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Well, good morning again. Aren't those just wonderful hymns
to sing when we all get to heaven, when we all see Jesus? What a
day of rejoicing that will be. Pastor Dale asks us when we're
preaching to pick hymns, and I picked those three because
looking in the future, it's so bright for us as Christians,
what we have to look forward to. And I thank my brother Brody
for playing the songs for us. Let's turn to the book of Jude.
Jude, we're going to read, going through verses 14 through 16,
as we talk about the second coming, the second coming of Christ.
I'll read the verses here and you follow along. It was also about these men that
Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying,
Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to
execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of
all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly
way, and all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken
against him. These are grumblers, finding
fault, following after their own lust. They speak arrogantly,
flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. Let's
go to the Lord in prayer one more time. Lord, again, we come to you in
prayer and we thank you for this opportunity to hear your word,
Lord. Lord, may Jesus Christ be glorified
as we study your word, Father, as we talk about his return. Jesus Christ is coming again.
He is coming to set up his kingdom. He is coming to free his people
and coming to destroy his enemies, Father. We thank you for this
word of yours, Lord, and we thank you for the joy we have looking
forward to this, and for the warning for others, Father. Again,
may you be glorified, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, what we just read today
is actually the earliest prophecy of the second coming of Christ.
In fact, it's just the second earliest prophecy in the Bible,
that being Genesis 3.15, where God prophesies about Christ crushing
Satan's head. So let's go into who Enoch is,
since we started out with Enoch, and that's in Genesis 5. So if
you'll turn with me to Genesis 5, we're going to look into Enoch. Starting here in verse 18, we
see Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch. So we see here he was the son
of Jared, and he was born in 622 after creation. So Adam is
still alive, of Adam and Eve, and Adam would be his great,
great, great, great grandfather. And if we're to continue on reading,
skipping to verse 21 to talk about Enoch, we see, Enoch lived
65 years and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked
with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and
he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were
365 years. Now 365 years by today's standard
is a long time, but if we were to look throughout this genealogy
here in chapter five, we'll see the average life spans around
920 years. What happened to Enoch? Why only
365 years? If we look here in verse 24, Enoch walked with God
and he was not, for God took him. Enoch didn't see death. We get confirmation from that
by looking in the book of Hebrews, and you don't need to turn there,
I'll read this, Hebrews 11.5. By faith, Enoch was taken up
so that he would not see death. And he was not found because
God took him up, for he obtained witness that before being taken
up, he was pleasing to God. I think that's the best thing
someone can say about you if that was on your epitaph, that
you were pleasing to God, right? So Enoch, like Elijah, never
saw death. So both of them are held in very
high esteem, and that's why we would see Enoch brought up here
in Jude. However, this comes with a fair
share of controversy. If you look at how Jude was brought
in to the canon of scripture. Because Jude 14 and 15 is a direct
quote from the book of Enoch. Chapter 1, verse 9 to be exact.
Now, the Book of Enoch is an extra-biblical source. It is
not one that is in the Bible. And in verse 9 of Jude, we also
had a quote from the Assumption of Moses that we learn that Michael
and Satan battled over the body of Moses. So it has two extra
biblical sources here that these two books are not inspired. However,
we know that Jude is inspired. The book of Jude being part of
the Bible is Holy Spirit inspired. So we can say with confidence
that Enoch did indeed preach the second coming and that Moses,
that Satan and Michael battled over the body of Moses. Now back
to Enoch. We see from Jude, and looking
in Genesis, he was preaching around 700 years after creation. He's preaching that the Lord,
Jesus Christ, is going to be coming back to earth. Which is
interesting because there's another cataclysmic judgment just right
around the corner from Enoch, and what is that? That's the
flood. Yes, that's the flood. And we
know the flood started right after Enoch's son, Methuselah.
Now, Methuselah, I'm sure many are aware of, he's famous for
what, living 969 years, longer than anybody else. But do you
know what his name means? Methuselah means man of the javelin,
or in Hebrew, his death shall send. His death shall send what? It sent the flood. So what we
see, even with Methuselah living 969 years, we see the mercy,
we see the patience of God allowing Methuselah to live that long
life before this judgment came. Because the flood did come 1656
after creation, or if we were to go by BC, around 2348 was
the time of the flood. So Jew tells us there was preaching
before the flood. Second Peter 2.5 tells us Noah
was preaching for 120 years before the flood. And Methuselah with
the name, his death shall sin, it's most likely he was also
preaching about the flood. Yet how many people were saved
from the flood? Just eight. Just eight. And we don't know how many people
were on the earth at that time. We do know they lived long lives,
900 years. Tradition has Adam having around
40 children. So depending on how many children
people had, we estimate it could be anywhere from 3 billion people
all the way up to 12 billion people at the time of the flood
that were killed in the judgment of flood and the judgment of
God. So let's just take 3 billion. That's three with nine zeros
behind it. that God rained down literally
his judgment upon, killing them for their disobedience towards
him. I can't think of, can't fathom 3 billion people dying. I mean, the most recent disaster
I can think of as I prepared this was back in December 26,
2004. Some of you may remember, off the coast of Indonesia, we
had a 9.2 earthquake. And just about 300,000 people
died there. That's three with five zeros
behind it. Extraordinary amount of people
died just in that one event. But the flood, billions upon
people died. And there's another judgment
coming, and that's the second coming. Now when we talk about
the second coming, we're talking about eschatology. And that's
just a fancy word for saying the study of the future. It's
a study of future things. So the second coming is an eschatological
event. And there are over 100 Bible
verses that talk about the second coming and Christ's return. You
know, and the world loves to speculate on how the Earth is
going to end. We see that in movies. They use terms from the Bible,
Armageddon, that movie many probably saw in 98. Well, Armageddon,
I know it's hard to believe that Hollywood gets things wrong,
but Armageddon is not about an asteroid. It's actually about
a battle. How many here have seen a movie
with the word apocalypse in it? There's dozens of movies with
apocalypse. An apocalypse simply means revelation.
In fact, if you had a Greek Bible, the book of Revelation would
be Apocalypse. And all it means is God's peeling
back the curtain and giving us a glimpse of what he's going
to do in the future. So the Bible tells us what's going to happen
in the future. I thought I would look up what man and the experts
say what's going to happen in the future. So looking at different
sites and things, there's about five items that man says that's
going to happen that's going to wipe out mankind. Now, four
of them I'll give credit to that they'll play a part in the end
times. But the number one reason, way
off. So let me just quickly go over
and share some of the reasons man thinks we're going to end.
AI, artificial intelligence. I think this comes from people
who've seen Terminator too many times. But no doubt, we have
great strides in technology. And their concern is that the
technology will rise up against us. Now, I appreciate technology. Number one, being here in the
desert, air conditioning, right? We all enjoy that. Technology
has its good and its bad uses. Kids today don't need to do schoolwork. They can simply have AI write
their reports. And we use things like our phone. I can remember phone numbers
from my childhood, my best friend's, my mom's work. Ask me what my
mother's cell phone number is. No, I'd have to go to my phone,
of course. GPS, another thing, right? How many here remember
having to map out our trips and plan which exits and be on the
lookout that we don't miss the exit, right? We plug things into
our phone. So technology can be a blessing
but also a curse. If we don't use our brain, if
we don't have that critical thinking, we can be easily deceived. Cognitive
atrophy. Number four, nuclear war. That's been a threat ever since
the Cold War, right? And then we have Russia and Ukraine.
Russia has nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan. The Middle East,
right? Israel just bombed Iran concerning
nuclear weapons. Now, nuclear war, I do believe,
will play a part in the end times, and we'll go over that. Number
three is an asteroid. Our experts claim that 65 million
years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth and killed the dinosaurs.
We know from the Bible dinosaurs died out after Noah's flood. But there is an asteroid called
Apophis. It's supposed to fly by here April 13, 2029. Actually
come between Earth and our satellites right through the middle. So
asteroids will play a part. We'll go over that. Two asteroids
play a part. Number two is a pandemic, a super virus that wipes out
mankind. And we just went through a pandemic
on this. A virus will play a part in the end world, but it won't
be the final cause. And the number one reason is
what that's going to destroy the world, according to man?
Global warming, right? We've been hearing that since
the 70s. And we've missed so many dates of when Florida's
supposed to be underwater and this and that hasn't happened. In fact, there's more ice in
Antarctica today, they say. And we see the celebrities and
the politicians who are concerned about global warming, what do
we see them doing? They're buying up beachfront property. If you
thought the world was going to flood, wouldn't you buy a mountain
home instead? They fly in their jets, the carbon footprint. And
most recently, if they're so concerned, they traded in their
Teslas for SUVs. So global warming must be over,
must not be a threat. And as Christians, we know that
God has promised, Genesis 9-11, that the world will never flood
again. So we don't need to be concerned about global warming. Yes, there'll still be floods.
Yes, there'll still be deaths from floods in local areas. But
it's not going to be like they're saying here with global warming. Another judgment is coming. It's going to be far worse than
what man has predicted. We don't know exactly when, But
we do have an idea of how it will happen to some extent because
of God pushing back that curtain. Now, eschatology, even within
the church, has its fair share of controversy. There's a lot
of debate, different schools of thought on eschatology. You hear terms like pre-trib,
mid-trib, post-trib, premill, amill, dispensationalist, And
even pan mill, which I think is the worst view you can have.
And pan mill are those who say, it's all going to pan out. Don't
need to worry about it. But I would say that would be
the worst view you can have, because what that says is you've given
up. You don't care what God has told us in his word. You don't
care to try to understand that. And number one, you miss out
on a tremendous blessing. Let's turn to the book of Revelation,
chapter 1. The apocalypses. And let's see
what you miss out on for not wanting to know what
God has said about the future. Starting here in verse one, Revelation
1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to
his bondservants, the thing which must soon take place, and he
sent and communicated it by his angel and his bondservant, John,
who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus
Christ, even to all that he saw. Here it is. Blessed is he who
reads in those who hear the words of this prophecy and heeds the
things which are written in it. for the time is near. See here, it says, blessed is
he who reads. In Greek, anagnosko, what it
means is to read, to know. You are reading to understand
what God is saying. And I get it. Revelation is full
of symbology. There is a lot in here that still
remains a mystery. But we have 90% and a good, clear
picture of what God is going to do. We know Jesus is coming
again. The question is how and what's going to happen in between
and with all these views. But you don't have to worry about
it today, because I'm going to tell you the correct view. Well,
I'm going to share a view that is, that I, through my study,
I believe is correct, as well as I know some of you share this
view. But what I want to encourage
everyone here is to be a Berean. Study the scripture. See for
yourself what view you share, what are you pre-trib, post-trib,
mid-trib. Study the scripture. That's what
we're told to do. Two books I would recommend and
two different views of thought. One is The Biblical Doctrine.
That's John MacArthur. And then there's Everyone's a
Theologian by R.C. Sproul. Those are very two different
views of eschatology, but both books show all the different
views and give their reasons why they believe these views.
It's a great place to start if you haven't looked into eschatology
before. In fact, both those books go
over theology. And you've seen the partnership
when Dr. Sproul was alive, those two had,
even though they disagreed on eschatology and baptism, you
see how unified they were in the gospel of Christ. So yes,
we do have different views with our brothers and sisters, but
we are united in Christ. So again, read, read the scripture. You will be blessed. It's a promise
here. So before we go into the second coming, I want to talk
about two events that must happen before. And this is what you
call the pre-tribu. It's the rapture and the tribulation. Now the rapture was popularized
a while back in the Left Behind series, and I do not recommend
you read those books. But it comes from the Latin word
rapture. It means to be snatched away. And I'd like to turn to
1 Thessalonians 4, chapter 4, verse 16. This is one of the
key verses for the rapture. as there are others, but I can't
spend too much time talking about the details of the rapture and
the tribulation and the second coming as much as I'd like to
because we're limited and that in itself would take several
sermons. But let's look at 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 16 through 18. For the Lord himself will descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain
will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore,
comfort one another with these words. Another scripture you
have there in your notes, you don't need to turn there, I'll
read it. 1 Corinthians 15, 51 through 52. Behold, I tell you
a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we
will be changed in a moment. And the twinkling of an eye at
the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will
be raised imperishable and we will be changed. So what we see
here is Christ returning to earth He's not coming to earth the
land. He is in the air. We go to meet him in the air.
The dead in Christ will rise first. And then we who are Christians
here today, if we're still alive, when the rapture happens, we
will be caught up and go in to be with him forever. This is
the pre-tribulation view. You have a mid-trib view where
it happens during the tribulation and the post-trib view. But this
is the pre-tribulation view. And as I said, many different
people have different views. Some people don't believe, some
Christians don't believe there is a rapture. Some believe that
the tribulation happened back in AD 70. But I want to share
three reasons, three reasons, and there are many more, but
it wouldn't be right to not give reasons as to why there's a pre-trib
rapture. And we're hearing Thessalonians.
What's going on in the Thessalonian church Or the Christians are
concerned that those who have died have missed Christ. They're
dead and gone, they won't be here when he returns. And Paul
is comforting them with the words, saying, no, no, they didn't miss
out. And we see here, therefore comfort
one another with these words. If he wasn't talking about a
rapture and the tribulation is coming, and that they would have
to go through the tribulation, through the wrath of God, I think
this would end differently. He'd prepare for the tribulation,
prepare to face the wrath of God, which we don't see here. And that leads to Revelation
3.10. And again, you don't need to turn there. Revelation 3.10
says, because you have kept the word of my perseverance, I also
will keep you from the hour of testing. This is Christ talking
to the church. that hour which is about to come
upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.
Jesus is telling the church he's going to keep the church from
the hour of testing. He's going to keep them from
the wrath of God that is going to go to the earth. God's wrath
is against those on the earth who rejected him. And Christ
here is saying, taking the church out. You do not have to go through
this. Which leads to the third, the word church, ecclesia, the
called out ones. The word church is found 20 times
in Revelation. 20 times in Revelation. 19 of those are in chapters one
through three. The last time it's mentioned,
the 20th time, is when John is wrapping up the book of Revelation,
Revelation 22, 16. Nowhere is the church to be found,
the word church, during the tribulation. Now, yes, there will be believers
during the tribulation. We do know that. But after the
rapture and revelation, and the Bible tells us there's going
to be two witnesses, God's going to set aside 144,000 to preach
the gospel. So people will become Christians
during the tribulation. And again, these are just three
reasons I picked out for the pre-trib rapture. There's many
more as you look in books. But again, and through the Bible,
I just encourage you to study the end times eschatology. And in the back, at the bottom
of the notes, I have other verses there you can look up for the
second coming, which we'll get into here in a bit. But when
will the rapture happen? It can happen at any time. It's
what we call imminent. There are no other prophetic
events that need to happen. In fact, if you look at Paul
and read Paul, Paul sounded as if he was expecting the rapture
to happen because there's nothing else that needs to be fulfilled.
Now, after the rapture, we have what's called the tribulation
period. This is a seven-year period prophesied by Daniel in
the Old Testament in chapter nine. It's seven years. Three and a half years is going
to be what I'll call a pseudo-piece. And then another three and a
half years are going to be what people just label as hell on
earth. It's going to be an absolutely
hellish time here. In fact, Jesus tells us in Matthew
24, 21, for then there will be a great tribulation such as has
not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever
will. During the tribulation, several
things are going on. One, Satan is going to have just
about free reign. And I say just about because
as we read in Psalm 10 and we talked about, Jesus is still
in charge. He is sitting on his throne.
But he's going to loosen the leash on Satan. And Satan, who
loves to imitate God, is going to create his own unholy trinity,
right? We have the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Satan is going to have Satan, the Antichrist, and
the False Prophet. I've already spent some time
talking about Satan in a previous message, so you're welcome to
go back and look at our church website or sermon audio if you'd
like to listen to that. Today I'll just talk about the
other two of this unholy trinity. Number one is the Antichrist. Now the Antichrist, he's going
to be a very impressive individual because he's going to be able
to establish a one world government. Not only that, he's going to
do something many presidents and other leaders have failed.
He's going to have peace with Israel. Israel's actually going
to feel safe with this individual. But Daniel 9.27 tells us this
peace will end after three and a half years. Because at three
and a half years, this man is going to go into the temple,
which will be rebuilt by this time, and declare himself to
be God. Let's look at Revelation 13,
just so if you flip just a few pages over from where we're at
to Revelation 13. Let's read a little about this
Antichrist, which John calls the beast, the beast. And what we see here is the beast
has come up from the sand. Here's the symbology there. And
the dragon, which is Satan. And I'm going to start in verse
3. And I saw one of the heads as
if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the
whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast. They worshipped
the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast. And they
worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? And who
is able to wage war against him? There was given to him a mouth
speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and authority to act for 42 months
was given to him. And he opened his mouth and blasphemies
against God to blaspheme his name in his tabernacle, that
is those who dwell in heaven. And is also given to him to make
war with the saints and to overcome them and the authority over every
tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will
worship him. Everyone whose name has not been written from the
foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb that
was slain. What we see here is it appears
that this man will survive a near fatal head wound. Perhaps it's
an assassination attempt. And this obviously isn't a grazing. It's probably a direct hit. And
he's going to survive. And people are going to be amazed,
and that would be amazing. Think of someone who gets shot
in the head that we think would die, and they survive. I mean,
this day and age of superheroes, people will say he's the first
X-Man or something and just be in awe of this individual. We
see he's going to be arrogant. He's going to speak blasphemies. He's going to overcome Christians
and kill them. But there's a key word or words
in here that we see if you look in verses five through seven,
and that's the word given. Given, again, Christ is in charge. He's given the ability to speak
blasphemy. He's given the ability to rule
the world. He's given the ability to martyr
the Christians. So make no mistake, although
this man will be terrible, and murder Christians and take over
the world, Christ is still in charge. And he has an assistant,
this antichrist, this beast, and that's who we label the false
prophet, we call the false prophet. And let's read about him here
in verse 11. Then I saw another beast coming
out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he
spoke as a dragon. He exercises all the authority
of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and all
those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose fatal wound
was healed. And there it is, that fatal wound.
It's almost like a fake resurrection deceiving many. And he performs
great signs so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven
to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those
who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given
to him perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who
dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast, who had the
head wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given
to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the
image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do
not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes
all the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free
and the slave, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their
forehead. And he prides that no one will be able to buy or
to sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of
the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom, let him
who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it
is the number of man and his number is 666. There's where we get that number
that so many people use today, 666, the number of the beast. So we see this false prophet,
what does he do? He promotes the antichrist. I
kind of see him as maybe like Joseph Goebbels was to Adolf
Hitler. He's able to perform great signs, fire coming down
from heaven. And he causes some image to become
alive. Maybe it's through AI, some technology,
maybe a robot. Maybe it's the demonic power.
Satan has the ability to provide power. Christ is allowing it
at this time. And he also makes it where you
cannot buy. You cannot go to the grocery
store, buy your food, unless you have this mark. And people
speculate on the mark, what this mark might be, whether it's a
computer chip in the hand. We do see that in Europe. People
have a little chip in their hand, and they just scan it, and they're
able to buy their food. And if you think about that,
that's not a bad thing. I mean, you have a chip in your
hand. It's not like it can be robbed. If you cut somebody's
hand off and did that, that would probably bring about some suspicion,
would it not? So it makes sense how the world would buy into
this. But as bad as this unholy trinity
is, it's nothing compared to what God is going to do. The
wrath of God that's going to happen during this tribulation.
And in your notes on the back page, I've summarized them, and
I'd like to go through them and spend time, but we're going to
give a high-level view of what's coming. So we had the Antichrist,
he's been in charge three and a half years, he's had this and
the world's been just flourishing under him, unless you were a
Christian at this time. But now it's God's turn. He is going to bring his wrath
upon man. And he's going to do that in
21 judgments. We call the seals, the trumpets,
and the bowls. So I'll briefly go over them
here. And in Revelation 6 and 8, we see the seven seals. Number one's the Antichrist,
the coming of the Antichrist. And he comes with a bow but without
arrows. So it shows he's not going to
come as a warrior. It's going to be through negotiations.
It's going to manipulate things. The second seal is a great war.
World War III, maybe World War IV if there's a third war in
between. A great war. The third seal is a great famine. Food prices are going to go through
the roof. The fourth seal, a quarter of
the population will die. Population today is just over
8 billion. So 2 billion people are going
to die. And here's how they're going
to die. They're going to die from war, famine, pestilence,
and wild beasts. Think about that, eaten alive,
wild beast, two billion people if it were to happen today. And
this is just the fourth out of 21. Seal number five, we get
a peer into heaven, and we see the martyrs there, and they're
asking, Lord, when will you avenge us? These are the Christians
who were martyred at this time, asking to be avenged. So they
remember, they know what had happened. Seal number six, a
great earthquake and the sun is going to be darkened. And
yet, even through this, the Bible tells us people will not repent.
Through these, just these six seals, the terrible judgments
here, the people will still not repent. The seventh seal introduces
us to seven trumpets, and those are found in Revelation 8, 9,
and 10. The first trumpet is hail and
fire mixed with blood. And with that, the Bible tells
us it's going to burn up one-third of the earth, one-third of the
trees, and all the green grass. Now, those of you who lived in
Tucson, green grass is not symbolic. It's actually a thing that does
exist in the world today. But notice, the Bible says the
word green. It specifically has that in there.
When we think of grass burning up, we don't think of the green
grass, right? It's the brown, it's the brush
fires that are burning up. God's going to destroy the lush
green grass through his judgments. The second trumpet, a fiery mountain
will fall into the sea. An asteroid, we talked about.
falling into the sea where a third of it becomes blood, a third
of the sea life die, and a third of the ships are destroyed. Think
about that. The food supply is disrupted.
Shipping's disrupted. You know, Amazon Prime's probably
not going to be working as well as it does today. It's going
to be a horrible time. The third is another asteroid.
This asteroid actually has a name, Wormwood. And perhaps it breaks
apart in the atmosphere because it poisons a third of the fresh
water. So your rivers and your springs.
And it says men are going to die from this. So perhaps it
breaks apart in the atmosphere and pollutes the water. The fourth,
a third of the sun, moon, and stars are blocked out. How's that going to do with farming
and crops and nocturnal animals are going to be out of cycle
and everything? The fifth, a bottomless pit. Revelation tells us a bottomless
pit is going to be opened up and locusts are going to come
out and torment man. And here's a perfect example
of the symbology. Some people see this locust as
actual locusts that are coming out. Some say it could be demons.
There's a number of things it could be. We don't know exactly,
it says locusts, but we do know what the result is. Whatever
it might be, We know the result. What is it? They are going to
torment men with excruciating pain, and men will want to die,
but it says death will flee from them. God is not going to allow
man to die from this, which in and of itself is an act of mercy,
because if they were going to go to hell, it would be far,
far worse. Hell is far, far worse than anything
you can suffer here on earth. The Sixth Trumpet, I think, is
just truly horrifying. Four demons are released, and
they're allowed to kill a third of mankind. Again, that's another
two billion people, right? We had a quarter. If we had eight
billion, a quarter of that's two. So now we're at six. A third
of that, another two. So by this time, half the population
of the world has died. Four billion people have died
through these various judgments. And during this sixth trumpet,
it says they refuse to repent. They know it's the Lamb of God,
they know it's Jesus, and yet they refuse to repent. The seventh trumpet is an announcement. It's an announcement that Christ
is going to reign forever. And then we get into the seven
bowl judgments. The seven bowl judgments. And
these, we believe, happen in rapid-fire succession. They're
probably almost back-to-back because when we read through
the seven bowl judgments and the severity of them, you have
to ask, how could life exist? And Jesus tells us that time
had to be cut short or everyone would die out. So the seven bold
judgments here. One, loathe them and malignant
sores on people. So there's your pandemic right
there. God's going to cause loathe them and malignant sores on people,
cause great pain to those who are not Christian. I'll make
this clear. These are people who decided
to follow the Antichrist. These are not happening, this
is not happening to Christians. Now the overall things, the events
of asteroids smashing in in the darkness. Yes, the Christians
will go through that, but when it's directed at these people,
remember, this is the judgment of God falling upon the non-Christian. Number two, the oceans are turned
to blood and all sea life die. I've been to Japan, a nation
like Japan thrives on sea life, a big fishing industry there.
I love seafood. Completely gone, all sea life
are dead with the second bowl judgment. Then the third one,
fresh water sources, the rivers and the springs, they turn to
blood. So there goes drinking water. Again, as you can see,
it's getting worse and worse. The fourth, sun. The sun scorches, burns up, this
is the verb, it burns up men with fierce, fierce heat. See,
this right here is global warming, not what we talk about with the
flooding. Think of that. The sun turned up where it's
scorching man. Five, this darkness and great
pain where people will gnaw on their tongues. And again, we're
told people will not repent when this Trump happens. They still
refuse to bow the knee. Number six, dries up the river
Euphrates so an army from the east can make its way towards
Jerusalem. Perhaps this is setting up for
the Battle of Armageddon. Perhaps it's an army that's coming
to attack the Antichrist. After all, with all these judgments,
the Antichrist has seemed to have lost control. Again, that's
something that's debated among theologians today. What's the
purpose of this army coming across? But we do know an army does come
across. And then the last of the seven bold judgments is a
great earthquake, such that has never been where the mountains
come down and the islands disappear. Also has 100 pound hailstones
that fall, and it talks about the men still blaspheming God. Now, one thing I enjoy here in
Tucson are our mountains. And if you're ever in the city
and you want to know where north is, right, we just look, up,
there's Mount Lemmon, that's north. Imagine that mountain
gone. All the mountains gone. That
is just a tremendous earthquake that God has caused around the
whole. And this is the final judgment
here. And after this, we do have what's
called the Battle of Armageddon. And I don't think it's much of
a battle, and if you just turn a few pages over to chapter 19,
we were in chapter 13, we'll read about the Battle of Armageddon. Now, if you are a Christian here
today, we will be involved. We are actually going to be coming
down, this talks about how Christ comes down to earth, with his
holy ones, with his saints and angels. So if you're a Christian
here today, you're going to experience this. You're going to experience
coming down from heaven with Christ. He's going to be on his
horse, and we're going to be with him as he comes for this
battle of Armageddon. And we'll pick it up in verse
19. And I saw the beast, that's the
Antichrist, and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled
to make war against him, Jesus, who sat on the horse, and against
his army. And the beast was seized, and
with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence,
by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the
beast, and those who worshipped his image. These two were thrown
alive into the lake of fire, which burns with brimstone. And
the rest were killed with the sword which comes from his mouth
of him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled
with their flesh. So we see what happens here.
Christ and all his people return to earth. The beast prepares
for war. Christ speaks and it's over. The beast and the false prophet
are thrown into the lake of fire, and the rest are killed with
the sword from his mouth. Jesus just speaks, and it's over. So not much of a battle. And
for those who may not be familiar, the lake of fire, the reason
it calls out the lake of fire doesn't say hell, it's a different
term. Right now, there are two places of torment. One is hell. If you were to die today and
not be a Christian, you would go to hell, still a tremendous
place of suffering. There's also a lake of fire the
Bible talks about that God prepared for Satan and now for man who
refuse. Population of the lake of fire
today is zero. Hell is greatly populated. The
Beast and the False Prophet, the Antichrist and the False
Prophet are the first two people sent to this Lake of Fire. Later on, as you read through
the Bible, you'll see that hell, everyone from hell has come up
to judge, and then hell and everyone who was in hell get thrown into
the lake of fire, including Satan and his demons. That is the eternal
place of torment. So in case you weren't familiar
with hell and the lake of fire, they are two distinct places
that exist today. So Christ has come down, he has
thrown the Antichrist and the false prophet, and he's killed
everyone else. And that doesn't just include
the people in the battle. Anyone around the whole earth
who had not put their faith in Christ is killed. There is no
mercy. Matthew 24 talks about this.
There is no mercy at this time. Christ has come down and he is
setting up his kingdom. This is the second coming. This is a day of terror for the
unbelievers. as they are mercifully cast into
hell. They had many, many times to
repent, and they were not repentant. Through this tribulation and
verse here about the second coming, I'll read it, Hebrews 9.28 says,
Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many
will appear a second time for salvation without reference to
sin to those who eagerly await him. I believe Hebrews 9.28 is
going to be a verse of comfort to the followers during this
tribulation. But the Second Coming, when that
happens here at the Battle of Armageddon, Jesus has come to
save them. There will be no more Antichrist.
There will be no more Christian persecution. Jesus has come to
set up his Millennial Kingdom at this time. And only those
who have put their faith in Christ, those who became Christian through
the Tribulation, will enter into this Millennial Kingdom. Jesus
is coming. Both the Old Testament and the
New Testament are very clear. Now, it's true the Old Testament
doesn't distinguish the two different comings. Yes, the Old Testament
talks about the suffering servant, and it talks about the reigning
Messiah. But it does not distinctly, explicitly say there are two
separate comings. So we have to cut the disciples
some slack when they didn't understand what Jesus was saying, right?
Because they were taught he's going to suffer and he's going
to reign in all the same time. And we saw that through their
conversations. Although Jesus said, I will have to come again,
I will come again. So now we have the benefit of
hindsight, right? We can look, we can look back
at the Old Testament and see, ah, Christ fulfilled these prophecies,
and these are yet to be fulfilled. But what's said in the Old Testament
lines up what's said in the New Testament. So now that I've finished
my introduction, let's go back to Jude. No, I didn't finish
my introduction. We're wrapping up here, so. Oh, it's okay. But let's go back
to Jude. Remember Jude? That's where we
started out. Here. And I just want to read the first
two verses again. Remember, these come from, this comes from the
book of Enoch. But again, it's in the Bible.
This is an actual event of Enoch prophesying about the second
coming. And we'll see how it lines up with what we were just
talking about. It was also about these men that
Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying,
behold, the Lord came with many of his thousands and holy ones
to execute judgment upon all and to convict all ungodly of
their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and
of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken to
him. Just as we read in Revelation
19, Jesus is coming back. He's coming back with his holy
ones, which we just read about. And this word here, many thousands,
that we see here, it's the word myriad. We get that, or myrios,
we get the word myriads upon myriads. So instead of saying
many thousands, I think it may be more accurate to say millions
upon millions of his holy ones as we come back to earth with
him. And it says to execute judgment upon all. That word, execute
judgment, the Greek verb, is the word krisis, krisis, which
we get our word crisis from. Hence the title of my message,
impending crisis, because it's going to be a crisis for all
when he comes back to wipe out everyone who didn't put their
faith in him. You see, the second coming is
also called in the Bible the day of judgment, the day of wrath. Listen to what Isaiah says about
it, just another book in the Old Testament that talks about
the second coming. Therefore, I will make the heavens
tremble and the earth will be shaken from its place. Sounds
a lot like the seventh bowl, does it not? at the fury of the
Lord of hosts in the day of his burning anger. Jesus is coming
back and he's angry. Let that sink in. The God of creation, the God
of the universe is angry. There will be no second chance.
as he strikes everyone dead who didn't believe in him. He's coming
to execute judgment on who? Let's look at verse 16. These
are grumblers finding fault Grumblers being people who complain, complain
against God, finding fault, blaming everyone but themselves, following
after their own lust. They speak arrogantly, flattering
people for the sake of gaining advantage. Just this brief sentence
describes everyone who ever lived. How many here have complained,
complained to God? How many here have blamed others
when it was your fault? How many here have followed after
their own lust? or flattered someone to get gain.
And Jude, if we were to go back and look at the earlier verses,
he gives other examples of people that Christ is coming back to
judge. He's coming back to judge, and it's a day of dread and terror
for those who don't believe. Now, I know this message can
fall on deaf ears. 2 Peter, and you don't need to
turn there, but 2 Peter 3, 3 through 7. says, know this, first of all,
that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking,
following after their own lust, and saying, where is the promise
of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell
asleep, all continues just as it has from the beginning of
creation. I like what John MacArthur says
about this. He says, this is a ridiculous argument. It's like
saying, I'm not going to die because I haven't died yet. just
because it hasn't happened and yes the sun rises and it sets
day after day and people here say it's just been like that
since the beginning of creation well if we look at verse 5 and
continue on Peter talks about that. For when they maintain
this, that the days just go on like they have been, it escapes
their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long
ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through
which the world at the time was destroyed, being flooded with
water. See, the flood happened. It did
stir things up. We were living, people were living
900 years. We had dinosaurs, lots of exotic
creatures that we have the fossil record, the flood record, that
all went away after the flood. So it hasn't been going back. Judgment came and judgment is
coming. Again, Jesus is coming and he
is angry. Now there may be people here
listening who say, well, if I start seeing people disappear or see
rivers turn to blood, then I'm going to, then I can repent,
then I know that this is all real. No, no you will not. The Bible is very clear about
that. 2 Thessalonians 2, it's just
another scripture, again, talking about the end times. And listen
to what Paul says, the warning here for those who reject the
warning of his second coming. He's talking about the second
coming and the tribulation, the Antichrist. Here it is, starting
in verse 11. For this reason, God will send
upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what
is false. Why? In order that they may be
judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness. When people start disappearing
from the rapture, You're not going to say, oh, whoa, I was
wrong. I need to accept Christ. I need
to put my faith in him. No, God said he's going to send
a deluding influence on those who refused to do that. Whatever that delusion may be.
My personal thought is, with the way you talk about aliens,
is maybe alien abduction. People aren't going to think
it's a rapture, because I imagine 90% of the churches will still
be around. Right? We've seen the false churches
out there. Do not be deceived. God is not
mocked. He will not be mocked. You, we,
do not determine when we're going to put faith. I'm going to wait
and put faith in Christ a month from now. I'm not guaranteed
that I'll get home today. You're not guaranteed we'll get
home today. You don't get to choose when you're going to repent. God has given us a warning, very
clear, what he is going to do, and this is an act of mercy. In fact, if you're refusing to
submit to Christ, Peter warns us, 2 Peter 2.21, for it would
be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness
than having known it to turn away from the holy commandment
handed onto them. So I beg you, don't harden your
heart. Jesus is coming, and he's angry. Psalm 711 tells us God is angry
every day. Every day God is angry. You know,
I picked these songs, When We All Get to Heaven, The Roll Called
Up Yonder. I love those songs. They just
think about the future and what we as Christians have to look
forward to, but non-Christians, think about that for the non-Christians
out there. What horrible, horrible things. It's not when we all get to heaven,
it's when we all get to hell. It's just the start of the torment.
Their name's not on the roll. We as Christians are so blessed that God has chosen us and allowed
us to be here and to experience this. And what's something to
look forward to? Something to look forward to? So again, I'd be remiss if I
didn't say, how do you escape the wrath of God, right? You
might be sitting here listening, okay, you talk about repent and
believe. English, please. Yes, that's
fair. All right. We all broke God's
law. Everyone here in some time and
place has heard about the Ten Commandments, which is ten laws
of God. Thou shalt not lie. Let's pick
that one. Everyone here, everyone on planet
Earth has lied. If you're saying I haven't lied,
never lied, you just did. I mean, we all be honest with
ourselves, we lied. And that one little lie, one
little lie, deserves an infinite judgment of suffering in hell. You think that, well, that's
extreme. That's just one little lie. I didn't commit first-degree
murder. It's one little lie. What we fail to think about is
who that lie is against. It's against an infinite God.
Therefore, there must be infinite punishment. So that's the bad news. The good
news, the gospel, is that Jesus Christ came to live on Earth
around 2,000 years ago. Spent about 33 years here on
Earth living the perfect life, never lying, always obeying his
parents, living that perfect life that we could not live.
And then he went to the cross. crucifixion and people think
how horrible a crucifixion is and yes I by all studies a crucifixion
is probably one of the worst deaths somebody can face but
what Christ faced that no other person on crucifixion faces he
faced the wrath of God that punishment that infinite punishment that
was made for you and for me Christ took that punishment that we
deserved for all his people all the people that would choose
Him to put their faith in Him and repent. So what does that
mean, put faith in Him? That means to trust what He has
done. Christ has lived that life, He took that sin, went to the
cross, died, and rose again. Believing in that. As simple
as belief. We don't have any works. In fact,
if you try to do works, You just condemn yourself. It's all about
Christ. It's nothing but the blood, nothing
but the blood of Christ that he died. And with that faith,
that is what brings about the repentance. And you're not going
to be perfect. As Christians, we still battle
sin. We still battle sin. It's a battle
we face until the day we die, and it's a battle. It's like the Bible describes
as hand-to-hand combat. But what will change, they say,
it's not perfection, it's about direction. Those sins that you
so loved and cherish are now going to be loathsome towards
you, and you want to change your direction. So that is my prayer. What we have here is a warning
from God. In his mercy, he has given explicit
details just on how he's going to do things with the judgment,
his judgments in the Antichrist and in the coming of our Lord
and Savior. which enters the millennial kingdom, and after
that, the eternal kingdom. New heavens and a new earth.
So what a glorious future we have to look forward to. Let
us pray. Again, gracious heavenly Father,
we thank you, Lord, for this scripture. Lord, we thank you
that you have revealed to us what you are going to do. As
Christians, we thank you, Lord, for the joy that's before us
when we all get to heaven and see our Lord and Savior who gave
his all for us. Father, we thank you for that.
And Lord, we thank you that this is also an act of mercy and a
demonstration of your patience to those who have not put faith
in your son, Father, that you have given them the warning of
what they need to do. Today is the day of salvation.
Today is the day to put their faith in Christ, as we are not
given the promise of tomorrow, Father. So again, Father, we
thank you that no matter what happens here in this world, whoever
the next president is, or whoever sits next into the Kremlin, or
whatever wars or pestilence come about us, Lord, before you come,
Lord, that we can still rest that Jesus Christ is on his throne. and that we have a glorious future
to look forward to that. And we thank you, Lord, and we
love you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
The Impending Crisis
Series Jude
Jesus is coming again, and it will be a crisis for all who refused to repent and put their faith in Him.
| Sermon ID | 615251355352097 |
| Duration | 1:04:13 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Jude 14-16 |
| Language | English |
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