We should all have a burden. Every Christian is a basic evangelist. Every Christian is mindful that I have escaped the judgment. What can I do to help others? And once you have that understanding, you begin to prepare comebacks to lost souls.
You begin to be useful in the workplace. You begin to bring people into church to hear sermons by such humble pastors as myself. And that's how the war is fought. That's how Christians have been fighting it and winning it. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. 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. And now here's Pastor Rick in Revelation chapter 19 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. It's the symbolism that counts.
It's the point that's being made.
Now, if it is horses, I'm not going to complain when that day comes. But if it's not, I sure am going to rub it in your face. If you didn't agree with me, you can bet that. We get here somehow. How was John supposed to communicate this?
Well, it wasn't up to John. It was up to what he was being shown. And somebody says horses, it must be horses.
Well, then you missed the point of Revelation chapter 1, which is the symbolisms. I'm speaking to you in symbols. You know what they mean. You know what they symbolize. Apply that part.
So Don't be all upset if if you if you know, I was really hoping to really ride in on a horse. There are logistical issues with that. Where's everybody going to stage, for instance, when you finally get here? And there's millions of us, you know, where, how's it? There's a lot of stuff.
to think about. I'm being a little lighthearted on that, of course. If you insist that they're horses, fine, but I'm not horsing around with you, it might not be. Verse 15.
Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword with... that with it So when God called me to the pastor, I have one question. I said, Lord, I'll answer the call on one condition. I can tell dad jokes from the pulpit.
Okay, that didn't happen.
Now back to verse 15.
Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that With it he should strike the nations. And he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Yeah, because he is.
So now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword. Again, this imagery is not really a sword going to come shooting out and wipe out all this giant sword just going like a chainsaw through the armies. It's the point that is being made. And a sword always means business, and it always means bad things for the receiving end. This sword is unsheathed.
The killers. That's what God has said. Revelation 11. Verse 18. The nations were angry.
And your wrath has come. Remember I said at the beginning, John has rolled out Armageddon in various chapters, little bits here and there, and this is the finale in chapter 19. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. And the time of the dead. that they should be judged.
and that you should reward your servants, the prophets and the saints. That's us. and those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth. You would think that all of those Climate change loonies would see this and become Christians. Wait a minute, he's going to destroy those who destroy the earth?
See, I think that kind of stuff is kind of, you know, it's ironic mockery, but that's okay. I'm alone with that, but Maybe tomorrow you'll get it when you Doing something. Oh, yeah, I get it. Anyway, The unsheathed sword kills the killers. that he should destroy those who destroy The earth.
And of course he's talking not about the climate He's talking about the violent and the wicked people. And it will be done, this destruction of the wicked. With Less than a nod from him. Spare us your complaints about God being harsh toward the wicked. As though you know better, as though you could do better.
That's what we say to the world. Ephesians 1. according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. God is not asking how to be God. He's not asking for input.
Commanders on earth, they do that. They'll go around and say, okay, what do you think? What do you think? And they come up with their decision based on that process. It's a good process.
There's wisdom in the counsel of many. But God doesn't have to do that. And when Jesus asked the questions, he was extracting something that was there that he wanted to bring to the surface. There are so many people, Lord. Let's send them.
You know, what should we feed them? And they couldn't answer the question, and he does the miracle. And he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. This is not the scepter of the king. This is the shepherd's rod smashing the sheep killers.
The context is war, and the quote is coming from Psalm 2, and I'm going to read that in a moment. But this is a picture of Christ destroying the world of his enemies. Psalm 2 verse 9. You shall break them with the rod of iron, you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.
So it's not a picture of the ruler having a rod and the scepter, although that is his too. But this application has to do with dealing with the armies of Antichrist, which have been slaughtering the Jews and has already gotten rid of the Christians. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. So it's intolerant judgment. If you want more detail on that, I would point you to not only Isaiah 63 in the first three verses, but 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 7 through 10.
And Paul lays out, this is what the world is going to get. This is what they've been asking for, and they're going to get it. Verse 16. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written King of kings and lord of lords. This is the thigh.
is where the sword would rest Where it would be seen if he were riding on the horse.
However, When he uses the sword, when he unsheaths the sword, It's not. from a hip draw. It's from his mouth, which indicates that he needs no physical sword. It is an act of his will. When he says, you're done, they literally are done.
I know, you know, a year or two ago I could say literally, and it would be fine.
Now I'm always correcting my daughter. Did you literally say that? Was the blue literally blue? Literal for everything. It's replaced awesome.
I think it's awesome that they're not misusing the word awesome anymore. And I literally think eventually they will literally say something else than other than literally.
So you teens, if you're literally saying literally for everything, you're literally... Mm. Goofing up. You don't have to say that. in the context of every single thing.
Well, anyway. King of kings, lord of lords. Unequal authority. Philippians chapter 2, verse 10, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. There's no, it's not going to be, well, the ones that didn't like him didn't bow.
No, everyone will bow. Satan will bow. That does not mean they'll be forgiven. It means his authority is that powerful. We caught a glimpse of it, just a flash.
at Gethsemane when they arrested him. Are you Jesus? I am. Boom, they all fell down. Verse 17, Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, gather together the supper of the great God.
Now, this is gruesome, but it is factual.
So, we started off with Samuel hacking agag to death. It was a gruesome time. Ahag was evil. He was hurting the people of God. Later, his descendants try to wipe out the Jewish race.
That's the story of Esther. There is this dealing with. This factual dealing with evil. That is fierce. And you can't say, I don't have a stomach for this.
Well, you better. This is why we are burdened for the lost. Again, burden does not mean. hit with guilt in this context. It means we are very mindful.
We are mindful to the point that we feel the pressure. To be used by God to help bring people into the kingdom, to spend some of our life. Trying to be useful in evangelism in some way.
Now, there are some people, maybe they don't have this or that ability, maybe they have handicaps that eliminate. them from doing more. But maybe, just in this one example, maybe they're very wealthy. and they can contribute to a ministry that is actually doing things on the battlefield. Or maybe they have time and they can pray and they can pray in the spirit.
So there, you know, we all have our role, and we should all have a burden. Every Christian is a basic evangelist. Every Christian is mindful that I have escaped the judgment. What can I do to help others? And once you have that understanding, you begin to prepare comebacks to lost souls.
You begin to be useful in the workplace. You begin to bring people into church to hear sermons by such humble pastors as myself. And that's how the war is fought. That's how Christians have been fighting it and winning it. Verse 19, then I saw an angel cry with a loud voice, saying to all the birds, That fly in the midst of heaven.
Now, this is again symbolism. The vision is sure, as gruesome as it is. The armies of Antichrist will be slaughtered. The slaughter will be so great there won't be time to bury them all. I some of this is literal.
The aftermath of the judgment. Shows the carnage. Bodies lay strewn over the battlefields. This also indicates That drones and AI will not be developed to the point of completely replacing ground troops, that there will still be enough ground troops to create such carnage. If it were all robotic and AI, then you wouldn't have the fulfillment of these particulars.
And there could be a lot of reasons for that. We have you know, jamming devices and ways to shut down Computers, the generals may have factored that in and said, we can't use drones here, we've got to use. Old school humans.
However, it's going to work out, it will come to pass just as it has been said. And so it was a common practice in ancient warfare to not bury the bodies of your enemies. Back real quick to the two witnesses that were slain. What did Antichrist do with them? He left them unburied.
He left them in the streets, and God took advantage of that. and had them get up in front of all the world.
Well, there's some of the. This is taking place here. There are going to be so many dead. they're going to be hard to bury. Referencing Ezekiel in a minute, verse 19: that you may eat the flesh of the kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty men, the flesh of.
Horses, and those who sit on them, and the flesh of all the people, free and slave, both small and great. Flesh shows up five times, repeated five times in that verse. That's always in the Bible, a pay attention to this. Again, his armies love him. These are not nice people that are being slaughtered.
And these are their bodies. Their souls, however, have a worse fate than this. Remember from Isaiah 37, the 185,000 Assyrian troops. fell dead in one night. when the angel of the Lord went through their camp.
So, this is not something new in Scripture. And we as Christians believe in the Scripture. We read this kind of stuff. And we are inspired. by the God who holds it all together, by the reason, the logic.
The facts that go with this. This should be. Compelling that, whatever Satan is trying to do to you, whatever your flesh is trying to do to you, whatever the world is trying to do to you. God will never leave you nor forsake you. And this is part of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He is sovereign. and sovereign is not synonymous with lovelessness. This is the God we serve. He has it all under control. Used to sing the childhood song.
He's got the whole world in his hand.
Well, that's true. The details to this handling of the carnage are in Ezekiel 39. which covers Armageddon's battle. And there are specific details given to bury the bodies. There's an indication that there may be radiation, for example, or some other toxin involved because.
Some go and they find the body, the bones. They market and others come to take it away. And that would be a glimpse right out of a military handbook on how to treat a nuclear saturated environment.
So you say, God, these things were written 3,000 years ago by Ezekiel. And as you read it, you say this is modern warfare.
So that's your homework. If you did, so man, come on, not church. Ezekiel 39, verses 12 through 16, if you want the Cliff Note version. Verse 19, and I saw the beasts, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army.
Well, this reads as though they see the armies of heaven coming, that they're preparing for this. Revelation 16, 16, and they gathered them together in a place called in Hebrew Armageddon. Revelation thirteen, four.
So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?
Well, they're now going to find out. They have come to believe their own lies, and they think they're going to stand and fight. They're gathered together to make war. still impenitent. This flash victory will stop all that.
Against him who sat on the horse and And against his army. John again is seeing these things in this format. which is likely not going to be the identical format of how these things happen. But it will be this identical conclusion. Apparently, the world again sees this gradual approach of Christ.
Where does it say Christ has to come out of heaven to earth? you know, faster than a speeding bullet. It doesn't. He could slowly make his descent to earth. and all of the podcasters will be putting it on, the network channels will have it, everybody will be out there with their phones as they do.
They could be drowning and they got their phone up, showing the lifeguard coming to get them too late. It's a crazy time we live in. It's almost sickening. to see what people just get those phones out. You see the the ice?
Ice ice Baby, you see them making their arrests, and these people are there with their phones. Why? What are they going to show to their grandkids? I was standing on the corner.
Okay, I've gone off. I've gone off. I've got it. I had to get that out. Against Him who sat on the horse against his army.
Mark chapter 13, verse 26. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
Well, from our perspective, it's glorious, but from his enemies' perspective, they're going to try to get a fire mission on him coming in. And that ain't gonna work. Luke 17, 24, Jesus said, For as lightning that flashes out of one part of heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in his day. In other words, My entrance, my second coming. will not be missed.
Verse 20. That will give everybody a head start when he starts setting up government. Verse twenty, Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two. We're cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.
And just like that, it's over. Paul already preached on this in Thessalonians 2. Then the lawless one will be revealed. That is Antichrist. After he who restrains withdraws the restraint, this pointing to the rapture, the church is gone.
The true church. Then the lawless one will be revealed, Paul continues, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. That's the flash victory I've been referring to. The armies of the world. energized by the underworld.
are no match for Christ. Daniel saw all this happen. He said, I watched then because of the sound of the. pompous words Which the horn was speaking, that's the little horn, that's Antichrist. I watched till the beast was slain.
The beast is that revived Roman Empire, Western civilization. and its body destroyed and given To the burning flame.
So even Daniel. 500 years before the coming of Christ, he was given visions that were astounding. Concerning what was going to happen after Babylon comes on the scene. Evidently, Antichrist and the beast. are in the theater of operations, and you say, why are the leaders there in the theater of operation and not back.
in their headquarters.
Well, we see this with our leaders. We saw Judge Bush fly into, I believe it was Iran. We saw President Trump, I believe, fly into Afghanistan. It's not uncommon. For supreme leaders nowadays to visit the theater of operations.
And that's just a little side note: if you kind of like, what are they doing in that theater of operation? Not that they have to be there, Christ could get them in their bed or their kitchen. They could be in the linen closet hiding, and He's going to get them. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone.
Now, cast alive as in immediately killed. That's the idea. They're not going to survive this. The soul will, but the They're off the earth now. It also indicates a conscious punishment, the cast alive part.
The lake of fire is the eternal abode of the lost. And John sees this. The brimstone. signifies Torment. Revelation 14:10, he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, and that's to those who followed the Antichrist and worshiped him.
These two evil ones have their sentence finalized without the great white throne. Every other unbeliever will stand before the great white throne of God, not these two. They go right into the lake of fire, which Jesus said was prepared. For Satan For Lucifer and those fallen angels. But that is also where those who have rejected Christ will go also.
So The first two humans to enter into Gehana, into final hell, are these two: the Antichrist and the false prophet. And it is important. To realize who these people are, what they have done, as Samuel recognized what Agag meant. to the people of God. and there was no option left.
for Samuel than to hack him to pieces.
Now, unbelievers need to think carefully about their eternal state in the light of these things. You're living without Christ, you are agag, you're setting yourself up. For a judgment, you're not going to survive and it's going to be gruesome. From hell, we never hear a peep again. From its inhabitants.
There is no purgatory. That's something that's been made up by the ancients, embraced by some of the more modern It's a false teaching. It's telling you, don't worry about converting to Christ. There'll be time after this life. No, there will not.
you will be cast alive into Hades. Not Gehanna, and I'll come to that in a moment. Verse 21, and the rest were killed with the sword, which proceeded. From the mouth of him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. The gruesomeness is What's happening to their flesh is nothing compared to the horrors of their soul.
And just like that, they'll be gone. The beast and the false prophet.
Now, when believers die, we go immediately to the presence of the Lord. Jesus said to the thief on the cross today, you will be with me in paradise. Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And so when we die, we go straight to heaven. It wasn't always that way.
There used to be righteous Hades in the underworld, but after Christ, Believers were allowed. and are allowed.
However, when unbelievers die, their soul goes to the unseen world. We know it as Hades. The realm of the dead. and they will remain there until Hades is emptied, And they stand before the great white throne, and that's Revelation 20, verse 13, which we'll get. likely next session, maybe.
Going along with all of this Is God is not going to have a great white throne judgment. And there's a line. God is ubiquitous and He's omniscient. He's everywhere at the same time. and everywhere he is at the same time he is able to act independently.
So you can be in Chicago praying for something and someone else can be in Hawaii praying for something. At the same time, God hears them both and addresses both their prayers. And he does this globally. He makes global networ internet the network of the of the internet. looked silly compared to his prowess.
Anybody in any part of the world that has a signal can log online and get activity. God just makes dwarfs that. And so the great white throne is not going to be again this through the eyes of a king today. It likely will be instantaneous. But the fact, the fact of it is what matters.
After. Hades in the judgment in 2013. Then eventually Satan too. Will join them.
So we close with this verse, Matthew 25:31. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, all the holy angels with him. Then he will sit on the throne of his glory. The Christian believes that. the non-Christian does not.
And on that hinges the eternity of. the naysayer or the one that embraces the word 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 crossreference radio.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. I didn't bring up
