That will be our jumping off point tonight. Revelation chapter 6. We're living in unprecedented times. Things going on around us that we thought we'd never see. A nation that at one time honored and worshiped the God of heaven, but no longer so. We've seen things take place in our nation that in our lifetime, We stand aghast at. We see unrest in the world all around us. We see war in the Middle East. All of these things have created within people's minds a question, what's next? Now we've already learned in our series of studies that you never interpret the Bible by the headlines. You always interpret the headlines by the Bible. Just because you may see something that looks like it's a fulfillment of prophecy doesn't necessarily mean that it is. That God has a plan. He's given His people an understanding of that plan. He's revealed it in Scripture. He's telling us what's next. We're looking at that time now in Bible prophecy known as the coming day of the Lord. Now there's two aspects that you need to understand about the day of the Lord. It's going to begin sometime after the rapture. We'll discuss that a little more fully in our study tonight. We understand that it has a couple of aspects. First of all, there is the judgment aspect of the day of the Lord. We're looking at that in detail, the tribulation period. But if all you think of when you think of the day of the Lord is judgment and wrath and turmoil and a time of trouble, then you don't fully understand the coming day of the Lord. It's both a time of wrath, but it's also a time of blessing. That the time of wrath will be followed by a thousand years of peace and blessing like this world has never known before under the reign and the rule of her Messiah, the Lord Jesus, who will set up His kingdom in Israel. We're looking at the judgment aspect of that. Look if you would Revelation chapter number 6 and find if you would verse number 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman. That's a slave. Do you realize there may be more slaves on planet earth today than there's ever been in the history of our world. Did you know that? All of our world people are in bondage. They are. There's people right here in America through human trafficking. They're enslaved in America. But not only that, there's people in bondage to addiction and immorality and ungodliness. You see, it doesn't have to be a physical bondage, it can be a spiritual bondage. And I believe here, he's talking about a physical bondage. He goes on to say, and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains. and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" What's next? God's coming day of wrath. Now we know that the next event on God's prophetic calendar is the rapture of the saints of God. And in a sudden moment, God's people from all over the world will be suddenly and instantaneously in a nanosecond. If we can come up with something shorter than that, I believe it would fit the bill. They will be transported, they will be translated from earth to glory. God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that all of God's people during this day of grace are going to escape this awful time known as the tribulation period. But yet it will engulf the world. We know the rapture is a signless event. We know that it is imminent. Now listen, we've already learned this. Imminency does not mean soon. It means inevitable. We have no idea when the Lord is going to come. He may come today. He may come before we're done with this message. He may come 50 years from now. I have no idea. But here's what I do know. Jesus is going to come for His bride. It is imminent. It is inevitable He will come. it will open the door to what we understand as the tribulation period. We've been talking about this great day of wrath. The tribulation period is a set time in which God, we're talking about the definition of it, what it is. It is a set time in which God will pour out His undiluted wrath on an unbelieving world. We learned it had a basic two-fold purpose. First of all, it was prepare Israel for the coming of our Messiah. that through the birth pains of the tribulation period, there's going to be a remnant of Jews who will turn to Jesus Christ as her Messiah and a nation will literally be born again in a day. They're going to experience a wonderful, they're going to be preserved through it and experience a wonderful day of deliverance. God has set aside His people, His earthly people, the Jews, but He has not cast them off. Romans 9, 10, and 11 made it very clear by the apostle of the Gentiles that God is not through with the Jewish people. We know secondly, the second purpose of the tribulation period was to pour out His wrath on an unbelieving world. We talked about it last week. This world will not get by with what it did to Jesus Christ. Will not. God's wrath will be poured out on a world that has rejected His Son. But then we come to the question, preacher, when will it begin? When will this day of wrath begin and how long will it last? Number two, as we look at this what's next, this overview of end time events, we're going to look tonight at the duration of the tribulation period and we'll go as far as we can and we'll take the message and slice it off like loaf bread and we'll come back to it. How about that? Alright, you ready? Let's look, if you would, in Daniel chapter number 9. Would you turn there all the way back to the book of Daniel chapter number 9 and find, if you would, verse number 24. We're going to learn here that the tribulation period does not begin with the rapture. For years of my life, I've been taught that and I believe that. I believe the rapture was like a door, that it closed the door to the church age and opened the door to the tribulation period. You're going to find that's not actually the case. All that rapture does is closes out the day of grace. Alright? Now it will open the door to what's next, but it does not begin it. It will preclude it. It will precede it. We are a pre-tribulational rapturous people. We believe that Jesus will come for His bride prior to the tribulation. We will not go through one millisecond of the tribulation period. But it has a definite beginning and it will last for a period of seven years. Look, if you would, Daniel chapter 9 and verse number 24. Seventy weeks. Here's a vision given to Daniel. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people. That's the nation of Israel. And upon thy holy city. Now you realize when he says this, the city of Jerusalem has been destroyed. Daniel has been in captivity now for nearing 70 years. The temple has been destroyed. Jerusalem has been laid waste. but upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, to fulfill all of God's vision and plan and prophecy for the nation of Israel and this world, and to anoint, to crown King the Most Holy." That's the Messiah. Look at verse 25, "...know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks." Now preacher, when you're talking about this weeks, It's already been 490 weeks. Well, Daniel's not talking about 490 weeks of days. He's talking about 490 weeks of years. They're 77s, meaning 70 times 7 years, which is 490 years. Alright? And so they're prophetic weeks. A Jewish year is only 360 days. A Julian calendar, which we go by, is 365 days. And so I'm not going to try to get in the weeds tonight, but I do want us to understand that he's dealing with a Jewish calendar, a Jewish time clock, and Israel is God's prophetic timepiece. God for these last 2,000 years has paused the 70 weeks of Daniel. We're in an interlude where God is calling out from among the Gentiles a people for His name. Jesus is building His church at a precise set moment in God's timing. The clock will begin to tick again and it will fulfill the final week of Daniel's prophecy. Sixty-nine weeks have been fulfilled. Let's look at it. Forty-nine weeks. He divides them into seven weeks. That's forty-nine years. and 3 score in 2 weeks. That's 62 weeks. So we find that when you put those 49 years or those 7 weeks and the 62 weeks together, you come up with 483 prophetic years that have been fulfilled. started in Daniel's prophecy in the book of Nehemiah. You ever wondered why some of the books of the Bible are there? Can I tell you, it's more than just building a wall. It's more than just telling us about teamwork in ministry. It's more than just showing God's great plan and God's great power and behalf. of the nation of Israel and restoring the worship of Jehovah and reviving the people of God. Oh no, it's there also to help us to understand exactly when God's prophetic clock began to tick. And it was March 5, 444 B.C. when God, through Artaxerxes, a Persian king, gave Nehemiah the permission to go and to build and rebuild the walls in the city of Jerusalem. It was a time of trouble, a time of difficulty. Remember they were building and they were battling. The clock began to tick on the 490 year prophecy. We know that 49 years it took from the time Nehemiah left until the city of Jerusalem was re-established. The walls were built. The temple had been restored. The city had been rebuilt. 49 years. It was 539 B.C. when that took place. From that forward, at the 69th week, Messiah would come. Do you realize that it has been calculated that Jesus walked into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday to the very day of Daniel's prophecy? He told the people of Israel, the Jews, if you had at least in this thy day, the time of your visitation, that Messiah has come. There was no doubt who He was. He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. When Jesus was crucified, God paused the clock. Look what happens. Pick up, if you would, verse 26. And after threescore and two weeks, that means you're seven weeks, and then from the restoration of Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, 62 weeks, 483 years, shall Messiah be cut off but not for Himself. And watch this, "...and the people of the Prince that shall come." Now, the Prince in verse 25 with the capital P is the Lord Jesus. The Prince in verse 26 with the small case P. That is the Antichrist that shall come and shall destroy the city. So when Jesus was crucified, buried, arose, and then the city of Jerusalem was laid waste by the armies of Rome in 70 A.D., God paused the clock. We're in the interlude. The parenthesis. Notice he said, "...and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and at the end of the war desolations are determined." Now pick up verse 27. The he in verse 27 doesn't refer to the prince with the capital P. It refers to the prince with the small p. The people of the prince. The Roman people. By the way, that's why the Antichrist, and we're going to see this in our study on the Antichrist, is not a Jew and he's not a Muslim. He's Roman European descent. It's clear in our text. And he goes on to say, he, talking about the Antichrist, shall confirm the covenant for many, for how long church? One week or seven years. The 70th week of Daniel. The moment that Israel signs a peace treaty with the Antichrist, the clock will begin to tick on the tribulation period. That is the definite beginning of what we understand of God's coming day of wrath. And so the tribulation period doesn't begin with the rapture, but Israel's covenant of peace with the Antichrist will bring peace to the Middle East. That does not mean that there might be interludes of peace. It doesn't mean that there has to be constant conflict in the Middle East. It doesn't mean that. What it means is it is an exact peace treaty with one individual who is a leader of the Western world, who is the Antichrist, that will then set up what we know as God's final week of prophecy, or what we know as the tribulation period. Isaiah calls it a covenant with death and a covenant with hell. The moment that Israel signs that seven-year peace treaty with Antichrist, the countdown to Armageddon will begin. We learn also from our text, verse 27, that the tribulation period will be divided into two parts of three and a half years each. Let's look again at verse 27. And he, I wrote in my Bible, Antichrist, shall confirm, that means he's going to make a covenant, a peace treaty, with many for one week. And in the midst of the week, He, talking about the Antichrist, shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. So here's what's going to happen. Right now, in Israel, on the Temple Mount is the Dome of the Rock. It is a Muslim holy site. Third most sacred Muslim holy site in the world. If Israel was to tear down that temple and build their own temple, it would result in a war of unprecedented magnitude in the Middle East. So here's what I believe. This is what I believe. Now, did you notice I said this? This is what I believe. Okay? I don't know. Because I'm not going to be here. Alright? We'll figure it all out when the world gets there. This is what I think. I believe that the Antichrist's peace treaty with Israel will make them so secure that some way, somehow, that temple will come down. And a Jewish temple will be erected in its place and the sacrifices of the Old Testament will resume. Already there is the temple project going on in Jerusalem. The plans are laid. The equipment and the furnishings of the tabernacle are either built or are being built. They are planning for the day when they again worship Jehovah God in their own temple. And I believe the peace treaty with the Antichrist will give that opportunity. But then you're going to learn that He's going to do something. In the middle of it, Jesus called it the abomination of desolation. The Antichrist will betray the Jewish people. He will cause the Jewish sacrifices and worship of Jehovah in the newly rebuilt temple to cease. He will set up an idolatrous image of himself and demand all the world to worship him at the cost of death if they refuse. that will mark the midpoint of the tribulation period. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24 verse 15, And when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth let him understand. Now church, think with me for a moment. When we go to heaven, guess what stays behind? The Bible. Whoso readeth, let him..." You don't understand it right now, but there's coming a generation of Jews who will understand. They'll read it, they'll see it, and they'll heed it. He talks about the Antichrist who will desolate or cause, he will desecrate the temple. At the midpoint of the trip, he will go in to the temple and he will proclaim himself to be God. He's Antichrist. He desires to give Satan the worship that he's always craved from the outset of his fall. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 4, in speaking of the Antichrist, says that whoso opposes, he's talking about the Antichrist, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." This man of sin will proclaim himself to be the answer to the world's problems. He will claim to be the Christ. Now we talked about how the tribulation period was divided into two parts. The first three and a half years of the tribulation period is what we know as the beginning of sorrows. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 24. Can we do that? It may be in your notes. I'm not sure. Ms. Christian does a wonderful job. I just can't always remember what she puts in your notes. I just know what's in mine. Christian, if you really want to understand Bible prophecy, master the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 and 25. It is the blueprint of end-time events. It is the most comprehensive chronological outline of end-time events found anywhere in the Bible. The church is not in Matthew 24 and 25. To read it into that Jewish context is to make a huge theological blunder. Look again, if you would, please, in verse number... He begins to talk about in verse number 4. They said, When are you going to come? What's going to be the sign of your coming? The end of the world. He begins to tell them to be careful that they're not deceived. Verse 5, Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ. These are false messiahs, but they're not the antichrist at this point. All right? And shall deceive many. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. Now this is the first three and a half years. See that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, for the end is not yet." It talks about nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famines, pestilence, earthquakes. Look at verse 8. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Birth pains. You probably don't and that's okay. But in 1 Thessalonians 5, you don't have to turn there. I'm going to do it for you. 1 Thessalonians 5, you remember what Paul said to them? And by the way, 2 Thessalonians 5, excuse me. II Thessalonians 5. I'm actually I Thessalonians 5 and that's my fault in my mind. Remember what he said? He said, "...for when they shall say, Peace and safety," see their peace treaty, "...then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with childbirth pains, upon a woman with child, and they," talking about an unbelieving world, "...shall not escape." Jesus calls it the beginning of the birth pains. The first three-and-a-half years are the beginning of sorrows, the beginning of the birth pains. The second three-and-a-half years are known as the Great Tribulation period. Look at verse 21 of Matthew 24. For then shall be great tribulation. He talked about the abomination of desolation, the middle point. Verse 15, He gives a command to the people of Israel. Then verse 21, For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Jesus said it's so awful, it's so terrible that, friend, listen, that if God, now watch this, if God doesn't bring it to an abrupt end, nobody's going to survive it. Look down, if you would, please, in verse 22. And except those days should be shortened. It doesn't mean that it's going to be less than seven years. It means that word shortened means to bring to an abrupt halt. There should no flesh be saved. But for the elect's sake, those remnant of believing Jews, Those days shall be brought to an end. They shall be shortened. Christian, here's the good news. Say, Preacher, what is it? We won't be here. Isn't that a blessing? We're going to be in heaven while this terrible time takes place on the earth. So we've talked about the definition of the tribulation period. Secondly, we talked about the duration of it, that it begins with the peace treaty of the Antichrist with the nation of Israel. It will last seven years. It's 70th week of Daniel to finish up God's prophecy to anoint the Most Holy. It's divided into two parts each, the beginning of sorrows, the beginning of the birth pains, and the first three and a half years, the Great Tribulation. Jesus said there's never been a time like it. There'll never be another time like that time. And we know that it's called the Great Tribulation period, the final three and a half years of God's wrath. Let's look at the devastating events of the Tribulation period. Can we do that? The tribulation period will be the darkest hour in human history. Now I'm going to just give you some verses. I want you to just listen for a moment. Joel 1 verse 15, Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Zephaniah 1 verse 15, that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. He's talking about a time, a terrible time of judgment, like a terrible thunderstorm that has overtaken the earth. Isaiah 34 verse 8, For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. Remember Revelation 6, 17? The great day of His wrath is come. Dwight Pentecost gives ten biblical words that characterize the coming tribulation. Now I'm not going to expect you to remember them, but I am going to share them. judgment, indignation, trial, trouble, destruction, darkness, desolation, overturning, punishment. Aren't you glad we're not going to be here? The tribulation is going to be a time of worldwide judgment. The great day of His wrath is come. There's a series of them that is revealed in the book of the Revelation. Jesus called them birth pains. Paul said it was like the travail of a woman in pain, meaning the travail or the birth pains of a woman giving birth to a child. Now here's what we learn about birth pains, alright? That they start relatively mild and infrequent. But yet as labor progresses, they intensify in both frequency and severity. Here's something else you learn about labor pains, alright? That whenever they start, there's going to be an arrival. I'll never forget, Lori was pregnant with our first child, Emily. And we were making our way to Morganton at the time. That's where her gynecologist was, the hospital where she would give birth. And there was a train track there right in a town called Valdez. It probably doesn't mean anything to anybody, but there's a train track there. And we were getting ready to hit that train track, and she looked at me while she was in pain, and she said, I don't think I can do this. And I said, well, it's a good time to figure that out now. It's a little late. Because you know what? Once those pains started, an arrival was going to take place. And she did. Friend, let me tell you something. When the birth pains of the tribulation start, an arrival is going to take place. And it's the second coming of Jesus Christ. Once they start, they will not stop until He arrives. Seven is a prevalent number in Revelation. You can jot that down if you'd like. It's the number of perfection or completion. Now, I'm not a big numerologist. I don't put a number to everything and a meaning to every number in the Bible. But there are numbers that we know hold significance. And we know that seven is a number that recurs many times in the book of Revelation. And it reminds us that God's judgment of this world is perfect. It is right. It is just. And the tribulation will fill up or it will complete the wrath of God. Now if you want to understand the movement of the book of the Revelation, we told you the golden key to Revelation 1, verse 19. the things that thou hast seen, the vision of the glorified Christ, chapter 1, the things which are, the messages to the seven churches, the age we're living in right now, Revelation 2 and 3, then chapter 4, the things which shall be hereafter. From chapter 4 onward you're dealing with end time events. Let's go to Revelation chapter number 6. Could we do that? Now I'm going to catch you up to Revelation chapter 6. When you come to chapter 4 and 5 and you're studying the Revelation, you need to know where you are, okay? Because there's alternating scenes between heaven and earth. In Revelation 4 and 5, you have what we understand as a heavenly scene. John is translated into heaven. He's caught up into the presence of the Lord. It's there that he's shown things that are going to be hereafter, alright? And he's given a vision of end time events that we know is the book of the Revelation. So you also in Revelation 4 and 5 have the worship of the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Thou hast redeemed us by Thy blood out of every country and kindred and tribe and people and tongue and nation. You remember that? But then you come to chapter 6 and you get an earthly scene. You have the seven sealed judgments. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to progress through Revelation through a series of judgments. There are three sevens. in the book of the Revelation, alright? In chapter 5, now you don't have to look there, I'm just catching you up. You're going to find a heavenly scene where there is a book in the right hand of God the Father who's sitting on the throne. The call goes out, who's worthy to take the book out of the hand of Him that sitteth on the throne? Many people want that book, but they're not worthy of that book. That book is the title deed to the earth. Only one. John begins to weep because no man was found worthy in heaven or in earth, under the earth. No one worthy. And the angel says to John, don't weep, John. There's one worthy. And his name is Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He rises. He takes the book out of the one that sits on the throne. It is a seven-sealed scroll. Chapter 6, he begins to open the seals. Look if you would, chapter 6 and verse number 1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals and I heard as it were the noise of thunder and one of the four beasts, these are the four living creatures around the throne says, come and see. It's a command to ride for John to look and for a rider to ride. And he said, behold a white horse. And he begins to talk about the horses of the apocalypse. of Revelation. Now I'm not going to go into detail of that. But here's what happens. When He opens the seals, the judgments of the tribulation begin. He opens one seal at a time as you read through chapter 6. When He breaks a seal in heaven, something happens on the earth and it's usually judgment. Then you come to Revelation chapter 8 and you have the trumpet judgments. I told you I'm giving an overview. Out of the seven seals, the seventh seal, will come seven trumpet judgments. Look at Revelation 8 and verse number 1. And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. There must not be any preachers in heaven. Because preachers can't stop talking. Look at verse 2. You know I'm being facetious. And I saw the seven angels, these are seven distinct angels, which stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Now these angels are going to blow in succession. Each time an angel sounds their trumpet, something happens. Wrath begins to come upon the earth, alright? And each trumpet, when it sounds, it gets worse and worse and worse. So much so that after the first four trumpets, and guys, you can catch us up here, we're at the seventh trumpet judgments, alright? There we go. Good. the seven trumpet judgments, and you're going to find that the final three judgments of the trumpets are so horrific, they're so terrible, they're called woes. Look at chapter 8 verse 13, And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe! It's a foreboding term of what's getting ready to happen to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound. As these trumpets are sounded, the judgments and the events of the tribulation pick up in intensity. I believe the seven sealed judgments will span the first three and a half years. The trumpet judgments and the next series of seven judgments I believe make up the great tribulation or the last half of the tribulation period. Out of the seventh trumpet will come the seven vows or the bold judgments. Look at Revelation chapter 15. We're covering a lot of territory. When you get to Revelation 15, you're at the end. Now I know there's a lot of chapters left in Revelation, but you chronologically are at the end of the tribulation period. So the first seven seal judgments, they're relatively mild, although a quarter... Now watch this. When I say mild, that means by the time the seven seals are finished, one-fourth of the earth's population has been killed. And we're only through the halfway point. Okay? So when I say mild, you understand what I mean. That means it only gets worse from there. They happen slowly over a period of three and a half years. When you get to the trumpets, it's beginning to pick up. When you get to the vowel judgments, it is one blow after another. You have seven angels lined up. As one angel steps up and pours out his vial, we don't use that term today very much, but a bowl. He pours out a bowl or a vial full of wrath. The moment he does, he steps aside and the next angel comes up and pours out his. It's in succession. Bang! Bang! Bang! The earth reels from one when it's hit with another. Look at Revelation 15 verse 1. And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues. For in them is filled up the wrath of God." Chapter 16 verse number 1. And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And you're going to find that as the oceans and the rivers and the streams are turned to blood, the sun scorches men with great heat. A supernatural darkness will pervade the kingdom of the Antichrist. The Euphrates River will be dried up to make way for the battle of Armageddon that will take place. All of these things are happening here at the very end. You say, preacher, is this just figurative or is it literal? Can I tell you, there may be a lot of figurative language in the book of the Revelation, but these judgments are literal. It's interesting that these judgments eerily remind us of the judgment God poured out on Egypt, and that wasn't figurative, it was literal. This time is going to be so awful, so horrific that words cannot fully describe the devastating effect of the wrath of God poured out on this world. But I've got good news. You say, preacher, what is it? In wrath, God remembers mercy. Do you know that God will use the horror of the tribulation period to bring in one of the greatest harvest of souls in the shortest amount of time? Isn't that amazing? Now when the rapture takes place, there's not one saved person left on planet earth. Not one. When Jesus comes and He sets up the kingdom, there will not be one unsaved person left on planet earth. Everybody that enters the kingdom will be saved. All the unsaved who are alive will be thrust out. That's the judgment of sheep and goats in Matthew chapter 25. I know it's a lot of information. But you know what? The more you hear it, the more you digest it and the greater you understand it. Can we look at this one point and we'll go home? Go to Revelation chapter 7. When you come to Revelation 7, you now have a heavenly scene again. There's going to be a great awakening, a great ingathering of souls. Multiplied millions will be brought to faith in Jesus Christ. In verses of chapter 7, verses 1-8, you have the salvation of the Jews. 144,000 Jews. 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Look, if you would, please, in verse number 1 of chapter 7. After these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And so here's what's happening. God is suspending judgment. Why? Verse 2. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them that were sealed. And there were sealed 140. and 4,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel. We know this to be 144,000 flaming Jewish evangelists who will receive Jesus as their Messiah. They will do in seven years what the church hasn't done in 2,000. They will carry the gospel to the entire world. We're going to put together 175,000 scriptures here in just a few short weeks. Really, it's not even hardly two weeks if that. When we go to heaven, those John and Romans that will be carried through all the world will be left. People during this time will pick up those scriptures and they'll read them. And we'll still be bearing fruit long after we're already in heaven. Isn't that amazing? You're making a difference not only now, but in the tribulation period as well. These 144,000 are the first fruits of a believing remnant of Jews that will come to faith in Christ and receive Him as their long-awaited Messiah during the tribulation period. When you come to verse 9, you have a different group of people. Here you have the salvation of the Gentiles. Look at verse 9. After this I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man could number of all nations." Did you notice how that's distinct? He said the 12 tribes of Israel. I hear today people talk about, well, they're lost. Well, God knows where every one of them are and which Jew belongs to which tribe. But this is nations. This is a term used of Gentiles. And Kidreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb. Why are they standing before the throne, preacher? Because they've been martyred for their faith. They've sealed their testimony in their blood. This vast multitude of Gentiles will come to faith in Christ as a result of the preaching of the 144,000. They will refuse the mark of the Antichrist. They will be hunted and persecuted and beheaded and killed because they resisted His authority and they refused to worship His image and receive His mark. Notice the Bible says in verse number 9, they stood before the Lamb clothed with white robes and palms in their hands. These are symbols of victory. Can I help you to understand when a believer dies, we are not victims, we're victors. Because we've gotten the victory in the blood of Jesus Christ. Isn't that a blessing? Somebody says, well, preacher, it'll be easier to get saved after the rapture. No it won't. It'll be harder. because they'll seal their testimony in their own blood. Friend, aren't you glad though that God in wrath remembers mercy? That even when God's pouring out His undiluted wrath on an unbelieving world, that there are those who can receive Jesus Christ and will receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. I'm glad that we have a great Savior. Can I remind us tonight that we have a greater Savior than we are sinners? That His grace is greater than all of our sin. Isn't that a blessing? and that He's given us the victory. And friend, the good news is that one day we're going to see Him face to face. Now we're going to come back and finish our study of the tribulation period because we've still got more to learn, alright? We're going to understand how it relates to the nation of Israel. How important it is, friend, to know Jesus Christ is your Savior. If Jesus comes, you'll be left to face this terrible time. We have friends and loved ones. Folks, listen, if we really believe what I'm preaching, if we really believe it, it'll not just be information in our heads, it will ignite a fire in our hearts to share the gospel with other people so that they can escape the wrath to come. Amen? We ought to be flaming evangelists in our own day, going everywhere preaching and teaching Jesus Christ's church. Time is short. We need to be busy about His business. Amen? Let's bow our heads in prayer. Maybe you're here tonight and you've never been saved. I want to invite you to the Savior.