12d) What will happen during the second 3 ½ years of the tribulation ? Book 12 LESSON TWO * PART IV Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Now think about that. At the mid-point, after Satan has been cast down from heaven, he will indwell the man Anti-christ, even as he did Judas. And as we saw in our last lesson, hes going to turn his wrath particularly upon the 144,000 Jews, but all the people of the world are suddenly going to feel the wrath of Satan. But not only of Satan, we are also going to have the wrath of God. Now what does that tell you. No wonder Jesus said that it was going to be worse than anytime in human history. People will say, Now wait a minute, God is a God of love. Oh, He still is today. But once this day comes, His Grace ends, and He becomes a God of judgment, and a God of wrath. Lets go back to the Book of Psalms, Chapter 2 for a moment. We must overcome this theology that God is just a God of love. You see, thats another reason that people think that He couldnt possible dream up something like an eternal Hell, or the lake of fire. Here, we have to qualify. He was a God of love when He sent Christ to the Cross, thats for sure. And He has loved the human race ever since. He has poured out His Grace upon humanity. But what has humanity done with it? They have walked it under foot. And so now He finally gets to the place where His love and Grace is withdrawn and its His wrath that has come in. Psalms Chapter 2 verse 5. This is taking us into the Tribulation: Psalms 2:5 Then shall he speak unto them (the people of the world) in his wrath (not His Love), and vex them in his sore displeasure. Now you know what vex means. He is literally going to torment them. And He is going to do it righteously with all fairness and justice because you see, He has so patiently poured out His love to toward the human race and they continue to react in unbelief. And that is the worse sin possible. Unbelief is the sin that sends all mankind to doom. Its just the opposite of faith. And when you have faith, then you are pleasing unto God. That is, faith in His Word. And when you have faith in His Word you are obedient to it. And when we are obedient to the Word, then we become exactly what God want us to be. Now come back to the last part of Revelation 12:12 again. The Devil is literally kicked out of heaven. He comes down to his domain on the earth. He comes to Jerusalem to join the Anti-christ: Revelation 12:12 ...having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And how long does he have? 3 1/2 years. And he will pull out all the stops. He will use things he has never used before. I know the average person will say, Now why would Satan do that? They are in his pocket. Ive given the illustration before, but its worth repeating. If some underworld organization cant get a business man to knuckle under their demands because hes too strong in himself, who will they threaten? His family. His wife and children, because he knows that if that father sees them suffer, then he will react. Now Satan does the same thing to God. Satan feels that when he torments and brings all of these things upon the human race, who does he really get at? The heart of God. Now Gods wrath is going to be coupled with it, and that will make that final 3 1/2 years what it is. If you dont think that last 3 1/2 years is going to be awesome come back with me to Revelation Chapter 8. We have come through six seals during our study. The sixth seal was the great earthquake which triggers the mid-point of the Tribulation. Now when you come to Chapter 8 we come to the seventh seal. The seventh seal will open up the scroll and the paying off of that mortgage thats within. The seventh seal in itself is not an event, but it triggers the seven trumpets. So out of the seventh seal comes the first of the trumpet judgments, and there will be seven of those. When we first started our study in Revelation, I put it on the board that the events of the Tribulation are like a mother approaching her day of delivery. First comes a light birth pang. Just enough to know that your time is at hand. And maybe an hour or two later comes a little harsher one. And it just keeps increasing in intensity as well as in closeness. And so it will be that way in the Tribulation. It will start out rather mild, but as it moves to the end its going to crescendo. Until finally the last day comes and Christ returns. As we start to read, remember we are still at the mid-point, and this is what follows. Revelation 8:1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was (what?) silence in heaven (there is not an angelic voice, an instrument, a note of music, a shout, or trumpet, but absolute silence in heaven. Now that is sobering! Why? Because of the awful things that are about to happen on the earth) about the space of half an hour. I dont think we can get the drama of it. Everyone in heaven is so aware of the awful things that are about to happen. Now verse 2: Revelation 8:2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. These trumpets will simply announce the next event: Revelation 8:3,4 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angels hand. Now what was the purpose of the incense in the tabernacle? Whats the purpose of incense anytime? To give a sweet aroma. That holiness of worship and righteousness. Now for God, the sweetest incense that could ever come up to His nostrils is the prayers of the saints. Thats how much emphasis God puts on prayer. He wants us to pray. We are commanded to pray. So now we have the beginnings of the trumpet judgments. Revelation 8:5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. When you read of thunderings, and lightnings, and voices again, flash all the way back to Exodus. When God came down on Mount Sinai, what did you have? Thunderings, and lightnings, the voice of God; so its just a constant replay, except on a totally grander scale. Revelation 8:6,7 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth (and as a result): and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. We wont take time now to go back to Exodus, but if we did, what was one of the plagues? This very same thing. Fire running along the ground, and hail. I imagine it was a very traumatic thing. I always think of it this way. Even though the events in themselves will probably bring a lot of death and destruction, there will also be a lot of psychological warfare, if you want to call it that. These things are just going to lambaste the very mental part of people. Its going to be beyond our comprehension to see these things happening one right after the other. Now to the next one. Verse 8: Revelation 8:8 And the second angel sounded (this wont be a matter of hours, but it probably will be a matter of days and weeks), and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; Here again, if we had time we could go back into the Old Testament, and prophecy tells us there will be great disturbance in the cosmos. In other words, I think there is going to be great meteorites coming down and hitting the earth. A good example are the ones that hit the planet Jupiter not long ago. Our scientists are trying to dream up a nuclear device to explode on any meteorite that might be heading for the earth and try to deflect it. So we know that this particular one will land in the ocean, and the third part of the sea became blood. Revelation 8:9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. It will be in an area where there are shipping lanes and lots of ships will be destroyed in this one event. Revelation 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; In other words, its going to attack the fresh water. Again go back to Egypt, and remember when Moses caused the river Nile to turn to blood? And it was normally their source of drinking water. So what did the Egyptians quickly do? They dug wells for fresh water. And then God affected even the well water. So God will constantly be one step ahead of them. Now verse 11 is very interesting: Revelation 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter, Now this is just an interesting thought, and I dont know if it has any impact on this verse at all. But what does the word Chernobyl (where they had the nuclear disaster in Russia) mean? Wormwood! So that might be just a little indication of things that may be used of God, to brings these things to pass. Well it looks like we have time for one more trumpet in this lesson. And that will be the fourth one in verse 12: Revelation 8:12,13 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, `Woe, Woe, Woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! There has already been a tremendous loss of life, both man and creatures, and its all coming under the wrath of God. And yet the angel says, Its nothing compared to what is still future for the inhabitants of the earth.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 18:44:24 +0000