:32
SPEAKER_00: And those people were thrown into the winepress, where they were crushed and squeezed, and their blood, their life source, flowed out of the winepress, while the bitter skins and seeds were left behind.
1:34:51
SPEAKER_00: The good in them was separated from the bad.
1:34:55
SPEAKER_00: And then John is shown a vivid scene of the whole process that God will use to carry out this metaphor of the winepress, the time of repentance.
1:35:08
SPEAKER_00: John saw the seven archangels in heaven, and they each carried with them a plague.
1:35:16
SPEAKER_00: And John saw all of the people who had previously conquered the beast.
1:35:20
SPEAKER_00: They had conquered their pride.
1:35:23
SPEAKER_00: Those people were standing with harps, singing, and they were standing next to a sea of glass and fire.
1:35:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, how is glass made?
1:35:37
SPEAKER_00: Extreme heat and fire.
1:35:39
SPEAKER_00: The fire melts hard substances like sand and stone, and they come out clean and pure.
1:35:48
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 4, 6, we saw a sea of pure glass like crystal before the throne of God.
1:35:55
SPEAKER_00: But this sea that John saw, the fire wasn't done yet.
1:36:00
SPEAKER_00: The people in that sea needed to be completed.
1:36:05
SPEAKER_00: And those who were holding harps standing next to the sea, saying, Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?
1:36:15
SPEAKER_00: For you alone are holy.
1:36:18
SPEAKER_00: All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.
1:36:25
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw the seven archangels approach, and another angel gave each of them a bowl to carry the plague that they had, seven golden bowls, full of the wrath of God, and one by one the archangels, the character of God, poured their bowls out onto the earth, onto the humans who chose to reject him.
1:36:56
SPEAKER_00: Bowl one, Uriel, God is fire.
1:37:01
SPEAKER_00: Harmful and painful sores came upon the proud people of earth.
1:37:06
SPEAKER_00: Bowl two, Raphael, God is healing, every sea creature died.
1:37:12
SPEAKER_00: Bowl three, Rayuel, God is friend, the angel in charge of waging war against evil, against those who persecute the righteous, the saints and the prophets.
1:37:23
SPEAKER_00: The rivers and waters became blood.
1:37:25
SPEAKER_00: And an angel cried out, Just are you, O holy one, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, it is what they deserve.
1:37:42
SPEAKER_00: Bowl four, Michael, who is like God.
1:37:47
SPEAKER_00: The people are scorched with fire, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues.
1:37:53
SPEAKER_00: They did not repent and give him glory, because they were still full of pride.
1:37:59
SPEAKER_00: Bowl five, Sariel, God is ruler.
1:38:03
SPEAKER_00: He poured out his bowl on the throne of pride, and the kingdom of pride was plunged into darkness.
1:38:12
SPEAKER_00: People were in anguish, and they cursed God and still did not repent.
1:38:18
SPEAKER_00: God is ruler, destroyed the throne of pride.
1:38:25
SPEAKER_00: Bull six, Gabriel, God is strength.
1:38:30
SPEAKER_00: The river Euphrates dried up.
1:38:33
SPEAKER_00: The river symbolized life.
1:38:35
SPEAKER_00: It was one of the rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden, but it wasn't the true river of life, and it was now gone.
1:38:43
SPEAKER_00: And then the adversary and pride and greed gave one final effort to deceive humanity.
1:38:53
SPEAKER_00: And they caused the final powerful kings of earth to assemble for war.
1:38:58
SPEAKER_00: They assembled at Harmagido, Armageddon, and the Jezreel Valley, and then Remiel poured out the final bowl.
1:39:07
SPEAKER_00: God is mercy and love.
1:39:10
SPEAKER_00: So the armies are gathered in this valley, the bowls poured out, and a loud voice came from the throne of God, and that voice says, It is done.
1:39:23
SPEAKER_00: And there was thunder and lightning and an earthquake, and the city of Babylon, the city of pride, was split into three parts, and Revelation 1620 says, And every island fled away, no mountains were to be found.
1:39:39
SPEAKER_00: Pride was defeated, and then hail rained down on earth.
1:39:44
SPEAKER_00: Remember the hail and fire, good and evil?
1:39:47
SPEAKER_00: Good reigned down on earth.
1:39:50
SPEAKER_00: But even though the people had been brought to nothing, they still cursed God and rejected him.
1:39:57
SPEAKER_00: There was no more pride which causes people to treat others in unloving ways, but there was still pornea, the rejection of God.
1:40:08
SPEAKER_00: One of the archangels approached John and said, Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute, the great porna, with whom the kings of the earth have committed pornea, and with the wine of whose pornea the dwellers on earth have become drunk.
1:40:27
SPEAKER_00: And then the angel took John to the wilderness, and he saw a woman sitting on a beast.
1:40:34
SPEAKER_00: The woman was Babylon, and carried a cup full of pride and pornea.
1:40:40
SPEAKER_00: The beast was the same beast from before Christ, and represents the same pride and rejection of God.
1:40:47
SPEAKER_00: This beast had been killed once, when the seventh bowl was poured out, but it had risen again because pride doesn't die easily.
1:40:56
SPEAKER_00: That's why the beast had that mortal wound that has been healed on its head.
1:41:01
SPEAKER_00: The angel tells John that the beast will rise from the abyss, and the people who are still on earth, the ones who were cursing God for the hail, they will marvel at the beast once more.
1:41:17
SPEAKER_00: And again, there's a lot of symbolism here that will make your head spin.
1:41:21
SPEAKER_00: People have been making claims about who the heads on the beast represent and all sorts of stuff.
1:41:26
SPEAKER_00: People use their interpretations to predict who the bad guys are today.
1:41:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't get bogged down or distracted by all of that.
1:41:34
SPEAKER_00: Only God knows the details.
1:41:36
SPEAKER_00: There are a thousand ways this could be interpreted.
1:41:39
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss the point that's being made.
1:41:42
SPEAKER_00: There is a battle going on for the souls of lost humanity.
1:41:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a battle between self and humility, power and weakness.
1:41:52
SPEAKER_00: Humans are desperate to hold on to self.
1:41:55
SPEAKER_00: The kings of earth that are mentioned in chapter 17 are full of pride, and they go to war with the Lamb, and the Lamb wins.
1:42:05
SPEAKER_00: But the people on earth are so filled with pride they completely devour pride herself until there is nothing of her left.
1:42:13
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw another angel come down, and the angel says, Fallen is the city of Babylon, she is a dwelling place for everything evil, and everyone has been completely consumed with what she has to offer, her rejection of God, her money, her power, her luxurious living.
1:42:31
SPEAKER_00: And then a voice came from heaven and said, Come out of her, my people.
1:42:38
SPEAKER_00: Don't take part in her sins, don't share in her plagues.
1:42:44
SPEAKER_00: Pay her back for what she has done.
1:42:48
SPEAKER_00: Repay her double.
1:42:50
SPEAKER_00: She glorified herself in luxury, so give her a measure of torment and mourning, because she has boasted about her power and about her lack of mourning.
1:43:02
SPEAKER_00: For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.
1:43:12
SPEAKER_00: And then the wicked kings of earth will weep when they see her burning, and the rich merchants will weep because there will be no one left to buy their goods.
1:43:24
SPEAKER_00: Everything their souls desired will be gone, and everyone who participated in what she had to offer will weep.
1:43:35
SPEAKER_00: And then the multitude in heaven rejoiced because they knew what was coming.
1:43:42
SPEAKER_00: They made preparations for a wedding, the reuniting of the lamb in humanity.
1:43:50
SPEAKER_00: And an angel told John, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
1:43:59
SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation nineteen ten John says, Then I fell down at the angel's feet to worship him, but he said to me, You must not do that.
1:44:10
SPEAKER_00: I am a fellow servant with you, and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.
1:44:17
SPEAKER_00: Worship God.
1:44:21
SPEAKER_00: And then John clarified, For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
1:44:30
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what Jesus taught, which is selfless love and humility, is the spirit of prophecy.
1:44:41
SPEAKER_00: We know true from false teaching and prophecy based on whether or not it teaches selfless love and humility.
1:44:52
SPEAKER_00: At that point heaven opened up, and Jesus came out riding his white horse, his robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God, love, and all of the armies of heaven followed him on white horses, and they were dressed in pure white linen.
1:45:18
SPEAKER_00: Out of his mouth came the sword of the Holy Spirit, truth and love, and with that sword of love he will strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.
1:45:33
SPEAKER_00: That word for rule is poimino G forty one sixty five, and it means to shepherd, to tend a flock.
1:45:46
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will overwhelm them with love, and then he will shepherd them.
1:45:55
SPEAKER_00: And as the armies of heaven rode into battle, an angel called to all of the birds in the air to come, telling them to be ready, for they're about to feast on the worldly flesh of all men.
1:46:12
SPEAKER_00: The beast and the kings of earth gathered for battle on the other side.
1:46:17
SPEAKER_00: The beast of pride and the beast of greed were then thrown into the lake of fire, and the rest were slain by the Holy Spirit of love and truth, their fleshly, earthly bodies eaten by the birds.
1:46:34
SPEAKER_00: An angel came from heaven with the key to the abyss, and he seized the adversary and imprisoned him in the abyss for a thousand years.
1:46:44
SPEAKER_00: Then John saw Jesus reigning on earth for a thousand years.
1:46:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus resurrected those who had made the choice to follow him, and they reigned with him.
1:46:55
SPEAKER_00: But the rest were not resurrected until the thousand-year reign was over.
1:47:00
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the thousand years, John saw the adversary being released from his prison.
1:47:07
SPEAKER_00: The adversary attempted to gather an army and march on Jesus and the saints one last hurrah, but fire came from heaven and consumed them, and the deceiver, the adversary, was thrown into the lake of fire with the two beasts.
1:47:25
SPEAKER_00: That fire from heaven was the final refinement, and it took the devil by surprise.
1:47:32
SPEAKER_00: The battle didn't even get a chance to start.
1:47:36
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw Jesus seated on his great throne, all of the dead were brought before the throne, and the books were opened, including the book of life.
1:47:48
SPEAKER_00: Rosh Hashanah was over.
1:47:51
SPEAKER_00: The time of repentance and refinement was over.
1:47:56
SPEAKER_00: And it was now time for the final judgment.
1:48:00
SPEAKER_00: Death itself, and Hades, the temporary holding place for souls, they were both thrown into the lake of fire.
1:48:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the resurrected dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what each had done.
1:48:18
SPEAKER_00: If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
1:48:28
SPEAKER_00: But there is some good news a gospel because the character of God, the archangel, in charge of them that rise, in charge of the resurrected dead, is Remyel, the mercy of God.
1:48:51
SPEAKER_00: And to understand what happens next, we need to read some of what the disciples said about this very moment, what they wrote about after Jesus had paid the ultimate price on the cross.
1:49:05
SPEAKER_00: Matthew quoted what the angel Gabriel had told Joseph.
1:49:10
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel told him about Mary and said she will bear a son, and she will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
1:49:22
SPEAKER_00: John said he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
1:49:33
SPEAKER_00: Peter said he bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
1:49:41
SPEAKER_00: By his wounds you have been healed.
1:49:45
SPEAKER_00: Peter also said, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
1:50:00
SPEAKER_00: And Paul said many things.
1:50:03
SPEAKER_00: He said, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
1:50:08
SPEAKER_00: He said, Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all humanity.
1:50:20
SPEAKER_00: He said, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1:50:29
SPEAKER_00: He said, For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
1:50:39
SPEAKER_00: And he said, But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
1:50:56
SPEAKER_00: By the grace of God he tasted death for everyone.
1:51:03
SPEAKER_00: That word grace it means merciful kindness.
1:51:11
SPEAKER_00: Remiel The mercy of God The mercy of God is in charge of the resurrected dead, and because of Christ your name will be written in that book of life, not because of what you have done, and not because of a set of facts that you believed, but because of unmerited favor gifted to you by God himself.
1:51:41
SPEAKER_00: That is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.
1:51:46
SPEAKER_00: And then John saw a new heaven and a new earth, and he saw God's bride coming down from heaven to the new Jerusalem.
1:51:55
SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation 21, three, Jesus cried out from the throne, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
1:52:03
SPEAKER_00: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
1:52:10
SPEAKER_00: No more tears, no more death, and no more pain.
1:52:18
SPEAKER_00: But what of the fallen angels and their half breed demons?
1:52:23
SPEAKER_00: Those nasty, cowardly creatures that had no faith, did detestable things, murdered humans, rejected God, taught sorcery and idolatry, and lied to lead humans astray.
1:52:38
SPEAKER_00: What about them?
1:52:40
SPEAKER_00: Revelation twenty one eight says, But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the ones who commit pornea, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
1:53:02
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice when you read Revelation that it never mentions a first death.
1:53:07
SPEAKER_00: So scholars just assume that the first death is humans who have died a physical death.
1:53:14
SPEAKER_00: And there's truth to that, but I think that there's more to this passage because this verse comes after humans have already been judged and redeemed.
1:53:25
SPEAKER_00: We know from the book of Enoch that the demons died once before in the flood.
1:53:31
SPEAKER_00: Now they will die again for good, which is their second death.
1:53:39
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't redeem evil demons.
1:53:46
SPEAKER_00: And if you still believe these humans are going to the lake of fire that maybe there were some humans who continued to hold out from being refined by all the fire and sulfur already, fine.
1:54:01
SPEAKER_00: But if you read on in Revelation 21, it describes how the gates of heaven never close.
1:54:09
SPEAKER_00: They are continuously open, and that nothing unclean ever enters them.
1:54:16
SPEAKER_00: If there are holdouts at the end of all of this, eventually they will be ready and the gates will be open.
1:54:27
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that's what's happening in verse eight, because it describes the fallen angels and demons to a T.
1:54:35
SPEAKER_00: And also because after Rosh Hashanah and after the period of repentance, at the end, during Yom Kippur, during the final judgment, our sins were placed on the scapegoat, the adversary, who has now been thrown into the lake of fire.
1:54:56
SPEAKER_00: It is over.
1:54:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, Lyd, like you were talking about before, when does all this stuff occur?
1:55:04
SPEAKER_00: Is it past?
1:55:05
SPEAKER_00: Is it present?
1:55:06
SPEAKER_00: Is it future?
1:55:07
SPEAKER_00: You can find scholars for all three options.
1:55:10
SPEAKER_00: Some say it was fulfilled when the Romans destroyed the temple.
1:55:13
SPEAKER_00: Some say it's an ongoing process.
1:55:16
SPEAKER_00: Some say it describes future events with a tribulation and an antichrist and the physical return of Jesus Christ.
1:55:23
SPEAKER_00: What do I think?
1:55:25
SPEAKER_00: Is it past, present, or future?
1:55:27
SPEAKER_00: I say the answer is simply yes.
1:55:30
SPEAKER_00: Because God is not restricted by time.
1:55:33
SPEAKER_00: It's something that we as humans don't understand yet.
1:55:37
SPEAKER_00: But judgment occurred during the flood, it occurs every day in the hearts of humanity, and eventually God will bring the world as we know it to an end.
1:55:48
SPEAKER_00: People try to figure all of this out and create doctrines over it, but really does it matter?
1:55:55
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a point to be made here in all of it.
1:55:59
SPEAKER_00: Our pride, vanity, and selfishness has ruined what we were created to be.
1:56:07
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ became our curse.
1:56:11
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, just as Jesus tossed the demons out of people during his three-year ministry, he's gonna do the same for us.
1:56:22
SPEAKER_00: We will all be made well.
1:56:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not possible to understand some of the things in Revelation without being familiar with the book of Enoch.
1:56:36
SPEAKER_00: Really, the things we read about in Enoch are all over our Bible.
1:56:42
SPEAKER_00: How can we even understand our canon without it?
1:56:47
SPEAKER_00: The worldview of the authors of the New Testament was based on Enoch.
1:56:53
SPEAKER_00: Have we made a mistake not including it in our canon?
1:56:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the mistake was in having a canon to begin with.
1:57:05
SPEAKER_00: But until next week, please remember God loves you and he will bring you back to him one way or another.
1:57:18
SPEAKER_00: But it's going to require humility on your part, and you will be humbled.
1:57:27
SPEAKER_00: Make that choice now while you still can.
1:57:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's walk in the light.
1:58:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're still going.
1:58:10
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:58:10
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, guys.
1:58:12
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, not sorry.
1:58:14
SPEAKER_00: You can catch up while we're at beer camp.
1:58:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:58:17
SPEAKER_01: And I I would recommend you get a whiteboard, because that's what I'm resorting to.
1:58:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I I'm like A whiteboard?
1:58:26
SPEAKER_01: A chalkboard, whiteboard, smartboard.
1:58:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they're called these days.
1:58:30
SPEAKER_01: I needed to make a graph, a chart.
1:58:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
1:58:34
SPEAKER_01: Bowls, seals, trumpets, churches.
1:58:38
SPEAKER_00: Those are the columns, and then like not necessarily in those that are.
1:58:42
SPEAKER_01: I got it out of order.
1:58:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
1:58:45
SPEAKER_01: I get the details.
1:58:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily get the sequence.
1:58:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh and then and then my my rows would be the angels, or you know, or or what happened when, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
1:59:01
SPEAKER_01: This, you know, first seal, second seal.
1:59:04
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I need a chart.
1:59:06
SPEAKER_00: Whatever helps.
1:59:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not important.
1:59:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's and that's why I have not made a chart because I kind of fall into that category of wow, good information.
1:59:19
SPEAKER_01: What's the takeaway?
1:59:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can wrap my head around the takeaway.
1:59:24
SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm good.
1:59:26
SPEAKER_01: That's where I land.
1:59:27
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you're with me.
1:59:29
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I see you.
1:59:32
SPEAKER_00: Not me.
1:59:33
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
1:59:34
SPEAKER_01: You I like this stuff.
1:59:36
SPEAKER_01: Listener.
1:59:37
SPEAKER_01: Man.
1:59:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, I did have a thought.
1:59:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, lots of thoughts.
1:59:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, so many thoughts.
1:59:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm realizing, and I feel like an income poop, but Revelation doesn't actually say the name of the angel.
1:59:52
SPEAKER_01: Like the way you retold things, you were saying, you know, an angel so-and-so does such and such.
2:00:02
SPEAKER_01: Clears mud on that one.
2:00:04
SPEAKER_01: I guess.
2:00:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so for example, like obviously Revelation addresses the church and then the breaking of the seals and the blowing of the trumpets and pouring the bowls, all of that I get, but I realized embarrassingly, halfway through everything.
2:00:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait, Revelation doesn't mention these angels by name.
2:00:26
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say angel so-and-so did such and such.
2:00:30
SPEAKER_01: But you said there were seven angels that tell the story of the world from Enoch.
2:00:36
SPEAKER_01: And so basically you took what you learned in Enoch and applied it to Revelation.
2:00:43
SPEAKER_01: Right?
2:00:44
SPEAKER_00: R right.
2:00:47
SPEAKER_00: Now Enoch doesn't specifically say this represents the history of the world.
2:00:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, and that was another reason.
2:00:57
SPEAKER_00: It lists their names and then their duties, like what they're responsible for.
2:01:04
SPEAKER_00: I looked up all the names to find the meaning, because the meaning isn't given to you, only the name.
2:01:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, these people would have understood what the name was because they spoke the language.
2:01:18
SPEAKER_00: They knew that Gabriel meant the strength of God, for example.
2:01:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:01:25
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't have to do that part of the research, right?
2:01:29
SPEAKER_00: They understood this a lot better.
2:01:32
SPEAKER_00: But I guess the gist of your question is you're asking why, or like how do we know that the archangels from Enoch are the ones in Revelation?
2:01:44
SPEAKER_00: Since I mentioned the the names from Enoch when I was going through Revelation.
2:01:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:01:49
SPEAKER_01: You it's kind of like you applied that overlay, that filter just perfectly matched, obviously.
2:01:57
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:01:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, first, I mean, why do we apply Enoch to Revelation at all?
2:02:03
SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that is because the other New Testament authors applied it to what they wrote to.
2:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Paul, Peter.
2:02:11
SPEAKER_00: So you can know that they knew about this book, and the similarities are all there between Revelation and Enoch.
2:02:19
SPEAKER_00: When John sees Jesus for the first time, and Jesus is surrounded by seven lampstands, and he's holding seven stars in his right hand, right?
2:02:31
SPEAKER_00: Now we know the seven lampstands are seven churches.
2:02:36
SPEAKER_00: And we also know that the seven stars in Jesus' right hand are angels.
2:02:42
SPEAKER_00: Because Revelation 120 says, As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
2:02:59
SPEAKER_01: That was nice of them to give us that.
2:03:01
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
2:03:02
SPEAKER_00: Boom.
2:03:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't quote that during the episode because I was I was going through all of Revelation and everything I said was a paraphrase of everything that was said in Revelation.
2:03:11
SPEAKER_00: So now we also know that all angels are spirits.
2:03:16
SPEAKER_00: When talking about angels, Hebrews 1.14 says, Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
2:03:28
SPEAKER_00: So we know the seven stars are seven angels.
2:03:33
SPEAKER_00: We know that all angels are spirits, and these specific seven angels are in his right hand.
2:03:44
SPEAKER_00: And what that meant is that they have a special place of honor, but they don't sit at his right hand, at the place of honor, they're actually in his hand, they are part of him, and they are also referred to four different times in Revelation as the seven spirits of God.
2:04:08
SPEAKER_00: So these specific seven angels are the chief angels or spirits.
2:04:16
SPEAKER_00: And before John sees Jesus, he hears a voice like a trumpet blast.
2:04:20
SPEAKER_00: That's in Revelation 1.10.
2:04:23
SPEAKER_00: And while Revelation doesn't specifically mention the word for archangel, we know what's going on here from 1 Thessalonians 4.16, which says, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
2:04:48
SPEAKER_00: So John hears the voice of a trumpet, and then 1 Thessalonians talks about the voice of an archangel, the sound of a trumpet.
2:04:57
SPEAKER_00: Right?
2:04:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, the word for archangel is only in the Bible twice, and it's a description, not an official title.
2:05:06
SPEAKER_00: The Greek is archangelos, so archangelos.
2:05:12
SPEAKER_00: It's G743, and it literally means the chief angels or the rulers of angels.
2:05:20
SPEAKER_00: In Daniel 10, uh, when Daniel was having his vision of Jesus, he talks about what Jesus says, and in verses 12 to 13 it says, Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, you humbled yourself before your God.
2:05:41
SPEAKER_00: Your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.
2:05:46
SPEAKER_00: The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.
2:05:57
SPEAKER_00: And we see a couple of things here.
2:05:59
SPEAKER_00: First, Jesus came because Daniel got his heart right and humbled himself.
2:06:04
SPEAKER_00: So clock it.
2:06:06
SPEAKER_00: And second, it calls Michael one of the chief princes.
2:06:13
SPEAKER_00: That word for prince means a patron angel.
2:06:18
SPEAKER_00: The New Living Translation actually translate that as Michael, one of the archangels.
2:06:26
SPEAKER_00: So we know that the seven lampstands are the churches, and we know that the seven stars are angels, and we know that those angels are the seven chief angels, the archangels, and then John is told to write seven letters to the seven angels of the seven churches.
2:06:46
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty clear that these letters are addressed to the seven spirits of God.
2:06:52
SPEAKER_00: And when you match up the characters of those spirits in Enoch with the content of the letters to the churches, it's a perfect match.
2:07:05
SPEAKER_00: Now that being said, Revelation doesn't mention any of the specific names of the archangels other than Michael.
2:07:14
SPEAKER_00: In between the sixth and seventh trumpets, God shows his strength.
2:07:18
SPEAKER_00: And then Revelation 12 7 says, Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.
2:07:27
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why it singles out Michael there, but all of the angels were in the fight.
2:07:35
SPEAKER_00: And we do know that Michael was an archangel.
2:07:40
SPEAKER_00: Jude tells us that directly in Jude 9.
2:07:43
SPEAKER_00: He says, But when the archangel Michael was contending with the devil.
2:07:48
SPEAKER_00: And now something we shouldn't discount in all of this is the fact that the audience knew the book of Enoch.
2:07:57
SPEAKER_00: They were familiar with the seven angels already.
2:08:01
SPEAKER_00: And they also understood why the message the disciples were spreading was good news after reading about the judgment in Enoch.
2:08:10
SPEAKER_00: Good news, everyone.
2:08:11
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has your back.
2:08:14
SPEAKER_00: Right?
2:08:14
SPEAKER_00: But even so, not everyone was going to get it.
2:08:19
SPEAKER_00: Because God has this habit of not speaking directly.
2:08:24
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to understand love before he reveals his secrets.
2:08:29
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, your response to him might not be real.
2:08:35
SPEAKER_00: You may respond out of duty, like following rules, based on knowledge, rather than a pure heart.
2:08:42
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 13, 34 says, All of these things Jesus said to the crowd in parables.
2:08:50
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.
2:08:54
SPEAKER_00: Alright, that came after a story that's told in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.
2:09:01
SPEAKER_00: The disciples asked Jesus why he speaks in parables, and his answer was that to them, like the disciples, he would give understanding.
2:09:11
SPEAKER_00: But for everyone else it would just be gibberish.
2:09:14
SPEAKER_00: They would see but not see, and hear but not hear, they would simply not understand.
2:09:21
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit there, which had not been given to the disciples yet, because even they required explanation for the parables.
2:09:32
SPEAKER_00: Verse 36 in Matthew 13 says, After all the crowd went home, the disciples turned to Jesus and asked him to explain the parables.
2:09:40
SPEAKER_00: So he did.
2:09:42
SPEAKER_00: But later the disciples were the first ones to receive the Holy Spirit, and it immediately opened their eyes to understanding the spiritual truths behind everything Jesus taught, including their sacred writings.
2:09:56
SPEAKER_00: And this was after the resurrection.
2:09:59
SPEAKER_00: We see it in John 20, 22 and Luke 24.
2:10:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we have with Revelation, too, just like with the parables.
2:10:07
SPEAKER_00: It's gibberish if you don't rely on the Spirit to interpret.
2:10:12
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, most people continued to rely on their knowledge and doctrines, and then they started a state religion, and well, history repeated itself again.
2:10:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, and a minute ago you mentioned, okay, the disciples are familiar with Enoch.
2:10:31
SPEAKER_01: So then I'm sitting here going, okay, well, then why did John feel the need to write revelation down?
2:10:37
SPEAKER_01: Like why was this, why was he even, I mean, I guess you can't really answer this, but why was John given this revelation?
2:10:47
SPEAKER_01: Since they were familiar with Enoch, why was revelation even necessary?
2:10:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:10:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it wasn't his choice.
2:10:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess he's a good idea.
2:10:56
SPEAKER_00: He had a vision and the angel told him write it down.
2:10:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'm just sitting here going, all right, if it's Enoch, they're already familiar with, there's a lot of similarities, parallels, overlaps.
2:11:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:11:10
SPEAKER_00: So why did God think it was necessary?
2:11:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, especially when it is so I don't want to say misunderstood, but I think most people would say, yeah, revelation, I don't touch with a 10-foot pole because it's revelation.
2:11:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:11:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:11:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God does what he does.
2:11:31
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to ask him.
2:11:32
SPEAKER_00: But sorry.
2:11:34
SPEAKER_00: I think Enoch simply needed an update.
2:11:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Enoch do.
2:11:41
SPEAKER_01: I guess there is already an Enoch too, so that doesn't work.
2:11:44
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
2:11:46
SPEAKER_00: Enoch was bad news for most people.
2:11:50
SPEAKER_00: It was something to fear.
2:11:52
SPEAKER_00: It's the final judgment.
2:11:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine?
2:11:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, because we see it in Revelation.
2:11:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we see Yeah.
2:12:00
SPEAKER_01: The the what you know befalls those who are evil.
2:12:06
SPEAKER_00: These people would have been filled with thoughts of, Am I good enough?
2:12:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
2:12:11
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to be thrown into the fire?
2:12:13
SPEAKER_01: Am I the bad guy?
2:12:14
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Enoch was still around and in their brain.
2:12:19
SPEAKER_00: And then along came the disciples who told them the good news and said, Guess what?
2:12:25
SPEAKER_00: That nasty stuff that you fear in Enoch with the final judgment, I've got some good news for you.
2:12:31
SPEAKER_00: You have nothing to fear now.
2:12:34
SPEAKER_00: So maybe it just needed an update with Jesus included.
2:12:39
SPEAKER_00: And I would argue Revelation needs an update today because they understood it then.
2:12:45
SPEAKER_00: Like the people understood Enoch when it was written, and then it got its update with Jesus Christ.
2:12:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:12:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh at that time that Revelation was written, they would have understood it a lot better than we do today.
2:12:55
SPEAKER_00: They would have been familiar with Enoch, they would have known the seven angels.
2:12:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
2:12:59
SPEAKER_00: All of that.
2:13:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, so now we're at the same place where they were thinking, Am I good enough?
2:13:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, am I good enough for Jesus to save me?
2:13:09
SPEAKER_00: Like if I believe in him, if I only just believe all the facts.
2:13:13
SPEAKER_00: I need the facts so that I can believe.
2:13:14
SPEAKER_00: I want to know as many as possible because if I believe them, he's gonna accept me.
2:13:19
SPEAKER_00: And at that point I'll be forgiven.
2:13:21
SPEAKER_00: Not realizing that everybody was forgiven at the moment Christ died on the cross.
2:13:26
SPEAKER_00: It needs another update.
2:13:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:13:29
unknown: Well.
2:14:00
SPEAKER_01: It feels like it's filled with landmines initially.
2:14:05
SPEAKER_01: But yes, when you look at it through the lens of Christ and and and adding the overlap of Enoch.
2:14:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, God all God wants is for us to love each other and to acknowledge him, right?
2:14:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's good enough.
2:14:22
SPEAKER_00: But then there are people who are relying on doctrines and their own knowledge, and so this is kind of Jesus' way of saying, Yeah, here you go.
2:14:32
SPEAKER_00: Here are all the details you need to know.
2:14:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, you're not gonna understand it unless you have the spirit, and you can't have the spirit unless you treat others in love.
2:14:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's this carrot that people can't ever get.
2:14:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're holding a carrot in front of the horse as you're riding it and it makes it go, but they could the horse can never actually get the carrot.
2:14:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what the whole Bible is to people who are relying on their own knowledge.
2:15:04
SPEAKER_00: They keep studying it, but they never get that carrot because they're not doing the only thing that God wants.
2:15:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, I struggle with what you just said because you're saying if you have the Holy Spirit, you'll understand revelation, is what I hear you saying.
2:15:20
SPEAKER_00: If you understand, no, I'm I'm talking about the people who actually sit down and study all this stuff.
2:15:27
SPEAKER_00: Those people are going to be familiar with the backgrounds and the and everything that's going on, but they're not going to understand the deep spiritual truth behind it.
2:15:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
2:15:42
SPEAKER_00: Unless God is interpreting it for them.
2:15:46
SPEAKER_00: To the people who don't have any interest in studying the Bible, I s there's no need for the Bible.
2:15:55
SPEAKER_00: He God's not trying to hide anything.
2:15:58
SPEAKER_00: Just for the people who are trying to lean on themselves to find it, He's not making it easy.
2:16:04
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
2:16:06
SPEAKER_00: So what else do you have?
2:16:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this one's easy.
2:16:11
SPEAKER_01: What um why did man why was man given the number 666?
2:16:17
SPEAKER_01: Like what I thought that was the mark of the beast.
2:16:22
SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned it as it represents man.
2:16:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:16:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't get it.
2:16:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, most people don't.
2:16:30
SPEAKER_00: Because most people when they hear 666 and the mark of the beast, you know, they that comes from Sunday school, direct from the mouths of pastors and teachers who aren't using the spirit to study the Bible.
2:16:45
SPEAKER_00: They're reading it in English and they're thinking they understand because they read Revelation and it says the mark of the beast.
2:16:52
SPEAKER_00: And they use that to think, oh, well, we're gonna have to get a microchip, and the options will be either in your hand or in your forehead in order to buy groceries and all this stuff.
2:17:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's ridiculous.
2:17:05
SPEAKER_01: I know what books you read.
2:17:07
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual truth in Revelation is that the mark of God is humility and the mark of the beast is pride.
2:17:15
SPEAKER_00: And the mark of the beast is the one you want to say no to and avoid.
2:17:21
SPEAKER_00: Because the beast represents pride, which has completely taken over humanity.
2:17:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, 666 is not the beast's number, it's man's number, and it and it's not talking about an antichrist that is man, therefore it's 666.
2:17:43
SPEAKER_00: It's always been man's number.
2:17:44
SPEAKER_00: Google it.
2:17:45
SPEAKER_00: Six represents man, seven represents God.
2:17:49
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that way back in episode 15.
2:17:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh my word.
2:17:53
SPEAKER_01: That's like a year ago.
2:17:55
SPEAKER_00: When we talked about creation and the image of God, and that's why six is repeated three times here in Revelation.
2:18:03
SPEAKER_00: Humans, humans, humans.
2:18:05
SPEAKER_01: We were holy, holy.
2:18:08
SPEAKER_00: We were consumed with pride at creation.
2:18:12
SPEAKER_00: And then again, we were consumed with pride after the flood.
2:18:17
SPEAKER_00: And even now, today, we're consumed with pride again after Christ.
2:18:24
SPEAKER_00: Man, man, man.
2:18:26
SPEAKER_00: 666.
2:18:28
SPEAKER_00: Humility and pride, good and evil.
2:18:32
SPEAKER_00: That's what the battle has always been about.
2:18:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
2:18:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not some magical antichrist with something you put in your head.
2:18:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, and speaking of good and evil, you you said there was hail and fire representing good and evil.
2:18:52
SPEAKER_00: I see where this is going.
2:18:53
SPEAKER_01: And that you can't have one without the other.
2:18:57
SPEAKER_01: And that God sent both.
2:19:00
SPEAKER_01: Right?
2:19:00
SPEAKER_01: He sent hail and fire.
2:19:01
SPEAKER_03: Right.
2:19:02
SPEAKER_01: So are you saying, here's the can of worms.
2:19:07
SPEAKER_01: Are you saying God's responsible for good and evil?
2:19:13
SPEAKER_00: Did God create evil?
2:19:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess if you want to put it that directly.
2:19:19
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
2:19:20
SPEAKER_00: He did.
2:19:21
SPEAKER_01: Created it?
2:19:22
SPEAKER_00: Of course he did.
2:19:23
SPEAKER_00: He created everything.
2:19:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:19:25
SPEAKER_00: Nothing exists without God.
2:19:27
SPEAKER_01: That's a hard one to wrap the head around.
2:19:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:19:29
SPEAKER_00: Ask an evangelical.
2:19:30
SPEAKER_00: They have a really hard time accepting this.
2:19:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel it.
2:19:34
SPEAKER_01: It's back.
2:19:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:19:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take you back to Isaiah.
2:19:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:19:38
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 45 7.
2:19:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh, God is talking here.
2:19:42
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I form light and create darkness.
2:19:47
SPEAKER_00: I make well-being and create calamity.
2:19:51
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord who does all these things.
2:19:54
SPEAKER_00: Now that word calamity is ra.
2:19:58
SPEAKER_00: It's H7451.
2:20:00
SPEAKER_00: And it literally means evil.
2:20:04
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like the Egyptian God, you know, of the sun.
2:20:07
SPEAKER_01: You read my book.
2:20:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a different word.
2:20:09
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh used this in Exodus 10 10 as a play on words.
2:20:14
unknown: Really?
2:20:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's actually a Hebrew word meaning evil, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
2:20:20
SPEAKER_00: That's the word Ra in Genesis 6, when God says the intentions of man are always evil.
2:20:26
SPEAKER_00: That's Ra too.
2:20:28
SPEAKER_00: And same when the Bible describes Sodom.
2:20:31
SPEAKER_00: And I could go on.
2:20:32
SPEAKER_00: But Ra is also used to describe disasters and calamity, really anything that's bad, really bad.
2:20:42
SPEAKER_00: But by far, the vast majority of the time it's being used to describe evil and wickedness, and that's how it's translated.
2:20:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, regardless, whether it's describing evil or something that's really bad, it's not something you want to be associated with a good loving God.
2:21:02
SPEAKER_00: So evangelicals, and really this goes beyond evangelicals, but they do everything they can to reinterpret this verse in Isaiah.
2:21:13
SPEAKER_00: They say it's only talking about bad things other than moral evil, wickedness, and sin.
2:21:20
SPEAKER_00: So earthquakes or God letting dictators rule countries, uh, sickness, anything that doesn't deal with personal moral failure.
2:21:32
SPEAKER_00: And they say this, even though there are a ton of translations that translate this as evil, including the King James.
2:21:39
SPEAKER_00: They're making a big assumption there.
2:21:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh and if you actually look at the verse where God says he creates darkness, I mean, come on.
2:21:49
SPEAKER_00: People say that evil is the absence of good.
2:21:54
SPEAKER_00: And God is good, therefore it's not possible that God is responsible for evil.
2:22:00
SPEAKER_00: Now, my question to them is does evil exist?
2:22:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:22:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then who created everything that exists?
2:22:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, put it like that.
2:22:14
SPEAKER_00: I agree that God is good.
2:22:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:22:17
SPEAKER_00: And God is love.
2:22:19
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not God and He created me.
2:22:25
SPEAKER_00: Just because He created something doesn't mean it agrees with His nature and who He is.
2:22:32
SPEAKER_00: God created darkness, but He is light.
2:22:37
SPEAKER_00: There's actually an article about this on gotquestions.org that says God does not create moral evil.
2:22:46
SPEAKER_00: I beg to differ, because God created everything, and He did it with a purpose, just like everything else He does.
2:22:55
SPEAKER_00: He created it, and then He gave us a choice.
2:23:00
SPEAKER_00: He created the two trees.
2:23:02
SPEAKER_00: One's the tree of life, one's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then He gave us a choice.
2:23:10
SPEAKER_00: To quote the knight from Indiana Jones, we chose poorly.
2:23:16
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell you what I think the purpose of evil is.
2:23:21
SPEAKER_00: Like if God created it, why?
2:23:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean let me ask you a question.
2:23:28
SPEAKER_00: How do you know that good is good?
2:23:31
SPEAKER_00: And how do you know love is love?
2:23:36
SPEAKER_01: I guess it would be from kind of an intuitive, but also maybe what you've been exposed to.
2:23:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
2:23:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've I've heard studies of you know children who are denied, not denied on purpose, but you know, in an orphanage, they don't get the nurturing that they need when they're first young, young, and they're not consoled.
2:23:59
SPEAKER_01: So they just become numb emotionally.
2:24:02
SPEAKER_01: So that experience creates an emotionally not regulated individual.
2:24:10
SPEAKER_01: They they are not healthy emotionally.
2:24:12
SPEAKER_01: They know how to relate, that type of thing.
2:24:14
SPEAKER_01: So what they lacked in exposure affected their adulthood.
2:24:20
SPEAKER_01: So how do we know what is good?
2:24:22
SPEAKER_01: How do we know what is love?
2:24:24
SPEAKER_01: I would think it's because of what we have been exposed to.
2:24:28
SPEAKER_00: So those kids that you're talking about who grow up without love, now when they leave the, you know, the orphanage or the you know, dysfunctional family or whatever that they came from.
2:24:39
SPEAKER_00: And they're put in a and they're put in a situation where somebody loves them.
2:24:44
SPEAKER_00: Like for real.
2:24:47
SPEAKER_00: And it makes them feel better.
2:24:51
SPEAKER_00: How is it that they know that that is better than where they came from?
2:24:58
SPEAKER_00: The only reason that you know what good is is because you know what the opposite of good is.
2:25:03
SPEAKER_01: Right, and they came from the opposite, yeah.
2:25:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:25:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's that way with love.
2:25:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, without hate, you don't know what love is.
2:25:10
SPEAKER_00: You can't define it.
2:25:11
SPEAKER_00: You need one in order to understand the other.
2:25:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
2:25:15
SPEAKER_00: In order for us to understand how good and loving God is, we need to experience evil and hate.
2:25:24
SPEAKER_00: It's necessary, and that's another reason why I believe every human will be in heaven.
2:25:30
SPEAKER_00: Because God wants us to actually know and understand what good is, who he is, before he does away with evil.
2:25:41
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, he just created a bunch of lemmings and robots who praise him because he says so.
2:25:49
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to get it, so that we truly understand how good and great he is, which makes worship that much more powerful.
2:25:58
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't a dictator God.
2:26:01
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just expect that humility from us, he is humility himself.
2:26:09
SPEAKER_00: He is love, which makes it all the more sweeter.
2:26:14
SPEAKER_00: His strength comes from his weakness.
2:26:18
SPEAKER_00: So I think evil has a purpose, and you could also say that in a way, evil is good because it leads us to good.
2:26:31
SPEAKER_00: Just like Paul's demon, it was good for Paul.
2:26:36
SPEAKER_00: It was a bad thing happening to him, but it was good for Paul.
2:26:40
SPEAKER_00: Without evil, there is no good.
2:26:43
SPEAKER_00: So before God does away with evil forever, he's gonna make sure that we all understand.
2:26:51
SPEAKER_00: And then paradise is gonna be filled with people who bask in goodness because they know what it means.
2:26:59
SPEAKER_00: This week's song is called Is He Worthy?
2:27:04
SPEAKER_00: And there are many versions out there.
2:27:06
SPEAKER_00: I like the live version by Shane and Shane, so that's the one I'm going to link to.
2:27:11
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never heard this song before, it's set up as a series of questions that the singer sings and then the audience answers.
2:27:19
SPEAKER_00: It says, Do you feel the world is broken?
2:27:23
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel the shadows deepen?
2:27:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through?
2:27:31
SPEAKER_00: Do you wish that you could see it all made new?
2:27:34
SPEAKER_00: Is all creation groaning?
2:27:37
SPEAKER_00: Is a new creation coming?
2:27:39
SPEAKER_00: Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst?
2:27:43
SPEAKER_00: Is it good that we remind ourselves of this?
2:27:47
SPEAKER_00: Does the Father truly love us?
2:27:50
SPEAKER_00: Does the Spirit move among us?
2:27:53
SPEAKER_00: And does Jesus, our Messiah, hold forever those he loves?
2:27:59
SPEAKER_00: Does our God intend to dwell again with us?
2:28:03
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone worthy?
2:28:06
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone whole?
2:28:08
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?
2:28:14
SPEAKER_00: The Lion of Judah, who conquered the grave, he is David's root and the lamb who died to ransom the slave.
2:28:22
SPEAKER_00: From every people and tribe, every nation and tongue, he has made us a kingdom and priests to God to reign with the Son.
2:28:34
SPEAKER_00: Is he worthy?
2:28:36
SPEAKER_00: Is he worthy?
2:28:38
SPEAKER_00: Of all blessing and honor and glory, is he worthy of this?
2:28:44
SPEAKER_00: He is.
2:28:47
SPEAKER_00: And I like how that song asks, Does Jesus our Messiah hold forever those he loves?
2:28:54
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say, Does he hold those who love him?
2:29:00
SPEAKER_00: He holds those he loves.
2:29:04
SPEAKER_00: Humanity.
2:29:06
SPEAKER_00: His church.
2:29:09
SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're going to conclude our study of Enoch by finishing the Book of Watchers.
2:29:18
SPEAKER_00: Join us then.
2:29:20
SPEAKER_00: I promise you it's going to be shorter than this one.
2:29:22
SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah!
2:29:25
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week.
2:29:27
SPEAKER_02: Bye guys.