Revelation 16 verses 17 through 21. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air and a great voice came out of the sanctuary of heaven from the throne saying, it has begun. There were lightnings and thunders and noises. There was a tremendous earthquake, a terribly severe earthquake such as had not occurred since mankind existed on the land. So the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell. And Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled and mountains were not found and huge hailstones weighing about a talent fell out of the sky on the people and the people blasphemed God on account of the plague of the hail because its plague was exceedingly severe. Father we thank you for this your word. It is our glory to study it and as weak as our understanding may be help us to grow in our responses to your word. We want to be more like you and I pray that you would anoint my lips of clay and that you would enable this, your people, to have the illumination of your Holy Spirit as we dig into your word. Continue to receive our worship, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, just by way of quick review of where we have been in chapter 16, we saw that the first three bowls related to the end of Israel in AD 136, and the Jewish rabbis of that time who would witness the Bar Kokhba rebellion said that the blood flowed so deep at Bithar that horses literally sank in the blood up to their noses. The Sea of Galilee became coagulated blood, and the Mediterranean was red all the way out northwest to the island of Cyprus. It was an unbelievably gross judgment, and it spelled the end of Israel as a nation and the land of Palestine. The Jewish rabbis who survived were no doubt exaggerating some of the things that they said, but they claimed that 80 million Jews died not just in Israel, but throughout the entire empire. And so that was one of the two major persecutors of the church that God was bringing his covenant lawsuit against. The second major persecutor was Rome, and we saw that the next three bulls deal with Rome, the seven-headed beast, with the seventh head being Vespasian and the eighth ruler being his son Titus. And we saw that Vesuvius' eruption, its first eruption darkened Palestine and Egypt. It darkened a great deal of Africa and all of the Roman Empire. And then the second eruption spewed forth a pyroclastic blast that its heat that it was spewing out, they say, they estimate gave more than 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. We also saw that this was followed five months later with Rome burning down once again. And we saw all of the accompanying signs being fulfilled to a T. And we also looked at the historical evidence that the great river Euphrates was completely dried up. That enabled the kings from the eastern side of that river to be able to cross in a remarkably short period of time and join with Titus and their armies in fighting against Jerusalem. And we looked at quite a number of applications, demonology, Those applications continue to the present. And the reason for that is Satan, you know, and his demons, they use the same principles down through history. If they've worked back then, you know, they just keep perfecting them over the past 6,000 years. And we saw that God's principles of warfare remain the same. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so even though a lot of these things were fulfilled in the first and second centuries, The principles apply to nations today as well. Now one of the things that I just brushed over, mentioned it briefly but I did not adequately cover, was the symbolism that's involved in the festivals. And I won't even adequately cover it today. I've given you kind of a handout to give you a little bit more information. And I want to show you how this whole chapter was structured around those festivals, the seven temple bowls, referring to the seven festivals. And we saw that in history, each of these judgments landed coincidentally on a festival day. And so there were seven temple bowls for seven temple festivals. And the question is why? Why did God make those things fall on specific festival days? And why did He do it twice? Because we saw before that He had done something very similar in the days leading up to AD 70. Now He's doing it in the last days of Israel leading up to AD 36. Why twice? Well, I believe it's a double witness in His covenant lawsuits against both Rome and Israel. That's one of the reasons, but I want to dig a little bit into the symbolism. And again, this is just going to be a very brief intro to it, but I think it'll give you some of the logic behind why this chapter is structured the way it is. We're gonna start with today's bowl, which landed on, or depending on your interpretation, which began to land on the festival of Passover. My view is all of these events surrounded this day, but Passover of 8066. And again, I do not think that this was by coincidence. This bowl began the pouring out of God's wrath upon Israel. And it sums up why all of the bull judgments were absolutely needed. There was a deliberate comparison of Israel to Egypt in all of these bull plagues. Now in the first Passover in Egypt, the Israelites were instructed to slaughter the Passover lamb, to take the blood, to put that on the doors of their houses. And when the death angel came by, if he saw the blood there, he would pass over that household. That's where the name Passover comes from. And any Israelites who failed to do so would be treated like Egyptians, and would receive the plague of the death angel. In Exodus, God made a distinction between the true Israelites and the Egyptians by who received the plagues. And the same is true with these plagues. They symbolize a reversal. Israel in the Old Testament was leaving Egypt. Here, it's like Israel is becoming Egypt, entering into Egypt. They are going back to the leeks and the garlics of Egypt, so to speak. And so, in chapter 11, verse 8, we saw that Israel was likened to Sodom and to Egypt. It's explaining why the plagues of Egypt are going to come upon Israel. The turning of the water into blood, the hail, the boils on their skin, all of those kinds of things. And how appropriate that the very events that warned Christians to flee from Jerusalem, Matthew 24, and not even to come down for a moment to get their clothing or anything else, just flee the moment that they saw the signs accompanying them, to flee to Pella, and that happened on Passover. The very day that that happened was the very day that Israel was called to flee from Egypt in the Exodus under Moses. And an Israelite under Moses who did not personally believe in the blood, who did not personally apply the blood to his house, received the plague because spiritually he was no different than an unbelieving Egyptian. And so this first Passover plague introduces why Israel is being treated as if they are Egypt. It's God's call to a new exodus of his people out of Egypt, you know, out of Israel. And so that's the symbolic connection to Passover. Now we saw that the bowl six landed on the Day of Unleavened Bread, and that too was not by accident. In Egypt, Israelites were to symbolically remove every crumb of leaven, leavened bread, out of their houses. In fact, they were even supposed to take candles, you know, to make sure they didn't miss anything. They were to look into every crevice. Leaven symbolizes the spread of sin. Sin would give the demons of Egypt legal ground to mess around in their lives. And on that first Passover unleavened bread and firstfruits, it was a three-day period, on that first period the removal of leaven symbolized who is going to be totally devoted to Yehovah and who is going to remain with the gods of Egypt. And really, God's Egyptian plagues were directed against the gods of Egypt, the demons of Egypt. But now, because Israel has rejected the final Passover, Jesus, they had no way to cover or to remove their sins, and therefore they had no protection from demons. And so the sixth bowl shows the demons taking over, which leads to Armageddon. And of course, we saw that in history, all of the details there were fulfilled perfectly. But symbolically, only judgment can be expected to those who do not have Jesus removing the leaven of sin from their lives. They either submit to the true God of Israel, or they become subject to the gods of Egypt, to the demons of Egypt. So that's the idea there. Bowl five landed on first fruits or resurrection day. This was the day that Israel crossed the Red Sea. Okay, so Passover was in Egypt, they're traveling on unleavened bread and then they cross the Red Sea on the festival of first fruits. Now, interestingly, if you read in Exodus, on Israel's side, God, His glory cloud came between Egypt and Israel. Remember, Egypt was chasing after them. On Israel's side, the glory cloud gave light from the fiery side. On Egypt's side, it gave darkness, thick darkness upon the Egyptians. And bowl five speaks of deep darkness. All of that really is symbolizing that When people reject the dawning light of resurrection day, all that's left is darkness, okay? And Bowl 5 speaks of deep darkness on the entire empire. And instead of the sun of righteousness, S-U-N, of righteousness rising with healing in his wings, what does Jesus do? He inflicts diseases upon them. In fact, it's the diseases of Egypt that he inflicts upon them. OK, so we saw that the literal darkness was caused by Vesuvius. It was a deep darkness. But even though there is a literal history, it was symbolizing something spiritual going on. Bowl four landed on Pentecost. Now again, there is absolutely nothing accidental in history. God is sovereign over all of history. And these were fulfilled in such a perfect manner. Anyway, in terms of symbolism, Pentecost symbolized two baptisms. You're either baptized by the Holy Spirit or you're baptized by fire. And here's what John the baptizer predicted about the baptism of the Spirit on Pentecost. This is from Matthew 3, 11 through 12. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath that is about to come? I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. So Pentecost guaranteed you're either going to receive the Holy Spirit's baptism or you're going to receive the unquenchable fire. OK, there is no in between and the literal historical fires that we looked at were great symbols. I think of that unquenchable fire, including how long they burned. If you read in the histories, you'll see they burned for three days and three nights. Again, I don't think that historical detail is an accident at all. Verses 8 through 9 speak of the literal historical events that were symbols. And the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. It was granted to him to burn the people with fire. So the people were burned with severe burns and they blasphemed the name of God who has authority over these plagues and they did not repent to give him glory. And we looked at that in detail. Okay, so there's now another grouping of bowls. And bowl three was poured out on the day of trumpets or Ab 1 of AD 136. Those who had shed the blood of saints and prophets would have their own blood shed. Okay, trumpets was God's call all through the Old Testament. It was his call to send forth his angels to accompany the troops, you know, in battle. And it was pagans who were God's enemies in the Old Testament. But here he's indicating it's Israel who has become God's enemy and whose blood flowed. Bowl two was poured out on the Day of Atonement or Ab 9 of AD 136. And the Day of Atonement pointed to the blood of Jesus Christ providing cleansing for the nation of Israel. But what happens if the nation tramples underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ? Their own blood flows and it flows according to the ancient histories that we had so deeply as I mentioned before. Horses literally sank in the blood up to their noses. And I already mentioned that the you know, the figure of 80 million Jews being killed. Now, all historians that I've read say that's a gross exaggeration, but all of them agree this is probably the greatest massacre ever in history. We looked at that in detail. Judgment is inescapable. If you reject Christ, who was going to be our substitute, right? Jesus bore God's wrath So as our substitute, if you reject him, if you reject the Passover lamb, then you must receive God's judgment yourself. So, so appropriate that this judgment was said by Jewish historians themselves to have landed on the day of atonement. Bowl One was poured out on the day of Tabernacles, which speaks prophetically to the end of the nation of Israel and disease upon all who reject the message of Tabernacles, which is exactly what Zechariah chapter 14 promises in connection with the festival of Tabernacles in New Covenant times, right? And tabernacles, by the way, also symbolize the fact that Israel is going to be permanently in exile. That's why they had these booths. They don't have a house to live in. They're in exile, wandering in the nations. And it prophesies the great ingathering of the Gentiles. We're not going to deal with it in this chapter, but there is one more festival, Purim, that speaks of the restoration of Israel in the future, but we won't get into that. So anyway, just in summary form, that's the logic behind why God had each judgment land on a festival day. Now I wanna dig into bowl number seven and get into some of the details. And the first thing I want to remind you of is that this bowl begins the judgments, it does not finish them. Now most partial preterists think that this finished the judgments. They apply it to AD 70, which by the way didn't finish the judgments in history anyway, continued for a full seven years all the way to AD 74. But, Chapter 15, we saw the whole book is constructed in a chiasm, but the dating section is in the judgments, the judgment section. So that the point of that chiasm goes up to chapter 15, then it starts traveling backwards again in terms of dates. And then at the beginning of chapter 18, it explicitly says, that it's going forward, and then forward, and then in the last chapter as it goes on into the indefinite future before us. Now some translations. Translate the last phrase of verse 17 as it is done now my viewpoint can account for that if that's indeed what the the text means because that would mean that Israel is done for it. There is no turning back now that this has been set out God is saying no more forgiveness for the nation it will be judged and But the literal meaning of this word is listed in dictionaries as an antonym. In other words, as an opposite of it is done or it is finished. This is not the word to telestai or any of the other Greek words that are out there. This is the Greek word gegonon. As I mentioned, when I first gave, at the beginning of the chapter, I looked at verse one, we gave an overview. We saw that this word would have been a huge clue to any Greek reader that There's a reversal going on. This is a chiasm. This is a reversal. And the last bowl of the vision begins the actual historical judgments in history. So it's a hint that they should read the judgments that way. Now let me read you definitions from a few Greek dictionaries. This word is defined by one large dictionary. as to begin to be, to come into existence as implying origin, in the aorist and the perfect tenses to have begun to be or have come into existence. Another dictionary says to be born, origin, to grow, genesis of something. Another dictionary says to come into being, point of origin, entry into a new condition, become. Another dictionary says birth, Genesis. And I dealt with the meaning of that term extensively when we were looking at verse one. So I'm not going to say more here. But when the bull, bull number seven, was poured out, it was the start of the historical judgments that would spell the doom of Israel and of the seven-headed monster. So it appears that this prophecy was fulfilled shortly after John wrote this book. And the events I'm going to document were so amazing that anybody with eyes to see would have immediately recognized, hey, there is something beginning here. There is something weird. In fact, Josephus says, when he saw those things, he said, this must be an omen that God is going to judge Israel. He immediately recognized. So there's something amazing beginning. Now, verse 17 says, Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air. Okay, I think that's important to see, and most commentaries just slide right over that because what's most of the effects preoccupied with is the effects on the earth, right? But he starts with the air, and the reason he starts with the air is because God's judgments began with the massive battles in the heavenlies between the angels and the demons that Michael, the archangel, was fighting with Satan and all of his angels. And we looked at that in Revelation 6, verses 12 through 16, which, by the way, happened on exactly the same day. In terms of chiasm, we're going back to that day. And chapter 12, verses 7 through 12, kind of reminds us about that, looks back at that and says, hey, that's what was the beginning of this process. So Satan and his hosts themselves began to be judged as they were kicked out of heaven. It's not just a judgment on the earth, it was a judgment on the prince of the power of the air. We saw that in three and a half years Satan was going to be bound in AD 70 And the rest of the beast continued to live, so there's demonic in our world for an epoch and a season. We still have lots of demons, but Satan himself would be bound. And it's not surprising that the events in the air would produce lightnings, thunders, and noises, as verse 18 words it. Matthew 24, verse 27 says, in connection with his coming and judgment on Israel, remember the first 34 verses deal with events going up to 80, 70, within one generation, all of those things. And then the rest of that chapter, in chapter 25, deals with a second coming in the future. But that particular coming was correlated with the standards, the Roman standards that were under the Roman general Cestius. Because he uses the Greek word hosper, it's a word of comparison, I believe the lightning he's referring to there is, it's like lightning. So Christ's appearing in the sky was like lightning, it's not the lightning itself. And so that to me means that the remarkable lightning, thunder, and other noises that terrified people on that day were symbols of Christ's spiritual coming in the skies that we looked at in chapter six, verses 12 through 16. And so keep in mind, that's not Christ's second coming. That's in the future. In the future, it's not simply going to be appearing of Christ. It's going to be a tangible coming of Christ to the earth. This is speaking of a very unique appearing in judgment on Israel and Temple. Well, back then I quoted quite a number of ancient histories that spoke of exactly this. There was an appearing in the sky. They speak of this incredibly beautiful and transfixing image of a man in the sky who was leading innumerable fiery chariots and angels, and they were darting all through the territory in Israel. Roman, Jewish, and ancient Christian historians speak of this appearing in the sky. Tacitus records even the sounds that the angels made. And he might be, dating is kind of obscure, but he might be referring to this particular day when he says, then the sun was suddenly darkened and the 14 districts of the city were struck by lightning. Now Josephus for sure refers to this day when he speaks, he says, they felt a quaking and heard a great noise. So anyway, this first phrase very literally fulfilled, but some of the noises may have come from the massive earthquake that followed. And my next point in your outline says that an earthquake more severe than any earthquake previously recorded in history, was prophesied to happen in AD 66 and it would be so severe that verse 20 says that every island would move rapidly enough that it felt like that island was fleeing. Okay, can that have happened in history? And I say, oh yeah, absolutely it did. And too many commentators think that because these are symbolic, they don't literally occur in history. And you know that my interpretation of the book has been far more literal than even dispensational interpretations. And this particular passage has been the most difficult one in this whole book for me to document from history. But as I've gone through, I have found, yes, every detail is there. Now take a look at the text. Verse 18 says, and there was a tremendous earthquake, a terribly severe earthquake, such as had not occurred since mankind existed on the land. Verse 20 adds, and every island fled and mountains were not found. Now some of your versions might say the mountains, as if all of the mountains disappeared, but there's no the in any Greek manuscript. He's simply talking about some mountains disappeared, which indeed they did. But the Greek is just as clear that every island had sufficient movement that you could say that that island was fleeing, the Greek word ephugen. What on earth is that talking about? Most commentators are just like, what? They have no idea what's going on with that phrase. Certainly the spiritual shaking was that profound, and that's the primary thing that he's looking at. We'll get to that later on. But what about the physical shaking? There's always a physical related to the spiritual. Now since in past weeks we have clearly demonstrated that this chapter is tied to the first and second centuries, we know that it had to have happened because God said it would happen. And so I've done quite a bit of searching. In my searching last year, I came across even more evidences than I presented to you before of a massive earthquake that literally fulfills every detail of these verses. There's actually more and more evidence that's coming out all of the time. Now Josephus wasn't much help at all. He only mentions on that day a terrible noise as the earth shook Israel. He doesn't say how hard Israel was shaken, it's just it was significant enough. He mentions the earth made an incredible noise and it shook Israel. Now back in chapter 6 I documented that this didn't just happen in Israel, this happened all over the Mediterranean. And let me give you a tiny summary of what we went through back then. I have about a dozen books and numerous technical journals that document what I'm about to describe and again if you want more details just look at my sermon on the web chapter 6 verses 12 through 17. So that's the portion of the book that parallels, date-wise, what we're talking about today. Now, the first article I stumbled upon was a technical article by George Pararus Karajanis. It was published in a journal called The Science of Tsunami Hazards. And it presents the results of numerous interdisciplinary studies that documents that of the 613 verifiable historical earthquakes that happened in the Mediterranean region from the time of Christ to the present, the four biggest earthquakes happened in 8066, 8365, 880, 1303. And this one in 8066, it was massive. Most people aren't even aware of this information, but it was massive. Let me summarize in point form. Some of the conclusions that he and his colleagues came to when they studied this super earthquake. And I'm not going to give nearly the detail that we gave before. But first of all, it was massive enough to be felt all over the Mediterranean. And we looked at a lot of evidence of that. Second, a 30 foot high tsunami hit Crete. and the tsunami was higher in some parts of the Mediterranean. Their research has shown there was no place in the Mediterranean that was not affected by tsunamis. Third, some island mountains disappeared underwater due to buckling that happened from the impact of the Aegean and Anatolian microplates hitting up against the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. There are actually some places where the land masses shot way up into the air, and there were other places, due to the buckling, where they went way, way down. In fact, they just, in the last couple of years, have started doing archaeological digs in underwater Cities that they've discovered like like a lost Atlantis type of a thing. There's some fascinating underwater Archaeology that is happening and you won't find it in the books because this is so recent. It hasn't gotten into the books yet Okay, fourth, cities like Colossae and Laodicea were leveled by this earthquake with Laodicea itself being flattened so bad. They had already endured two earthquakes, but it had been flattened so bad it did not get rebuilt for another 160 years. Which by the way, just as a side note, is one of many, many proofs that this book was written had to have been written before the first quarter or within the first quarter of AD 66. Reason? He wrote a letter to the church in Laodicea. There was no city of Laodicea after AD 66 for another 160 years. It could not have been written in AD 90. And there's a whole bunch of other proofs that I have that this book was written much, much earlier. Fifth, based on the evidence that we have, every portion of the Mediterranean map was impacted in some way, including every island in the Ionian and Aegean Seas, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Western Mediterranean Basin. If you guys want to research this more, just look it up when it gets up onto the web tomorrow. I got boatloads of references and footnotes for almost every phrase here. Papadopoulos and Vassilopoulos say that the cities on the island of Crete were totally destroyed, every one of them. There is also evidence that the earthquake affected many cities in Greece and Italy. So there were cities all over the Roman Empire that were affected to one degree or another. So this was not a minor earthquake. Now let me read you a couple quotes from George Pararis Kariannis on what exactly was going on in terms of tectonics and seismology. He says, tectonic collisions and Alpine orogenesis resulted in further complex geotectonic deformations that created the Hellenic orogonic tectonic belt, the long range of mountains that traverse the western side of the Aegean microplate. These tectonic processes continue to stress and fold the Earth's upper crust in the region, thus forming more islands, more mainland mass, and affecting the mountains of Greece to greater heights. The active tectonic interaction and collision of the converging African and Eurasian plates along the entire eastern Mediterranean margin resulted in multiple subduction zones, post-orogenic basins, accretionary margins, neogenic crust shortening, and extreme seismicity and volcanism, processes that continue to the present. There have been numerous scientific and archaeological field investigations of raised shorelines and submerged ancient harbors of the eastern Mediterranean that are indicative of major crustal displacements associated with significant earthquakes. Field studies of salt deposition and of erosional features indicate that the upward crustal displacements raised the land by as much as 6.66 meters on the average above the ancient sea level, corrected for eustatic sea level variation, with maximum uplift in one area as being as much as 9.9 meters. For those of you who aren't metric people, 9.9 meters is 32.48 feet. Can you imagine if we had an earthquake right now and this building got lifted 32 and a half feet in a matter of minutes? It would be terrifying, absolutely terrifying. That would be a moving of islands and mountains on a scale that had not been seen by man before. Very literally, quote, a terribly severe earthquake, such as had not occurred since mankind existed on the land, occurred on the festival of Passover, AD 66. And for more details, again, I would refer you to the sermon on chapter 6, verses 12 through 17. But verse 19 goes on to say that the great city, which by the way, we have already documented, and we'll be documenting this even more, but chapter 11, verse eight, has already defined as Jerusalem, that's the great city, was divided into three parts. So we would expect that immediately after Passover of 8066, we're gonna find a division of the city of Jerusalem. And you would expect it would be precipitated by these signs. And that's exactly what we find in history. There was a huge power struggle between three factions for control of the city. Initially, it was the Sadducees against two other factions, and eventually they were wiped out and it became three rebel factions all fighting each other. Now, on Passover day itself, they were united because they were fighting against Cestius, who was coming to destroy Jerusalem. And we saw before that as soon as they saw the armies coming, and as soon as they saw the armies of Christ in the sky, which happened on exactly the same day, that was the clue. If they didn't have their grab bags ready, they fled naked, okay? They had to run with their grab bags, and they all escaped. The only two that were left in the city were two prophets whom God had ordained to speak as a testimony against Jerusalem. But amazingly, the unbelieving Jews were able to slaughter Cestius's very disciplined Roman army. Cestius barely escaped with his life, and as soon as he escaped with his ragtag little remnant of his army, then the Jews, they didn't have Romans to fight against, so they started fighting against each other, trying to gain control of three different parts of the city. So Josephus words it this way. Jerusalem was parted exactly the same language as our verse, Jerusalem was parted into three factions, and that one faction fought against another. Tacitus, who was the Roman historian recording that same war, he said of the Jews at Jerusalem, there were three generals and three armies, and between these three there was constant fighting, treachery, and arson. Very literally, Jerusalem was divided into three parts after Passover of AD 66. Now John moves from Jerusalem to the cities of the Roman Empire, and he says, and the cities of the nations fell. I've already dealt with that in terms of my interpretation. Every one of the cities of Crete fell. Many of the cities of Greece and Italy were destroyed. Laodicea completely demolished. Eusebius, the early church historian, says Colossae and Hierapolis were also ruined by the earthquake. Now, I've tried to ferret out how destroyed were Hierapolis and Colossae, and I've not been able to find out, but he said they were destroyed. So if this reference is to what the earthquake did, then very literally the cities of the nations did indeed fall. But some people say this is not talking about literal falling, this is talking about people being killed. So their approach to this is to take it Oh, for the next, you know, three years, well, especially AD 69, where there was a civil war that was going on, and literally millions of Jews and Romans around the empire died as legion fought against legion. Now that puts it way too far off for my comfort. That's three years after Passover. To me, it seems like it's just dealing with this, but just for the sake of argument, if people say that that's what was meant, right at this time, AD 66. There were indeed quite a number of cities that were emptied because of rioting. My estimates of the specific numbers say at least 100,000 Jews were killed, and I don't have the estimates of how many 100,000 of Gentiles were killed. For example, 20,000 Jews were killed in Caesarea by the Greco-Syrian population, and Caesarea was 100% emptied of Jews. Now that wasn't war, that was citizen riots, much like the L.A. riots, only on a much grander scale. The next two weeks resulted in more riots between Jews and non-Jews in many cities in Palestine and throughout the empire. Jews in these cities were so upset with what happened in the first massacre, they massacred the Syrian population in those cities. And then other Gentiles got upset. So in those cities, they massacred a whole bunch of Jews. And I'll just summarize very quickly some of the biggest cities that were impacted. Scythapolis, Ashkelon, Ptolemaeus, Tyre, Hidos, Gadara, Alexandria. There were 50,000 Jews killed in Alexandria. Damascus, where 10,000 were killed in one hour. and Joppa. That's all within two weeks and it's sometimes hard to get the dating but definitely within two weeks of this Passover thing. The whole region of Pella was emptied of all citizens. They were all just massacred. That's how the 144,000 remnant of Jews were able to escape and live in Pella for the duration of that war and then go out as missionaries to the world after that. It's just marvelous how God did all of this. So anyway, that's how some people take it. I don't agree. I think it's just dealing with the earthquake flattening cities. But either way, you can see there was a literal fulfillment. Now verse 21 predicted another astounding thing that happened in 1866. It says, and huge hailstones weighing about a talent fell out of the sky on the people. Now I've got quite a number of commentaries that say that what this is referring to is the ballista that are lobbing stones into the city of Jerusalem. The Romans would lob these huge, and Josephus says that they weighed a talent, and they say, huh, coincidental. Maybe this is what the hail is. And they said it looked like hail because they painted the stones white during the day so the Jews wouldn't as easily see it. They painted them dark at night so they couldn't dodge out of the way of these ballista coming in. And you know I guess that's a possibility but I doubt it very very much because there are three perfectly good Greek words that refer to the projectiles thrown by the Roman ballista machines, katapeltes, petrobolos, and lithobolon. And this is not one of those three words. It's just a word for hail, kaladzes. It just means frozen stones of ice. I think we've got to take all of Revelation literally at face value. And I take this at face value. Even if I didn't see something in history, I'd say hailstones fell. Now I'm going to show that hailstones did indeed fall. Even if you don't find it, history does not govern our exegesis of scripture. Scripture judges our interpretation of history. But providentially, God has preserved these things for us to be able to see. Anyway, a literal interpretation makes virtually all commentators extremely queasy. queasy, beyond all belief. Many think this defies physics, and so they're embarrassed by this. And they say, sure, hail fell on Israel. Anybody can prove that hail fell on Israel, but could the hail have been that big? I mean, a talent is actually incredibly huge. It's over 100 pounds. This is one of the things that's made liberals again mock the scripture. You know, they like to cherry pick these different things and laugh at us. Yeah, hail talent. There's no way you're going to get a hundred pound ice ball falling out of the sky. So whether you think this was fulfilled in the first century, you think it's way off in the future. I think it's worthwhile examining this to see whether this could be. Now we believe it because God says it. not because we can prove it. If God says it, that settles it. But anyway, let's think about this a bit. Commentaries are all over the map on how much a talent is. Beckwith is noncommittal. He says it's between 60 and 130 pounds. I'm thinking, what? That is a huge variation, really? Robert Thomas says it's between 108 and 130 pounds. Mount says it's between 60 and more than 100 pounds. Lau and Nida say it's 90 pounds. George Eldon Ladd says it's a bit over 100 pounds. Beal says in ancient times it ranged from 45 pounds to 130 pounds. And I'm thinking, wow, these ancients need to get their act together on weights and measures, or archaeologists need to quit guessing, you know, when they're interpreting this stuff. But for the sake of argument, let's take the biggest figure that any of them throw out, 130 pounds, and say, is it even possible for this to happen? We know it's not necessary to be that big to kill people, because in 1986, there was a hailstorm where the hail was two pounds. They were big hailstones, killed 92 people. So it doesn't have to be that big to kill people, but I wanna say, is it possible? And what's your answer? Of course it's possible. God said it in the scripture, right? Of course it's possible. Now I have some interesting modern examples of massive hail, including one ice ball in Brazil that weighed 110 pounds, another that weighed an astounding 440 pounds, and the biggest one that I have run across, and I just discovered it this past week, and it's been very heavily documented. This fell in a public place. This is one of the most heavily documented. It fell in a public place in Toledo, Spain. In fact, it almost hit and killed the niece of the Justice of the Peace of Maqueda, and it weighed an astonishing, get this, 881.8 pounds. biggest hailstone ever documented. Now Guinness Book of World Records records a 20 foot long mass of ice that fell in Ord, Scotland in 1849, but unfortunately they didn't weigh it. So we have no idea of how much it weighed. Now initially scientists have claimed, hey, these are not hailstones, and most continue to say that. There's a lot of controversy on the origin of these ice balls that fall out of the heavens. And by the way, they've been falling rather frequently in the last two decades So they've coined a new word for them. They call them mega cryo meteors and But interestingly, the makeup of these megacryometeors is identical to the makeup of hail. Very interesting. Scientists have been very puzzled, and so they rush. Any time there's a report, they get it into a freezer, they rush to those places, falling in South America, North America, Europe. I think there's some that's fallen in Asia. One, the first one in Africa was recently reported as having fallen in Africa. So they rush and they study these things, trying to figure out where in the world could these things have come from. Now, the reason that they have recently been saying, you know, we shouldn't call them meteors, they can't be coming from outer space, because first of all, they would have all burned up by the time that they, you know, dissolved, by the time they hit the earth. And secondly, when they've actually done bores and examined these things, It doesn't have the characteristics of the kind of coldness that would be out in that atmosphere and it just doesn't fit for a number of reasons. Now the reason they cannot be explained in terms of storms is that some of these ice balls fall out of a clear blue sky, no clouds visible. So they say, okay, it's not necessarily related to storms. The reason it can't be water leaking out of a airplane laboratory receptacles, which by the way does happen. There have been reports of big blue balls of yuck. But these don't have any feces. They're not blue. There's no chemicals in them. So they say they can't be that. And they can't be really coming out of the clean water receptacles of planes because, again, physically that doesn't make any sense. And it would have had chlorine or chloramine in it. And it doesn't have any chemicals in it. So others have theorized that water spouts have taken massive amounts of water from a lake, taken it way up into the atmosphere, and it turned into ice and started falling down. But they say, well, that can't be either, because as they've done analysis of it, you would expect this lake water to have some algae, some bacteria, and even the structure of the water is not like lake water. They have ruled that out. In fact, Jesus Martinez Frias, a planetary geologist at the Center of Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, says that the chemical and molecular composition is identical to hail formed during storms. And they can tell what temperatures these ice balls freeze at because when they take their cores, and they say it's impossible for these to have frozen any higher than the troposphere, which is the lowest part of our atmosphere. So just example, I'll give you a quote from an article that was interviewing this expert who's looked at so many of these ice balls. This was a measly 20 pound, mega cryo meteor and it it went right through a warehouse roof and and here's what he Here's the article summarizes findings on that Like other mega cryo meteors the ice chunk had a chemical and molecular composition identical to that of rainwater Derived from the troposphere the lowest layer of the atmosphere Martinez Rios believes that mega cryo meteors form when an ice crystal is driven repeatedly through cold water vapor. So it doesn't have to be clouds. There is water vapor up there by atmospheric turbulence acquiring coat after coat of frozen water. Now, if he's right, then this is true hail, even though some of them are not formed in clouds. And in my footnotes, I reference a number of articles and books on this subject. Now we don't know how big the hail was in Josephus' storm and there was another later storm because Josephus didn't go out and measure it. But he interpreted one event as so astounding that he thought this must be a divine foreshadowing of calamities to come. So it was not an ordinary storm. He said this, and these were the people, this is one group of rebels that's trying to get into the city to take over the temple, which they successfully did. Mean spirited bunch of ornery cusses that you've ever seen and unbelievable, but they couldn't get into the city right away until they got a spy to open up the door and let them in. But it says they lay all night before the wall. Though in a very bad encampment, for there broke out a prodigious storm in the night with the utmost violence and very strong winds, with the largest showers of rain, with continual lightnings, terrible thunderings, and amazing concussions. There were bellowings of the earth. that was in an earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men when the system of the world was put into such disorder. And anyone would guess that these wonders foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming. And by the way, these men did indeed blaspheme. They were upset. They were very upset. It was dark. So Josephus didn't know where the amazing concussions come from. But if you read the reports, and I've given a lot of documentation for that, When these megacryometeors hit the ground, they shake the houses nearby. You know, it's a deafening noise that definitely fits the evidence of this text. Now, of course, that happened later, but then there is a progress of time within this bowl. It's poured into the air, and then there's effects experienced on the earth. But in any case, there is absolutely no reason to doubt that hailstones can fall. Once again, liberals have egg on their faces. And I just wish the partial preterists would just take these things at straightforward value, you know? Doesn't have to be Ballista, it's real hail from God's ballista. He's tossing it at them. Okay, verse 19 has a clause that explains why all of this was brought. God was upset with Jerusalem's sins. We've already identified Babylon with Jerusalem a number of times starting in chapter 14. We're going to do so, we're going to dig into that metaphor much more in chapter 17. But far from being the people of God as she claimed to be, God identifies her in this book as Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, the harlot, the beast from the land, and the great persecutor of the church. And even though God is so patient, so slow to anger, there comes a time when a nation's sins will be brought to remembrance. Now when verse 19 says, and Babylon the great was remembered before God, it's not implying that God forgets. And by the way, it's not God doing the remembering here anyway. I believe it's the saints who are bringing it to remembrance. They're doing the remembering. This is a metaphor that's used over and over in the Old Testament for when people would bring something before a court, okay? They're bringing to remembrance before a court the actions and the character of an individual, and this is something we ought to do. If the saints are bringing before God's remembrance the incredible persecutions that that Israel and that Rome have been bringing, we ought to do the same. You have not because you ask not, and if you don't ask for God's judgments to fall upon the enemies of the church, the enemies of the church will continue to triumph over the church. I think we do need to bring these covenant lawsuits before heaven's throne. Anyway, the outcome of being brought before God is to quiver the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath. Now, it's not talking about hellfire, even though hellfire is one manifestation of God's wrath, and even though this book talks about hell a number of times. No, this is affirming that God's wrath is poured out in historical judgments upon nations, and it's not just Israel. It's not just Israel that is judged. If you remember the little mini-structure in this, it goes from Israel to Rome to Rome to Israel. Okay, it doesn't matter what the nation is, it cannot escape from God's judgments. Psalm 2 guarantees that in the New Covenant times, when Jesus ascends onto his throne, it says that any nation that refuses to kiss the sun will face God's wrath and will perish as it's smashed with Christ's rod of iron. Okay, that's an interestingly God's wrath that comes upon a nation. Many times comes at the time when it seems the least likely, when everything's going swimmingly well. Okay, people think, how could it be any better? Things are improving, you know. and it comes. Enos, Caiaphas, and the rest of that trillionaire family had ruled Israel for so long and they had politics so wrapped up in their pocket that they seemed unseedable. And they controlled every facet of politics at that time. Things were going swimmingly good, but the leadership of Jerusalem was in for a rude awakening. All nations get a reckoning in history as well as in eternity if they do not repent. You may be frustrated at how thoroughly entrenched the evil is in America, the swamp, you know, that people talk about. And it just seems like, can we ever get rid of the swamp? God's hand is not too short that it cannot save, but I doubt God will until the church itself repents of its sins. That is one of the things that God uses to bring discipline in the church's life is tyranny of a nation. So we can't expect politics to turn out well when the church itself is in such sin. I also want you to notice here that God is not as nice as postmodern man tries to make him out to be. He is only a gentle father to those who put their trust in Jesus Christ. Outside of Christ there is no safety. Romans 8 ends by saying that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God's love resides in the Son, and therefore He lavishly pours out His love upon all who are in the Son, who are united to the Son, but outside of Christ? Nothing but wrath. The wrath of God abides on those who are outside of Christ, and there comes a time when the fury of his wrath is poured out. This is not the God of the postmodern church, but it is the God of the Bible. It's a strong warning to flee to safety in Jesus Christ. He is the only strong tower and fortress that you can have on the day of judgment. And God urges us to apply the blood of the Passover lamb Jesus, not only for ourselves as individuals, but to our families, to our households. Now, despite physical judgments, verse 21 says that these people did not believe. Despite the hailstones falling on them in miraculous fashion, verse 21 says, the people blasphemed God on account of the plague of the hail, because its plague was exceedingly severe. Now scripture indicates that both the goodness and the severity of God leads the elect to repentance, But apart from God's grace, this is the result. People will blaspheme. Now people blaspheme in different ways. Some people blaspheme just very outwardly. They'll cuss at God. Other people blaspheme by attributing his judgments to Mother Nature, to chance. It's just a natural thing. Other people blaspheme simply by disregarding what the Bible has to say, but when Christ has given you this infinitely valuable gift of the Passover lamb, Jesus, who is the substitute who bore God's wrath in your place, and you reject it, you deserve his wrath. He has offered freely to be the substitute for you, and you deserve his wrath and will receive it. But sadly, because of total depravity, Jesus said, even if somebody saw the greatest miracle in the world, somebody rising from the dead, they still won't believe. Jesus said, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead. Luke 16, verse 31. So no matter how many prophecies are perfectly fulfilled, no matter how many miracles are done, apart from grace, people will not believe. But praise God, He is stronger than our stubborn hearts. When the dating of this bowl is placed with the dating that lines up in the first half of the book, you realize, hey, God's not done with Israel yet. In the next 66 years, there were multiplied I don't know how many. It was just incredible numbers of Jews who came to Christ. And really, there's never been a time in human history when there has not been a remnant of Jews coming to Christ. There's coming a time in the future when the entire nation will come to Christ. Now, where do I get that in here? Well, remember that we saw that this is a temple bowl. Commentators point out these golden phiole, you know, these bowls are only temple bowls in the scripture, which means it's a redemptive judgment. A redemptive judgment is a judgment that falls on all so that there can be salvation brought to some so that the church can grow. So never lose hope for any nation. God's hand is not too short that it cannot save. And many times it's judgments where Christians go in, minister their love, and do mercy ministries where multitudes come to Christ. So we need to be ready to pick up the pieces and offer the mercies of Jesus. Now the last question that I want to answer is, what does this earthquake and these cataclysmic events symbolize? We saw in Revelation chapter 1 verse 1 that this book is filled with symbols. But that does not mean they're not literal events in history. It's sort of like the rock in the wilderness. Yes, it symbolized Jesus being struck. by the Father in His wrath and therefore the Holy Spirit flowing from Jesus, but it was still a literal rock, a literal rod, a literal Moses who smote that rock. And we have seen the same is true of all of the symbols of this book. So you get people going to one extreme or to the other extreme, but it's both and. Literal symbols in history. So I want to look at what do they symbolize? Well, we've already seen The bulls themselves symbolize God's redemptive judgments. But what about the other cataclysmic events? I think, in part, they symbolized coming judgment. And even Josephus recognized that. I think, in part, they symbolized the change from the 40 years in the wilderness to actually crossing the Jordan River into Canaan and the transition to the church inheriting the nations. Prior to 80-70 it was still the times of the Jews primarily. After 80-70 it's primarily been the times of the Gentiles. But I think there's more. Haggai 2 verses 6-7 and verses 21-22 predicted a spiritual earthquake that would happen in the first century just before the times of the Gentiles, which begins in AD 70. Okay. And that would begin the process of removing all of the old creation, gradually bringing in the new creation. And you'd say, well, we're not in the new creation yet. Are you not a new creation? This is a gradually spreading kingdom, and Hebrews 12 quotes that passage, and by divine inspiration, says, using the present tense, using the word now, says that there is now a spiritual shaking of the old covenant that is happening. We are now receiving the kingdom, and this process of shaking will eventually leave nothing except that which cannot be shaken. Praise God. I think that's what it's primarily symbolizing. Now Hebrews 12 was written before, well, it was written just before this, right in 8066. And in the next chapter, Hebrews tells the Jewish Christians to not cling to Jerusalem, but to be willing to go outside the camp and receive the kingdom of Christ. He says, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one which is about to come. Hebrews 13, 14. The Greek word is mellow. It always means something is about to happen. It's on the verge of happening. There was a convergence of things in Hebrews and in Revelation that were about to happen that speak of the definitive passing away of the Old Covenant and the remaining and growing of the new covenant realities. But Hebrews 12 symbolizes all of that with an earthquake. The literal physical earthquake symbolized the spiritual earthquake. Now how extensive is that shaking that places all things under Christ's feet? Hebrews 12 says that it shakes heaven and earth. That's pretty universal, okay? It shakes everything lost in Adam and replaces it with everything purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ, which is eventually going to be even a new physical universe, a new heavens and a new earth. That's where it's all headed toward. And 1 Corinthians 15 picks up the phrase of all things under Christ's feet and includes the subduing of all enemies. And the timing of 1 Corinthians 15 is interesting. According to premillennialist interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives a threefold order. Remember, I've learned from all three schools of thought, but they give a threefold ordering. Christ the firstfruits, that's AD 30. then those who are Christ's at His coming, they say that's in the future to us, and then comes the end, that's at the end of the millennium for them, that's the final resurrection. Now I agree with their exegesis, I just think the timing is wrong. The way I see it is a resurrection in 8030, And part of that same resurrection, since that was just a firstfruits, is a resurrection in 8070 at Christ's appearing, not at his coming, but his appearing in the sky. And then comes the end, and it's afterwards, there's a long gap in between. a resurrection at the end of history. And this is what we're gonna see in Revelation chapter 20. There's two resurrections. There's the barley resurrection, barley harvest in the first century that's made up of two parts, first fruits in 80, 70. And then the rest of the dead do not rise till the thousand years is finished. That's the wheat harvest, okay? So that's kind of the big, big time paradigm. But for the purposes of symbolism from Hebrews, It's not just the old covenant ceremonial laws which must be shaken and removed. It is everything connected to the old broken covenant under Adam. 1 Corinthians says that anything in rebellion to Christ must be removed before he comes back. That completely rules out full preterism. Remember, full preterism thinks 80, 70 is the end of everything. Christ has come back and we're, boy, it doesn't seem like a very, very cool new heavens and new earth that we're living in if that's everything. No, there is every enemy put under His feet and it indicates that the enemies must be reconciled to Christ. You compare that with Colossians 1 and all of planet earth in total submission to Jesus. That's not happened yet. Only at His coming will the last enemy, death, be destroyed and it will be destroyed while He comes and we're caught up to meet Him in the twinkling of an eye. Which means if that's the last enemy, and every other enemy is put down, and it's while he's coming, that means every other enemy must be put under his feet and reconciled before the second coming. Okay? In other words, and he goes on to say, that's the time, by the way, that he didn't inherit the kingdom, that's the time he turns over the kingdom to the Father, because he's already accomplished all of the purposes. In the meantime, we pray that God's kingdom would come more and more. That His will would be done more and more. Where? On earth as it is in heaven. His will is perfectly carried out in heaven, but we're praying that that would happen on earth. So that too is a shaking of the old sinful order, a bringing in of the kingdom of heaven to earth. Another way of wording it is that the Great Commission will not be complete until all nations are Christian nations obeying everything that Christ has said in His Word. That powerful earthquake symbolized this beginning of the shaking of everything until only that which cannot be shaken is left. May we not be a part of what is shaken out of planet earth, but be part of what inherits planet earth in eternity. And the only way you can be part of what is not shaken is if you are united to the shaker himself, Jesus Christ, trusting him alone for your salvation. May it be true of all of us. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. Even the difficult parts that are hard to understand, we know are for our good. And I pray that you would help us to master this book and to have our faith growing as a result of this book. Confidence in your sovereignty, confidence in your prophecies, confidence in your plans for planet Earth, that there is coming a day when the last chapters of Revelation where all nations will live in the light of your word will be true. And I pray, Father, that this, your people, would be encouraged. Bless us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.