What we have is a society that wants to throw away our constitution. They are determined To elect, that is to empower, despicable people, incompetent people. with others in the background. Writing laws. Isaiah said, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet.
and sweet for bitter. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Revelation. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Revelation chapter 1 as he begins his introduction to this book. If you have your Bibles, turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 1. Revelation chapter 1. Interesting that. When this was published, it was not given with instructions to keep or to hide from new believers.
You too, K. from the book of Revelation. We'll take verses 17 through 19. and when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, Do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades.
And of death. Write the things which you have seen and the things which are. and the things which will take place after this. Things to come, an introduction to the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now the rest of the Bible serves as a preface to the Revelation. It is the next level development of the prophecies. From Genesis all the way up to Jude. been building up to this moment. And I want to introduce this section of scripture, this book of Revelation.
with an Old Testament verse Because the New Testament is built on the Old Testament. and they are inseparable, And the verse? is from Isaiah 43, verse 9. And let me set this up for you. God, through Isaiah the prophet, has been telling the Jews.
That the time will come when they will be put out of their land because of their disobedience, but that He will bring them back. and that this is future and is going to happen. And Isaiah adds this: God's speaking. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things?
Let them bring out their witnesses that they may be justified. Or. Let them hear and say, It is truth. I love that. God is saying.
If you can match My ability to tell the future. Let's see you do it. And he adds here: he says, Show us the former things, which means they cannot interpret. Current events. let alone predict them.
They couldn't predict the future. They couldn't tell you what they saw in the past. They couldn't tell you what's happening right now.
Sounds like the world we live in. And so God challenges them.
Well, bring your witnesses out. Let's see if your idols can tell the future. And then he says If they can't And I am Then believe it and accept it as truth.
Well, this is the book of Revelation. Again, verse. nineteen of Revelation one. Write the things which you have seen. That's the past.
and the things which are, that's the present. and the things which will take place after this. And that, of course, is the future which will take up the majority of the book of Revelation. I have a prologue, a forward, a preface, and an introduction all built into this morning's consideration. We finished Romans on a high note.
those faithful Christians in Rome. and the ones that were with Paul in Corinth from where he was writing And rather than confront the drama in First Corinthians, At this time. I did feel led. To go into Revelation, and there's a little bit of a story to it, not much. We might not get another chance.
Take a year or two to go through the Corinthian letter and by then we might be in heaven. But I was led by a bleat of the sheep. One of our brothers mentioned to me, you know, since I've been here, we haven't heard you do a study on Revelation. And I said, Well A pastor cannot take a leading from the people, however, He has to listen to the bleat of the sheep. You don't know who God is talking, through whom He's talking.
And so, you know, I went about my merry business. And then I felt, well, I better look into this, and it became quite a task. You know, sometimes being led by the Lord is very unpleasant. You know, you just Lord, can you just get to the point? And well, anyway, here we are.
It got to the point where I had to pull the trigger. And being aware of Revelation's inspiring beginning, I mentioned, you know, we would go from the inspiration of Romans 16 to the confrontations of Corinthians 1.
Well, we've bypassed that, and we could go to the inspiration of Revelation 1, and then the X-rays. of the seven assemblies and their pastors. And of course The ultimate victory at the end of the book.
So, in preparation, I found myself a little overwhelmed and even nauseous at some points. Thinking about, oh boy, this is going to be a lot of work. This is probably the third or fourth time I've been through the Revelation. And uh but that doesn't make it easy. The pressure.
Two meet high expectations in a way that would be a blessing for us all.
Now, for those of you who may be not here in this church, but those who may listen online later or when it's Eventually put on the radio. If you crave man's theological pigeonhole stickers, I know that's. I'm saying you know Christians come up with all sorts of names for things. that really are better off without those names.
So if you want to hear me talk about a preteris For a futurist or an idealist, a mid-trip, post-trip, after trip, this trip. I'm not going to do it. I have no interest in distracting. From the message with these bloated terms. They may have had their place at some points in history, but.
They really take away from they appeal to the flesh, but they don't add to the faith.
So, what you know, all of these man-made theological terms, what does the scripture say? What is God saying to you? What is God saying through you? And so instead of that, I will share that which I first receive and let it speak for itself. And so again, if you're looking for all of that complicated stuff, there are thick commentaries out there that if you must be bored, you can go to them.
I know, because I've read them. And in the early days, I thought I had to learn these things. I had to thought, what is a mid-shrib position? I thought I had to learn this stuff. And after I did this, this is junk.
I know I'm getting raptured. The Bible tells me that.
Well, and if you don't believe that, that's you. You'll be the one with the dumb look on your face when we are raptured. Anyway. Yeah.
Some of you have heard The things that will come out of the study as we go through it. But keep your receivers on, and remember, there are others that have not.
Well, what has changed since twenty thirteen, the last time we went through the revelation.
Well, globalization has certainly increased on unprecedented levels, and we learned that very quickly during the Wuhan virus. We saw how they could lock down the world. In a day. And we look at the immorality that is being pushed forward at an accelerated rate. Much through the internet.
The texting will help the enemies of the faith, will help Antichrist, this ability to communicate like the Tower of Babel has been rebuilt. narcissism, unprecedented levels. The sodomistic society that we face. Incidentally, We were our pronouns include hymns. We just had four of them.
The madness of saying that, well, that's not my pronoun, him, and the madness of trying to eradicate from the planet the distinction between male and female, the surgically. All surgical alterations. On gender appearances, your chromosomes are going to be untouched. You're still going to be what you were when you were born. regardless of how you butcher yourself.
Indoctrinations, including the unspeakable evil acts. against children. trying to change their gender. Insane, the insane defense of a woman's right to end life within her. I don't know if you've watched any of this.
But they become very animated. They will burn the house down if that's what it takes to retain the right. to end life in the womb. It is madness. It doesn't matter what other else is going on.
All I want to come away from with is my right. To sexual perversity, my right to end life in the womb, my right. Never mind everyone else. Weapons of mass destruction.
Well, they've been around for a while. But they are expanding. We have weaponized drones. We have tracking devices with insane capabilities. Infrared has been developed, so you won't be able to get away easily.
Just the things that are coming out, they're working on invisible tanks. or invisible camouflage, I should say. Supersonic missiles. AI technology. Artificial intelligence, which has been around forever before computers, I've had them in my neighborhood.
Anyway. Yeah.
Gene editing. AI Artificial intelligence, that's computers. manipulating Wall Street.
Well the stock markets, that is incredibly scary. Who gets to power there? Weaponized humanoid robots. Robots that look just like us, they are developing this as fast as they can. but they're going to have superpowers.
Brain interfacing. where you can control your computer through thoughts. Telepathy. I don't know if they're going to develop all of these, but they're working on it. There are Frankensteins that have a lot of money and power.
and resources. Artificial wounds.
So they can actually grow the child. In a large For the test tube. for lack of my scientific Knowledge of the jargon that would belong to that, the terms. Attacks on America's Constitution.
Well, what does that have to do with the end times?
Well, I do not believe the Constitution is the inspired word of God. It may have been influenced. Many things are influenced. You can write a letter to somebody and feel the anointing of the Spirit on it. I am not at all saying that those who shaped the Constitution were all godly men.
Some were.
Some are not. But the point is this Because of our Constitution The Church in America has enjoyed Free speech. unlike anywhere else. And Satan knows that, and he hates that, and he's trying to get rid of it. This will enable Antichrist.
This is what Antichrist wants. The ability to shut the church up.
Well, he won't be able to do that. God is the one that will extract the church because the church will eventually be outlawed unless it is of the apostate system. That church will continue, that church and those people will not be raptured. Silencing the church will reward Islam. It will reward Marxism, which is a religion.
It will reward militant homosexuality and it will reward and empower Lucifer, and that is how Antichrist gets to power, and it will be very painful for the nation of Israel. Yeah.
midpoint.
So What we have is a society that wants to throw away our constitution. They are determined To elect, that is to empower, despicable people, incompetent people. with others in the background. writing laws. Isaiah said, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet.
and sweet for bitter. And of course, this is becoming global now. There's always been these things, nothing new under the sun. But now they are being radicalized and weaponized And it all is because the people are being demonized. Pharmaceuticals.
and their sorcery, big farm. Government officials, we have under the influence of psychotropic drugs. Lawmakers and staff, and that's important. and their staff. with conditions like Alzheimer's.
Severe depression. They have a special car shows up to the Capitol building every day with a boatload of prescription drugs. And much of it again Mind-altering drugs. And these people go in to write laws, and we scratch our head and we say, This is no longer. A bad decision, it is insane and it is evil.
And this is part of what's contributing to it. And we'll come to that towards the end when we come across the word sorcery, which in the Greek is. gives us our English word Pharmacy, pharmakeia. It will come to this, mankind provoking God, and God will unleash his wrath on this.
Now in Matthew's gospel, Which revelation is largely a commentary on, well, an expansion of Matthew chapter 24. There, of course, Jesus said, there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor. ever shall be. because it's not sustainable. If those days weren't shortened, man would wipe himself out.
Israel would be wiped out. But God is going to shorten those days.
Now, it's going to take us a few months, maybe one or two, or maybe two or three. To get to that great tribulation part where Antichrist shows up on the white horse and the four horsemen of Rebel and all the stuff that's happening. And the reason why is because we have to lay a deep foundation for deep material. There is the glorious Christ, just of chapter one, the angelic messenger, the exiled John. There are the seven assemblies, that is, churches.
And it's important to point out these are assemblies of Christians, or at least those who profess to be. There are the pastoral messages. There is the Lamb's scroll. There is a scene in heaven. There is Lucifer and his doting world.
And then there is the new creation. A new heaven and a new earth. And so the message part Two. Unbelievers this morning. is the revelation of Jesus Christ is about the end of the world.
1 Corinthians Chapter 15 tells us it's the end of the world's government, the world's rule. Then comes the end. 1 Corinthians 15:24, when he, that's Jesus Christ, delivers the kingdom of God, the Father. When he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. And we will be there to see it happen.
Our concern right now is to continue doing and pursuing what we believe. We're not to turn the book of Revelation into an entertainment center. It is to inspire us to do and to preach. The book of Revelation, the world does not know, is not about the end of life, though many lives will be ended. Revelation 21:27 shows us life after the Great Tribulation.
But there shall by no means enter in it that defiles. That is, of course. God's kingdom, the New Jerusalem even. or causes an abomination or a lie. but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Well, we go back to Isaiah now, where God says, I'm the one telling the truth, no one can pull this off. It be in your best interest. to line up with me. And that's what we're saying to the world. The revelation of Jesus Christ is accurate.
We see much of it being fulfilled in our lifetime. Nobody else has got this. You're not going to find this in any in the Koran or the Hadith or anybody else's writings. It's witty as Oh, what's his name? Mark Twain.
and his brother Choo Choo.
Okay. Even such witty men like that cannot tell the future. There's a big difference between forecasting something and telling the future. You can look on a map and say, yeah, there's a storm coming. That's not telling the future.
That's forecasting. but to foretell with pinpoint accuracy. and to always be right. That is divine. And you would be a fool to be able to do it.
to come in contact with this information. and rejected, which is what was happening in Isaiah. Jesus made the earth. Unbelievers might not know that. John chapter 1, verse 3: All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.
That is divine. That's an attribute that is exclusive to deity. He ends the earth. Revelation 21:1.
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth. had passed away.
Well, it wasn't aliens. From another planet? Or a From the southern border. It's Jesus Christ.
So if fact means nothing to you, Then, when the day of weeping and gnashing of teeth arrives, you will be in that number. That is our message, part of it. You will not be spared. Luke chapter 13. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets of the kingdom of God.
and yourselves thrust out. Yeah, that was directed at Religious leaders who were corrupt. But it also applies to human beings. who are corrupt in the eyes of God. In fact, where it says in all the prophets, that could include all the Christians.
Because We too are prophetic when we preach the word. Whether it is to an individual. or from a pulpit, He says, You will weep with horror, and you will gnash. your teeth in insolence. We have characters in scripture that Show us People do this kind of stuff.
Cain The Pharaoh of Egypt. Balum. And in Judas Iscariot, just four.
Well, just four people. who had no reason to disbelieve God. They were shown things that no one else could have seen. They were privileged to see things that very few get to see. And yet they trampled it.
In Luke's Gospel, chapter 17. Jesus said, Let me tell you how it's going to end up. Verse 26, Luke 17. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives.
They were given in marriage. Pause. Why is there a distinction between they married wives? And They were given in marriage. I think it's prophetic.
to the perversion of the sanctity of marriage that we're seeing in our lifetime. We have people of the same gender marrying each other. and the courts approving it. And I think there it is in Scripture because that distinction would be a redundancy, but it's not. God's not random and He's not wasteful.
He continues. Luke does in chapter 17. Jesus is the one doing the speaking. He says, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. We wipe that out.
And then Jesus said, Likewise, this one's after the flood. As it was in the days of Lot. They ate, they drank. They bought, they sold. They planted, they built.
But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Two side notes there. First off, there's no mention of the Marriage when it came to Lot's Day, because even the Sodomites weren't doing what we find happening today. And then coming also back to this, That fire in brimstone, these weren't raindrops of fire and brimstone.
Some of those brimstones were the size of cars. There are some there's some archaeological evidence for that.
So this was a judgment that you could not escape. If you reject Genesis 1, remember the bullet point we're on right now is our message to the world. As given to us through the Scripture. As developed in end times through Revelation, Our message is to you is if you have a problem with Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
From nothing. If you have a problem with that, well, you're going to have a problem with everything else in the scripture. And then you will reject the revelation, and the revelation will reject you in the end, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This has been Cross-Reference Radio with Pastor Rick Gaston. This program is a radio outreach of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
Pastor Rick has been teaching through the book of Revelation, but if you're interested in learning about a different book of the Bible, we have hundreds of past episodes available to listen to on demand. Just visit us online at crossreferenceradio.com and you'll find an archive of Pastor Rick's past teachings. While you're there, you can also find links to follow our program on your favorite podcast app, as well as links to get connected with us on Facebook and YouTube. There's also an interviews tab where you can learn more about Pastor Rick's heart for ministry.
Well, we hope you'll join us next time here on Cross Reference Radio. Hello.
