And welcome back this week to everybody.
We are uh, kicking off just a couple of minutes early so
we can get the normal pleasantries out of the way, and by the
time people start joining, hopefully they can uh, come
in right as we get started real good on the scripture.
How's y'all's week going?
Good, good.
Going good.
Blessed.
We are.
I had a really good night last night at the men's conference over at Guests.
That was I was excited.
And what were who were those guys that were there?
I didn't actually know them
Hayden, Alabama podcast is what they're from.
It's what it's called.
The Hate Alabama podcast, and there's really just a
group of several of them, that there's two.
there's 2 main guys that started out that podcast.
Um, and uh, and they were uh,
the guy on the very end last night and
then the one, the 2nd one in the row there.
I can't remember all their names.
But anyway, yeah, those 2 guys started, just
as a southern storytelling podcast kind
of thing, you know, and sometimes they'll just take,
uh, people send them in stories and stuff and they'll read and read them
and sometimes they just do their own.
But yeah.
No, so I'm going to have to, I knew you
guys had talked about it a few times before we went down and
yeah, they were, they were definitely very gifted storytellers.
All a bunch of, you know, and Christian guys too.
And of course, one of the guys last night was one
of the founders of it.
And he preached last night.
They're at the end and he's a pastor.
He's a pastor.
Gosh, I can't remember.
I think he said last night what the name of his church was.
I can't remember
I remember him saying something, but yeah.
And he did, and that was a great way to wrap up with a message like that.
He didn't, you know, wasn't just getting yeah,
super deep into anything.
It was just enough to say, here's where it is.
And here's how it works, and here's what the scripture says.
And I was like, doggone.
So that was that was really nice.
So, yeah, that was
a nice way to kick off the week.
It was.
Yeah, it was.
And how about you?
You having a good Monday?
Having a good Monday, man.
Yeah.
Like I said, I enjoyed all day yesterday.
I'm enjoying this, uh, uh,
the, the Lord's put this, this, uh, series of
messages on my heart uh, for marriage.
I've just had
I had a heart for for people in their marriages and and
just watching marriages survive the world, you know?
Because the world's against your marriage and then and
Satan hates it.
And uh, and so, Lord, just he'd put some
things on my heart in the last several years, and I just kind of just compiled
them all together, I guess, and and, and trying to,
uh, other than, than, uh, than my,
um, my misspeaking fumbling mouth yesterday.
I'm not thinking about, well, get deep into
it, but I mean, yesterday, I've never
been that tongue tied in my entire life as I did during a
prayer, but I did anyway.
We are saving that for the blooper reel for pastor appreciation Sunday.
Yeah, that's when you know you've done something right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How about you, brother?
Dennis?
you having a good Monday?
Great, man.
It's just gorgeous day.
It will just be fun. put around on my tractor a little bit, you know, mess around.
It's just too wet to do anything.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It was fun anyway.
All the all the lovely rain we got.
Just enough to be annoying Saturday and Sunday.
Yeah.
Man.
It was soggy at my house.
But yeah, that marriage thing is awesome.
I'm so glad you're doing that because, you know, Satan
loves nothing more than to turn one spouse against another.
Yeah, he does, however he can.
He does.
He does, yeah.
You know, it's one of those things that at
the end of the day, the heart of a nation is the family,
and the heart of a church is the individual families that make
up the church, as far as the people go.
And yeah, Satan knows if I can just break the families apart.
I can destroy the nation.
I can destroy the church, I can destroy the communities.
Because once families start falling apart, all of these other things just crumble around it
because they are the bedrock of those things.
And it's all a type of likeness of our relationship with him.
It is.
It really is.
And I've always seen the family as kind of a top and likeness of the Trinity.
Yeah, really, you know, step bond, that togetherness.
And Satan hates it.
He does.
Anything that represents God and who he is and
his goodness and mercy and grace and dominion and power.
It's slapping Satan's face and he hates it.
Yeah.
Yep.
And and I love you.
You have stressed in both of these so far, the being
equally yoked and stressing that, especially
to young people as they're starting dating.
that is so important to stress of, hey, don't don't go find
somebody that's not in church and start dating them because that's that
is not going to lead to good things down the road.
ask those of us that have been there.
It doesn't, it just doesn't work well.
And bad things happen, even when the other
person seems interested or may seem to, oh,
yeah, yeah, no, I believe that.
but do you really?
You better you better know.
It's like playing Russian roulette, you know?
I mean, it, it may turn out good
sooner or later, that person may get saved.
They, you know, you may end up believing the same.
But then again, maybe a shot in the head too.
What was it?
I heard somebody say once it's Russian roulette with 4 in the chamber.
Yeah.
I mean, you might be that one in a million.
That must be a four shot revolver.
Yeah, that's true too.
Oh, man.
But we have.
That was that is a great series and I'm
really looking forward to it.
And I am planning on making that one making
sure it's available for a while somewhere where
people can go and listen to it because that's that's something we want and people need to hear.
And like I say, especially young people, you're starting dating, you need to start hearing this stuff.
Yeah.
And and might as well get it get it in your head before
you go out and get yourself in a bad situation and
go, well, Lord, how do I get out of this?
And it's like, you're
committed at this point, you kind of need to see it through, but,
you know, let's try to avoid that.
I've been big on just thinking
a lot about wisdom lately.
And I think anybody that's getting married needs to be praying for a lot.
Absolutely.
And God gives it.
Absolutely.
And wisdom can be a really sneaky thing.
It's not like you just all of a sudden get hit by a bolt a lot and
you're spouting proverbs over the place, right?
Yeah.
He gives you a discernment.
He gives you a knowledge that you didn't really have before and a way to figure things out.
All this stuff comes together to be wisdom.
It does.
It's really important.
Yeah.
We need to pray for our marriage and our children and everything else.
You know, and I found 2 things that will lead you
to wisdom is a good marriage, a equally
yoked proper marriage.
You eventually start figuring out some things that
are very non-obvious until you're in the middle of
it, but raising kids.
Good lord, that patience and wisdom just,
just, it's either going to develop if, if, if things
are going to go well or if it never develops, you're going to have a hard time with it.
So you better be praying for it.
Because kids will test your patience,
but boy, you know, you start figuring out ways to communicate
with them and encourage them and help them
along that is good and not
necessarily the way we talk to other adults.
Right.
And what a blessing they are.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, this week we are in Revelation chapter 11, verse
15 is where we stopped off before we got into that.
That is the 7th trumpet, uh, where
where things are about to get kind of, uh, they
we've seen some rough things happen.
We've seen things get very hard and it's about to, you
know, get even even, you know, bigger.
We're going to see some really major things happening after the 7th trumpet.
And I was thinking this week, you know, we've talked several times on
here about a lot of the things leading up to this and a lot of the things after this
where it goes in and it starts talking about the crazy stuff that people are
seeing during this time and the delusions that people are falling over.
And one thing that we Christians need to try
and maintain now, in order to pass down to
people that are going to be going through this, is the ability
to look at things and go, hey, I'm not getting everything about this.
And you have to realize that it's politics.
It's things that go on in the world.
Already today we see how easy it is to rile people
up over something when you just give them a sound bite.
You just give them a small clip or a single picture that
captures an instant in time.
And, I mean, imagine here
where when you have the spirit taken out and you have the church going and
you have that Christian influence missing, those little
clips, those little sound bites, those little AI pictures.
I mean, you don't even have to go that far.
Just literally a picture taken at the right moment and you can have an
entire nation of people ready to murder everyone over.
You ever heard of the Mandela effect?
Yes.
Isn't that something?
Yeah, everybody just common knowledge believes
that Nelson Mandela died in prison.
But he didn't.
Right, right, right.
And everybody believes that there's a cornucopia, cornucopia.
Is that how you said the Thanksgiving basket looking thing in the middle of the
fruit and loop, fruit of the loom.
but there's not.
There's not.
Never has been.
There's all these things that people just know is common knowledge, not true.
And that's that's what's coming, man.
Yeah, that's exactly what's coming.
And we do.
We as Christians, we need to...
A great delusion.
Yeah.
Take and things like this and things like what we're about to get into here.
Make sure that we are, you know, leave a couple of books laying around.
you know, make sure you have some good books on it later around your house in addition to the scripture.
Jimmy Evans, he has a book written, I
don't remember what it's called, but it's written for people who survived the rapture.
It's like a little mini books,
and this is what just happened.
You know, and just leave that man around.
I love it.
I'm more right one, too, called Feed My Dogs, please.
They get angry.
Don't eat my dogs.
But, um,
yeah, so here we go into uh, 1115
and then we'll be getting on from there, but this
is the 7th trumpet, uh, in in the range,
and uh, last week, the 6th trumpet was the one, um,
which let me get, uh, back over here to the scripture
so I can double check.
And that was the one where we had the, um, Do, do, do, do.
Yeah, we'd seen some fire breathing preachers.
Yes.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Literally firebreaking preachers.
That's where we saw them doing that.
Oh, yeah, the 2 prophets.
They were fired.
They were consuming people with fire, and then eventually were killed,
and then God said, come on up, and then he takes them away.
We have an earthquake that a 10th
of the city collapsed, talking about Jerusalem, a 10th of the city collapse.
7000 people were killed in the earthquake and
the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
And that was the 2nd woe.
And then, if you remember, the angel had said that
these last 3 trumpets were 3 woes that were coming to the world.
And so here we are on that 3rd woe.
Whoa.
Hey.
So, and the 7th angel sounded,
and there were great voices in heaven saying the kingdoms
of this world are become the kingdoms of the
Lord and of Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.
And the 4 and 20 elders, which
sat before God on their seats, fell upon their
faces and worshiped God, saying, we give
thanks, O Lord God, almighty, which art and
which wast, and which art to come, because thou
hast taken thee thy great power and hast reigned.
And the nations were angry, and
thy wrath and thy wrath is come in
the time of the dead, and they should be judged, and that shouldest
give reward unto the servant of the prophets,
and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name shall
small and great, shouldest destroy them,
which destroy the earth.
Well, leave verse 19 if you want to for a minute.
Yeah, so we're still in the middle of
the lull between 6th and
well, that's after 13.
We, then verse 15, we, uh, uh, the next
part is given for for some encouragement here.
I mean, we see all these things happening and then
and then there's some encouragement here to those who are
sealed, but left behind.
So these 144,000 who are sealed and left behind.
It would be hard to continue if
there wasn't a little bit of encouragement in the middle of this, right?
Yeah, they would.
They would.
It's just, it's a doom and gloom kind of thing, right?
And this reminds me too of, you know, we went
through Daniel, and this is that divine kingdom in
chapter 2 of Daniel, where, you know, Nebuchadnezzar
has a dream of the statue.
Babylon's the head of gold to meet some Persians or their
breasts, breast and arms of silver.
And Greece is the midsection of bronze and there's Rome.
It's iron and then iron mixed with clay.
And it says in verse 44.
In the days of those kings, the god of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never
be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people.
It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms,
but it itself will endure forever.
And as much as you saw that a stone was cut out of the
mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the
clay, the silver, and the gold, the great god has made known
to the king what will take place in the future.
So the dream is true.
It just uh, man, this stuff ties together.
It's just mind blowing to me.
It is.
The kingdom of God's coming.
And the 7th trumpet saying, here it is.
Here it is.
Yeah.
And this this, uh, well,
we'll wait on the bowls for that.
But this is where, to me, it gets a little sketchy.
Yeah, you know, about the chronology
of it and how it fits together.
Well, especially when you get in chapter 12 a little bit.
Yeah, it gets tough to understand.
Yeah, it does.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
do verse 19.
And the temple of God, which is in heaven, was opened.
And the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, and
there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder,
and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.
Now this is this is the temple of God made without hands.
This is the temple that Jesus actually went
to, according to Hebrews, and put his blood on that altar.
That's right, man.
The temple that Moses made was patterned after this temple.
Yeah.
And it tells
us here that it was open.
So it indicates that there's
access to God, right?
There's worship going on, and there's
access to God, and these events, they declare
the prominence of Israel in this section.
Really.
I mean, like we're we're getting around to God's people here
and this chapter kind
of substantiates that, right?
The art being seen here,
reminds us that we're dealing with a covenant
making in a covenant keeping God.
He is.
He's going to keep his covenant that he's made
with Israel, and then he's going to make a new covenant,
a new covenant with them at this time.
And this time the law will
be written, not on a stone tablet,
but the law will be written in their hearts.
So, yeah.
Lightnings and voices and thunders and earthquakes
and great hell, they that speaks of judgment
that's yet to come.
Yeah, yeah.
And this temple here stands in a
contrast to the one on earth that's already been desecrated.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Like you said, temple not made with hands, right?
You can't be touched, but I think.
Exodus 194 says you've seen what I did
in into the Egyptians and how I bear you on Eagles' wings.
Uh, you know, but, but, like
I said, we're coming together with this, this wonderful part
of who, of who they are, of who Israel is.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll see a description of them coming up, will we?
Yeah.
Yeah, actually the next verse.
Yeah, yeah.
Verse one,
chapter 12, right?
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven,
and a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under his feet,
and on her head a crown of 12 stars.
Yeah.
Yeah, and this section kind of kind of begins another
one of those kind of parenthetical.
sections and gives it some history.
It does.
It goes back.
And that's where we've got to, like you said before, it can be,
it can be a little bit confusing.
But here's here's one thing we've
got to figure out when we got the layout here is who the characters that
we're reading about this, right?
To know who the woman is, you've
got to go to scripture, to gain knowledge from there.
Uh, when you see the the
symbols like the sun and the moon, uh,
and the stars, you have to go to Joseph's dream, right?
You can just...
Joseph Street.
And we can see that that represents Israel.
Genesis 37, 9, and 10.
And he dreamed yet another dream and told it
his brethren and said, behold, I have dreamed
a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon, the 11 stars
made obeisance to me.
And he told it to his father
and to his brethren, and his father rebuked him and
said unto him, what is this dream that thou dream?
Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren, indeed,
come to bow down ourselves, to thee, to the earth?
And so Joseph, he interprets this
to mean himself, Rachel and
Joseph's brothers, and guess what?
They bow down to, don't they?
They bowed down to Joseph before things were
over, and from the family came the nation of Israel.
Yeah.
So, um, and guess what?
From that nation comes our savior, Jesus Christ, right?
That's right.
Did you read the two?
No, I hadn't read it.
Oh, okay, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
And she was with child.
And she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth.
So this is this is a picture of like
Joseph's dream.
And it's a picture of Israel giving birth to a Messiah.
It is.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, a nation, uh, travailing in birth.
It's a it's a figure associated with Israel too, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
Isaiah 66, 7 and 8.
Before she travailed, she brought forth, before her
pain came, she was delivered of a man child who
hath heard such a thing, who hath seen such a thing.
Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or
shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
So Israel will go forth through the
great tribulation and and that's,
this is much after Christ is born in Bethlehem, right there?
I mean, so before her pain, her pain came,
she was delivered of a man child, meaning Christ.
Yeah, yeah.
there are theories out there.
And some folks, I don't know who they are, but they think that maybe
this woman in these 1st 2 verses could be the church,
but it can't be because the church didn't give birth to Christ.
That's right, yes.
And the other theory out there is that, and this is coming from the Catholic
church is that this woman is Mary.
Yeah.
But the problem with that is that Mary ain't
going to be persecuted 2000 plus years later.
That's right.
So it's not Mary.
And as these verses go along, they continue to lay
out and describe her more
and more that you can't.
I don't know how you could deny that it is Israel, right?
I don't understand.
Israel has faced torment in
anguish for a long, long time, haven't they?
Yeah, the wrath of Satan ever since the garden.
That's right.
Yeah.
yeah
been chasing that seed, hasn't he?
Yeah, he has.
And verse 3, and there
appeared another one in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon,
having 7 heads and 10 horns
and 7 crowns upon his head, and his and
his tail drew the 3rd part of the stars of heaven,
and did cast them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the
woman which was ready to be delivered to devour
her child as soon as it was born.
So, I mean, this is so clear.
Number one, this clearly identifies as
Satan on in verse nine.
We know that that's who this is.
this dragon.
And it gives us more proof here of being of
being the nation of Israel, but let's talk about the dragon for a little bit
and kind of the description we got here.
We got 7 heads, which really is just symbolic
of perfection and wisdom, right?
There's there's there's wisdom there.
You got 10 horns.
It basically represents a
final division of the Roman Empire.
That's going to be split up, right?
This thing's going to be.
The crown represents a kingly
authority that he thinks that he has.
Um, and then, and then the
3rd of the stars, is you'd already talked about, and you
may be going back to Daniel right now, I don't know, but, but, so if
you are go, go ahead and read that in a minute, but the, the, the 3rd
of the stars, it's, this is, this is a picture of this great
rebellion that took place uh, with the angels
and Satan in heaven, and they're cast out, right?
And we got really 2 scriptures.
Daniel 810 and Jude 16.
Yeah, I was looking up 7 to talk about
the dragon.
7 heads of 10 horns comes right out of Daniel 7.
Yeah.
You know, it's the it's the image he shows of Rome.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
And he says, in verse 7 of chapter 7,
After this, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a 4th
beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong,
and it had large iron teeth.
And it goes on down.
And it was different from all
that were before it, and it had 10 horns.
Yeah. 10 horns.
And he said the other one was eight.
810 is where that's
where he he talks about the angels being cast out.
with him.
Yeah.
But he's talking about the little horn in that case.
Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn, which grew exceedingly
toward the south toward the east and toward the beautiful land.
It grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the
stars to fall to the earth and it trampled them down.
Yeah, stamp them out.
Right, wow.
Dude is evil.
Yes, yeah.
And then Jude won six and the Angels, which kept
not their 1st estate, but left their own habitation.
He hath reserved an everlasting change under
change under darkness under the judgment of that great day.
And so these are these are demonic forces.
Now, not only are we seeing Satan cast down,
we're seeing these angels,
that now we look at,
or we call demons, right?
That's what a demon is.
It's a fallen angel.
Yeah, and we see a little bit
of a preview of this too, right?
There's a type of this that happens at Jesus' birth.
Yeah, when Herod goes to Bethlehem and slaughters babies.
Yes, absolutely.
He's chasing us.
He's chasing that seed, and he's trying to stamp it out, trying to stomp it out.
See, the pure evil.
that this thing is.
Yeah, yeah.
So Satan Satan is he's loose and
he's seeking whom he may devour and
he's got he's got plans, but guess what?
God's plans are much better, aren't they?
Yeah, and we're going to see him get real mad here in a minute.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And verse five, he says, and she, the woman, Israel,
gave birth to a son, a male child who is
to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was
called up to God and to his throne.
So this is this is Jesus.
And it's exactly what it says in,
what is it, Isaiah nine?
Is that right?
We're just going to, what was it?
His name will be Prince of Peace, Everlasting,
all that stuff. and he says he'll scepter will have no end.
Press her out.
And Psalms 29 says he's a shepherd
who will rule with a rod of iron, right?
Psalms two, and he'll
break that rod of iron and dash them into pieces like a potter's vessel.
Um, It mentions here that,
um, that he's caught up.
Further tells us, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
he not only.
Yeah, yeah, it's like the word that we use for rapture,
the harpaso, the, the, the, the caught up, the snatched out.
And, and, and really, I think here it's dealing
with Christ ascension after he after he died
and rose again, he ascended up into heaven.
Yeah, and angels come along and said, what are you looking at?
Yeah, yeah.
You're busy.
Right.
The same guy you see leaving.
Guess what?
He's coming back in like manor one day and we're beginning to
unfold the like manor now, aren't we?
Yeah.
And the
woman fled into the wilderness where she had a
place prepared of God, and they should feed her there
1203 score days, which is 3.5 years.
3.5 years.
Yeah, 42 months.
And this this is one here that can get a little a
little dicey too.
Because you see a lot of prophecies in Old Testament that
talks about Jesus 1st coming in 2nd coming kind of at the same time.
Yeah
And this is kind of what we're seeing here.
that he's going back to history to when Jesus
ascended, but then he's
flipping forward real quick back over to the
Israelites having to flee in the wilderness life, like at a Matthew 24,
Jesus said, when you see this, fleet.
for 3.5 years.
That's right.
Yeah.
Get somewhere, right?
I mean, this is just, and and, you
know, when Christ comes, we see, we
see this, this, this is all getting ready for him to come back, right?
That's what we're seeing here for him to step foot back on earth.
And he'll put down every enemy.
He'll put down every opposition, uh, when he
returns and and and he'll do this with a rod
of iron, uh, dashed into pieces.
And this is the only way that rebellion can really be put down.
It's the only way that ultimately it can be put down.
Her child caught up is,
again, a reference to his ascension.
But in the gospels, the focus is on the death of
Christ, in the epistles, the focus is
on the resurrection and the revelation,
and in revelation, the focus is on his ascension, right?
You know, so you got all these things coming together, but
the book of Revelation is unveiling the
ascended Christ, like this glorified Christ,
who is no longer a baby, who is no longer a child in a manger.
Hebrews 122.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is set down
at the right hand of the throne of God.
So that's who he is, right?
He's coming back in power.
Amen.
back in power.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love this the description we're going to see later of him coming back, man.
It's like, yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
It's awesome.
And awesome.
Just a visual you get in your head of seeing, you know, just imagine what it's really going to be.
Better than any, like, hero movie that you can ever imagine, right?
It's everything wrapped into one.
Yeah.
Verse seven?
Is that where we're at?
Yep.
Okay.
I might read 3 verses there.
And there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon
fought and his angels and prevailed
not, neither was their place found anymore in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out and the old serpent called the
devil and Satan.
Again, I told you earlier that verse 9 explains to
us who that is and which to see with the whole world,
and he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
So this kind of reiterates what we were talking about there kind
of gives identity to the people that we were looking at
or to the to the creatures that we were looking at.
Uh, but we need to understand that even
though Satan's home.
Even though Satan's home is not in heaven, he
does have access to God.
Yeah, we see that in Job.
We do, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Job one and two, we see we see him talking with God.
We see it in Zachariah, three,
one and two.
It says, and he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before
the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at the right
hand to resist him.
And the Lord said unto Satan, the
Lord rebuked thee, you know, Satan, even the Lord that chosen
Israel rebuked thee, is not this a brand
plucked out of the fire.
Luke 2231 and the Lord said,
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you and
sift you as wheat.
There was a conversation that was going on there.
Michael was and then we get in and
then we get into Michael, this angel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was, he had a particular ministry,
I believe, with the children of Israel.
I think I think he was,
he was, uh, we see that in a couple of places.
Jude, uh, in Jude 19,
It says, Michael, the Archangel, when contending
with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses,
durst not bring against him, a railing accusation,
but said the Lord rebuked thee.
And then in Daniel 1013.
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was
stood me one in 20 days.
But lo Michael, one of the chief princes came and
helped me and remained there, the king of Persia,
Daniel 1021.
But I will show thee that which is noted
in the scripture of truth, that there is none that holdeth with
me in these things, but Michael your prince.
And then chapter 12 and verse one.
And at that time shall Michael stand up, and the
great prince, which standeth for the children of thy
people, there shall be a time of trouble,
such as never was since the nation,
uh, was a nation even to the same time.
And at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone
shall be found written in the book.
Luke 10.18.
There was a great struggle in heaven and Satan will
be thrown down here in Luke 1018.
He talks about this.
And he said, unto them.
I beheld Satan as lightning from heaven.
So you see this whole thing with Michael, the archangel
and this battle going on and every time he was right there with Israel.
He was right there protecting them and watching over them.
Yeah, I've wondered about that passage, verse
Luke 10.18, and Jesus
told him, I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
Do you think I was prophetic?
Possibly, possibly, could have been?
Or something that he'd already seen.
Yeah, because, well, again, because you got,
yeah, you have to go back and look and see how prophetic
or historical what we've what we've already read in Daniel, right?
Right.
Yeah.
So it's, it's, it's a tough, it
gets, it gets tough there historically to,
or I guess chronologically to see where this
happened at and how it happened.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Yeah.
But, uh, yeah, so
he's the old serpent, right?
The devils, that deceepeth.
Well, and what I was about to say is, you know, you
have, you notice here that every time you see Michael
the Archangel, he's acting as a guard
for Israel, but almost always as a, his, it's as
though his very purpose is to be a foil for Satan
and his archange and his angels that he took with him.
And it's it's like his just, it's your
job is to go out and mess up his plans.
And God's like, yeah, just go out and just just keep just keep getting in his way.
And that's what he does every time we see him.
And what's amazing to me is I've
heard a couple of modern, uh, not
really religious Jews say that uh, the idea of
Satan is entirely a Christian construct, it doesn't exist prior to Christianity.
It doesn't exist in Judaism and all that because it's Satan and all this stuff.
And they give these big reasons.
Can I point out that Revelation is written by
John, who was a
Jew, the one called the devil and Satan.
Like, he makes no bones about this.
John immediately recognizes who this is.
This is not something that's just a new creation
for the Christian church.
We have at least one pre-Christian
Jew that knows who Satan is and
knows who that Satan and the devil is the same being and the same is
referencing in the same.
I just wanted to throw that out there because it's always interesting
and I love just going, right, here it is in Revelation.
I mean, and you have places where Christ uses similar terminology and stuff.
This one is just so undeniable because it puts both names side
by side, the devil and Satan.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
2 there, 2 it is.
And to touch on that chronological thing again, too.
It's like what we've read has kind of been in the past and at
some point in here, it kind of shifts back toward that future focus again.
Because it's like Satan fail.
Now he's now he's here wreaking
havoc in the present day of the,
well, what's future for us, but what be present day for them,
of the metal of the tribulation, you know?
And I wonder if there's not a break here or something that
a breaking point where all
this time we see, you know, back in Job and
all through those verses that I read where Satan's
having these conversations with God, and now it's like I'm done.
Yeah.
You go do what you need to do, but I'm
fixing to do what I need to do and don't talk to me about it.
right.
You know?
No more.
Yeah, yeah.
And really, that's kind of almost showing mercy to him by talking to him at all.
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
I mean, at the end of the day, he's still something that God created.
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, you know, again, it's
one of these things that has crept into the church in my mind of exactly
what Satan is and exactly what the devil is.
And it's like, no, no, no.
He is one of God's creations.
He's something that God made and loved and cared
about and gave things to because he had a purpose for him.
And he rejected all of that.
And still, oh yeah, still does.
Yeah, that's one of the big things too.
God is sovereign.
And that's, I'm going through Daniel in the Sunday school class.
And that's kind of the theme of that whole book is God is sovereign.
He is in control of this stuff.
And the only reason Satan really gets to talk to him is
because God's using him for his purposes.
Oh, yeah.
yeah
And definitely he's letting him go his own twisted way.
Yeah, yeah.
He's making he's making use of what Satan.
in God's hands, right?
He's a puppet, God's hands.
God's using him just exactly like he wants to.
And like you said in a minute, he's...
Right.
And two, at the same time, the reason
I point that out and say that, that God is absolutely using his
twisted Satan's twist and turns and all of
his machinations and scheming and he's using that to
further his God is using those to further his plan.
But it doesn't necessarily mean he has to like it.
I mean, this is
I mean, it's the same.
I mean, you got to think about it.
You had create, you know, if you could create life in the way
that, you know, because this is not the same as the sun.
It's not somebody that's part of you, that same way.
It's a cre something he made, but having it
turn and spit in his face and say, well, I don't want anything to do with you and I'm
going to become you and all that and got, it's breaking his heart.
I mean, and here he is knowing what's coming and knowing
what's about to happen at this point where he goes, nah, I'm done.
I mean, good lord, he's put up with it for, you know,
about 10,000 years or so.
I mean, it's like, goodness, it's like, I've been putting
up with this since the beginning almost, and you haven't slowed down, man.
You haven't won yet.
You haven't even made any headway.
I want to make a comparison too, and maybe
a contrast here to kind of
maybe bring some clarity to...
I had somebody ask me one time, um, could Satan
be saved and I said, no, no, he's done.
He's made his decision.
And so here's what we got to look at, okay?
When, when, when the angels fail,
when we read about this, and we know that Satan and these angels fell
from heaven, when they, when, when he, when pride
took him over, and he decided, and he made a
decision at that point, that he thought he could be like God.
He made a decision right then to never have anything to
do with God again as his God, right, as his father God.
He was created by
him and he was created for a purpose.
Uh, and, and he, uh, he took that purpose and he threw it away.
And this is the comparison that we
have today of the
blaspheming of the Holy Spirit.
That Satan blasphemed God at that point in time.
There was no redemption after that.
There was no, he was already an eternal being.
So there was no redemption at that point.
There was no, okay, you've had your chance, right?
You choose me or you choose yourself.
And Satan chose his self.
And those angels chose to follow Satan instead
of God, they made him their God.
The angels that stayed, they made a choice, right?
So their choice is over, never to
be another choice again, right?
Now.
Here we are as,
as, as, as children of God,
or, or created beings of God, and
we must choose whether or not that we're
going to accept Christ as Lord and Savior, if we
accept him here before we die, before we
leave this world, if we accept him here, then we
will spend eternity in heaven.
If we die without Christ in our hearts, if
we die without Jesus in our hearts, we have made the same
decision that Satan made all those all
that time ago to never accept him,
to never have a relationship with him, to never be
able to be connected with him again.
So, uh, so just like you can't
be saved after you die, Satan can never
be saved from the place and the position that he's in now.
He made a choice and his choices is to
reject God and live for himself.
Yeah, it's like what Paul lays out in Romans chapter
one that everybody in this world is without excuse.
That's right
We can look around at creation and know that there is a God.
And even to the nth degree, that Satan
stood in the very presence of the glorious God, he stood next
to the throne, but right there at it, and he
knew he knew.
And really without excuse.
That's right.
I mean way without excuse.
Because it gets into the it gets into the thing of,
okay, well, what about when we get to heaven?
Could we, you know, are we going to have
a, could we rebel then?
No.
Again, the choice is over.
This is where this is where God has
taken us as a creation with choice.
as a creation with not
a bunch of robots, right?
But we choose him because he loves us and we want we
want to accept that love.
When we would get to heaven one day, then
we're going to have the mind of Christ.
Never to go back like these confused
feelings that we have now.
Pride will not be an issue.
Sin will not be an issue.
All those, all those things that we deal with now.
We're not going to deal with those in heaven.
So it's not like we're going to get up there and then 10,000 years later.
We're going to say, I think I'll rebel against God.
I think I want be like him.
No, those thoughts are gone.
Our minds have been purified and we
are like him.
Well, it's a it's a change in the very nature of who
and what we are at that point.
I mean, you you get the perfected bodies.
You get everything.
You're you're made new.
You are a, and we are made new when we
are saved, but this is a whole nother level of that where
everything changes.
The same thing with Satan when he rejected.
When he made that rejection, when he made that choice, it completely changed
the fundamental nature of who and what he was, he
is no longer able to be in the presence of God for an extended period of time.
I mean, and the only reason he's able to be in God's presence
at all to communicate with him is because God gives him grace to let him do it.
Because that is, I mean, that level of evil
and of sin being in God's presence is
normally just destroyed and God is allowing
some grace, like you said, it's
some grace there and some mercy there because it's like I still have a plan and
I still have a purpose.
And since you're not going to serve me the way I made you to serve me, now you'll serve me this other way.
I like to think of it as, you know, when we believe when
we're born again, we're filled with all the Holy Spirit that we'll ever have.
all of them, all of them.
And the thing that restrains us, that from loving
God and serving God is our sinfulness, these sinful bodies.
And once we're in that pure perfect body, it's unrestrained.
It is, yeah.
It will obey him.
We'll we'll love him.
We'll do everything we, it'll be perfect.
We're fundamentally new.
That's right.
And right now, he's redeeming us to that, right?
I mean, he's he's taking what has been destroyed, what
has been broken down, what has been separated because
of Satan, because of sin.
And he's, he's, he still exists because God
is showing us that I can redeem you from that.
I can bring you out of that and I can take you to perfection.
And that's what he's doing with it, man.
He's still inside of us then, right?
The Holy Spirit's still there, but it's way more
powerful because we don't have these dirt suits.
Amen.
Like a dirt suit.
That's right.
Amen.
All right, verse 10.
Yes, go.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now
the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of
our brethren has been thrown down.
He who accuses them before our God day and night,
and they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb, and
because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love
their life, even when faced with death.
You want to go ahead and read verse 12 too, because it kind of...
For this reason, rejoice, O heavens,
and you who dwell in them, woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has come down to you having great wrath,
knowing that he has only a short time.
Gosh, that's what we've been talking about.
Waiting on, baby.
Yeah, this is it.
This is it.
I mean, John starts
out with, I heard.
He's reminding us that he's the he's
a spectator and he's an auditor of these events that are taking place, right?
He said, okay, remember where I'm at here.
I'm watching these things unfold.
And, and, man, Satan,
he's cast down and this causes rejoicing
of the redeemed in heaven, right?
And it starts a celebration that
takes place as Christ is going to continue
to execute judgment, right?
We're leading up to him stepping foot.
But Christ paved the way, he paved
the way for this whole thing to happen from the cross.
That's that's where it begin.
Colossians 2, 14, and 15, blotting
out the handwriting of ordinance that was against us,
which was contrary to us, took it out of the
way, nailing it to the cross, having spoiled principalities
like Satan and powers.
He made he made a show of them openly
triumphing over them in it.
Amen.
So that this all began at the cross, like this defeat of Satan.
I mean, he's like, here it is, here it is.
And man, we have we have freedom in
Christ right now, but guess what?
There's some things that we haven't yet even experienced.
aren't there?
I think I think we see a few things that are
in that in that verse there.
I'm I don't mean to be taken over.
I'm just talking to you.
But this is good stuff.
I mean, we see they're in verse
10, we, uh, or verses.
Yeah, I think verse 10.
But he talks about, he talks about
salvation, right?
We're saved, but the consummation
of our salvation is not going to come until
we're with him, right?
I mean, that's when salvation is really, we're saved,
we're being saved, we'll be saved throughout all eternity and
will be the beloved, now we are, are we
the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when we, when he shall
appear, that then we shall be like him, right?
For we shall see him as he is.
So we've got salvation.
It talks about strength here in verse 10.
Christ will come in full strength and power.
And he's going to establish his kingdom.
And then he talks about the kingdom.
It's not a kingdom now.
It's not a kingdom right now.
It's now but not yet.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
growing into this.
The kingdom has not yet been established, but it will be.
There will be true.
There won't be true peace until he sets up his kingdom, right?
Until he really does this.
And then his power and his authority, man,
power really executes his authority.
So Christ, he's going to take over the government.
He's going to be head over it all.
We already know the government's on his shoulders, but he's going to show his authority through all this.
I love what you said about the law.
What was it you said about the law being nailed to the cross or the ordinances or not?
How is he accusing us?
He's using God's law to accuse us.
They are not like a little tattletale, running constantly up
to God, saying, did you see what Tyler did?
Did you see what Brian did?
Yes.
He's using the law to do that.
Well, now he has to point to Jesus.
That's right.
The blotting out of the ordinances that we're against us, but
now he took them and nailed them to the cross.
right.
Think about how that tattling is working.
He's pointing back to the cross every time.
Did you see what he did?
Did you see what they did?
Oh, wait, that's Jesus.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
What do you mean?
You mean you mean my son hanging there on the cross?
Did I see that they follow him?
Yeah, and he's like, shut up.
That was mine.
If you're listening right now,
and you're saved, and you know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior,
and you are you are drowning right
now in guilt and shame.
Let me let me say this to you.
Where are your accusers?
Where are your accusers, right?
Because those sins have been nailed to the cross?
Stop living in them and stop being
defeated by them and start living in victory.
The victory of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
And they are separated from you as far as the east is from the west.
Yes.
I mean, they do not ever come back.
They're gone.
They're cast into the sea of forgetfulness.
They're gone.
It's over, it's done.
That's right.
Amen.
Paul, Philippians, chapter 3, verse four, brethren, I do not regard myself
as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do forgetting
what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.
I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward
call of God in Christ Jesus.
en.
I think what keeps us sinning?
is the guilt of sin in
our lives, right?
Our past and knowing that we're in the flesh and
it keeps us so many times from living in the victory that's already been.
yeah.
It's already been won on the cross.
Well, we forget that God has tied our sins
to a stone, tossed it into the sea, forgot about it.
And we keep trying to drudge it back up.
Oh, man, man, we keep looking at we keep looking at ourselves, right?
me, me, me, me, me.
And Paul says in Colossians three, set your mind on things above.
Get your mind off yourself.
That's right.
You know, and the more you're thinking about yourself, the more you're going to think about your failures.
the more you're going to think about your past.
You're just going dredge all this stuff up constantly and
fail every day.
That's why he tells us to renew our minds, isn't it?
Absolutely.
And how do we renew our mind through the reading of God's word,
through the washing of the water, the word.
It washes over us and it reminds us
again and again and again that Christ Jesus is
one, that Christ Jesus is defeated, death, hell,
in the grave, that your sins were nailed to the
cross, that the grave is empty, that he
is risen, that he is all powerful and all
knowing and all present, that he is a god of
his own, that there is no gods before him or after him.
That's right.
That's who he is.
Amen.
And he goes after that at verse 11 is, I love this, man.
There's like 3 things he shows right here, right?
Exactly.
The blood of the lamb.
That's the salvation.
And what's the next one?
The word of their testimony.
That's the preaching of the gospel.
Yes.
That's us going out and speaking it and living it.
That's right
And then martyrdom.
Yeah.
Living unselfishly.
I mean, like, I don't care about my life.
Lord, I want to live for you.
And you don't have to jump on a hand grenade to live a martyred life, dude.
Jesus called us to die to yourself.
He said, pick up your cross.
Yeah.
Yeah, take your cross daily and follow me.
Yeah.
What do you think sacrifices is how Paul put it?
That's right.
We're to live a sacrificial life and we'll
never have a sacrifice like he had for us.
He already done the ultimate sacrifice.
But he's saying live unto this.
live like this, right?
Like your life doesn't matter anymore, and you know that your
life is not here, but your life is out there. trust in him.
Yes.
Trust him with your life.
I was just sitting here and I had to double check to try and remember the exact
phrasing of this, but, you know, we studied it Sunday at the men,
the early men's, you know, conf morning meeting.
We've been studying godliness.
Yes.
And godliness is doing that which is pleasing to God.
Yes.
Well, you can't do that if you're focused on you.
You got to be studying.
You got to be reading.
You got to be going getting to get to know who God is.
Learn who your father is and desire
to please him.
Trust his promises, man.
He's promised us life of more abundant, you know?
Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life from my cycle, find it.
It promised us eternal life.
He promises.
He's gone to prepare a place for us and he's going to come back and get us.
He's promised to never leave us in or forsake us.
Amen.
Standing on the promises, brother.
Standing on the rock, a solid rock.
Where are the promises at?
Yeah.
Right there in the world.
Getting the word?
Amen.
before Abraham was, I am, right?
I mean, he's he's always been and he's always been
that promise.
He's always been that promise.
And like you said, man, just to just to live that out right there.
What, you just talked about.
I mean, living out, knowing that the blood has been applied.
knowing that the blood has been applied.
And then the testimony, like you said, the preaching, and
not just the preaching from the pulpit, but all of us, right?
Your testimony, your testimony, my testimony, that
when Satan comes or when we're accused by
the by the brethren, we say, hey, I'm redeemed by
the blood of the rain.
And by the word of my testimony, you can't tell me
that I don't belong to him.
You can kill this body, but you can't tuck this soul.
Because I'm in his hand.
That's right.
Chop my head off, but I'm still going.
Exactly.
did me a favor.
Amen.
Wait, I get to go home early?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, we get so scared of stuff like this, though.
We get so scared of what people think.
We get scared of this and that.
Yeah.
We're terrified of the truth.
We got to trust.
We got to trust more.
Oh, for grace to trust him more.
That's right
Well, I got all these hymns in my head now, man.
4 times a week.
Amen.
What verse we are?
Starting 13.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1 13.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Satan's come down with great wrath, hadn't he, in verse 12.
Yeah, he only has a short time.
So man, you think he's bad now?
Yeah, I watched...
He's been just being kicked out of heaven.
As I say, it says that he's kicked down.
He's thrown down to earth.
He's not just kicked out of heaven.
It's not just, okay, you can't enter back into this part of heaven and now you're just out here in the universe.
No, he's thrown to earth.
specifically.
This is that part where God's just...
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and what I was going to say is you got to think about it.
Like, today we, I know Satan
is mostly focused on us and like, that's, that's what he does.
He focuses on humanity.
focuses on earth and he's traveling here, but he has the whole universe.
He can go where he wants.
He can do whatever he wants.
spiritual realm out there.
And here he is being cast to the earth.
He's being confined.
Right now, he has a near infinite universe, that he can just travel
around, do whatever he wants.
In addition to messing with us, which clearly he enjoys doing because he does it constantly.
But here he is.
he told, no, no, no, no, you want it.
essentially, this is God going, you wanted the earth?
Fine, stay there.
And he goes, wait a minute.
And, oh man, why is he not going to be furious at that?
He had the universe as his playground and
now he's stuck to one measly little ball of dirt.
And now he's saying, watch this.
You know, God, I'm going to get you now.
Yeah, yeah.
show out now.
I'm going take as many of them with me as I can, you know?
It's like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
It is, and it's the spirit realm that we know nothing about.
All these things are going on around us that we can't see.
And he's he's kicked out of that.
Yep.
Those are the things.
Yeah, that spirit realm that makes us act and think like we
were nuts, right?
That were crazy and we don't we don't understand why.
It makes us come against each other that brings us against each other.
Verse 13 and when the
dragon saw that he was cast under the earth, he
persecuted the woman, which brought forth the man child.
Let's go back to it just for a second, but we
talked about this before, and it kind
of, it kind of brings it into more light.
Like you said, I think we went back and we went back in time
to start with, and we showed that Satan had
been cast out of heaven as far as his
purpose and who he was, and the angels were cast out with him.
And I think now we're seeing something going
on here that, that, again, like you said, we're,
he's confined now, he said, this is your area.
Don't come up here and talk to me about it anymore.
I don't want to hear about Job.
I don't want to hear about Dennis.
I don't want to hear about Brian.
I don't want to hear about Tyler.
I just, you go, you go do your thing because I'm fixing to do mine.
And the dragon saw that he was cast to the earth and he
persecuted the woman.
who's the woman, the woman is Israel, which brought forth the man child.
who's the man child, the man child to Jesus.
And to the woman, we're given 2 wings of great
eagle that she might fly into
the wilderness into her place where she
is nourished for a time and time and half and half
a time from the face of the serpent.
So again, 3.5 views, right?
And so, so, this
is the last bit of anti-Semitism that we're going to see, right?
I mean, this has been going on all these years, but
Satan, he's cast down to earth.
He knows he's got a short time.
He hates Israel because Christ came from
the children of Israel from that nation,
at least in an earthly aspect.
And there are a lot of people
who believe that Israel
is being gathered back into Israel for the millennium.
But really they're being gathered back into Israel for
the tribulation time.
Yeah, that's where God's got them
in this group because this is all about Israel.
This whole thing is about Israel.
And his chosen people and he
still loves them and he wants to redeem them.
those that will choose him.
He wants to redeem them.
And so he, this is just why they're gathering back.
And and if so, so then
then you see this thing about these these 2 these
2 great, uh, uh, the 2 wings and and the great eagle.
I don't know, I've heard some things and y'all
may have some different opinions.
I've heard, I've heard, well, that may be airplanes
that are taking them to a desert place somewhere, you know?
I think you're stretching a little bit there, but I think
it's symbolic of God's grace for and his mercy towards them.
Just like when he brought them out of Egypt.
We reread in Exodus 194.
It says you have seen what I did unto the Egyptians
and how I bear you on eagle's
wings and brought you under myself.
Yeah.
So I think I think we're still carrying on this symbolic
thing of God's taking them under, and he's
bringing them to a place where they can be, uh,
where they can be safe or at least have time to make a choice, right?
Yeah, lift you up on wings as eagles.
Right.
And I started to say when you look at this this entire chapter, chapter 12.
And you go back, you find all of the symbology
that's in this chapter exists elsewhere.
Yeah, the catching up on wings as eagles so
you will run and not be wearing, or walk and not be wearing,
run and not be wearing, walking, not faint.
You find all of this symbology, the symbology of
the dragon, the symbology of the crowns, the symbology of the horns, the symbology
of the stars, and the sun and the moon adorning
them and all of these things.
This entire chapter is 100%
a vision representing what has happened.
These are not the literal events.
These are a representation because...
spirit realm version of it.
Right.
Exactly.
Because, I mean, you got to remember that, as
you pointed out, this goes all the way back to when
Lucifer 1st failed, which was prior
sometime during the Garden of Eden.
I mean, I mean, it's way back there as when that happened.
And then all of a sudden you have him going after the woman as she's giving birth.
Well, that's 1000s of years between Eden and Christ.
And then 1000s of years between Christ and the time
the woman is going into the wilderness.
This is not, this is not the Exodus.
This is not that.
This is happening in the future.
This is this massive time span from the beginning,
all the way to the end, and John is seeing
this as a vision representing what's
happening, but these are massive periods of time that he's witnessing.
And so instead of God making him experience, you know, several
1000 years of time in an instant,
which, you know, might be somewhat damaging to a person to experience,
he's showing him a little slideshow here and going, okay, here's what's happening.
Yeah, and I think this is the this is the problem.
This is the point where the great tribulation kicks off.
where he's coming down here and he's got serious wrath.
you know, and it talks and this is this ties in with what
Jesus said, Matthew 24, when you see the abomination that makes desolate.
Yes, right.
Flea, run.
And that's when they run out of out of...
Where do you think they're going?
People say maybe Petra.
I've heard that.
I don't know if anybody really knows, but I don't think they do either.
I think I think that's a possibility.
They could scatter.
Right.
Yeah, I don't think we could say with 100% accuracy,
but it could even be the wilderness that they were
in for 40 years.
It could be.
You know, I mean, God God provided for them there.
I was about to say, the one thing we can say with certainty is
that it's an area that's going to be considered a wilderness.
Yeah, there's not going to be much there.
Water from a rock and mana there, you know?
That's another reason I don't think I don't think the symbolism
would equate to a plane either
because I don't think it's going to be a place where a plane could even land.
I think they're going to be like taking off.
I think they're literally heading into the desert.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot of planes to get 1000000s of people, you know.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Who knows how many's left, but...
At this point.
At this point in time, you know, at least a few thousand.
Yeah, there's got to be a few.
I thought bouncing back to 13.
I thought it was, that just seems funny to me.
It says when the dragon saw that he was thrown to earth.
Yeah, well, where am I?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's like, how happened?
How did I get here?
Yeah.
But it's funny.
And I want to point out, too, that, you know, a lot of people into pop culture
just just think that that Satan is the ruler of hell
and that's his home and that's where he lives and all this.
Hell, man.
He ain't hell.
He's running roaming the earth.
He's in the heaven's heavenly realms.
He ain't in hell.
And one day when he is in the lake of fire, he's just going to be
like everybody else there, right?
Tormented for forever and ever and ever.
He's not he's not a ruler there.
And that, by the way, when when you hear these modern,
especially the non-religious Jews talking about Satan
being from this Satan that they that that's
where those ideas come from, is this this boogeyman that they had created
in their minds and that they used a lot of
time to tell the, oh, so time will get you.
you know, that was kind of a thing.
That's what they're talking about.
And he is, he's basically the ruler of the underworld.
Think of him as Hades.
Think of him as Pluto, Pluto,
and the Greek or the Roman, you
know, that's the kind of being that you're, that people have conflated
that with Satan and with the devil.
But when you look at Satan in the Bible, there is no...
Excuse me, there are no equivalencies
to Satan from the Bible in any other religion.
It's a unique thing that
only exists in the Bible and in the scripture and in the Word of God.
Going all the way back to Genesis, going all the way back to the
Old Testament and the descriptions of him.
It's very interesting to me because a lot of people want to,
sorry, sorry to get off on this little bit of a tangent.
A lot of people want to say that Christianity comes out of all of these other
religions and all of these older pre-existing religions and
that Christianity has taken this from this one and this from that one.
Satan only exists here.
Christ, and specifically the way salvation
works, only exists in Christianity.
It shares nothing.
Those two, two, huge points.
They could be more opposites.
Yeah, and every picture that we see of
Satan, you know, the cartoon version
with the pitchfork and the horns, the evil
looking monstrous Satan that we see all over the place.
Guys, that's what he wants you.
I mean, that's what he wants you to think, you know, but that's
not who he really is, right?
I mean, who he really is, is beautiful.
who he really is, is, is, is enticing.
It's attractive and and he's
like, you know, if they show him this picture of
me, then they'll stay away from that picture, but I'm going to be over here
and I'm going to be swinging some things in front of
their face that they that they'll be attracted to that they'll be that
I can corrupt them with.
So, so the pictures that we
see of Satan, they do describe the character of Satan.
But not as far as or not
not really the character, but I guess the evil part of,
you know what I'm saying, that the evil is ugly, but Satan himself is not.
I was trying to find a place.
I can't find it.
It's somewhere in Isaiah, but God has given a
prophecy through one of the prophets against a
king, an earthly king, and it kind of morphs into this thing about Lucifer.
Oh, yes.
And he says, and people will look at him and say, is this the
one that deceived the nations?
Because it's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Tired.
King of Tyre, King of Poseidon or King.
Yeah.
Yeah, but that's the thing.
And that's one of the things that I just, I have to point that out that
this is, when you read this, it becomes so obvious.
And Revelation, in my opinion, makes it so clear.
Satan, Christ, the descriptions of
them from the scripture are so vastly different.
It's Christ is not Hercules.
Yeah.
I mean, that's literally what some people
want to argue that the story of Jesus comes from the story of
Heracles, of Hercules, because he's the son of God.
And I'm like, yeah, no.
The big difference in the description of them.
And then the Satan, they always want to equate him back to these other religions,
Lord of the underworld.
Satan is never told that he's really lord of
much of anything.
The prince of the powers of the air.
That's about it.
He doesn't, I mean, he has the authority that God allows him to have because
God created him, created him for things.
But he's not the ultimate ruler of anything.
Well, I thought we've talked about in here before.
And we talked about Michael the Archangel a little bit ago.
And really, if you want to find an
equivalent of the power, I would say Michael and
Satan, would be would be on the same lines, right?
God and Satan, they're not opposite.
Like, we want to put God on one shoulder and Satan on the other.
No way.
God is all powerful.
All knowing.
He could destroy Satan with a blink
of the eye or the thought or whatever he wanted to do.
And Satan's gone, right?
Like you said, he only has the power that God allows him to have.
His power is more on,
again, it's on the angelic level.
Just as Michael.
And the other angels are.
But then but then they're going to be powered
by the by the hand of God to destroy him too.
So they're going to be even stronger than he is.
Oh, of course.
Well, we saw that other angel a few chapters ago that
had one foot on the sea and one foot on the land, no name given.
Right.
Yeah.
And gave the scroll to John to eat.
We don't know what's out there.
No, I mean, God has so many things out
there and so much out there that's just beyond our comprehension right now.
But the thing is, and the other thing you pointed out that God and Satan
are not opposites, because really and truly the answer for what is the opposite of God?
Nothing.
I want to make sure I'm clear.
When I say that, I mean, literally nothing.
It would require nothing to exist.
That is the only thing that is the opposite of God.
Yeah, he has no equal.
Yeah.
So where'd we end up here?
15?
15.
Yeah, 15.
All right.
And the serpent poured out or, and the serpent poured
water like a river out of his mouth after the, after the
woman so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood.
But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened
its mouth and drank up the river, which the dragon poured out of his mouth.
Now this is some symbology here that it's
a little difficult to understand too.
Is that a literal, much water?
Maybe?
I think maybe it could be.
It could be?
Yeah.
I think it's more of a spiritual thing, probably.
We're just saying God's protection.
And it could be that it could be that, um, uh,
this this, this flood of water.
Of course, this is this is coming from the enemy, the flood.
I know it is, right?
Yeah.
And then God opens up the ground or
whatever and consumes it.
Yeah, that could be literal.
But the flood also could be a flood of
of uh, of soldiers, of people coming
after them, overwhelming majority
of people, you know, that are coming after Israel and God swallows
them up and kills them like he did again back
in Egypt when they were when they were fleeing Egypt.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's more of that.
Now, and I'd like to point out too, that I believe verse
chapter 12 is probably has more symbology
than any other chapter in the novel.
I agree, yes, I agree.
It's a huge amount of symbology.
Symbol after symbol after symbol, yeah.
Looks like Tyler said earlier, you can go back and
we've and we have, you can go back to Daniel.
You can go back to all these other books, you
can go back to Matthew 24.
You can go back to all these places and tie these things in and
say, oh, okay, that's what that makes.
That's what that means.
And that's that's what you've got to keep in mind.
In, in, in, I know we've said this before,
but that's what you got to keep in mind in the book of Revelation.
If it's symbolic, there will be something else.
There'll be another verse chapter that will
back it up and we'll tell you, okay, and they'll explain what it is.
If it stands along, then take it literal,
it is literal, just like it is.
Wherever possible.
And that is true with all symbology in scripture.
If it is a symbolic thing, you
will find it occurring at least one or 2 other times versus
something that just occurs once and is described in fairly
decent detail and it just sits there and it's like, huh, that sounds weird.
It's probably not a symbol.
It's probably literally describing something that was.
There's a good reason for it too, right?
Yeah, I mean, he's describing things in the 1st century that we're
we're looking at, you know, 1000 years later, and we
can understand most of what he's saying here.
Exactly. it is symbology.
I think what you were talking about earlier is in Ezekiel 38.
Oh, there it is.
I think that's where it's at.
Yeah.
Do you want to hit 17 before we close out?
Yeah, yeah.
Because that's important.
Oh yeah.
So, and the dragon was wroth with
the woman and went to make war with the remnant of
her seed, which keep the commandments
of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Okay?
So the woman, of course, we already know the woman is Israel.
The remnant, I believe, is probably the 144,000.
I would, that's, that's, that's, uh, just
tying this into scripture and in place and time.
I think that's probably what we're talking about here and what we're
dealing with here is the remnant is the 144,000 that
have been sealed to the end.
Yeah, and
do you think they're, I don't know, man,
it's hard to say how many people are still alive at this point on the earth, but they're believers too, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think this is going to be, you know, this kicks
off, you know, around the great tribulation where people are going to start losing their heads.
And Satan's got great wrath right now.
And he's going to start coming after him.
I think we see a picture of that a little bit.
I think it's in Revelation 6 where we see the souls under the
altar who's going to be headed for the cause of Christ.
And that's where this stuff's coming
from because he's on earth and he is mad.
He is.
Yeah.
He's going after everybody.
absolutely.
that won't take the mark of the beast, basically, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's that's the thing.
You're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna die.
I mean, you know, most likely most of you are going to die,
be tortured to death, that don't
take the mark of the beast.
There'll be very few people that'll make it all
the way through to the end besides the 144,000 who are sealed.
right?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Man, 0 man.
keep the commandments of God and hold of the testimony of Jesus.
And the only way we have to keep the commandments of God is to hold to the
testimony of Jesus.
Yeah.
By the blood of the lamb and the word of our testament.
That's right.
Amen.
That's right.
Amen.
All right.
Well, you know, this is the chapter 12 is kind of an introduction
to some characters in 13 and 13, man.
Yeah, it's here, brother.
It's here.
There's so much of this stuff that 13's going to talk
about that is everything's in place right now.
There's nothing that could that could
hold it back from happening if the if the rapture took place today.
Here we go.
Yep.
Here we go.
And it's like the, it's like the old, you know,
the thing about the, the, you see the clouds coming, you know, you know, it's probably going to get rain.
Yes.
They get over your head and the thunder and lightning start popping.
You better watch out.
That's where we are.
That we are.
We are.
Absolutely.
And we need to pay attention to that, right?
Instead of standing out in the rain.
That's right.
right.
They're in the light and to strike.
Acting like we don't we don't see it coming.
Yeah.
And that's where we warn people, right?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And whew.
Goodness.
So chapter 13, we're, wow, we were making headway on this.
We're doing good.
We're doing really good
Yeah, man, we might not take 2 years.
We're rocking, rolling.
But that one's where chapter
13 is where we get some more, and this is where
we start, see, start to see some
of the symbology and the literal stuff starts kind of start
bleeding back together as we go chapter 13 and 14 into the rest of the book.
Um, and that's where I think, I
think these, these couple of chapters right here
from 12 to 14 is typically where a lot of people get really
confused and really messed up with Revelation because
you do start, you have that sudden shift
from vision of what's going to happen, vision of what's going to happen,
And then this very symbolic chapter.
And then another chapter that has symbolism in it.
And then and then you start getting into more visions
of what's going to happen again.
And I think that that transition, because it is very abrupt.
I will say that it is very abrupt in chapter 12 because it
just, boom, all of a sudden it's like, wait, what?
Yeah.
And I think these, the,
this little section right here is where a lot of people get really mixed
up and really confused about what, what's going on with Revelation.
And I think it's part of the reason that a lot of people are nervous about studying
it, but there's a lot to be taken.
I mean, God does.
I mean, he made it very clear at the beginning of it.
that reading it and understanding it and taking it in,
we will be blessed by it.
And I mean, there's a blessing in here.
God would not have given it to us if he did not intend to bless us with it.
So, I know this one is, like
I say, I'm sure some people are going to be as we get into these going, huh,
these make me kind of nervous and these are rough.
These are rough.
That middle, this whole middle portion of Revelation
is really, really a hard read.
But we know what's coming at the end.
And that's thing that you got to remember as we go through it, what's
coming at the end is perfection and
is a victory and is victory over sin,
death, hell, the grave.
All of it.
And I mean, the victory at the end makes all of this worth it.
So I know it's a tough read.
Revelation 13.
Well, you got something.
Yeah, yeah, I start saying Dennis has something.
We're going to let him get that. some before.
I mean, we got victory before this stuff happened.
Oh, yes.
If you just believe right now, if you just trust Jesus Christ
with your eternal future right now, 1st Thessalonians
5, 9, for God has not destined us for wrath, but for
obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
He's not coming against his bride, folks.
Exactly.
come get us.
Amen.
He loves us so much.
He loves us.
He wants to protect us.
He wants to.
He wants to, he has
already sacrificed for us.
Uh, man, what a what a god.
What a god he is.
Why he loves us.
I have no idea, but buddy, he does.
Yes, he does.
Oh, how he looks.
So faithful.
Oh, how he loves me.
Amen.
All right.
Well, next week, Revelation 13, one, and I think I know I'm looking forward to it.
Amen.
Brother Brian, I think we'll let
you...
Oh, yeah, you did.
Okay.
I was trying to sit here.
I was thinking I was going, which one do y'all prayed to open us?
So brother Dennis will let you pray to close this out and next
week, 13, one, Revelation 13, one.
We'll dive into it and keep going with the book of Revelation.
All right.
Father in heaven, thank you so much for your word that you preserved
for us for 1000s of years.
Father, the hope that you've given us by giving us these prophecies.
Father, we don't know where we'd be without them.
Father, thank you so much for caring so much for us to give us these things.
Father, thank you for your faithfulness.
Thank you for your love and your kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Father, I pray for everyone listening that they would know your love.
Father, knock on the door of their hearts and don't let them sleep until
they've accepted you as their Lord and Savior.
Father, thank you for this time together with my brothers,
and I pray that you bless each of them.
Father, and bless everyone listening until we come
together again in Jesus' name.
Amen.