Mm. What kind of God would permit the plagues of the tribulation? The same God who graciously offers a way of escape time and time again. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah draws our attention to God's love and mercy.
Often overlooked as the escalating drama of the tribulation unfolds in Revelation. Listen as David concludes his message. The seven angels with the seven vials. And thank you for joining us. If you followed us, you know that the seven bold judgments.
Grow out of the final trumpet judgment in the book of Revelation. It's kind of like an expanding picture of how the judgments will be played out. And John's receiving this information on the Isle of Patmos through holy inspiration and writing about it so that we would have a record of what's going to happen. And these pictures of the tribulation period are not pretty, but they're accurate and they tell us what will happen. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you will not be here to see it in person because you will have been raptured to heaven.
But if you do not receive Jesus Christ, you will experience some pretty bad days on old planet Earth. I hope you don't risk that. I hope you take advantage of the offer of salvation, the grace of God being handed to you with instructions and how to implement it in your life. In just a moment, we'll start the second half. Of the seven angels with the seven biles from Revelation chapter 15, and we'll conclude our discussion of the 15th chapter of Revelation today.
As we come to the end of the week, I want to remind you again that our gift, our resource for the month of June, is a 228-page hardback book, a book of some substance. And the book is called In the Words of David Jeremiah. I did not choose these words. These were done by staff people who went through and picked out things that were said in messages and in books and articles that I have worked on for over 50 years. And they called out some of the things that were relevant that they felt would be really helpful to our readers.
And they're all now organized in this book under topics like trials, faith, purpose, hope, encouragement, etc. This book is our way of expressing our wonderful gratitude to you for your support during the month of June, which is one of our two financial months, December and June. We talk a little bit more about. Resources because June is the end of our fiscal year, December is the end of the calendar year. These two dates are really important to the ongoing ministry of Turning Point.
And when you give during June and December, you help us immensely to move forward with the program God has laid out for us in the dissemination of the gospel.
So, thank you in advance, and please ask for your book in the words of David Jeremiah, our resource for the month of June. Here is part two of the seven angels and the seven vials. You remember the sixth chapter, verses 9 through 11? The martyred saints are under the altar, and what is their question? Lord, how long before you avenge our blood upon the earth?
How long before you put things right? How long before evil will no longer triumph? It seems as if, down here on this earth, during that time, that the beast and the image and the false prophet and Satan is winning the war. And the martyrs or the saints of God are being killed. And they're coming to heaven just as rapid fire as they can.
It looks as if, from all earthly perspective, that God is losing the battle. And so the saints who are under the altar, the martyred saints, are saying, Lord, when are you going to take charge of this thing? When are you going to get involved in your sovereignty and begin to deal with evil on this earth?
Now, all of a sudden, they see God's about to take the last step and put it all right. And so these martyrs are gathered around the throne of God and they begin to sing the song of Moses. By the way, if you want to use Exodus 15 as the song of Moses, that's all right, because many, many students of the Word of God have done that. In fact, I need to read to you just a little statement. One of the men made this observation that I thought was very interesting.
He said, In Exodus 15, on the further shore of the Red Sea, delivered from their enemies that oppressed them, the children of Israel sang the song of Moses. And on that final shore, beyond the fiery sea, there shall gather in immortality and glory, in heavenly salvation, God's tribulation saints. They are singing the songs of infinite and glorious redemption, the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. The song of the Lamb is the song of victory. He won for us over sin, death, and the grave, like the triumphant song that Moses sang over the destruction of the enemies of Jehovah.
Now, watch this: it is a strange coincidence that. That the first recorded song in the Bible is in Exodus chapter 15, and it is the song of Moses. And the last recorded song in the Bible is in Revelation chapter 15, and it is the song of Moses, too. I never knew that. I never saw that before.
So, if you take the song of Moses in Exodus 15 as the one that is being sung here, then it ties together very naturally. Read the song sometime and see if you can make it fit. I just couldn't do it. One of the problems in accepting this is the Song of the Tribulation. is that if we're not careful We will misunderstand the joy and excitement that is in the lives of these people in heaven as they see God beginning to take control of the earth.
You know, the Bible says that all of the creation groaneth until the day of redemption. Do you understand what that means? I often think about that like this: that all of the world, though it is oftentimes a wonderful place for us to be, and there's beauty in this earth, and there's joy here. All of it's just out of sync. It's just not in sync.
And one of these days, God is going to come back into this earth and He's going to rib the world of sin and of vileness, and He's going to put it back into sink. And probably we'll never know how bad it is now until we experience what it is then when God makes it the way it ought to be. And that's what these tribulation saints are crying out for. They're crying out for God to take action.
Now, if you have your Bibles open, notice that they also sing this little song that's recorded in the third and fourth verse. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. And perhaps this is the song of the Lamb, although we cannot be sure. Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, Thou King of saints.
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy, for all nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest. I suppose I'm an inveterate sermon maker, so I couldn't help but look at that song and think that there's a great message in that song on worship. Notice in your Bibles the four things that are involved in that song of worship to the Lord. Number one, His works.
Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty. Whenever you see worship in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, it always encompasses a review of what God has done, his works. Read the Song of Moses in either of the chapters I have told you about, and what you will find is a wonderful review of how God has miraculously helped his people. I don't think we do that enough here in our church. We don't do it enough in the Christian faith.
Notice, secondly, in this little hymn, they worshipped him for his ways. Just and true are thy ways, thou king of saints. Literally, the word saints there should be the word nations. Just and true are thy ways, thou king of nations. God is about to exercise his judgment and his justice.
And so they worship him for his works. They worship him for his ways. Notice, thirdly, they worship him for his worth. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy?
In their worship, they work first of all from acknowledging what God has done. To acknowledging the ways about which He goes to do His works. And then they go to one level deeper and they talk about the worth of God, who He is. There's a beautiful chorus that we sing sometimes that goes something like this: Lord, we not only come to you for what you have done, but we thank you for who you are. And that's what they're doing.
They worship God for his works, for his ways, for his worth. And then finally, notice that the last part of it is just pure worship. For all the nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest: his works, his ways, his worth, his worship. In that little hymn. That God has given to us that they sang.
Not a bad outline to follow in our worship, even today, is it? We can kind of work through that even as we worship God: His works, His ways. His worth. And finally, his worship.
Now notice fourthly verses five and six the sanctuary in heaven. After that I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle and of the testimony in heaven was opened, and the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, having their breasts girded with golden girdles.
Now, whenever in the book of Revelation we have the phrase, I looked and behold, It is always the introduction to something new that hasn't been seen before. It's very important. As John is watching this scene, He sees the Holy of Holies in the heavenly temple. And it's opened. Strange, because the Holy of Holies was never opened to anyone except the high priest.
It is described as the tabernacle of the testimony because the tables of stone containing the law were in that place, in the tabernacle of the testimony, in the Holy of Holies. In the Old Testament, if you know the Old Testament, you know that in the tabernacle, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and only after very careful and proper sacrifices were offered. It was a fearful thing, even for the high priest, to enter into the presence of God on the day of atonement. But as John sees the tabernacle in heaven, the holy place is opened, and there are seven holy angels not going in, they're coming out. They're walking out of the Holy of Holies in John's vision, and each of them is carrying in his hand a vial that is to be poured out upon the earth as the last dregs in God's cup of wrath.
Get that picture in your mind. Think of the stark shock that that must have been to the Jewish John the Apostle. Seeing the Holy of Holies open, not the high priest in the Holy of Holies, but coming out of the door of the Holy of Holies, seven angels, each of them holding a censer or a vial in their hand. John says he witnessed that sanctuary in heaven, and it was a frightening thing to him as he saw it.
Now, let me just stop for a moment and remind you that the Holy of Holies is the place where judgment emanates. What is the reason for God's justice and his judgment upon this earth? It is because of his holiness. Judgment comes and proceeds from the holiness of God. The angels dressed in white.
Coming from the Holy of Holies, signify the truth of the justice and judgment that comes from God's holiness. You know, I don't think there's any better demonstration of that than the cross of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that God in heaven did not spare His own Son, but freely offered him up for us all, that you and I might be free. Why did He do that? Because God is a holy God, and God's judgment and His justice emanates from His holiness.
God wants you and I to be in heaven with him. But he can't take us to heaven and maintain his holiness unless he wreaks judgment upon our sinfulness. If God took out His judgment upon you and me in the way in which we deserve it, there would be nothing left of us to go to heaven. But God decided that He loved us so much. That he would work out a way, a plan, whereby he could satisfy his holiness and exercise his love all in the same way.
And so he sent his holy, righteous, perfect son down on this earth. Who was born miraculously of the Virgin and ultimately went to the cross, and in sinless perfection, as a man and as God, he died. And the scripture says that the earth became dark. And there was thunder and lightning, and the judgment of God in all righteous indignation was poured out on the Son of God. It emanated from God's holiness.
It was the only way God could deal with our sin. without destroying us at the same time. And so his holiness and righteousness was satisfied in the death of Christ. And in that moment in time, he gave to us a picture of all the judgment that would ever take place in the history of the world. God is a holy, righteous God, and his holiness cannot be offended.
without him losing the prerogative of a sovereign God. I have tried to explain this often to people who are struggling. trying to come into the faith. I remember one time I was talking to a young couple, and they were having a hard time understanding the death of Christ. Hard time understanding how God could be loving, and at the same time, we read about Him what we read about Him in the book of Revelation.
And so I remember asking this young man this question.
So we were talking about a court of law and we were talking about justice and I said, suppose instead of you getting the ticket, it was somebody else. Suppose that somebody else hadn't got a speeding ticket, but suppose they had perhaps been drinking and had gone through a stop sign and they had hit your car and instead of you being hurt, your little girl had been hurt, only she hadn't been hurt, she'd been killed. And then finally, over process of time. The court data set. And you go to the trial.
And the judge comes in and he sits behind the bench, and the young man who Took the life of your daughter comes before the judge. And you're a Christian now, so you have a heart of love. And the judge says, You know, I've been thinking a lot about life and death. righteousness and love and I just don't feel constrained today to mete out any judgment. I mean, everybody has a bad day and this man just had an off day.
And you know, everybody makes mistakes, and I know he went through the intersection, and I know he took your daughter's life. I'm a loving judge. And I don't want to meet out any judgment. I asked the man, I said, What would your emotion be at that moment? I could see he was into the story.
He said, I would be absolutely furious. I said, why? He said that wouldn't be right. I said, why wouldn't it be right? He said, a judge shouldn't do that.
That wouldn't be righteous. That wouldn't be just. And I said, why do we expect less of God? than we expect of the human judges who govern in our land. Because all we are saying about the justice and righteousness and holiness and judgment of God is this: for him to be God, he must do what is right.
And judgment upon those who have violated his holiness is absolutely essential. And it is more exaggerated, men and women, when we understand that God has even taken the initiative to make a way of escape so that the righteous judgment which should be poured upon them can be transferred to his own son if they will only take the initiative to accept what God has done. But they have turned their back even upon God's gracious offer and they have spurned his son and they have turned their back upon his preachers and they have walked away from his prophets. He sent two witnesses and they said no. He sent 144,000 witnesses and they said no.
He sent the angel to preach the gospel in the heavens and they said no. And his only alternative as a righteous God is now to send the judgment which he promised. That doesn't make it any easier for me to understand. And I can't quite. Still, put it all together, except I know that it must be so if he's to be the kind of God.
I can worship and respect.
So, the day is coming according to the word of God when that judgment will be meted out upon this earth. And that brings us to the fifth point in the seventh verse, and that is the seven vials. Notice. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth forever and ever. The word vile here is a word which Literally means a shallow pan.
I would think of it as a small frying pan that's about the size of a small frying pan, and it was called someplace else in the Bible, it's called by the word censor. And it was used in the tabernacle. This very thing was used in the tabernacle to take the coals from off the altar, and on top of the coals, incense was poured to burn unto God.
So it was a little flat pan. filled with Whatever. And coming out of the Holy of Holies in the picture of Revelation 15 now are seven angels, each of them carrying a little vial, a little flat pan. And the Bible says that in this pan is the wrath of God. Each of them has the wrath of God.
When we get to the 16th chapter, the angels one by one are going to walk out into the middle of the earth and turn their pan upside down and dump it on the earth. That's the judgment of God. That's what the picture is. That's the symbolism of this chapter. It's to take One by one, in rapid-fire succession, the last judgment upon this earth, and it's pictured like that.
We had the seals which were unrolled and revealed the judgment of God. We had the trumpets which were blown and announced the judgment of God.
Now we've got the little sensor pans which are turned upside down, and the judgment of God is just poured out upon this earth like that, just dumped off on the earth. That brings us to the last verse, the eighth verse, and we're told: And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no man was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.
Now why is there smoke? It says there's smoke in the temple. Smoke. from the glory of God and from his power.
Well, if you go through the Bible, you find out that smoke appears quite often in the Bible. For instance, when the Lord came down to give the law, were told that Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke. because the Lord descended upon it in fire. The smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. Exodus 19:18.
When Isaiah was cleansed in the temple, we're told these words. He saw the vision of the Lord high and lifted up his train, filling the temple, with the attendant seraphim veiling their faces and their feet, crying one to another of the holiness of the Lord of hosts. The posts of the door moved at him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Isaiah 6, 1 to 4. When Aaron and his successors offered the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, The burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord.
The cloud of the incense covered the mercy seat that is upon the testimony. Whenever you see judgment, you're going to see smoke. And of course, the Bible tells us that the end judgment Is the smoke of an eternal fire of God which burneth forever and ever and is never quenched.
Now as we stop here in this introduction chapter, Let me just remind you that all this chapter is saying is that the men who have refused to drink of the cup of God's salvation will drink of the cup of his wrath. That's all there is. There's two choices. Drink of the cup of God's salvation as the psalmist speaks of it, or ultimately drink of the cup of God's wrath. There's no in-between ground, there's no maybe or middle place.
Either you accept the plan of God or you experience the wrath of God. God's plan has never changed. It has been like that from the very beginning. And one day he is going to come and fill the earth with his kingdom, but before he does that, he will purify the earth. And the 16th chapter has the message of it.
very plainly.
Now this chapter Does not have any direct application to me right now, right here in this place. And I do not have to work hard to draw the analogy as to what I should think of and what I should be motivated to do as I read about the awfulness of the last days.
Someone asked me about the passage of scripture in the book of Matthew that says, The generation that sees the sign, this generation shall not pass until these things take place, Matthew 24 and 25. And I pointed out to that young man that the answer to the question is that. The generation that sees the signs. We'll see the coming of Christ. And his comment was: Pastor Jeremiah, it seems like most of those signs are already present.
And I said, yea, verily. You're right. They are. They're everywhere present.
Now, what does that mean to me right now? That means that what I am reading about here in the 15th chapter, which will be detailed in the 16th chapter, might be as close as. Seven years. From this very moment. And I began to think about that.
And I began to realize that it's not. Irrelevant. It's not something that's going to happen out in the future by and by. How old are your unsaved relatives? Do you have any reason to believe they might live for another seven years?
If they don't come to Christ and the Lord comes back, they are going to experience humanly, personally, everything that you're going to read about in the 16th chapter of Revelation. And somehow, men and women, I don't feel like we have let that grab us as it should. We talk about hell because we think hell is out there somewhere in the future, and we're going to live our lives, and our people are going to be saved from hell someday. But seven years is another matter. And seven years from now, the people you and I love apart from the grace of God.
Could be experiencing hell on earth, and the only thing that they will have to experience after that is eternal hell. Forever and ever. Whatever else you believe about what we're studying in the book of Revelation, whatever other motivation may come to you, apart from intellectual curiosity and a prophetic. Thrill. The one lasting lesson that ought to come down upon us is this: a greater and more intense.
and more daily And more prayerful concern for people who do not know Jesus Christ. I secretly suspect that while we give lip service to all that I have been preaching. Down deep in the inner recesses of our heart. We really may not believe it. Because if we did How could we live like we do?
Giving ourselves day after day to the incidental things that are so meaningless in light of eternity. while we let the years roll on. And day after day go by. without any impact for Jesus Christ in our lives. You know the impact of Christ in your life can happen anytime, anywhere, today, right now, wherever you are.
But ladies and gentlemen, this is Friday and we're getting ready for the weekend and On the weekend, we go to church, and I hope you go to a church where Christ is presented regularly. And in that church, you have an opportunity to listen and believe and respond. And when your pastor asks you to make a decision to trust Christ, you do it. You can do it now, and many of you will, but you can do it in church. And church gives you an advantage because you're in a climate where people love you and pray for you, even though they don't know you.
And where when you accept Christ, you bring joy to their lives as well as to your own. What I'm saying is, friends, get to church. God does his best work in the Sunday church services so many places around the world. And be sure and look for us on television in the off hours when you're not in church. We'll see you on Monday right here in this good place on this good station.
Today's message came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of the new expanded edition of the book in the words of David Jeremiah. Quotable truths to live by. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study.
Please share with us how this ministry is blessing you by writing to Turning Point PO Box 3838 San Diego, California 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
