A Jet Tour Through Revelation C

Well, the last message comes at the end of 22. Look at verse 17. And the Spirit and the bride say what? Come, and let him that heareth say come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.

That, my friend, is the last invitation. Come and partake of his salvation. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You might remember being in a skit in your early Sunday school days. Maybe you played Moses or David or another famous character.

Well, it's one thing to play act, but if you had the opportunity really to take on the identity of a biblical character, who would you want it to be? Stay here as John MacArthur shows you a couple of characters who just might stir that sort of enthusiasm. As John continues his jet tour through Revelation, you'll examine future events that will be terrifying for many and awe-inspiring for all. Now, to tell you about the two amazing characters I just mentioned, here's John with his lesson called A Jet Tour Through Revelation. Open your Bible to the book of Revelation. Now you come to the seventh seal in chapter 8. And the seventh seal is very often a response to the first six, or the seventh trumpet a response to the first six, or the seventh bowl a response to the first six. And verse 1, by the way, is some people's life verse to prove there are no women in heaven because it says there will be silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.

But I think that may be pressing the point a little. Well, when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. What does that mean? That means what stopped? What stopped? Well, what goes on in heaven? Worship, just been going on in chapter 7. So it stops for half an hour.

Why? They're in awe. I mean they are in awe of the holocaust of divine fury being poured out. So here come the seven trumpet judgments. Another way to signify judgment, the Lord has rolled out the seal and at the end of it come trumpets announcing judgment.

Verse 6, seven angels had seven trumpets ready to sound. The first trumpet sounded and there was hail and fire mixed with blood cast on the earth, a third of the trees and all green grass was burned up. And the second trumpet in verse 8, the third part of the sea became blood and the third part of the creatures in the sea that had life died, a third part of the ships were destroyed. God does the judgment and imagine one third of all vegetation is gone and one third of the sea becomes blood-like and the third part of the creatures in the sea die and you've got floating around on one third of the seas of the world a stinking, rotten, putrefying mess. Then you have the third trumpet in verse 10 and it fell on the third part of the rivers, did the judgment and the fountain of waters was called wormwood and it became bitter and this is the judgment on the fresh water. All the fresh water sources are struck with bitterness and a third of them destroyed like the rest.

The fourth trumpet blows in 12, a third part of the sun was smitten. You know what that will do to the calendar? You know what that will do to the schedule? You know what that will do to day by day?

You lose a third of the sun. I don't know what kind of chaos that will cause in heaven. And then in nine, the fifth trumpet sounds and a star fall. Who's that? Lucifer. And he got the key to the bottomless pit. You know who's in the bottomless pit? Bound demons. Demons that are bound down there by God. There are demons right there bound in the pit. They can't get out but the key is going to get in the hands of Lucifer in the tribulation in the fifth trumpet. He's going to go down, unlock the bottomless pit and you know what's going to happen? All the bound demons that have been bound down there, some of them have been bound for centuries and centuries and thousands of years. And finally they're going to get out and they're going to gush out of there and it says in verse 2, a smoke out of the pit like the smoke of a furnace and the sun and the air darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit and they're like locusts it says in verse 3.

It's like a plague. They just sweep the earth. And during that period of time, the sixth trumpet blows and the Euphrates River is opened up as it were and the angels verse 15 who were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year to slay the third part of men. Now before that seventh trumpet sounds, there's another glimpse of God's grace in chapter 11. Oh, this is powerful.

Watch this. These are my two favorite people in the Bible. And I don't even know who they are apart of course from our Lord. I just think these two guys are terrific. I don't know who they are and if the Lord's looking for volunteers, I volunteer. And they're two olive trees, two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.

And watch this. And of course the earth's going to hate them. I mean the world's going to hate them. The New Age society's going to hate them. The people who explain the rapture away by saying, hey, we removed all those people who are holding us back from reaching the next level of consciousness, they're going to hate them. And when they preach Jesus Christ and so forth, they're going to hate them. But you know what happens? If any man hurts them, verse 5 says, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies.

I mean, you could get used to that. You're being persecuted and antagonized and they don't believe your message and they try to take your life. And they have power to shed heaven. In other words, they can go into a place they want to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and as long as they preach, they'll cause a drought to happen. And they can control the weather. They have power over waters to turn them to blood, smite the earth with all the plagues as often as they want. Now what do you think's going to be on the news each night? Next we have our two witnesses report. This week they were in Cincinnati.

It didn't rain. All the rivers turned to blood. People were struck with plagues. We've got to do something about these two guys, but every time we try, we go up in smoke. And you know what will happen? Finally the beast comes right out of the pit, the beast himself. And he overcomes them and he kills them. And their dead bodies when they die, you know where they are when they die? They're in Jerusalem.

That's right. That great city spiritually called Sodom in Egypt, verse 8 says, where our Lord was crucified. So they're murdered in Jerusalem.

Can you imagine what the news will say? Finally, they're dead. And it says they leave their bodies in the street.

Now this is in our modern time. You don't leave bodies in the street. They leave them in the street. The people and kindreds and tongues and nations see their dead bodies three days and a half. Now how can a whole wide world see dead bodies in Jerusalem?

Only one way. How's that? Television couldn't be true 100 years ago. They couldn't have seen them all over the world. And they don't permit their bodies to be put in graves.

Why? Because they're so excited, they rejoice, make merry and send presents. Happy Dead Witnesses Day, here's your gift.

That's right. The world is so happy that these guys are dead. And I can just see some reporters standing there saying, well, they've been dead now for three and a half days and we are so relieved that these men are removed from the earth. And then in verse 11 it says, after three days and a half, the Spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood on their feet.

And I'd like to see the instant replay on that one. And fear fell on them who saw them. Don't you imagine it did? And that's what's going to happen. And then I love this, and a voice from heaven said, come up here.

And they did. Same hour there was a great earthquake, the tenth part of the city fell and the earthquake was slain of men 7,000. The remnant were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. Terror, sheer terror. And listen, God will never be without a witness, will He?

Never. After that little interlude, we come back to the seventh trumpet. And when it blows, it's the finale, folks.

I love this. Verse 15, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever. That's it, folks. When that seventh trumpet blows, the kingdoms of the world belong to Jesus Christ.

Marvelous, marvelous. Chapter 12 goes back to pick up some more details before we get to the final seven bowls. And it describes Satan's incessant persecution of Israel and the Messiah and the people of God. It talks about how he has always warred against God's people.

The woman in this chapter is Israel. The child is Christ. The dragon is Satan. And the dragon has always been after the child born of the woman. And he has fought in the past and he will fight in the future. Verse 7 says, Satan's demons and Michael and his angels are going to have a war in heaven.

Guess who will win? Superangel Michael and his angels will win. They'll throw, verse 9, the end says, cast out into the earth all the demons. Now what happens is, listen, you've got demons that have come out of the pit now, like locusts all over the place. You've got demons that have been floating around in the air, rulers in high places. They're thrown down. So you've got them out of the pit on the earth, cast out of heaven, no longer having access to God as Satan did in Job when he went before the throne of God. They'll all be to the earth.

And on the earth, the incredible result of a demonically infested world. And the attack has always been sort of directed at Israel, but the rest of chapter 12 talks about how he protects Israel, how God wonderfully protects them. In fact, at one point this whole host of this army is chasing Israel and the ground just swallows them in verse 16. It just opens up and swallows them all.

Marvelous. Chapter 13 picks up another detail. It introduces us to the Antichrist, the world ruler, and he's something. He leads all this attack on God's people.

In verse 4 at the end it says, Who is like him? Who is able to make war with him? He has a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given to him to continue forty-two months.

That's three and a half years. That's the last half of the tribulation again. He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, blasphemed his name, and tabernacled them that dwell in heaven, was given him to make war with the saints and overcome them, and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations.

He has tremendous power, tremendous influence. He also has a cohort. Chapter 13 verse 11 to the end introduces the false prophet. The beast is the Antichrist, the false prophet is his cohort.

It's like Pharaoh had Janus and Jambres, like Balak had Balaam, like Absalom had Hithophel. The Antichrist will have his cohort. And his job is to point everybody to the Antichrist, tell them all to worship the Antichrist.

And he performs some lying wonders and lying signs, and he builds a big image to the beast and makes it come alive through some electronic ventriloquism or whatever it talks about in verse 15. Or better yet, he puts a demon right in that idol itself and it becomes a demon-possessed idol. And now the world is so utterly demon-influenced that everybody in the world could potentially be a raving maniac. Everybody in the world could be like the demoniac of Gadara who lived in the caves and cut his body all over the place with stones because he was so demon-infested.

The whole earth is literally crawling with demons and they're in control of everything. And they even are able to make an image speak and it draws the whole world to worship the Antichrist and that's the job of the false prophet. And then he says in verses 16 to 18 that in this vision he saw that if he didn't have a number, you couldn't buy or sell. You couldn't operate in society and the number was 666. That isn't significant except that it represents man. Man was created in the sixth day. Seven is God's perfect number and no matter how hard man tries, he's always 666.

He's short of perfection. So it's the number of man's system. What is interesting and what is significant is that you can't operate in this society unless you have the number on your forehead or on your hand.

And we're getting to that. We already have credit cards and numbers. If you have a bank card where you can go stick your bank thing in, punch your number into the deal, you've already got your number. Connected with your bank card number, they know exactly who you are and they can find out everything about you.

And if they decided that you couldn't buy or sell, all they've got to do is remove that number if you have a cashless society. And so Antichrist will rule the world and he'll accommodate it all and he'll control it all because of the power he has. Verse 1 of chapter 14 looks again to the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see that the 144,000 are in heaven and they're having a great time singing praise.

And they're singing praise because of the victory of Jesus Christ. Now, of course, all of the holocaust comes to final focus in Armageddon. And if you look over at chapter 14, we begin to get a glimpse of Armageddon and this idea of thrusting in the sickle in verse 15, a sickle and the reaping and the harvest always speaks of judgment. The Lord comes in terrifying judgment.

Verse 20 sums it up. The winepress is trodden outside the city and the blood came out of the winepress even to the horses' bridles. That's four or five feet high by the space of 1,600 furlongs.

That's 200 miles. That's the length of Israel. Five feet deep the length of Israel is used to symbolize the bloodbath. And grapes have no strength against the smiting feet of Almighty God. And so you see God tramping out His judgment.

And the world would be judged. In fact, earlier in the chapter verses 9 to 12, He says, hang in there saints, be patient because God is coming in judgment. And if you martyred, if you die as a martyr, verse 13, blessed are you who die in the Lord.

So don't worry about that. God's working out His wrath, working out His judgment. And now as we come to chapter 15, we come to the last seven judgments.

And this is like a Gatling gun, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Just happens at the very, very end. Seven last plagues and they fill up, verse 1 says, the wrath of God. And you see this tremendous scene in heaven unfolding in chapter 15 and it's getting ready for the final judgment. In verse 8 says, the temple is filled with smoke from the glory of God and His power. No man was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

This is a private thing. God gets all the smoke rolling in heaven and they burst out in chapter 16. And the first bowl is poured out and instantly it says, there fell a foul and painful sore upon the men who had the mark of the beast and upon them who worshiped His image.

This is the Elchas. This is like the beggar who had the sores. They may well refer to some cancerous sores. Immediately after that comes the second bowl poured out, or vial, same as a bowl. And the sea became like the blood of a dead man and every living soul died in the sea, a stinking mess with the surface of dead creatures beyond comprehension. And the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and fountains of waters and they became blood.

Not a fourth anymore, not a third, but now the whole thing, devastating judgment, pollution of fresh water. Down in verses 8 and 9, the fourth bowl is poured out and the sun is so hot that it burns men with fire. It scorches them to death and instead of repenting, they blaspheme the name of God. And then the fifth one, incredible, but after the scorching sun comes darkness and they gnawed their tongues for pain. Why, they couldn't see where they're going. There is no light at all.

Pitch blackness and they are susceptible to terrible injury and pain and can find no relief because they can't see where they are. And may I add, by the way, verse 11, blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, which takes us all the way back to the beginning and says all these plagues are cumulative, cumulative. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the river Euphrates and now comes the way of the kings of the east and then Armageddon, the final battle on the plain of Armageddon. I've been there. I've stood on the plain.

Napoleon said it was the finest battle place he had ever seen in the face of the earth. And three unclean spirits like frogs, these are demons of a special nature who come out of the slime of hell itself and out of the mouth of the dragon and the mouth of the beast and the mouth of the false prophet, and there, by the way, you have the unholy trinity. They are spirits of demons working miracles. They gather the world to the battle at Armageddon and they don't know it's the great day of God Almighty. And all the world comes to Armageddon to fight.

Daniel 11, I think, describes it. The kings of the north come down, sweep through the south. The king of the east comes up. The west gets involved.

The kings of the east come. They're all fighting and this massacre is going on. In the midst of it all out of heaven comes Jesus Christ. The seventh bowl is poured out at the end of chapter 16 and there's lightning and thunder. Every island fled away. The mountains were not found and there was hail out of heaven. Can you believe this? They weigh about 100 pounds each.

That's a 100-pound block of ice. That's the finale. Chapter 17 and 18 are very important. They go back over the second half. You know what they tell us? The question you ask here is this, John, what about religion in the tribulation? Will there be religion?

Chapter 17 describes it. There will be religion. The false church, you know what it's called? If the true church is a bride, what is a false church? A harlot, a harlot. And it talks about the harlot that sits on many waters, that drinks wine of fornication, that sits on the beast. The harlot rides the antichrist, the antichrist political leader and the false harlot religious world system exists together. But the antichrist is consumed by his own power, so finally he devours the harlot. He just gobbles it up and he says, the whole world will now worship me. I believe that's when the false prophet sets up the image and the whole world is commanded to worship him.

No other religion is tolerated but him because the beast in verse 16 says, eats up the harlot. Now chapter 18 takes us back over it and asks another question. You say, well, what's going on in the world at this time? I mean, what are the economics like?

This is an economic view of the same period. What's going to be going on? Well, when everything starts to collapse in verse 2, this angel says, Babylon the Great. And Babylon is the name for the final world economic system. It's fallen, it's fallen. It's become the habitation of demons. Demons are taking over the world. And the nations are saddened. Verse 5 says, the sins of the world are reached to heaven and God's remembered are iniquities. When they begin to see the whole system come to collapse, everybody's economy collapses, all the money collapses, the banks collapse, everything goes. In verse 10, alas, they say in torment, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city in one hour's eye, judgment come and the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her and no man buyeth their merchandise anymore. Nobody cares about that anymore.

They're just trying to survive. Who's going to go shopping? Who's going to the mall then? And the merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and thion wood and all kinds of ivory and most precious wood and bronze and iron and marble and cinnamon and incense and ointments and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots, slaves, souls of men. Who cares?

Who cares? And the ship trade's going to go. Verse 17, all the transportation system falls apart and people in verse 19 are throwing dirt all over their heads, weeping and wailing. Alas, alas, it's over, it's over. And while everybody on earth is doing that, verse 20 says, all you folks in heaven, what? Rejoice.

Rejoice. And you know what will be the worst thing of all in the world? The music will all end. No more music. Verse 22, the voice of harpers, minstrels, flute players, trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee.

No music and no craftsmen, no art. Nothing. The end of everything. It's all over. The party's over on earth.

You know what happens in chapter 19? Party begins in heaven. All of a sudden in verse 1, heaven, hallelujah. Verse 3, hallelujah. Verse 4, hallelujah. Verse 6, hallelujah. What are you all so excited about? The end of verse 6, for the Lord God Omnipotent, what?

Reigns. Finally, and let's be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him for the marriage of the Lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready. And now the redeemed are joined to their Lord, giving linen, clean and white, fine linen, the righteousness of the saints, glorious. I think this is going on in heaven.

Everybody get your duds on, folks. We're going to the kingdom. We're going to the kingdom. How are we getting there? Here it comes.

Here's how you're getting there. And verse 11, I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and him that sat on him was called Faithful and True and in righteousness he doth judge and make war and his eyes are like flame of fire and his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no man knew and it goes on to describe him. And verse 14, here we are, folks. This is us. The armies that were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

That's us. This is him coming back to set up his kingdom, that finale as he comes to Armageddon in blazing glory to establish his kingdom on earth. And he's coming in white on a white horse and we're coming on white horses in white garments with him. We go to be with him. We come in glory with him.

I love it. The end of verse 16, his name is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And when he comes, devastation, Armageddon. And the result of Armageddon is in verses 17 and following. Carnage, death, he calls the birds to eat the flesh. Verse 20, the beasts, the false prophet, are both cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the people and the armies who remained are slaughtered with a sword. You know what happens? Chapter 20, the Lord sets up his kingdom. That's right. Look at verse 4.

I saw thrones. What are they for? Look at the end of verse 4.

They're for the saints who lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. You know what happens at the end of the thousand years? Verse 7, Satan's loosed a little while. He's been bound the whole time.

He's loosed a little while. He goes out into the world. And you know that during the kingdom, there will be some people who went in in physical bodies. They'll have kids. They'll repopulate the earth.

There'll be a population all over the earth. Some of those won't even believe in Jesus Christ, though He's been reigning in the city of Jerusalem for a thousand years. Isn't that amazing?

Not so amazing. They didn't recognize Him the first time He came either. They rejected Him when they did know who He was. And so Satan gives a final rebellion. And verse 9 says at the end, fire comes from heaven and devours all those rebels. And then in verse 11, all the unsaved of all history are collected to the great white throne judgment. And verse 15 says, when their names were not found written in the book of life, they were cast into hell. That's the end of the thousand year kingdom.

So what happens after that? Chapter 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. Verse 2, and a new Jerusalem.

You say, what is it like? Verse 3, God is with men and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them and be their God and God shall wipe away tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away. That's the eternal state, isn't it? That's the new heaven and the new earth. And then the rest of chapter 21 and into chapter 22 describes it.

Well the last message comes at the end of 22. Can I give it to you? Look at verse 17, and the Spirit and the bride say what? Come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

That my friend is the last invitation. Come. Come to Christ. Come and drink. Come and partake of his salvation.

Because if this happens, it will be too late. Verse 11, when the judgment comes, he that is unjust will be unjust still and he that is filthy will be filthy still. But he that is righteous will be righteous still. He that is holy will be holy still. In other words, whatever you are when it happens is what you're going to be forever. Can you say with John, even so what? Come, Lord Jesus, I'm ready.

I hope so. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of today's lesson is A Jet Tour Through Revelation.

It's part of John's study, Foundations Volume 2. Well, John, over the past four weeks, you've given our listeners a little bit of everything to consider. End times, the prodigal son, parenting, trials, and a whole lot more.

With so many topics covered in a relatively short time, what do you hope people take away from this series? I think what would strike me and what should strike everybody else is how wide ranging the truth of Scripture is, how it covers all the kinds of questions that matter to people. Look, we've talked about how to make a hard decision. We've talked about the gospel and the forgiveness of God in the tale of two sons. We've talked about a pure mind. We've talked about the entire book of Revelation.

We've warned about ways to miss heaven. We've talked about raising kids who are a blessing. We talked about the purpose of trials. We talked about your identity in Christ as a slave, your commitment to church. We talked about God's judgment on a nation.

And that may sound random, but look, that's how life comes. That could be one week in the life of almost anyone where you face the hard decisions, the need to understand the gospel. You're struggling for a pure mind.

You're going through a trial. This is the range of biblical truth. It's not esoteric. It's not pie in the sky. It is practical.

It is more practical than anything else because it is absolutely true. So this gives you a panorama of biblical instruction that fits the panorama of life, I think. And we'll continue bringing it to you as we have in this series. And we encourage you, get a copy of Foundations 2. You can download them from the website or you can order them on CD. Ten CDs, if that works, we'll send them to you.

Or you can download the MP3s. Thanks, Jon. And friend, with the ten topics Jon covered in this study, you get a wide-ranging view of some essentials of Christian doctrine that you need to know. To download Foundations Volume 2, get in touch with us today. You can download all ten messages free of charge in MP3 and transcript format from our website, gty.org.

Or, as Jon mentioned, the series, the whole series, Foundations Volume 2, is reasonably priced on a ten-CD album, if that's best for you. You can order the CDs from our website, gty.org, or give us a call at 800-55-GRACE. Now friend, we receive letters from people around the world letting us know how grace to you has encouraged them and how thankful they are for this ministry. And keep in mind, it's listeners like you who make this daily broadcast possible. To partner with us and to take part in ministering to people in communities like yours near and far, express your support when writing to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. You can also donate online at gty.org, or when you call us, 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, and then be here Monday when John begins a study that shows you how to love others, even those who are hard to love. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.