The vision of heaven in Revelation chapters 4-11 reveals God's majestic throne, the scroll with seven seals, and the unfolding judgments upon the earth. The sermon details the opening of the seals, depicting conquest, war, famine, and death, which collectively result in the destruction of a fourth of the world's population. It emphasizes that these prophecies are literal and will occur during the Great Tribulation, a period of intense divine wrath preceding Christ's return. The core lesson is that God's judgment is certain for a Christ-rejecting world, offering a stark warning to the unsaved and a reminder of deliverance for believers.
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And we have to take note of the fact that not everybody agrees with us on this. Some people try to make all these events that we're going to study today, something that's already happened. I want you to see how impossible that is because history has not recorded what is portrayed in these chapters. We want to consider chapters four through chapter eleven this morning. And our purpose is not to give a detailed exegesis of each verse. If you want that, you can get it in my book on Revelation, which does deal with it in detail. What we're trying here is to answer the problem that some people have that they can't understand the Book of Revelation.
And I believe while there are many things that may not be clear, that the main idea is very clear. And all we have to do is to read it and believe it. There are some portions that require interpretation, but many passages are simply plain prophecies. and as we're going to see this morning. Now in each chapter we want to ask what the main idea is, what is the book trying to reveal? In chapter four and five, as you read it, you'll discover John is taken in the spirit to heaven. Now John is actually on the Isle of Patmos, where he's a prisoner working in the mines, a dreary life for a man who's a great man of God and a pastor at Ephesus for many years. But he's given this marvelous vision of heaven And it's just as if he went there, though he actually is physically on earth.
And in chapter four, you have a vision of heaven describing the grandeur and the majesty of God the Father sitting on the throne, and all the other people there, angels and men, that characterize this situation. In chapter five, we're introduced to what is very important to the book of Revelation. The scroll with the seven seals. Now, the picture that's given is a scroll. It's their form of paper, you know, that's rolled up on a roller in such a way that as you unroll it, you read its content. Now, we're told this scroll is written on both sides.
We're not told what these things do. But it's obvious, as we unfold this in chapter six, that it's dealing with major events. that are going to take place according to the book of Revelation in preparation for the second coming of Christ. Now in chapter five we're also introduced to Jesus Christ as the lamb that was slain and the question is raised as who is worthy to take this book and I'll open it up and break its seals and the answer is that Christ is worthy and we have this great section there in verse eight and following where Christ is proclaimed as the worthy one, as the one who is entitled to bring judgment on the world because he has also provided the wonderful salvation that we have in his death on the cross.
Now in chapter six we return to the earthly scene and this scroll is gradually unrolled and there are fixed on the sides of the scroll seven seals And as you roll the scroll open, you first have to break the first seal and then the second and so on. And the imagery is that's describing great scenes and events that will take place in that period. Now, we aren't too concerned about all the details, but let's get the main idea. The first seal, according to the scriptures, pictures a conqueror conquering the world. Let me read these two verses. Now I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. Now one of the problems we face in the book of Revelation is how long does this sequence of events beginning in chapter six take place? It's a very common view and probably the majority view of Bible exposes that it takes seven years. When I wrote my commentary, though, I had a problem because the Book of Revelation never talks about seven years. We get the seven-year figure from Daniel nine, twenty-seven where it tells us that the future ruler of the world, but at that time is ruling over ten countries, makes a seven-year covenant with Israel.
And he observes this piece for three and a half years, and then he becomes a world conqueror at the middle. of that last seven years or the last three and a half years, which the Bible calls the Great Tribulation. It's then and then only that he becomes a world conqueror. Now in this verse, he's pictured as one who's conquering the world. You'll notice he has a bow, but no arrow. And the symbolism is that he conquers without a war, without a fight. And that's exactly what the other scriptures seem to indicate. He proclaims himself a world dictator. And as we have the question asked in chapter thirteen, who can make war with the beast? The answer is nobody. Apparently either through his power in the world, possibly because he has control of all the oil of the Middle East or possibly through satanic deception, the whole world accepts him as their dictator and leader and expecting him to lead us into a wonderful future.
Of course, it turns out to be very tragic. But it says he's given a crown. That's a symbol of rulership, you see, over the world. He goes forth conquering and to conquer. So one of the solutions then is that this, from chapter six on, is talking about not the whole seven-year period, but the great tribulation. And while that's perhaps a minority view, this seems to be in harmony with that. Now as the second seal opens, we're introduced to war and bloodshed. And a horse is pictured whose fiery red. Now the white horse was a symbol. a victory because the Roman generals, when they'd win a battle, would have a parade and they'd ride on a white horse and the captives would follow.
In other words, a symbol of their victory. But now this is a red horse which described as taking peace from the earth that people should kill one another and it was given to him a great sword. The period is going to be a time of terrible bloodshed one way or another and most of the world population is going to be destroyed. Then the third seal comes. And this is described as a black horse. And as you read the account, it pictures a famine. It takes a denarius to buy enough food for one day of grain. And in other words, it's scarce and high price. And one of the things that's going to happen in the Great Tribulation is that this location that comes from the various catastrophes that God imposes, as well as this world ruler, that it's going to affect the distribution of food.
and large sections of the world will be subject to starvation. And that's what it's talking about there. Now, I think the fourth seal is very significant. And in verses seven and eight, we talk about a terrible time of destruction of human life. When he opened the fourth seal, he heard the voice of the four living creatures say, Come and see. And so I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and the name of him who sat on it was death, and Hades solid with him, and power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.
Now you know the familiar cry is we can't understand the book of Revelation because it's too, it's not, it's in symbols. This is plain English. One fourth of the world is not symbolic, it's real. But it's mind staggering. These two verses account for one fourth of the world's population. Now, if the world's population at that time is five billion, as it is today, that accounts for one billion, two hundred and fifty million people being killed. Now, to get some idea what that amounts to, if you took all the people in North America, all the people in Central America, and all the people in South America and killed them, you still wouldn't have that many people.
In other words, this is a terrible, terrible catastrophe. Now, the major problem in prophecy, of course, is because a seminary in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century proposed that the Bible should not be interpreted literally, that it should be one huge allegory. They tried to combine it with a philosophy of Plato, which is like mixing oil and water, and the Bible simply didn't fit that. And so they said the Bible is one huge allegory, and behind the words, we have to find the hidden meaning. Well, the early church rose up and smote that down. They contradicted it and refuted it pretty well in most areas.
But when it came to prophecy, it was more difficult. And the idea that prophecy cannot be fulfilled literally has been perpetuated in the church in large measure. Even the Protestant reformers at Augustine, the great Roman Catholic bishop, advanced the idea that while the Bible in its ordinary language should be understood literally, that when it comes to prophecy... then it has to be taken non-literally. Now, they aren't very consistent about it because in the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement also, they believe in a literal heaven and a literal hell. They believe in a literal second coming of Christ. But when it came to the millennium, they said you can't take it literally. Well, I think that's very arbitrary and not supported by the facts of the Scripture.
The Bible makes it very plain that we're going to see in revelation that Christ is going to reign on earth for a thousand years, and that's a literal figure, not just a figure of speech. And so they're wrong. But that has perpetuated what we call the homilennial point of view, and it's held by many scholars, some of them very godly. One of the problems we face in interpreting the Bible is how can a godly man be wrong? The facts are they can be. And the reason is they ignore... The basic rules of biblical interpretation. In other words, you should not declare a scripture is not literally true unless you have proof. And it's just arbitrary on their part.
They don't have proof. They can't have proof because when prophecy is fulfilled in the Bible, it's always fulfilled literally. When I wrote my handbook, as I mentioned earlier, I think, I found I dealt with a thousand passages and five hundred of them already been literally fulfilled. I tried to find one that has fulfilled none. Literally, I couldn't find any. That's not the way God gives prophecy. When God speaks of the future, it's just as certain and just as literal as if it were history, you see. And while sometimes prophecy is given in symbolic terms, even if they will yield themselves to facts that are very literal. And here we have it in this fourth seal. A force of the world has destroyed.
That certainly isn't something that is fulfilled in the past. It certainly wasn't fulfilled, as we saw in Seventy AD in the destruction of Jerusalem. Certainly they killed a lot of Jews, but it wasn't worldwide. It was a totally different situation than we have here. Here's worldwide destruction from the hand of God as a judgment upon a Christ-rejecting world that has accepted a world ruler who's allied with Satan. Now, the fifth seal follows, and here we have a picture of the martyrs. Now, you see the post-tribulational view that's The church has to go through this period of time as a real problem. Prior to World War I, they just dismissed the tribulation entirely.
They said it's already passed or it's already fulfilled in the struggles of the church in the first century. And they just tried to wipe it out. So they'd come to this portion of Revelation, just ignore it. But it's hard to ignore something like this. There was nothing like this in history. A fourth of the world has never been killed. Oh, in the time of Noah it was when the flood came, but I mean in the future. And so there's been no fulfillment of this or these other things. And then they said, well, the church, then they changed their mind after World War II and a hundred and eighty degrees and said, yes, there is a tribulation ahead, but it's not nearly as bad as the Bible seems to make it.
We can't take it too literally. And so they had a tribulation, but they say God is able to preserve the church through the tribulations. Of course he is. That isn't the issue. The question is, does he? And the book of Revelation again and again contradicts this idea that those who come to Christ after the rapture and the period of the tribulation are going to be preserved through it. Oh, there's the hundred and forty-four thousand. We're going to see in chapter seven that the great majority of Christians are going to be subject to death. In fact, to be a Christian in the Great Tribulation is more dangerous than to be a non-Christian. Because they all are subject to the cataclysmic things like stars falling and earthquakes and famine and war.
That's equal for everybody. But then in addition to all that, if you have a world ruler who's going to try to kill every Jew and every Christian, anybody will not acknowledge him and Satan as God. And so a Christian is under double jeopardy. And the chance of a Christian getting through the tribulation is less than that of a non-Christian. And that's exactly what this passage tells us. It talks about the souls of those who have been slain for the word of God, for the testimony in which they held, and they cry out and say, how long before their revenge? And the white robes were given to them, and it was said that they should rest a little while longer until both a number of those servants and their brethren who were to be killed are added to it, and the rest are complete.
In other words, the persecution wasn't over. There was going to be many, many people killed in that time. Now, it's interesting note here because scholars question about what our lot will be before we're resurrected. You know, when we die, our soul goes to heaven. And the question has been raised as to whether we have a temporary body or not. Not a resurrection body, but a temporary body. You know, angels don't have bodies either. But they're given temporary bodies when they appear on earth to men. Well, there's a little thought here that I think is quite important. It tells that they were given robes. Do you ever try to hang a robe on someone without a body? Yes. The implication is that there's a body.
It speaks to them standing. It speaks to them talking. And I think that we have to recognize that while we don't understand it completely, that apparently we have a temporary body prior to our getting the resurrection body at the time of resurrection. But there are many martyrs. It's not true that the church goes through this period unscathed. Now imagine yourself in the Thessalonian church, and Paul said, yes, the rapture is coming, but cheer up. You have to go through this extended period of trouble. And probably nine out of ten of you will be killed and you will be tortured and everything else. But cheer up, if you survive, you will be raptured. Comfort one another with these words. Well, it is much of a comfort. I noticed that the post-tribulationists don't dwell on that word comfort very much.
No, there is no comfort to this post-tribulational view. And those who live in that period are going to face the awful necessity of dying as a martyr because they weren't ready to be saved at the time of the rapture. They were saved afterwards. Now we have a sixth seal, and this has to do with the heavens. And this, again, is something that did not happen in Seventy-A-D. It hasn't happened in history. It says, when he opened the sixth seal, the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair. The moon became like blood. The stars of the heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.
And the sky receded as the scroll, and it rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth and the great man, the rich man, the commanders, the mighty man, every slave and every free man hid themselves in caves and in rocks in the mountains, and said to the mountains, And rocks fall on us, and hide it from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand." You see, First Thessalonians five, nine says we're not going to come to a day of wrath. We're going to be raptured before this. But those who live in this period are going to be in a time of God's wrath. And God's wrath is expressed in many ways. And some of his judgments on the world affect Christians as well as non-Christians, even though they're not the object of the wrath of God.
They're living in this awful period. And this description here of how even the heavens, towards the end of the tribulation particularly, are going to participate in this are described here. Now in chapter seven we have one of those chapters that is sort of an interlude. We have a number of chapters like that in the book of Revelation where the narrative as it were stops and you stop and look at some one feature. Dr. Ironside in his commentary I think pictures it as if you're climbing up a mountain road you know that cut out the side of a mountain and you climb a distance and then you pull off in a little broader space there and look And you can look back over the road you just came, and you can look up ahead of the road that's still ahead of you.
In other words, you start to survey the scene. And these chapters do this, and chapter seven does that. Now, in chapter seven, you have two classes of people. In verse one to eight, you have a hundred and forty-four thousand that are declared to be selected from the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve thousand out of each tribe. And it names them. Now, wherever the twelve tribes are named, there's always a problem because Joseph had two sons that are considered tribes. So they always leave out a tribe. Usually they leave out the tribe of Levi. In this case, they leave out the tribe of Dan, which is the smallest tribe. But they always end up at twelve tribes. But the point is, this is Israel. And they're declared to be sealed.
Now, what does that mean? Well, we go on to chapter fourteen at the end of the tribulation. And here they are, still intact. The point is that through this terrible time of trouble, this hundred and forty-four thousand are going to be protected physically, supernaturally by God. Can God protect people? Yes, but He doesn't protect all of them, respectively a small portion. And this is the token of His protecting power here in the book of Revelation. But then beginning in verse nine, we have the other side of the coin. We have the large number of martyred dead. And John is taken up in vision to heaven. He said, after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no man could number of all nations, tribes, people, and tongues, standing before the throne that's in heaven and before the land, clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands and crying out in a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the thrones of the land.
And then the question is raised in verse thirteen. Who are these who are raised in white robes and where did they come from? And he said to him, Sir, you know. So he said to me, These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And it goes on to say how now they're free from the tortures and the difficulties they had while they were in the great tribulation. These are the people that didn't escape. And there's a great number. It pictures people who got saved after the rapture, but then sealed their testimony with their own blood. And they are in heaven. It simply isn't taught in the book of Revelation that Christians in the Great Tribulation will go through it unscathed.
It teaches exactly the opposite, that there's going to be many, many martyrs as this chapter brings out. Now when the seventh seal is broken, we get a surprise. Because out of the seventh seal comes a second series of sevens. On these series, this series is called the trumpets. Seven trumpets are sounded. And just as the seals mark a great event, so the seven seals, each of them as the seven trumpets, each of them are sounded. Seven trumpets of the angels constitute a great event. Now, generally speaking, these trumpet judgments deal with one third of the earth.
For instance, we have the first one, In verse seven, chapter eight, the first angel sounded in hail and fire, mingled with blood, and there was thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up. And all green grass was burned up. In other words, it affects the earth. And then we have a second trumpet. And this is thrown into the sea. And the sea becomes its blood, one third of it. It affects, of course, shipping. And that will automatically contribute to famine in the world. So each of these trumpet sounds, and the third one falls on rivers and springs of water. And the fourth one affects the heavens.
The third of the moon, the third of the stars, the third of the sun are darkened. Climate changes. The world is in a twilight. It's an awful demonstration of the power of God that should have brought fear and moved people to trust in the Lord. And then in verse twelve and thirteen, It concludes, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet than of the three angels who are about to sound. In other words, it's going to get worse instead of better. The Great Tribulation has never happened. These things have not happened. They're still futures. And they're the awful things that a Christ-rejecting world is going to experience.
Now, the fifth trumpet is a little difficult to understand. It describes the bottomless pit, which is the home of the demon world, being opened. And out of that comes the air is darkened. There's a smoke in the pit. And out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth. And they're described as terrible scourges. Now, there's nothing human about this. There's nothing like this in the natural world. And most people think this is a representation of demonism. The demons are characterized as these locusts. And it says in verse five, they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
And in those days men will seek death and will not find it. They will desire to die and death will flee from them. It goes on to describe them as very grotesque beings. This is the first woe. Now you notice that this is an extended period of time, five months. And it's an awful time of demon possession of the world. And then we have the sixth trumpet. And this is a very interesting one. It says, When the sixth angel sounds, I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden hour, which is in heaven, before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.
Now, holy angels are not bound. So it's rather obvious that these are wicked angels or the demons that are bound and rendered inactive in the Euphrates River. Now they're told, let them loose. And so the four angels who had been prepared for that hour and that day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. Now you don't have to be a great mathematician to figure out that this is terrible. You had twenty-five percent of the world killed in the fourth seal. Then all these other catastrophes took place, which obviously took human life. But now you have a third of the remainder. The world's population has been reduced to less than fifty percent in this amazingly short period of time.
You see, when Christ said that this was an awful period that was unprecedented, he meant exactly what he said. That's what Daniel calls it, Daniel twelve. A time without precedent. Nothing like this ever in history, nothing like it's ever going to happen again. a time of terrible trouble in fact christ said in matthew twenty four that if he didn't stop this process by his second coming at the end of the tribulation there wouldn't be any human beings left in the world it all be destroyed and that's not god's intent he wants to have a millennial kingdom on earth with human beings in it and so we have this terrible terrible one-third and then it goes on to say verse sixteen The number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million, and I heard the number of them."
Now in the book of Revelation you have to distinguish between what he sees and what he heard. Now when he sees something, obviously it requires interpretation if it's in symbolic form. When he hears something, it's literal. Now people object to this, they say this army of two hundred million is impossible. It was rather interesting back in the late sixties, there was a series of articles in our secular news media that said that China today claims to have a militia of two hundred million, precisely this figure. Now that includes the soldiers, it included all the Home Guard, all the supporting mechanism and the people involved in the military machine. And China, because of its great numbers of population, numbering about one billion, could supply an army of two hundred million like this.
At least that's the way it's described. Now my own study of the numbers of Revelation indicate that while they have symbolic meaning sometimes, like the twenty-four elders in chapter twenty-four, chapter five I mean, which I believe refer to the church being raptured because they're given crowns, here we have two hundred million, I believe it's a literal number. While I can't explain it, I believe it's the best thing, policies when the Bible says something, to believe it, whether you understand it, or fully understood, can explain it or not. Now it goes on to describe these two hundred, and some people think they are demons, but I'm inclined to think that they are human beings that are empowered by demons, but here is another terrible judgment on the world.
Now finally, we have several chapters in between here that are parenthetic chapters like chapter seven. In chapter ten we are introduced to a little book which apparently refers to the word of God as sweet in its taste but bitter in its end because it has divine judgment against the world in it. And then in chapter eleven we have the interesting account of the two witnesses. Now these are two very interesting people and Bible scholars have wrestled around as to who these two witnesses are. And they've taken the position that it could be Enoch and Elijah because they didn't die, you know, in the Old Testament.
They were raptured without dying, and they pointed them in once to die. But it doesn't add up because there's going to be a whole generation of Christians who don't die, so you can't enforce it in the left. This is something. It's Moses and Elijah, like appeared in the Mount of Transfiguration. But the Bible doesn't say... And I am a great respecter of what the Bible does not say. If it doesn't say it, I'm inclined not to say it. So I don't know who these two witnesses are, but I suspect, and the best explanation is, that there are two people who lived in this time who were given supernatural powers by God as a witness to the world in the Great Tribulation. Now notice how he tells them to measure the temple.
And he said in verse three, I'll give power to my two witnesses, to these two men. And they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days. That's exactly three and a half years of prophetic months of thirty days each. We have that same figure in the book of Daniel. It's the Great Tribulation. And they're clothed in sackcloth, indicating sorrow and recognition of God's judgment. They're described as like the two olive trees and the two lamps described in the Old Testament as powers of her God. And it says in verse five, if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner.
In other words, for three and a half years, they are supernaturally protected by these supernatural powers. And while the world would love to kill him, it isn't allowed to. Now, after twelve hundred and sixty days, however, which is at the end of the Great Tribulation, First of all, it tells us that they have power to shut the heavens so no rain would fall, and they have power over waters, turn into blood, and to strike the earth with plagues. In other words, they had supernatural powers that God gave them. But then in verse seven, it describes a strange situation. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them and overcome them, and he's permitted to kill them.
And this is considered a great victory by the Christ-rejecting world. And they gloat over this, and their dead bodies, according to verse eight, lie in the streets of the great city, which is Jerusalem, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And then they allow them to lie in the streets there for three and a half days, untouched, as a token of their power over these prophets. And they're going to rejoice over this and send gifts to each other in commemoration of this event. But then in verse eleven something dramatic happened. After the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them, and they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here, and they ascended, went to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw him.
In the same hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city of Jerusalem fell. And in the earthquake, seven thousand people were killed and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. Very interesting situation. How did the whole world see them rise from the dead? Well, obviously, back in Christ days, that would have been impossible. Today we have television. It's entirely possible. That's the explanation. No, the Bible doesn't make it clear. And wouldn't it be dramatic for the whole Christ-rejecting world, rejoicing as they were in the death of these godly men as they watched that suddenly see them come to life and ascend up to heaven before their very eyes?
That must have been a dramatic thing. And, of course, at the same time, God judged Jerusalem for their rejection of them. and a tenth of the city is destroyed by an earthquake and seven thousand people are killed and it's so dramatic the whole event that it says that men gave glory to God they just had rung it out on you see they had to see that and so after three and a half days the breath of God from God entered them and they stood up and all this happened now that was a an interlude you see in the sequence of events of the seven trumpets and this was of course after the sixth trumpet but before the seventh trumpet now finally the seventh trumpet sounds and then we have another surprise verse fifteen the seventh trumpet sounded and there was a loud voice in heaven saying The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
In other words, this is a declaration that things are moving on to the climax. And the twenty-four elders which sat before God on their throne fell on their faces and worshiped God saying, Now as I pointed out in chapter five, while there's some dispute among scholars about it, the twenty-four is seemingly the symbol of representation because in the Old Testament They had twenty-four orders of priests, and only one order would serve the Lord at a time, but it represented all the others. And so these twenty-four elders seem to represent the church. And the reason I think it's the church is because they're given crowns of a victor, crowns of a reward. Now at this point in the sequence of events, the angels have not been rewarded, and the saints of all ages have not been rewarded.
The only people that could be mentioned as being rewarded is the church, which I take it, has been raptured before these events. And they have appeared before the judgment seat of Christ and have received their reward. And so that's what they described here. But the twenty-four elders representing the church fell before God in his throne and worshiped him, saying, And then we have their marvelous hymn. We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was and is to come. So often we have Christ presented in the book of Revelation as the eternal one, the one who exists from eternity past, as the one who exists today, as the one who exists to the future. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Here's one of these references that he is going to be the same. Because you have taken your great power and reigns. In other words, it's anticipating here the second coming of Christ, which is going to happen not long after this. because you have taken your great power and reign the nations were angry and your wrath has come and the time of the dead that they should be judged that you should reward your servants and prophets and the saints and those who fear your name small and great and should destroy those who destroyed the earth in other words this is a climax is looking forward to the ultimate climax that is before them then the temple of God was open in heaven And the ark of his covenant was seen in the temple, and there were lightnings, noises, thunders, earthquake, and a great hail.
You see, as you examine this in the light of Scripture, it presents an awesome picture of God who judges the world. You know, I think about this often because there's so much that's terrible. It's happening in our world, terrible crimes, terrible things against God, misrepresentations of the truth. base men in high places. You wonder sometimes how God can put up with all the sin and all the rebellion and all the unbelief that exists in our world against God. But as you read this chapter, you find that God isn't concerned about it. We have the fact of Psalm two where the nation's rage, you know, and try to throw off God's yoke.
And God laughs. It isn't a pretty laugh, but God recognized the humor, the situation, that they are foolish. It's just a question of time. No one can beat God. No one can get ahead of God. God is going to judge every sin. And your hope and mine, of course, is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, because we are justly condemned as well. But when Christ died for us, he bore all our sins on the cross. And when we accept Him as our personal Savior, we become the objects of His grace. And we don't have to fear the wrath of God because we've been delivered from the wrath to come.
But the world hasn't. And our present world is headed for an awful, awful letdown. And if the rapture is near and these events are near, it could be the very generation of which we're a part. Often think of that because there's so many things in our world that speak of man's ingenuity. The great buildings we build, the great achievements we have. Man can be so smart and yet so dumb at the same time. So think about time and its factors, but not think about God. And the fact that sooner or later, everyone is going to face God as his judge. And so this book is an awesome book. It brings fear to the heart of the unsaved.
But for the saved, it brings grateful thanks that you and I... are the objects of the grace of God. Now think back over what you've seen in these chapters. There's nothing in history that corresponds to it. Not in the remotest sense. None of the sufferings that occurred in the Seventy-A-D or since in any way harmonized with these terrible, terrible judgments when the great majority of the world's population in a relatively brief time are going to be killed by one thing or another. come under God's judgment because of their rebellion against God and against His Word. And so that's the picture we have here. Now in the next few chapters we're going to have some further interviews, interludes as it were, parenthetical passages that focus on a particular subject in this period.
It doesn't advance the narrative, but it does talk about what's going to happen in that period. In chapter twelve, we're going to see how Israel fares in this. In chapter thirteen, how we have a great world ruler and a false prophet with him. And then in chapter seventeen, we see the hundred and forty-four thousand safe at the end of the millennial kingdom. And then in chapter fifteen, we have the prelude to the mighty climax of chapter sixteen, which is the bold judgments when God pours out his final devastating judgments on the whole world. I trust you'll read it, and if you want more, then I'm giving you in these lectures.
I refer you to, of course, my own book on Revelation, or the Bible Knowledge Commentary, which has a commentary on Revelation and also the Prophecy Knowledge Handbook, which discusses the Book of Revelation in some detail. So there's available to you the information that perhaps I have passed by. Now, what have we learned this morning? There's an awful time coming. You and I have the blessed hope. We're not going to be here. This is a day of wrath, and we're not going to be here, according to First Testament, in its five-night. We belong to the day, not to the night. And we believe the rapture of the church could be very, very soon. I think even the unsaved today sense that something is about to happen.
We're in a world that's like a gigantic machine that's going faster and faster and faster until finally... It tears itself apart, and our world is headed down the road that way. And all we can see for the future is a sad picture of disaster and divine judgment upon a Christ-rejecting world that will certainly come about once the church is taken out and brought home to heaven. So I trust you'll read this and profit by it, and I hope this will open up the book of Revelation to you in a way that you can understand it. So we have a word of prayer. Our Father, how wonderful is thy word and the truth of Scripture that's given here.
And we're awed by the power and majesty of God, His infinite righteousness, His capacity to judge sin as He will in that future time. Oh, our Father, how wonderful it is to realize that in Christ we've escaped the wrath of God. Our sins have been forgiven. God has accepted us in the person and work of his beloved Son. One of these days we're going to be released from this world and its limitations and difficulties and will stand the presence of God perfect and complete, not because we've achieved it by our effort, but because of the mighty grace of God. It's going to change us into those that can serve God throughout all.