to Revelation chapter number 16. Revelation chapter 16. We're going to go through four little passages of scripture in the next 20 minutes. And we're going to go back towards the front of our Bible. So we're going to work our way back. Revelation 16. And let's see. Chuck, are you able to put that up on the wall? What's that? You are not. Okay. Hope everyone can see that. Well then I'll use the Crayola series. And then I'll zoom it in like that and just make sure everyone brings their specs next time. Or sit close to the front. All right, so Revelation 16. I thought we did a week ago though. I thought we had it up there a week ago. Oh well. All right, so Revelation chapter 16, and this is right in the middle of what we would call the end time stuff, right? It's Revelation. So instead of giving you a once over of everything that this book is saying, let's just get right into this chapter here and let's read something. And we're going to take a look at verse number 12 through verse 16. And I'll read verse one, and then we'll go all the way through verse 16, so feel free to help me, verse 12. Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw it coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Look, I come like a thief, blessed is the one who stands awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed. And they gather them together to the place called the Hebrew Armageddon. Okay, that's the Word of the Lord. It is, in fact, it is the Word of the Lord. So here we are, we have some references to end time stuff. Hopefully, everyone here is like, I hope so, because I don't want any of this to take place tomorrow. But you'll notice that there is a great day of God Almighty and a battle related to it in verse 14. And you're finding out what it's actually called in verse 16. Armageddon. That's where we get our reference. It's not called that in chapter 19 where we normally see it. It's called that here in chapter 16. And what I wanted you to notice was that there is this reference in verse 15 to garments that are keeps his garments, protects the garments. And Usually that's associated while you're watching to make sure that your garments are staying white. I want to show you another passage, but I don't want to convolute our lesson tonight. So I'm going to fill this in right here. Behold he comes. We aren't to this reference yet. But it occurs when Jesus returns for. What do you think should go in those blanks when we're talking about garments being kept? And we're talking about the second coming of Jesus. His bride. Yeah, I like that. Nice. Many returns for his bride. Again, we're going to use the number three lead if there is such a thing. And so you're going to notice that that is something that takes place all through the Bible. You'll see it in just a moment. If you'd like to have a thorough explanation about frogs coming out of people's mouths, that's next week. And just kidding, it might not be next week. All right, so now what I want you to do is look back at Revelation chapter number one, look at Revelation one. So you're going to find out in short order, this has something to do with Sunday morning. Do you remember Sunday morning? A few of you do. So Romans 10, 14, how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a, how shall they preach unless they are Sent that that'll work as it is written verse 15 How beautiful are the feet of them who preach the gospel of peace who bring glad tidings of good things you remember that? So that was Sunday morning, but we wanted you to see where that came from Where did Paul get that and we went to what Old Testament book? Isaiah chapter 52, verse seven-ish or eight-ish. And we remember there, that's where Paul was quoting from, where it says, how beautiful are the feet of them that bring, how beautiful are the feet of them who come on the mountains. Good doubt you're tracking that. So we're still building off of that. We're still sort of talking about that. Try to do things that relate to Sunday morning on a Wednesday night. So I want you to see in Revelation 1, let's read verses seven and eight. Can I get someone to read those good and loud? Okay, great. When you see something that seems interesting, and you see it repeated in the Bible, you kind of want to know, is it repeated in the Bible? How many times is it repeated in the Bible? Behold, he comes happens one time in the New Testament, the entire New Testament. And you just heard it read in Revelation 1-7, and it's referring to the next time we'll see Jesus. All the tribes of the earth will see him. It's what it says, Revelation 1-7. And then later on in chapter 16, verse 15, it says, blessed are those who protect their garments. So, what do we have when we put these two together? Behold He Comes appears one time in the New Testament. It occurs when Jesus returns for his bride in Revelation 1, 7 and 16, 15. That is the first of three things I want you to see. We are through two of our four passages. Are there any questions about that concept right there? If you're looking for more information on the Lord returning for His bride, you might consider Matthew 25, verses 1-13. You're thinking of something, go ahead. Keep on, keep on, brother. Yeah. That is an interesting question. Or is that a comment? Comments are a lot on Wednesday. I don't usually say, does anyone have a song or a psalm or a riddle? That was really good. What do you want me to do with that, John? Help? That is interesting. Yes, so that is usually in the song, The Days of Elijah, isn't it? Yes. What does this have to do with Elijah? Great question. We are now going to, no, are there any, what does it have to do with Elijah? Can Elijah be found in the book of Revelation? This is total trivia. Pastor John brought it up. Huh? Yeah, probably one of the two witnesses. Why do you say that? Very good. Thank you, brother. Two very helpful pastors tonight. One of the two witnesses in Revelation 11 is someone who can call down fire and spray it out at his enemies like a dragon. And in 2 Kings chapter 1, Elijah does that to two companies of 50 soldiers. Do you remember that? And then the third company of 50 soldiers comes and the commander falls down and says, look, whatever. Remember that story? So that is repeated in Revelation 11. And we're gonna have Pastor Randy do an interpretive dance on that story right now. Get all the pastors involved! Alright, never mind. So Elijah does appear in the book of Revelation, just not by name. And we have a false Elijah character in the false prophet who calls down fire from heaven before the great Christ, anti-Christ figure comes in the beast. So anyway, both Elijah and a false Elijah appear in Revelation. Thank you for that. Now, we're turning to the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter number one. and we're looking at verses um let's say verses three four five and six i'll read three and i'd love to get your help reading the rest blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ just as he chose us for the foundation of the world that we should be involved Yeah, so there at the end of verse six, there's a term and it's in participle form, brother Andy. And it's the only time the word beloved is used in that form in the entire New Testament. So here we are, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but we have this theme going on. We're finding things that actually only occur once in the New Testament. And this one is the beloved. And it says in chapter one, verse six, we talked about this in our introductory sermon on Song of Solomon. a month ago, maybe on a Sunday night, and we showed you that no person on the planet has any claims to the love of God outside of God loving them in the person of Jesus, his son. And you should see in verse number three here that the father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who blesses us in Christ. And notice that end of verse three, we are blessed in Christ. And so it makes good sense that you have a parallel at the end of verse six, that you're really only accepted in Christ. So people talk about us accepting Christ as Savior. That's not what we need. We need God to accept us. And he accepts us in the beloved who is, if you take verse three and verse four and verse five and verse six, the beloved one is Jesus. That's the primary one that God loves is Jesus. And so on the one hand, you have no business claiming to be loved by God unless he loves you in Christ. On the other hand, he cannot love you any more than he does because he loves you in the one he loves supremely, which is Christ. Big deal, right? Any questions on that? Comments? Strange comments about songs? I'm sure there is a song about the beloved somewhere. No doubt. Thank you for that. Went from the helpful pastors to the helpful wife. I appreciate that very much. Any comments on this? So the idea that God loves you because he's just love and that's that is completely unbiblical. There is no loving you or me outside of God loving his son. Leah. Great question. Look at John 14. John 14. And it's fine, because we're still going back towards the front of the Bible. So John 14. No. She said, because I said. Well, then what are we doing? Oh, OK. She asked, if God merely loves those of us who are in Christ, how do we make sense of that, of him loving the whole world that he gave his own son? That's a great question. So how does he love two groups of people when one seems to rule out the other? He only loves those who are in the beloved. How does he love the whole world? Yeah, okay. So look at John 14, look at verse 23. Jesus answered and said to them, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him. And we'll come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words and the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me." So there's another example of Jesus saying there's a particular love and it's for those who keep the words of Christ and love God and love his son. So, and you'll, the flip side of that is you have no claims to the law of God in verse number 23. Again, I want to read verse 23, the red letters. If anyone loves me, Jesus says, he will keep my word and my father will love him. The inverse of that is if someone does not keep my word, my father does not love him, right? So it is, and the reason it took us back to John is because it's right smack in the book where it says, God so loved the world. So there must be a way in which God loves the world in one role, but does not love the world in another role. R-O-L-E, so not R-O-L-L. He might love us in that kind of a role too, but that's not the one I'm talking about. Is it possible that he loves the world because he's the one that created it? I was about to say that. That was brilliant. That was good. Great job, Brenda. In a way, God loves the whole world because he is the producer of the world. And people who make things like what they make. They love what they make. But personably, another adjective we would say, or another adverb, he loves the world as creator. He does not love the world as the one who is offended. if that makes sense. He is judge, he does not love the world. He is creator, he loves the world. And God is not schizophrenic, but he does have a way in which he loves and does not love. In the role of creator, he loves the product that he created. As judge, he is wrath is ready to be poured out on the world because they have rebelled against him. And so he douses his son in the wrath do us and loves us in his son with the love do him. Does that make sense? All right. So he loves us. Whoever is born on planet earth, he loves us in a way. And that is the way in which a creator loves what he has created. As judge, he is not in love with what he created because they are rebellious against him. And he could damn that in any moment. In fact, they are already condemned because they do not believe. So don't forget the first rule of biblical interpretation. The authors are not morons. So John knows what he wrote in chapter three. And in chapter 14, he's willing to use the same words and talk about two different groups of people or the same group of people in two different ways. Now, I don't know that you're OK with that answer, but do you at least understand the answer? OK, very good. Someone else had something, right? I know answers years before I'm OK with them, many of them. I'm right. I thought I saw one more hand. All right, so this train's moving on. Any questions about anything we've talked about so far? Comments? Friendly disagreements? All right, let's look back now at Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon. Don't forget, this has something to do with Sunday morning. Song of Solomon. So what I aim to do in the next 10 minutes as I'm closing is to acquaint you with an Old Testament reference to the second coming of Jesus in a song that is primarily a love song. Song of Solomon. Let's give it a shot. Let's see if we can find it. Song of Solomon, chapter two. All right. All righty, so we're going to read verses 8 through verse number 13. First Song of Solomon. First Song of Solomon. Chapter 2, verses 8 through 13. We're going to read it. It's about a woman who's not yet married to the king, or not married to her beloved. We're sorting that out on Sunday nights. But here's the truth of the matter. You're going to find out that there is a woman who keeps a garden in this song, and she has a man that she's crazy about. Let's read verses eight through 13. The voice of my beloved, behold, he comes. Now this is gonna look familiar because this is the only time behold, he comes is found in the Old Testament. And you'll notice that this beloved title shows up, and it is the only time that it shows up concerning a single person in the Old Testament. So what I'm trying to get you to see is, once again, we're putting on these New Testament glasses that Paul and John gave us, and we're looking at seemingly irrelevant, seemingly irrelevant Old Testament, and it just comes alive suddenly. So you have the voice of my beloved. What you're going to see as we go through here is that you have an Old Testament picture of the church waiting for an Old Testament picture of her returning Jesus, returning bridegroom. Okay? Let's see if it works. Look at verse eight. The voice of my beloved, behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains. So here we have someone coming upon the mountains and he is skipping upon the hills. And she's still writing. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, he stands behind our wall. He's looking through the windows, gazing through the lattice. My beloved, that's the third time. spoke and said to me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land, the fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." So she's describing her beloved returning for her, and he's coming upon the mountains and he says to her twice, come away with me, fair one. And she is describing him as her beloved who is coming running across mountaintops to get her. So again, if you're in the Old Testament, you're thinking, well, this is kind of strange. I'll let my kids read this for a while, especially if you get into the later chapters. So, but now that you know what the Old Testament says about these characters, here you have an Old Testament, what the New Testament says about these characters, you now have an Old Testament reference to the coming of Jesus for his bride. And he is coming upon the mountaintops and his presence is greatly anticipated. And what he says to his bride when he comes is, get up and come with me. like you would expect, Matthew 25, when the bridegroom comes and finds some who are ready. Or Revelation 16, 15, those who have protected their garments. And the beauty of this story, as you can see, is that it happens after the winter of life. Did you see that in the passage? after the winter of life. So, verse 11, winter is past, rain is over. Verse 12, the flowers are starting to grow and they appear. The time of singing has come. So, here's a woman who has endured a great life of cold recently. Lots of bitterness and her great hope is that just as soon as the grass turns green, my beloved is coming for me. And when he comes, we'll know that winter is done for good. Isn't that pretty? So her greatest hope was that she can hear the voice of her beloved. In fact, there's some hints that there are some hints from him. You can see in verses nine, he's kind of peeking in the window, looking into the property through the lattice. So before he actually comes, there are hints that he's on his way. And she can hear his voice. And she can see him showing himself. And his appearance, though delayed through the winter, is sudden once it appears. Comments or questions on this? Denny? Do you want me to word it like a statement? Hey, I don't care. Sure. Hmm. Look at Matthew 24. Matthew 24. And we'll look at verse number 14. This gospel of the kingdom, once you've found it, say, I got it. I got it. All right, so that's a good quorum right there. The rest of you keep turning. We'll be around verse 15 to 16 when you find us. Matthew 24. This gospel, verse 14, of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, whoever reads, let them understand. Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house and let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes, but woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days and pray that your flight not be in the winter. Well, that's strange, isn't it? And you might notice verse 29, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened. Verse 30, the sign of the sun man will appear in heaven. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on clouds of heaven. There's that Revelation 1-7 language again. With power and great glory, and he'll send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they'll gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. That is very second coming-ish, isn't it? And in this very passage, we're told to pray that it doesn't happen in the winter. So, yeah. It's safe to say that we're at least supposed to pray that it doesn't happen when there's austere weather going on. And it seems to go well with Song of Solomon, doesn't it? Yeah. Andy. Excellent. When it was always winter and never Christmas, what are we referring to now? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I actually did the scripture. How's that for the Jesus juke? All right. I don't know. I don't know where that verse is, brother. Is there anything else to go with the great theologian Achilles? Pastor Jordan. To the what? Good, but ultimately, verse 30 and 31 say it's referring to the coming of the Son of Man when he gathers his elect from the four winds. So, how should this cause us to pray? Since we're in prayer meeting, and ultimately, our Bible study time is to prepare us for prayer, and we see great things happen because of people praying, so how should these truths, the Christ coming upon the mountaintops bringing good news that our God reigns, because after all, when he comes, 2 Timothy 4.1, he's bringing his kingdom. Yes? All righty. So, shake out the cobwebs. How does this make you want to pray? Dylan. Nice Pray that he doesn't come when you're in your snowsuit, that's right. Very good one Amen Yeah is our greatest hope our beloved appearing or is our greatest hope some kind of change in our neighborhood our job our We have so far of a low esteem for the world to come and the one that he's bringing when we continue to shift our hopes to something besides our beloved returning. Andy. There's a. Amen. Amen. That our families would be purified through expecting the Lord to return. That we will, in the spirit of Sunday night's message, for those who are in here, be expectant that our Lord will return to deliver us from our enemies, which can be many. Anything else? Good. There's not much time, right? And we want people to be reconciled to the Lord. Yeah, so their greatest need is not the peace of God, it's peace with God. And if they have peace with God, at some point, Christians will be sanctified to have the peace of God. I mean, I want you to think about all of the advancements that we're experiencing. Got a news article here about a Neuralink brain implant. No doubt, having people be able to think and things are going to be typed, is that a great hope? It can be for someone who has ALS. But what a greater thing it would still be that they could actually talk. Then there's, you know, there's massive amounts of news right now even about tarot cards and how they're kind of a big thing and people want to know the future. Look at the future we've been told about. We ought to fall in love with it instead of trying to play our chances. Amen. Let me pray for you. Lord, I want to ask you in front of these dear friends of mine, these fellow sheep, to forgive me for not always loving your appearing. You promise us a special crown for those of us who will love your appearing. Please forgive us for neglecting the expectation from the mountains. You told us in the 121st Psalm, I will lift up my eyes to the hills, the place from which my help comes from. And so we are looking and listening for our beloved to reappear skipping across the mountains, showing himself in the lattice of our lives, giving us hints that our great hope is yet to come. I pray that we'll pray like people that don't have but just a short time and that we will be serious about it. Thank you for your kindness in Jesus name. Amen.