And, unmute the mics, and welcome back this week. There we go.
Oh man, good to be back this week. We're about to dive into Revelation chapter 7.
starting verse one hey we're getting to start a start a week on verse one that's kind of nice yeah
um uh so we'll be doing that tonight and diving back in but uh brother brian how you doing this
week good brother doing good having a good day today uh just a monday you know but it's a good
day good good and what about you brother dennis doing all right man hey i got a uh got a i got
my first round of persecution yesterday i think somehow or another oh is that how yeah is that
what happened yeah you know i do this thing uh i go around to assisted living homes and play play
guitar and sing old hymns with the folks at four different ones through the week and uh and i was
at the memory care unit last night and and there was this older fella sitting next to me in a recliner
and he's got a lot of problems right his dementia he's parkinson's he's probably in stage and he's
he's mumbling a lot real loud he's kind of agitated a little bit and i'm sitting there just playing
just playing along and having a good time praising the lord you know and some ladies are singing with
me and stuff and uh and all of a sudden something whizzes behind me and i look and the dude has
thrown his shoe at me i look over and his shoe is missing off his foot and the dude threw his shoe
at me and i'd stop in the middle of the song and start laughing and can't quit and a couple of
ladies are laughing and i'm like dude if you're gonna throw a shoe at me give me a sock too
and after i'm done about 30 minutes later a sock lands out in the middle of the floor and i'm like
There you go.
You got a message to say it.
Yeah.
Love it.
That is awesome.
So, you know, other countries, you know, if they don't like what you're saying, I'll throw their shoe at you.
I'm thinking I got persecuted.
Yeah.
That's true.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's the beginning.
Treasure.
Hey, persecution.
On the plus side, it was a shoe and you can call it persecution.
Otherwise, it could have been a tomato.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Those are just a mess.
Yeah.
They are.
Yeah, or a drink or something, man.
Yeah.
Oh, that is awesome.
Well, we've had a good week going into this week.
We had a great conversation last week on the ending of five and chapter six there.
That was fantastic.
I will suggest to add everybody for your prayer lists if you keep up with stuff to pray for.
pray for the
the ladies family
up in Minnesota or wherever it was
that got killed by that ICE agent
and pray for that ICE agent
her family I don't think they're particularly Christian or anything like that
from what I've seen probably
very much not
but definitely be praying for that family
and praying for that agent as well
because that's a tough situation to be put in
and that just stinks
because the whole thing was entirely
avoidable and it's
not fair to him and it's not fair to to her family but because people wanted to act kind of dumb
yeah um you know any anytime you have an interaction with police you pretty much have three three
choices of how you interact you can you can just do whatever they say with no questions asked
and nine times out of ten that nothing's going to happen from that like that's generally the
best outcome with no no problems um but you can be belligerent and uh nobody comes out looking
good in that situation when you get belligerent with them because at the end of the day you're
arguing with somebody who has a gun and uh you you don't know what they're going through you don't
know what's been going on you don't know what might have just happened to them before you got
up in their face started screaming and yelling and acting foolish uh you know they might be just
keyed up and on edge and suddenly that threat it's like well i can't let this happen again
and that's that's kind of what more than likely happened there is you know it's already happened
to him once he's like i'm not getting drugged by a car again yeah and uh nobody looks good no you
you don't look good they don't look good and and then it can end with somebody losing their life
and that there's no sense in that so so definitely be praying for them and pray for people that want
to take take cues from that because that's not the kind of cues you need to be taking
uh and the third way of course is you can you can disagree with them but you can be polite
even even if you don't agree it doesn't it costs you nothing to be polite right and at the end of
the day if you really don't agree with them that's what the courts are for yeah it looks like we're
supposed to uh honor authority yes that's right yes absolutely yeah absolutely go about it the
right way yeah and and that's why i say it costs you nothing to be polite and and if you're a
christian you better be because there is there's a right way and a wrong way to to protest and to
disagree um and and there there are a handful examples out there of some of the guys that go
around online that are very polite and they've they've still been arrested before and they've
won some really massive lawsuits because they didn't do anything wrong and you just had somebody
that made a you know as a law enforcement maybe made a bad decision it happens but you stand a
lot better chance of you turning out okay if you're just polite and you're just like well you know i'm
i'm not arguing with you i'm not going to stand here and argue with you but there's this this and
this and if you want to go this way we can go this way or we can go that way and and you kind
of put it in their hands. And it's amazing how many times that turns into, oh, okay. And nothing
happens. And so I do pray for everybody out there. I know we have people all up in their feelings
right now and all up in their emotions about what all's going on. Just pray for everyone involved
that we can all calm down. I saw on Facebook today, Franklin Graham is calling for a nationwide
prayer Wednesday at noon. Oh, I did not know that. For all this turmoil that's going on right now.
with the ice and all that stuff.
Well, right now is the time to do it.
So Wednesday at noon,
definitely take a moment
and stop and pray.
Yeah.
Because that is something
that we need to lift up
and we need to be praying for.
Because I am concerned.
I've been watching as
some of this particular,
that side of everything
that's going on right now
is getting kind of volatile.
And we just need to pray
for calm, cool heads
on the part of the people
that want to protest.
If you want to protest, that's fine.
But you're right. Do it the right way. Be polite. Be you know, don't be creating a problem that could get somebody hurt and pray for the police officers that, you know, unfortunately, when you got people protesting, you're going to have to take a little bit of abuse.
You're going to you're going to get called names. You're going to have people kind of talk ugly to you. And I hate it because you're just doing your job.
You're doing what you're told to do. But at the same time, it's kind of what part of what you signed up for.
And sometimes you got to let them kind of say some awful things to you.
But pray for them that they can stay calm and keep their heads because we don't want somebody making a bad decision.
At least they're not throwing their shoes at you.
That's true.
It's horrible.
Yeah.
That's a terrible feeling, isn't it?
It is.
It is one of my worst nightmares.
Be up there preaching.
Somebody chuck a shoe at you on Sunday morning.
I've had some babies protests several times.
I might put them to sleep.
Hey, that'll work.
All right.
Well, here we go.
Revelation chapter 7, verse 1, and we will start off.
And if you guys want to say anything closing up last week,
or if y'all want to dive right into this week, we can go for it.
I don't know.
We got through the sixth seal, and we saw a terror.
You know, the fifth seal was martyrs and the sixth seal was this just crazy thing that happens, right?
And that kind of marks the midway point of the tribulation, right?
Yeah.
And it's about to get real ugly.
It is, yeah.
Real ugly.
And, you know, it ends up, we ended up with, in verse 16 of chapter 6, it said,
And they said to the mountains and the rocks,
Fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.
for the great day of the wrath is coming who is able to stand.
So here we go.
Yeah, and so now we're fixing to go into a little break or a little interlude, you know,
on the opening of the seals.
Verse 1 says,
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,
holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth,
nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
So, again, we've got a little interlude here between the sixth and the seventh seal.
Why?
Well, what's taking place here is an opportunity.
It's about to be an opportunity here for a few things.
But for people that are left here on earth to have a chance to trust Christ as Savior.
And so these angels, they move north, south, east, west, stopping the judgment of God from going any further.
They're not stopping God from judging, but this is God's plan.
This is what he's told them to do.
And there's no doubt that after these judgments take place,
there's going to be some people who are ready to come to Christ.
But, of course, there's also going to be others who will grow even harder in their heart,
and some will wax like clay.
But let's look at how people will be saved during this time.
So the Holy Spirit is going to be gone, right?
It's not going to be here in the same manner.
2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7 through 12 says,
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.
Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that wicked be revealed,
whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth
and shall destroy the brightness of his coming,
even him whose coming is after the working of Satan
with all power and signs and lying wonders
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness
in them that perish,
because they received not the love of the truth
that they might be saved.
And for this cause,
God shall send them a strong delusion
that they should believe a lie
that they all might be damned
who believed not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So to understand that scripture completely, we've got to understand a few other things.
One, what is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer today?
What does it do?
What does the Holy Spirit do for us today?
It convicts us, right?
It leads us.
It guides us.
It directs us.
It saves us.
Not only that, it holds back evil.
That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
So when he who now lets is taken out of the way,
it's talking about the Holy Spirit being removed, which is the Holy Spirit.
Its works are going to be gone.
The works of the Holy Spirit are going to be gone.
And I believe one of the main works is going to be to restrain evil.
That work of the Holy Spirit will be gone,
but the Holy Spirit itself will still have a work to do.
It'll be more like the Old Testament, I believe.
Don't you think?
I think so.
And I like to look at this as kind of like, you know, on the day of Pentecost,
the Holy Spirit was just poured out by the prophecies of Joel.
Right.
And I think it'll be just kind of the opposite.
Yeah.
It was pulled out.
Yeah.
With the rapture.
That's right.
And people could still be saved before Pentecost.
Sure, sure.
And they'll still be able to be saved afterward, I believe.
That's right.
Yeah.
The Holy Spirit, I think, will do a lot of prompting of things that need to happen
and things that need to take place like it did again in the Old Testament,
and it'll move things where they need to be moved.
God will still use the Holy Spirit to do what needs to be done
to bring people where they need to be,
but the work is going to be so much different than it is during the church age.
Yeah, it'll be a lot more like Old Testament times.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, and we say that and it's going to be a lot more like the Old Testament times.
One of the things that caught me about that verse, I literally just heard today another person arguing that, you know, hell isn't real.
It's not a real place.
It's not a thing that you go to.
And that verse you just read explicitly says, hey, look, either you believe or there's damnation for you.
And I mean, we're we are not in hell now.
We are on earth.
Hell is a completely separate place and it is so much worse and it is so much more horrible than what's here now.
We're not trying to escape hell.
And the purpose of salvation is not just to get you out of hell.
And it is to honor the one that made us at the end of the day.
It's to have fellowship with our creator.
And that's the purpose of all of this.
And all of this is our creator taking the world and putting it back in the state that he intended it to be in that we messed up.
We humans were given a choice, and at the end of the day, we made the wrong call.
We made the wrong choice.
Adam and Eve made a choice.
It was not the right decision, and sin entered into the world, and there's a consequence for that,
and there's a price to be paid for that.
And all of this, all of this that we're reading here, all of this that we're seeing is making that right.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're created in the image of God, right?
And I think part of that is that we've been given an eternal soul.
It's got to go somewhere.
That's right.
They have to spend eternity somewhere.
Yeah, and that's a piece of, I won't say it's a piece of God,
but in his image is something that can't be killed.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So you reject him, you've got to be put somewhere.
Yeah, that's right.
He made it eternal, and it's going to dwell somewhere eternally.
And you've got to accept what he's done for you.
Yeah, and you have a choice.
You have a choice.
And he's still crying out all through revelation in between every one of these judgments.
All this wrath being poured out and he's still saying, come.
Absolutely.
Come.
They won't.
No.
And like you said, that salvation, I mean, when we get a little bit further on,
we're going to see that there are those that are being sent out prophesying and witnessing to the world.
That wouldn't be happening if salvation wasn't possible.
Yeah.
Right.
God does not do things for no reason.
He doesn't just yell into the void and go, okay, well, I did what I was supposed to.
That's not God.
We see this over and over and over and over throughout Scripture, throughout the Old Testament, throughout the New Testament.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's a purpose for everything he does.
He sends these people out a little bit later on because you can still choose to do right.
You can still choose to turn your back on it.
The cost for making that choice is way higher at this point.
Yeah.
And in chapter 14, we're going to see where there's the angel sitting around the world.
don't take the mark of the beast
that's right
and the gospel is spread
all over the world during this time
every ear is going to hear it
and way more than it is today
and think about that
it's going pretty much everywhere today
but it's going to be so much more
because there's not a single person
and y'all can disagree with me on this
but I believe that there will not be
a single person that makes it
into
the tribulation
that at some point during that seven years does not hear the truth spelled out plainly,
specifically, and exactly in no uncertain terms.
Here's the truth.
They're going to have it presented to them.
They're going to have it shown to them.
And they're going to see all the evidence that is needed for them to believe.
Well, there's too many preachers about to go out.
Yes.
I mean, it's going to be, plus the angels and all the ways that he's making to say,
hey, this is who I am.
Yeah, and look at the testimony of millions of people disappearing.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
What happened to them?
There will be a great delusion.
I think that will be the first testimony.
That will be the first thing that says, I'm God.
If you've heard this before, you need to run to me now.
Then we see all these great, terrible things start to take place, start to happen.
Then we move to this last three and a half years, and this is the beginning of that,
where we're about to see the 144,000 sealed,
and then he preaches the gospel again, right?
I mean, you know, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, so many people, especially in this area,
you know, in the Southeast U.S.,
it's still a little bit of Bible Belt to it.
It's not that strong anymore.
But so many people have, you know, heard their grandmother
or grandfather talk about the rapture or something.
They go, man, I missed it.
Yeah.
I missed it.
And they'll get on their knees.
Yeah, yeah.
They're going to have a long road of hope.
Absolutely.
They could be killed by pestilence or some kind of disaster or something.
Yeah.
Or could be beheaded.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would think I would want that to be the way I went.
Just go ahead and cut my head off.
Let me go through all this stuff.
But you know what?
I choose to go in the rapture.
Thank you, Lord, for that option.
Yeah, I would rather go through the rapture.
But if I was one of the people stuck afterward, I'm with you.
It's like, can we go ahead and just chop my – I believe.
I was wrong.
I believe, so I'm rejecting you.
Let's go ahead and get this whole killing thing out of the way.
I don't want to suffer what you are about to experience.
No.
Hit verse 2 and 3?
2 and 3.
And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God.
And he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea,
saying, Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees
until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads.
Yeah, so two purposes here in halting this judgment.
One, so that the Gentiles could become believers,
and two, so that the 144,000 could be sealed, right?
And, you know, I don't want you to think that these 144,000,
and we can talk more about that in a minute,
they're going to have to trust Christ as Lord and Savior.
Yeah, amen, the same way we did.
The same way we did, yeah.
And this sealing is really just God protecting a remnant.
Yeah, he is.
Yeah, and in a lot of the same way that we are sealed,
we're sealed by the Holy Spirit right now.
They're going to be sealed through what these angels are doing here to protect them to get to the end of the seven years.
So if they were not sealed, then they'd have been wiped out.
Matthew 24, 21 through 22 says,
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be.
And except those days shall be shortened, there should be no flesh saved.
But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.
So, you know, it's just a horrible, horrible time that if God had not sealed those 144,000 because he had a purpose for them,
then they would have been destroyed during this thing, too.
Right.
Verse 4, and I heard the number of them that was sealed,
And there were sealed 144,000, all the tribes of the children of Israel.
So 144,000 Jewish believers will be sealed.
And then they'll start preaching the gospel.
You may not believe it, but there will be a, just like Tyler was talking about a minute ago,
there'll be a great revival during this time.
I mean, a huge revival during this time.
but the persecution is going to be even greater.
Back to Matthew 24 and verse 14,
and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world
for a witness unto all the nations, and then shall the end come.
Then shall the end come.
Persecution and revival kind of goes hand in hand.
They do, don't they?
Yeah.
And if you look at the times, I know the times in my life,
I've drawn closer to the Lord.
This is something I've heard.
I've seen J. Vernon McGee, he says it too, but he said,
I grew closer to the Lord during my times of trials more than I did the happy times and the good times.
We tend to cling to him.
We tend to grab on to him.
That's when we really know we're weak.
Yeah.
When I'm weak, he's strong.
Exactly.
So what's the purpose for this whole preaching that I talked about there in Matthew 24?
Well, he loves us, and he wants us to be saved, right?
2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promises, as some men count slackness,
but he's long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
All kind of blows again.
It kind of blows the theory of of of the tulip, doesn't it?
I mean, you know, it's his will that all should be saved and none should perish.
So, yeah, that's that's the God that we serve.
And, you know, so many people want to spiritualize so much of this thing.
And we've got to be careful in verses four through eight not to spiritualize.
Absolutely.
This is specifically to the sons of Israel.
And what's another name for Israel is Jacob.
That's right.
These are the physical descendants of Jacob.
Excuse me.
Yeah.
Amen.
You want to hit those next all the way to eight?
Are you going to make me read those?
He played the seniority card.
No, it was just your turn.
He stopped on that one verse.
I think he tricked you.
Let's take turns.
Okay.
No, no, no.
From the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed.
From the tribe of Reuben, 12,000.
From the tribe of Gad, 12,000.
From the tribe of Asher, 12,000.
From the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000.
From the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000.
12,
There's a name missing out of these.
Yeah, there's actually two.
The tribe of Dan is missing out of this.
Yes, yes.
And people like to spiritualize this, I think, because they think, well, there's 10 lost tribes, or there's this, or there's that.
Nobody knows that all the records were destroyed in 70 AD.
Nobody knows.
God knows.
He knows the descendants.
And he's going to find the pure-blooded descendants that are still around to this day.
And they're going to be part of that 144,000.
Yeah.
But he substitutes – I noticed he substitutes instead of – there's Ephraim and Manasseh that are substituted in.
And Joseph is, I think, considered part of Ephraim because I think Jacob adopted Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
But Dan gets left out and –
Well, is Ephraim not left out too?
Is it in –
I think he's considered as part of Joseph at the very end.
See, from what I had studied, I thought that Ephraim was left out.
Both of them were left out and Dan.
Yeah, Ephraim wasn't one of the original.
Right, right.
But Dan was, and he includes Manasseh instead of Dan.
Yeah, right.
So it's kind of, I don't know.
I don't know what there is to it.
Well, if you look at this, so you got it.
And like I said, I looked at it as both of those tribes.
But Dan could have been left out because of its idolatry.
In Judges 18, 30 through 31, it said,
And the children of Dan set up graven image, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh,
he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of captivity of the land.
And they set up them up Micah's graven image, which he made all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.
And then 1 Kings 12, 28 through 30, whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Israel.
Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And he set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
And this thing became sin for the people who went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.
So, but please note that this tribe, this tribe of Dan, they haven't been written out completely because they're spoke again or they're spoke about, you know, Ezekiel chapter 48.
God kind of shows his grace on this, on this, on these people.
And then Ephraim, if they, you know, they were they were also one of the reasons I thought that because they were also guilty of of idol worship.
Hosea 11, and it eventually leads to division in 1 Kings 11, 26,
but Hosea 4, 17 is where we see Ephraim joining the idols.
Hosea 11, 8, how shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
How shall I deliver thee, Israel?
How shall I make thee as Adma?
How shall I set thee as Zeboam?
My heart is turned within me.
The repentings are kindled together.
So anyway, but we know for sure Dan's not, yeah, he's not in there.
And it could be because of his idol worship.
Yeah, I actually just went through the list.
Ephraim and Dan, both of those are missing.
Yeah.
So, you know, wow.
But I hope that we realize that everything that God's doing during this period of time has to do with the nation of Israel.
Right.
Everything else is just included as just his marvelous grace, right?
If you're here during this time and you accept Christ,
you just count yourself under the grace of God because it's not about you, right?
It is about he's turning himself back to Israel.
Yeah, and this replacement theology that came around, I guess,
in the late 19th century or sometime where people thought,
well, the church is the new Israel.
All the promises to Israel are now in the church.
And that's garbage.
Garbage.
I mean, you look at Romans 11.
Romans 11.1 says, I say then, God has not rejected his people, has he?
May it never be.
For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
Or do you know?
And he goes on and he says in verse 25, for I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed
of this mystery so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening
is happening to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
And so all Israel will be saved just as it is written.
The deliverer will come from Zion.
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.
This is my covenant with them when I'll take away their sins.
He's not done with Israel.
He's not at all.
And that's what Revelation is about.
We saw in Daniel, this is the seven-year period,
the last week of Daniel for Israel.
For Israel.
That's exactly right.
Because, again, where's the church?
Gone.
We're gone.
We're in heaven.
We're out of here.
Yeah.
Praise the Lord for that.
Amen.
Verse 9.
9.
After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number,
and all the nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne
and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands,
and cried with a loud voice, saying,
salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb.
So, again, we've got a great praise and worship celebration going on in heaven.
But this time, the tribulation saints have joined in, right?
And, man, what an awesome, awesome time this is going to be when they join in the celebration,
when they join in praising God, when everybody begins to be in unison.
I just can't imagine what it's going to be like during that time.
We just automatically all know the same song and start belting it out.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sing a new song.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, whatever you're thinking, I'm thinking.
Yeah.
We're in sync here.
Yeah.
That'd be awesome.
Awesome.
Amen.
That'll fix you.
It'll fix you.
It'll fix what?
Yeah, it will.
It will.
Yeah.
It'll fix my voice.
Oh, that's a voice.
You're thinking.
Yeah, I didn't think about that.
oh man i think we'll all be fixed yeah amen yeah yeah yeah because we're all going to think what
what god is has we're all going to be on the same wavelength with him we're going to be
absolutely we're going to be like david yeah we're going to be like david was god is going to look
around with yeah but yeah and this is this is like this whole chapter is like like you said
an interlude right yeah it's like a snapshot of later uh-huh it is yeah well part later and part
part yeah 144 000 are being sealed in yeah he's like hold up let's do this and now let's
show you this yeah here's what it's gonna look like yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah absolutely
so uh you'll hit those next couple uh we're at 11 11 11 12 and all the angels were standing around
the throne no that's uh 13 14 i think i read 11 12 didn't i no no oh did i not you did 9 10
i'm sorry come on okay i'm sorry my thinking's still off okay
yeah yeah and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four
living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped god saying
amen blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our god forever
and ever amen yeah yeah yeah amen amen i mean this is going to be a coming to jesus like we've never
seen oh yeah like like nothing in 2 000 years of church history that that it's just people coming
to christ and people uh being saved in the worst time in history um and those that endure uh as we
read about before that that make it to the end uh many of them will be martyred but but if they
make it to the end they're going to be sealed right they're going to be sealed uh matthew 24 13 but
they that shall endure to the end the same shall be saved phasians 4 30 and grieve not the holy
spirit of god whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption amen thank god he does the sealing
amen yeah yeah this is the door of the ark right yeah i see and i heard it i heard it i've heard
I don't know, several things have popped up here lately on my feeds about the ark.
And one of them I've seen somebody shared today that the ark was when it was sealed, there was no steering wheel in the ark.
There was really no rudder that he talks about.
He describes all this, how he's building it.
But basically what Noah done was just gotten this thing just to float around and counting on the Lord to guide it.
Right.
And he's the one who sealed it, too.
Yeah.
He sealed it and they didn't need it and have to.
At the end of the day, Noah trusted God so much that he jumped inside of a giant box.
Yeah.
With no way to steer, no way to tell him where to go.
With a bunch of dangerous animals.
It's like, God, I feel like you're making me build a big coffin.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Heaven's going to get loud, man.
Yes, it is.
Dine's getting mad at me lately for saying that, but man, it's going to be awesome.
Yeah.
It's going to be noisy.
It's going to be a wonderful, wonderful time.
I mean, a forever celebration to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Amen.
That's good stuff.
Good stuff.
Okay, now we can read 13.
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me,
What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?
So I mentioned that these are the tribulation saints,
But then it answers the question in verse 13, 14.
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.
And he said to me, These are they which came out of the tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
So we identify who these people are.
So if you didn't believe me before, you can believe me now, right?
this verse clearly states that we're dealing with the people of every nation saved during
tribulation i i had a i had a preacher um one time coming and uh done a revival for us and uh
and i i just i i don't know if for sure i didn't know for sure that everybody caught it because it
was just a short little snippet but he basically made um he alluded to the fact that uh that that
only Israel was going to be saved during this time.
And I'm like, no, that's not true.
That's not true because the Bible says every tongue, every kindred, every nation.
Right.
So I don't know where he skipped over that.
And I had to fix that the next Wednesday night and Sunday.
I was like, hey, okay, I respected this guy, and he was a great –
I love his preaching, but he got that wrong.
Yeah.
Not because I said it, because this is what the Bible said.
Right, right.
Yeah, and you see kind of a distinction, too, in verse 11.
It talks about the different ones that are around the throne, the angels, elders.
There's four living creatures, and then there's this great multitude, which no one could count.
So the church is represented by those 24 elders.
Right, yeah, absolutely.
They're there.
Yes, yeah, the church is there.
The angels are there.
The tribulation saints are there.
And how are they?
How's the tribulation saints say?
They've got to trust in Jesus as Lord.
That's like now.
That's it.
They got to trust that he died for his sins, that he rose again the third day, that he ascended into heaven.
And now that he sits at the right hand of the father, making intercession for us.
That's the only way you can believe.
Right.
Amen.
And I love those two verses right there because they just make it so amazingly clear.
And I mean, even to the point that this elder that comes over and asks John, hey, who are those?
Yeah.
And John's only answer is, I don't know.
you know you know tell me i don't have a clue what's going on here i mean here yeah yeah you're
the one over here talking to me i don't know what's going on yeah and then and he flat out says these
are those who have come out of the great tribulation yeah and and they've washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the lamp it's ironic isn't it when have you ever seen a lamb slaughtered
yeah i've seen some videos of that it's pretty messy and uh their coats don't come out very white
red yeah yeah and and for some reason i mean and john's just i mean you have to imagine he's sitting
there going oh yeah okay i'm starting to see what's going on here yeah yeah yeah yeah everybody's
wearing white except for the lamb yeah he's wearing red that's it that's it amen gosh all right 15 15
hit as far as you want to go for this reason they are before the throne of god and they serve him
day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them
They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any
heat.
For the lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs
of the water of life.
And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
So there's another one of those things.
There is.
Yeah.
So that's two different things.
The lamb is our shepherd.
Yeah.
Amen.
Well, I love what somebody said.
I don't remember who it was.
I think it was the guy that did The Chosen was talking about one time.
He said, you know, everything that Christ did, he came to flip everything on its head.
You know, the first shall be last and the last will be first.
The lamb will be the shepherd.
The blood that's washing our sins will make us white as snow, not crimson.
Yeah.
He did.
God, through Christ, through his son, through the sacrifice on the cross, has turned the world on its head.
Yeah.
Turned religion upside down, too.
You know, I was just doing a study on this the other day in Romans chapter one.
where it's the obedience that comes from faith.
And he says it again in chapter 16.
It's kind of like the thesis of Romans and what he's getting at here,
that obedience comes from faith, not the other way around.
That's right.
Your obedience, the Pharisees were obedient.
Yeah, yeah.
But they had an obedience constant.
Faith wasn't there.
That's right.
It's born out of faith.
You're exactly right.
And again, we're talking about these tribulation saints here,
and we see, again, their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb,
And then he wipes away the tears from their eyes.
And we see that again in Revelation 21 after the great white throne of judgment.
Because there's some, and we'll get there eventually, but there's going to be some sadness going on during that time, of course.
And that's why he wipes the tears from our eyes after that.
But here we've got, he's taking these tribulation saints and he's gathering them together and he's saying, look, I love you and I got you and you're okay now.
And he's wiping the tears from their eyes, and he's telling them it's going to be okay.
The church is already in heaven at this time.
And, you know, he deals with the tabernacle.
He deals with the temple, and that all pertains to Israel.
When we talk about those things, it all pertains to Israel.
They were hungry.
They were thirsty.
They were burning in the heat of the sun.
They were shedding tears.
Christ is going to take all that away.
And he brought them through tribulation, and now they're going to get to spend eternity with him.
Yeah.
Man.
And we'll see even in the next chapter that hunger and thirst is a big deal coming up.
It sure is.
That they've experienced.
Yeah.
Amen.
And we need to understand, too, that the church is not the Lord's only sheep.
Okay?
We're not the Lord's only sheep.
John chapter 10, verse 16 says, and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold,
them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
So here we are getting brought together.
Yeah.
Man.
So he was talking about the contrast of Jews and Gentiles, but now we see the tribulation saints coming into this thing.
But man, the church does hold a special place.
I don't want to get that.
I don't want to get that misconstrued because we're the bride of Christ.
Yeah.
Right.
But man, we're all going to get to worship him together.
Yeah.
Amen.
We got it easy, don't we?
Yeah.
And really, I do want to throw out and make it very clear when we say that, because somebody
is going to take that out of context.
We're not saying that there are those that are not following Christ, that are not following
the scripture that are still his sheep.
That's not how that works.
He has some lost lambs out there that are not following, but he's talking about the children
of Israel and the church, the Gentiles that we're a part of.
And these are two different groups that are part of two separate flocks right now, because
you have the Jews, you have the Christian Jews that are following Christ, and you have the
Christian Gentiles, which are the rest of us.
You've got to be born again and be a bold adult.
And these are two different flocks, but the way you get there is still the same.
It's still through him.
It's two separate flocks.
We have two different backgrounds.
We have two different upbringings.
We have two different sets of promises because we are the bride of Christ, whereas they are his children, his chosen people.
And these are two different sets of promises and two different sets of people that all get brought together in the end to be one group.
That's non-church Gentiles, right?
Before the church and, you know, like tribulation saints, Gentiles.
Yeah, that's true, too.
But that common denominator is born again.
Born again.
Yes.
Faith through grace through faith.
And it's nothing else, not worse, and not the adherence to the law.
That was what Christ came to overthrow.
That was part of that throwing it on its head, right?
Obedience comes from faith.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not the other way around.
And that was one of the crazy things.
I say it all the time.
It's the unique thing about Christianity.
We do not keep the law because there's anything in it for us.
We keep the law because we have faith in Him.
Because we love our Father.
Yes.
And because He fulfilled the law in us through Him, He fulfilled the law.
And it's only because of Him that we're able to keep anything.
Yeah.
And when God looks at us, he looks at us through his son, Jesus Christ.
I've broken all the laws because the Bible says if I have sinned, if I broke one, I broke them all.
And so there had to be a remedy for that.
And the only remedy for that was Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.
And our faith in him is what brings that together and what covers us with the blood of Jesus Christ.
So we're covered in his righteousness.
And so when, when, that's how he fulfilled that in us because we're covered in his righteousness.
And when God looks at us, he looks at us in perfection.
He looks at us through the sun and he says, those are mine.
Yeah.
And as we walk with him in this lifestyle of faith, we're transformed.
That's right.
And more and more obedient because we love him more and more and loving it is obedient.
That's right.
The Bible is being transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Right.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm going to throw out real quick.
I love that in 717, you pointed out that it says the lamb will be the shepherd, will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water.
You want to know where that living water part comes in?
You want to know where?
Right here's where it comes in.
It says that's what he's leading us to.
That's what he's taking us to.
And when he told the woman at the well, hey, drink of the water I'm bringing you, this is that water.
He's saying, I'm going to now lead you to that that I've promised you, that spring of living water.
Again, that representation and that knowledge that we are going to have, that life that is eternal and everlasting and is a life of peace and of perfect connection with God.
Again, that's what he's leading us into when it says that.
I love that verse.
It reminds me of Psalm 23.
You know, he makes me lie down and greeting pastors, leads me besides to quiet waters, still waters.
Amen.
Yes.
Yeah.
And again, the whole analogy here that we see of the lamb becoming the leader, the lamb becoming the guy.
You know, instead of the lamb being led, the lamb is leading.
The lamb is bringing us to a good place and bringing these tribulation saints.
He's going to feed them and he's going to lead them.
He talks about feeding them there, and then he talks about taking care of their thirst, too.
He's going to give them living water, right?
I mean, God, what a wonderful thing.
The lamb that says, look, I know where I'm going.
I don't need a shepherd.
I am the shepherd.
That's right.
And we'll never go hungry again.
We'll never be thirsty again.
The sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat.
I mean, we're talking about, okay, this is what God had in store.
This is what God planned.
I mean, you look back at the design of the garden and the way he designed the Garden of Eden.
That was it.
You weren't going to be out in the hot sun.
You were in this garden.
You had leaves over.
You had stuff.
You had this cool area.
You have the cool water to go hang out with.
And we rejected that to go hang out in the desert.
No, Adam did.
I didn't.
That's true.
Yeah, that's true.
Let me tell you, let's look at another thing right here, too.
Have you seen anywhere in the book of Revelation or during tribulation,
have you seen anywhere where anybody's baptized?
No.
Okay.
All right.
So maybe you don't have to be baptized to go to heaven, right?
I just wanted to put that out there.
I mean, these guys haven't been baptized.
They haven't been to Bible college.
They haven't been to Sunday school.
They haven't been, or a lot of them.
I mean, most of these people during this time may be people who have never even stepped foot in a church
or around a church or even heard of Pete.
Yeah, absolutely.
And guess what?
Now they're going to heaven.
Yeah.
It reminds me of that Alistair Begg sermon.
Do you remember that?
Yes.
I remember that a few years ago, and he's like, well, now tell me about the doctrine of whatever.
you know yeah yeah it's why should we let you in he said because the man on the middle cross said i
could come that's right yeah yeah that's his own that that's it oh we got let's see it we came
through man on the middle that's a powerful sermon he gives yeah yeah it really is yeah
i'm at but that is powerful again he said he just ad-libbed that one time and we were speaking
somewhere yeah yeah he didn't write any of that down he just started talking that dude can talk
Oh, he can.
Oh, yeah.
He can.
I heard somebody had played it not long ago, and they described it as –
The best three minutes or something like that.
Yeah, but he describes Alistair Beck coming across like a Viking soldier
leading us to battle or something like that.
That voice that he has.
Yeah, he's a little bitty dude, too.
Yeah, he is.
He is.
But, you know, that's the amazing thing is you've got this period in Revelation.
You have – I cannot envision a world in which you are actively being hunted and killed for believing in Christ,
for rejecting this religion that has been set up by the beast, which we haven't gotten to yet,
but we're going to see it pretty soon, of what this looks like.
They are actively killing people.
They are actively saying you can't buy food.
You can't eat.
You can't have rent.
You can't own your house.
You can't have a car.
You can't.
They're actively persecuting.
It really does.
And they're actively persecuting you for being a Christian.
And you think they're having baptizing, Stuart?
Yeah.
No.
You want to know how they're meeting?
They're going out in a field somewhere.
They're finding a cave to hide in so that the government doesn't find out about it so they
don't come and murder all of them because they're trying to help them spread the word.
This is like China or North Korea right now.
I don't know how.
I'll probably get cut off for this one.
I don't know how the Church of Christ, how they evangelize in some of these foreign countries or whatever,
because, I mean, you've got people who are getting saved and then beheaded right after they get saved, you know,
and it's like, oh, God, let's dunk them in water before.
You know, let me throw some water on them real quick.
I mean, guys, I mean, listen, baptism is important.
I don't want to come across.
It is a commandment.
It is a commandment that we show the world.
It's part of who we are in Christ.
It's our testimony.
They're both commands.
Yeah.
So we testify that we have been born again, that we are washed away in the old, that we buried the old, and we come up new.
And so it is.
It's an outward expression of an inward change in us, and it's very important.
And I do not want to downplay that.
If you get saved and you can be baptized, you need to be baptized.
That's your next step.
I don't think your spiritual walk will be whole.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
But if you die before baptism takes place, that does not send you to hell.
That is not biblical at all.
No.
Look to the thief on the cross.
Right.
And what do you do with somebody that say that they're on their deathbed in a hospital or somewhere and they get saved?
Yeah.
Oh, we got a donkey.
Right.
Yeah.
Let's find a tub.
Yeah.
You can't.
No.
Right.
And it's not critical for salvation.
That's right.
You're looking for your spiritual one.
Absolutely.
And it's exactly that.
Once you're born again, that's already happened on the inside.
And Paul referred to it kind of a different way, I think, in Galatians, where he said it's a circumcision.
It is.
The sign of circumcision in the Old Testament is kind of the same as the baptism in the New Testament.
Right.
That's the removing of the old.
That's right.
Cutting away the old.
And I tell you, again, it is such a testimony, just like the Lord's Supper.
absolutely lord's supper is a testimony we had a we had a a girl get saved here uh uh last i think
it was last year uh last year or the year before yeah got saved here uh after uh we had our communion
service one morning uh and and the lord just convicted her during communion right that that
hey i can't take part in this because i don't understand it oh and and it just convinced and
And this was a teenage girl.
And it does the same thing.
I always tell them before we have communion, hey, when my kids were growing up, I didn't let them take part in communion until they were saved, until they knew Jesus Christ.
And people say, well, preacher, I thought you said if they hadn't reached the age of accountability that they're okay.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But I want them to understand what it's about.
And you don't understand it until he's living inside of you.
That connection to what you're doing and what you're taking place in there is such a beautiful thing for you.
But it's also a testimony to others, because when other kids see kids that have been saved take part in communion, they're like, ah.
And they go home and they say, Mom, Dad, why can't I take part in that?
And Mom, Dad says, well, let me tell you, this is why you take part in communion.
And this is what happens, right?
Like you accept Christ as Savior, and then you become part of the church,
you become part of the body of Christ, and then you have an understanding,
and then you get to take part in communion.
And they say, oh, okay.
So it's an opportunity to teach them.
Same thing with baptism.
I can't tell you at the number of kids who have asked questions after questions to their parents.
Like I've had parents come up to me, hey, you care to talk to my kids?
Because after baptism today, you know, my kid was asking a thousand questions.
The Holy Spirit begins to deal with them through things like that.
And so it is very important.
Both of those things that we've been commanded to do are very important for us and for the others who see us taking part in those things because they say, okay, there's something there.
There's a testimony there that I don't have.
And there's a mysterious power in there, too, toward us when we participate in this stuff.
Isn't there? Yeah.
And communion, to me, has always been a really, really reverent thing.
It is, yeah.
I'm refocused on the cross.
Yeah.
The cross, the body and the blood, right?
And, you know, I always go back to, I'd gone to an Episcopal church one time, and of course they do it at the end of every service.
They're like the Catholics and the Lutherans.
They do the communion service at the end of every single church service.
And I will never forget watching this older lady.
She really couldn't even get up in and out of the seat very well.
And before she went down, she had to get on her knees and she sat there and she prayed and she prayed and she prayed.
And then she got up and went down.
And I thought, oh, man, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong.
I have I have issues with the Episcopal Church.
But goodness, that kind of faith and that kind of, hey, I'm going to make sure that I've done what I need to do.
And I've had that conversation with my father before I walked down there.
And I went, oh, I mean, that it convicted me.
Yeah.
watching it from this completely, you know, totally what is today a fairly out there church.
And man, it convicted me watching this little old lady go, I can barely get up and walk down the aisle.
Not going to be getting very comfortable getting on my knees in that seat,
but taking the time to flip that little prayer stool down and get down on her knees and pray.
And I thought, man, what if we all did that?
Yeah, Paul said it's a dangerous thing.
Oh, yeah.
He said you're eating and drinking damnation.
And I wonder, I just thought about that when you were saying this.
I wonder if you're saved, of course you're not going to lose your salvation.
You're not going to die and go to hell.
So I wonder if you're eating and drinking damnation, could it be that you're eating and drinking damnation to someone who has fought with you, to someone who you've hurt their feelings, to someone who you've sinned against them,
And then they see you taking part in a sacred thing that's supposed to be for Christians.
And they're like, look, if that guy is a Christian, the woods is full of me.
You know, he's cussed me.
He's hurt me.
He's done wrong against me.
And now he is over there trying to pretend like he's somebody that he's not, you know, and I don't know part of that.
So, yeah, exactly.
I would be there down there.
Yeah.
You know, and I started to say it could be purely about the witness, because I mean, like I say, I had never seen anybody do that before.
It was the first time in my life I'd ever, and I was 20 something years old.
And it just, it's something that has stuck with me all these years.
And when we do communion, it is, it's something that even my kids have, have commented over,
you know, as they were growing up that, that I did it a little differently after that.
And, and we would be at their mom's church or whatever.
And, and, uh, or grandmama's church on that side.
And, uh, you know, they were like, you're, you're treating this a little differently,
dad, why are you, why are you treating it?
Why aren't you just acting like everybody else?
And I'm like, because it's special.
It has meaning.
It is something that is important to represent what our Savior has done for us.
And for me to just willy-nilly walk down, I can't.
You're eating at his table.
Yeah.
That's his table.
I feel so heavy when we have communion.
I'm like, I've never done it when I felt like I'd done justice to it.
It really gets a hold of me because I'm like, Lord, I don't know.
I don't know exactly the right things to say.
How do you glorify them in something like that?
Yeah.
I mean, it's just so, like you said, it's so sacred and it's so special to us as Christians.
And I don't want to mess it up.
And I just feel like, oh, gosh, I'm just not doing this justice.
But I've had an opportunity to do communion outside the church several times.
I've done it in several nursing homes since I've been a hospice chaplain.
But I've also done it in some homes with a few families who wanted to do communion and some good Christian families.
And my goodness, two different times we've had church.
I mean, we've had church.
It was just a sweet thing.
and you got somebody there that this is probably the last time
that they may ever get to take communion.
In fact, one of them, the first one that I done,
that person passed just a day or two after that.
And the whole family that was there, the family that was there,
man, they were just there.
It was crying and squalling, and he got to take part in it,
and we got to take part in it with him.
It was like this is what it's about right here.
Yeah, you know, there's always been something just mysterious
and powerful about breaking bread with your brothers too.
It is, yeah, yeah.
You know, that was the road to Emmaus where the two guys are walking alongside Jesus
and don't know it, he breaks the bread.
And then boom.
Boom.
Yeah, yeah.
The Last Supper, he's breaking the bread and gives the morsel to Judas.
Yeah.
There's something about bread, about dining together.
Yeah, it is.
It is about fellowship.
Yeah.
I mean, it's important, man.
It's important.
Fellowship of the believers.
In Acts, it says that they were daily in the breaking of bread and fellowship with each
other.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
It also says they were in one accord.
And I don't believe it, man.
They drove a Honda.
That's true.
Yeah.
That's a lot of people to squeeze in there.
Those guys must have been a little, man.
Yeah.
To get everybody to get back then.
yeah well i blew that didn't i maybe that was great well there'll be another joke at the
beginning of chapter eight too so that's right that's right yeah yeah so but uh yeah good stuff
though man and good stuff in the middle of tragedy i mean here we are we're seeing people
saved during all this right we're seeing the grace of god the hand of god coming down and saying i'm
here i still love you and i'm still the per my purpose is is not to create you and destroy you
but to create you and save you right and and him reaching down and putting that pause on all the
damage everything let me seal let me seal mine and get them started doing what they're called to do
that's it that's it and oh yeah hit the play button again yeah and yeah and when that play
button hits, it's like, can you hit pause again?
Play button and volume to 11.
Yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
You didn't think God did the whole rock music thing.
Yeah.
The way the earth starts trembling, I disagree.
Yeah.
Thumping.
Well, that takes us through chapter seven in the book of Revelation.
We're going into chapter eight next week.
That will be chapter eight, verse one.
We'll get to start again on a verse one.
Awesome.
Yeah.
One week.
One a week.
I like it.
20 weeks, 22 weeks.
But it is, it's a wonderful thing to study this and to think about just how good our God is.
Oh, yeah.
And how amazing and awesome he is and how wonderful he is that he's given us the opportunity to miss all of this.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the thing.
It's not about fear.
It's not about scaring people.
It's not about making you nervous.
It's not about making you want to escape hell.
It's about realizing that there is a loving creator out there that wants a relationship with you individually.
You personally, he knows you by name.
He knew you in the womb before you were formed and he knows you and he wants a relationship with you.
And goodness, let's let tell people, tell people it's again, I was listening to that earlier day and I made that reference.
you know, when we first started listening to people talk about their journey of walking away
from the church and why they walked away. And these are people that were pastors, were former
pastors, were pastor's kids, were involved in these things. And then, of course, they start
talking about the things that they went through and the reason they walked away. Okay, yeah, no,
I get it. But at the same time, it's like, goodness, you're not out here trying to scare people out of
hell. I'm out here trying to draw people to a loving God who wants a personal relationship with
them to be their loving Abba Father. And all of this, all of this, we see it even there. He turns
around and we're praising him and we're worshiping him and we're making that wonderful noise again.
And we get to see the lamb come and say, okay, here, I'll take you. Let me lead you to these
living waters over here. Let me take you over here and bring you into peace. And that's what's in
store for us. And we want everybody to join us in that. We want as many people as possible along
along the way. So it's not about scaring you out of hell. It's about getting a personal
relationship with the one who created you. The getting out of hell is just kind of a side effect
that happens to be a very joyous one. If you don't see by the end of chapter eight that we need to be
about the father's business and we need to be evangelized, and I don't know what else to tell
you. I don't know how you can be revived or brought to life. Yeah. If you can't see it by
then there's not much we can say for you but next week we will start again revelation chapter 8
verse 1 and we will pick up with that and uh go from there next week so uh brother dennis would
you pray us out father in heaven thank you thank you for these brothers of mine that love you and
love your word father i pray your blessings on them father may your peace surround them and and
that your joy be made full in their hearts.
And Father, I pray for everyone listening that they'll take your word seriously, Lord,
to know the wrath that's about to be poured out on this world.
And Father, thank you for your goodness, that you are so good to us, Father,
that you've adopted us as your own.
You call us your own.
You want us with you for eternity, that your thoughts toward us are like sand on the seashore.
And Father, we just do it so much that we don't deserve, but you're so good and you love us so much that you gave your life for us.
Father, thank you.
Lord Jesus, thank you.
Father, I pray for everyone listening that they would know that same joy that you offer, the water of life, Father, that you offer without cost.
Father, that they would hear these words of ours and what we're speaking and would turn to you, Lord, and repent and be saved.
Father thank you for this time together
And Father I pray your blessings on everyone listening
In Jesus name
Amen
Special thank you to Carter Pridmore
Brian Harris
Waverly Henderson
Tatum Harris Spears
And Josie Partain
For our theme song
Truth Set Me Free
I've been Tyler Goza on production and audio
We hope you can join us live next Monday at 6 p.m. Central.
Thank you for listening.
But truth found me there. It was in my darkest hour. I traded my black heart for joy, for something real, something with power.
Truth set me free. Truth came to me. I once was blind, but now I see. Truth set me free.
Oh, oh, truth set me free
You're the only one who's