Jeff Miller

May 26, 2019

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon: Babylon's Funeral.

Jeff Miller

May 26, 2019

Coming Soon!

Introduction:

Coming Soon: Babylon's Funeral. (Revelation 18)

The COMMENCEMENT . (Rev 18:1-3)
The CALL to escape. (Rev 18:4-5)
The CAUSE of death. (Rev 18:6-8)
The CELEBRATION. (Rev 18:20)
The CRYING. (Rev 18:9-19)
The COMMITTAL. (Rev 18:21-24)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:18-00:20
Revelation 18, coming soon.
00:21-00:22
Babylon's funeral.
00:22-00:24
Revelation 18.
00:24-00:29
Last week, we were reintroduced to the city Babylon.
00:30-00:33
It's a city. It's clear from God's Word.
00:34-00:37
But in this vision, she was depicted as a prostitute.
00:38-00:42
And the city is going to be the headquarters of the Antichrist empire.
00:43-00:46
It's a city of idolatry and worldwide commerce.
00:47-01:02
Just as the first Babylon back in Genesis 11 was man's attempt to build a city to exalt himself with a one-world religion and a one-world empire, so will the last Babylon become.
01:02-01:05
We called it Vegas on steroids.
01:05-01:10
It's going to be the hub of immorality and consumerism.
01:10-01:16
After the Antichrist uses this one-world religion to get into power, he's going to demand worship.
01:16-01:19
We talked about that several times throughout Revelation.
01:19-01:24
The Antichrist is going to fake his own death and resurrection to get the world to follow him.
01:24-01:32
And once the world worships the Antichrist, he's going to destroy Babylon, this false religious system, he and the ten kings.
01:32-01:33
That was the sermon last week.
01:34-01:40
So when you get to chapter 18, at this point, Babylon has endured the direct judgments of God.
01:41-01:45
And God sovereignly had the Antichrist and the ten kings destroy her.
01:45-01:49
So the only thing left for this prostitute is her funeral.
01:49-01:51
Let's talk about funerals for a minute.
01:52-02:00
Years ago, I got a call from a local funeral home for an individual who died but did not have a pastor.
02:01-02:06
I would get those calls all the time, like, "Hey, they don't have any church affiliation, they don't have a pastor.
02:06-02:12
Would you be willing to come and hold a funeral service?" And I always looked at it as a great opportunity, right?
02:12-02:17
meet some people, share the gospel, love people through a very hard time.
02:18-02:28
So I got to the funeral home and I met the family and friends, and I could just get a sense - and you'll know how I mean this - I could just get a sense that there wasn't much church background here.
02:29-02:32
And I felt like - I mean, wonderful people - but I felt like here's an opportunity.
02:33-02:37
I just really felt like maybe they haven't really been exposed to the gospel.
02:38-02:41
So the funeral service came, and I laid it out.
02:42-02:45
Just like passionately sharing the Gospel.
02:46-02:53
And as I'm sharing the Gospel, I'm looking out at this room full of people at the funeral home.
02:53-02:54
And what were they doing?
02:55-02:55
Nothing.
02:56-02:58
They were not even looking at me.
02:59-02:59
None of them.
02:59-03:00
They weren't sleeping.
03:01-03:03
They just weren't paying attention at all.
03:04-03:12
Looking at their fingers, or looking at their cell phones, and looking at the little memorial card and looking around the room.
03:13-03:17
Not one person in this room full of people was looking at me.
03:17-03:24
And my natural tendency - I'm just being honest - my natural tendency is like, "They don't care, let's just wrap it up, call it a day." I don't know.
03:25-03:33
I'd like to think the Holy Spirit lit a fire in me, because at this time I'm like, "No." I'm not letting them walk out of here disinterested in the Gospel.
03:33-03:35
I'm going to crank it up.
03:35-03:57
So I cranked it up, And I'm like, "Do you realize the love of God that He has showed up?" And I've got straight Southern Baptists, and I'm screaming and stomping, and I'm in their faces, and I'm like, "You have a hope for eternity!" And still, nobody was looking at me at all.
03:58-04:05
So I cranked it up a little bit more, and still, nobody in the room was looking at me.
04:06-04:11
It was... the looks on their faces were like I was trying to sell them a timeshare.
04:12-04:22
And have you ever been talking to someone, and you're in the middle of talking, and you realized while you're talking that they had stopped listening a couple minutes ago?
04:22-04:24
Has that ever happened to you? That happens to me a lot.
04:25-04:31
Well, just imagine a whole room full of people like that.
04:31-04:33
So we got through the sermon.
04:33-04:41
And after I closed in prayer, everybody just sort of got up, put their coats on, and I stood by the door. Everybody sort of shuffled out the door.
04:41-04:55
Still nobody looked at me. Like, "Is there something on my face?" They sort of shuffled out, and one man, one man, he was dressed like the best way I can describe it, as a fancy cowboy. You know what I mean by that? He had the little leather rope tie.
04:55-04:59
What's that thing called? Yeah, whatever, that's the thing. And he had the fancy cowboy boots.
04:59-05:00
Looked real nice.
05:01-05:04
Anyways, he didn't look at me either, but as he was walking by, he never broke stride.
05:05-05:12
As he was walking by, he slapped me on the shoulder and went, "Nice job, Padre." And I thought to myself, you know, I didn't lose them.
05:13-05:13
I never had them.
05:14-05:18
No one was listening, no one was crying, no one even cared.
05:19-05:24
Revelation 18, this chapter is a funeral, okay?
05:24-05:25
But there's a difference here.
05:26-05:56
You're going to see with this funeral, entire world is weeping and wailing uncontrollably at this funeral. This, this is the end of the tribulation. So with every funeral, so Babylon's is going to have sort of an order of service. If you're taking notes, here's sort of a funeral order of service. You can keep this, reproduce it, maybe if you're asked to do a funeral, here you go. Babylon's funeral order of service, number one, the The commencement.
05:56-05:57
The commencement.
05:57-06:01
That's the opening or the summary that sort of kicks it off.
06:01-06:03
And here's the summary that kicks off this funeral.
06:03-06:04
Look at chapter 18.
06:04-06:12
He says, "After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory.
06:13-06:18
And he called out with a mighty voice, 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.
06:18-06:28
She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.
06:28-06:47
For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living." So here's a new vision. John says he sees another angel.
06:47-06:53
This might be the angel from chapter 14, verse 8, because this angel says the exact same thing.
06:53-07:01
"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great." And in this introduction, we see that Babylon has sort of become a spiritual ghost town.
07:02-07:08
There's nothing there but demons lurking around, and animals picking at human remains.
07:09-07:12
And the angel reminds us of the reason that Babylon was wiped off the map.
07:13-07:20
She's been a place of idolatry and obnoxious materialism, Because wickedness is very profitable during the tribulation.
07:20-07:22
Hold that thought, we're going to circle back and see that again.
07:23-07:25
As a commencement, secondly, here's the call to escape.
07:25-07:29
Now this isn't part of a typical funeral, but it's going to be part of this one.
07:29-07:30
Look at verses 4 and 5.
07:30-08:01
He says, "Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues, for her sins are heaped high as heaven.' And God has remembered her iniquities." Right before her death, God calls for His people - these are people that come to Christ - during the tribulation, He says, "Get out of there." We've talked about this before, but God has this track record when He's about to pour judgment on the earth, He removes His people, right?
08:01-08:02
Remember Noah's day?
08:03-08:04
Remember Sodom and Gomorrah?
08:05-08:09
God has a way of removing His people before He judges the earth.
08:09-08:10
And here it is again.
08:10-08:20
Just like the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 trying to reach heaven, here it says Babylon's sins are piling up to heaven.
08:20-08:22
And somebody's like, "Wait, wait, wait, hang on.
08:22-08:33
You're telling me the people who come to Christ during the tribulation are in Babylon and God tells them to get out?" That's right. Well, why are Christians in Babylon in the first place?
08:33-08:34
Why are they in this city?
08:35-08:36
Was it a chance to make money?
08:36-08:38
Was it a witnessing opportunity?
08:39-09:07
Like, "Hey, I'm going to work here because I know there's lost people." I don't know. I don't know why there were God's people in Babylon, but God didn't say, "Hang out there and attract them and try to woo them with the gospel." God says, "Get out of there. Get away from her sin, and get away from the hammer of judgment that's about to come down on this city." And I would say there's a time to witness, and there's a time to remove yourself from people who refuse to come to God.
09:08-09:11
And God makes it very clear in this passage, "Get out. Get out.
09:11-09:15
this thing's coming down, and I want my people out of there." The call to escape.
09:15-09:16
Thirdly, the cause of death.
09:17-09:19
The cause of death, look at verses 6-8.
09:19-09:25
"Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds.
09:25-09:28
Mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
09:28-09:39
As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen.
09:39-09:44
I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.
09:44-10:00
For this reason, her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her." So the angel turns from John to God, and he calls for vengeance on Babylon.
10:00-10:02
He says, "Okay, pay her back.
10:02-10:09
Actually, more than pay her back." He says, "Double down. Give her double." We see the cup highlighted again.
10:09-10:12
Babylon used a cup to deceive the nations.
10:12-10:15
We saw it in v. 3, 14, 17.
10:16-10:23
Babylon, this prostitute is talked about as having this cup that she uses to deceive and allure the nations.
10:24-10:36
And in that very cup, God says, "Here, I'm pouring My wrath into that cup, and you're going to choke every last drop of that down." Babylon is guilty of three major sins.
10:36-10:37
Here's the cause of death.
10:37-10:40
Here's the three major sins. The first one is pride.
10:40-10:51
Verse 7, it says, "She glorified herself." That's pride. Like, "Look at how awesome I am." I mean, just look. I have everything going on.
10:51-10:54
It's pride. I am powerful. Self-glory.
10:55-11:04
Number 2, "She lived sensually." It says, "Lived in luxury." And as we've seen throughout this study, sexual immorality is going to be at an all-time high.
11:04-11:07
and living in luxury, living sensually.
11:08-11:09
It's living for the flesh.
11:09-11:11
That was her second sin.
11:11-11:12
And thirdly is self-sufficiency.
11:13-11:16
Her quote actually comes from Isaiah 47.
11:16-11:19
In her heart, she says, "I sit as a queen.
11:19-11:21
I'm no widow. Mourning I shall never see.
11:22-11:25
The sin is self-sufficiency." I don't need anyone. Look at me.
11:25-11:27
I am the queen bee.
11:28-11:29
These are three things.
11:29-11:34
These three sins, These are three things that God absolutely will not tolerate.
11:34-11:36
And it should cause us all to listen up.
11:37-11:41
Because these things rob God of His glory - they try to rob God of His glory.
11:41-11:44
And these things seek to make yourself an idol.
11:44-11:53
And I would say to be thankful that God will not tolerate these things because these are three sins that will keep you from coming to Jesus Christ.
11:53-11:59
If you're sitting here right now, and you have not come to Christ, it's probably one of these three reasons.
11:59-12:00
One is pride.
12:01-12:02
You think you've got it going on.
12:02-12:06
You think that you're great, and you're awesome, and you're good enough.
12:06-12:08
You're not going to come to Christ if that's what you think.
12:09-12:10
You're wrong in your self-assessment.
12:11-12:12
And it's condemning.
12:12-12:15
Secondly, is living sensually or living in luxury.
12:15-12:17
Jesus said you worship God or you worship money, right?
12:18-12:24
And you can either live for your Creator, or you can live to fulfill your sensual desires.
12:25-12:25
You can't live for both.
12:26-12:28
Self-sufficiency - I don't need God.
12:28-12:29
I don't need Jesus.
12:30-12:32
I'm good enough. I can take care of myself.
12:33-12:38
Religion is a crutch or whatever." That's what Babylon was guilty of.
12:38-12:50
And that's what God says, "I can't tolerate that, because they rob Me of My glory and they make Yourself an idol, and they keep people from coming and receiving My grace." And church, it's our very nature to go after these things.
12:51-12:53
And coming to Christ means you have to abandon them all.
12:53-12:57
Due to her sins, did you notice this is going to come up a lot in this passage?
12:57-13:31
Verse 8, "For this reason, will come in a single day. What this means is Babylon, this awesome metropolitan city, this hub of the world, she's going down, but it's not going to be like fading away, like over the course of ten years, "Yeah, it seems like things have sort of gone downhill a little bit." Single day. It's death blow. It's God shows up, boom, it's over. And people are not only astonished that she's gone, as you'll see here in a second, they're doubly astonished because of how fast she went.
13:31-13:31
Note that.
13:32-13:34
You're going to see that in verse 10, verse 17, verse 19.
13:35-13:37
God is about to wipe this city off the map.
13:38-13:39
We talked about this last week.
13:40-13:44
And people are going to be astonished at how quickly everything happened.
13:45-13:46
Babylon was an amazing, powerful city.
13:47-13:48
Here's another reminder.
13:48-13:49
Who really has the power?
13:49-13:50
Did you see that at the end of verse 8?
13:50-13:59
"For mighty is the Lord God who has judged her." Cause of death, pride, sensual, luxurious living, and self-sufficiency.
14:00-14:01
Babylon's funeral number four.
14:02-14:04
You can't have a funeral without some crying, right?
14:04-14:06
Well, I just told you about one that I had where there was no crying.
14:06-14:08
But there's a lot of crying at this one.
14:08-14:12
Again, these groups are making crazy money from this empire.
14:12-14:16
And now you're going to see they're watching her burn at her funeral.
14:17-14:23
And there's three groups mentioned here, and I just want you to see as we go through here if you can pick out something that they all have in common.
14:23-14:25
The first group are the kings.
14:25-14:26
Look at verses 9 and 10.
14:27-14:35
as the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning.
14:36-14:51
They will stand far off in fear of her torment and say, "Alas, alas, you great city, you mighty city Babylon, for in a single hour your judgment has come." We have the 10 kings that were with the antichrist.
14:51-14:55
We have other world leaders, and they fearfully stand off.
14:55-14:57
This city is burning. They see the smoke.
14:57-15:04
And I believe standing off from a distance also includes TV, Internet, all the other ways that we watch these things.
15:05-15:07
And again, they're shocked.
15:07-15:09
They're shocked at how quickly it's over.
15:10-15:13
This was our city and it's gone.
15:13-15:17
It says that they, verse 9, they weep and wail.
15:17-15:23
Actually, the Greek is literally sobbing and beating their chest.
15:23-15:29
They weren't just like, tear down the eye. These people are despondent!
15:29-15:46
They're just like, wailing. "I can't believe it's gone! These are grown men! Why are they crying?" "There goes my life of luxury. There goes all my money. What am I going to do now?" Those are the kings. Secondly, the second group are the merchants.
15:46-15:48
Look at verses 11-16.
15:48-15:55
merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore." Don't you see a trend?
15:56-16:24
Cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots and slaves, that is, human souls.
16:24-16:32
The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again.
16:32-16:43
The merchants of these wares who gained wealth from her will stand far off in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud.
16:43-17:05
"Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls, for in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste." So with the city destroyed, all sales are going to stop.
17:05-17:08
All economic activity is going to stop.
17:08-17:19
And remember we saw back in chapter 13, In verse 17, this city, the Antichrist, his empire, is in control of the entire world's economy.
17:20-17:24
And the destruction of the city means the destruction of the economy.
17:24-17:25
Now he gives a list.
17:26-17:28
Did you see this starting in verse 12?
17:29-17:30
He gives a list.
17:30-17:34
There's actually, I think, 28 items on this list.
17:34-17:40
And I just want to take a few minutes on each one of these and sort of lay out what exactly people are losing here.
17:41-17:43
I thought for sure I'd get backlash on that.
17:43-17:48
All right, there's just two that I wanna draw your attention to that I find particularly interesting.
17:48-17:49
Look down at verse 13.
17:50-17:51
There's the word chariots.
17:51-17:58
Interesting thing about that word is the word in the Greek for chariots literally is four-wheeled vehicle.
17:58-18:06
You're like, "Well, what's interesting about that?" Well, it's not a typical word that you would have expected John to use because the chariots in John's day didn't have four wheels.
18:07-18:12
When we think chariot, we think the thing pulled by a horse, but I'm not sure that that's what was communicated to John.
18:12-18:16
What was communicated to John was a four-wheeled vehicle.
18:17-18:18
So what do you think he's talking about?
18:18-18:21
I think he's talking about the automotive industry, right?
18:21-18:22
Four-wheeled vehicles.
18:23-18:26
Another thing that stuck out to me is the very last thing on the list.
18:27-18:29
It says slaves, human souls.
18:30-18:38
You know, in our day, human trafficking, Sex trafficking is a huge and horrible and wicked source of income.
18:39-18:41
And it's only going to get worse.
18:41-18:45
And we see that even in the last days, people are being sold. Horrible.
18:45-18:49
The good news is, as of this moment, it's over. It's over.
18:49-18:55
So like the kings, the merchants stand far off in fear, weeping over the city.
18:55-18:57
And what are they crying for? Why are they crying?
18:57-19:01
"There goes my money. There goes my money." They're not repenting over their sin.
19:02-19:07
They're not crying over the destruction that their lifestyle has brought upon them.
19:07-19:10
They're crying because they're out of business.
19:10-19:13
Verse 17, let's talk about the third group, the sailors.
19:13-19:22
"For in a single hour, all this wealth has been laid waste." We saw "Tail End," the merchants, and then it goes right into the next group, the shipmasters.
19:22-19:31
"All the shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors, and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning.
19:32-19:37
'What city is like the great city?' And they threw dust in her heads as they wept and mourned, crying out.
19:38-19:45
Alas, alas for the great city, where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth.
19:45-20:03
For in a single hour, she has been laid waste." To the third group, her people who make their living by the sea, sailors standing far off, astonished at Babylon's destruction, because no stuff to sell means no stuff to transport.
20:04-20:06
So here we're talking about FedEx.
20:06-20:08
We're talking about UPS.
20:08-20:10
We're talking about the USPS.
20:11-20:16
We're talking about all of these organizations whose job it is to transport.
20:17-20:18
And once again, why are they crying?
20:19-20:20
Why are they crying?
20:20-20:21
There goes my money.
20:21-20:22
They throw dust in their heads.
20:22-20:24
It's an expression of grief.
20:24-20:27
again, not over their sin, over their personal loss.
20:27-20:31
And you know, this is the last lament in the Bible.
20:31-20:33
The Bible is full of laments.
20:33-20:35
This is the very last one.
20:35-20:49
And I would suggest to you it's the very saddest one, because in this last lament, hopeless souls know that they're lost and doomed as they're watching God judge the earth, but they are completely unable to care about their sin.
20:49-21:03
They're completely unable to acknowledge that their rebellion against God has brought them to this place of ministry, and their only thought at this point is, "My wealth is gone." That's all they can think about.
21:04-21:09
Somebody might be looking at these people who are watching Babylon go up in smoke.
21:10-21:11
They've lost everything.
21:12-21:19
They know this is God, and maybe some are thinking right now, "Well, why don't they just repent?" I mean, think about it. They're not making any more money.
21:19-21:21
They know God's a-coming. It's obvious.
21:22-21:24
So why don't they just repent? I'll tell you why.
21:25-21:27
Because they don't want God. They don't want God.
21:28-21:31
They don't want righteousness. They don't want justice.
21:31-21:34
They don't want the things of God.
21:35-21:39
That's one thing this chapter is teaching, is there's only one thing they wanted, and it's money.
21:40-21:43
That's why they didn't just repent. They're not interested.
21:44-21:50
They are completely oblivious to what's really important.
21:50-21:52
We saw this last month.
21:52-21:53
I'm not making this a political thing.
21:54-21:55
Let's just step back and be objective.
21:55-21:57
And this isn't a political thing at all.
21:58-22:01
But I just thought it was interesting and it certainly fit.
22:02-22:10
Last month, in order to combat human trafficking over the US-Mexico border, the president had threatened to close the border.
22:11-22:12
I'm just going to close the border.
22:14-22:19
to fight human trafficking, one of the most horrible evils man can do to another man.
22:19-22:25
The president said, "I'm gonna shut the border." And do you remember the outrage that was the backlash from that comment?
22:26-22:28
All the people did not, they did not reply.
22:28-22:31
You know what, Mr. President, I'm with you.
22:31-22:34
How else can we save and protect the innocent?
22:34-22:35
That's not what they said.
22:35-22:40
They didn't say anything that needs to happen to stop this horrible evil.
22:40-22:41
That's not what they said either.
22:41-22:42
Do you remember what they said?
22:43-22:48
They said, "What if this keeps me from getting avocado toast?" Like, really?
22:48-22:55
We're having a conversation about stopping human trafficking, and the only thing you can think about is your stupid toast?
22:56-22:56
Really?
22:57-23:00
It's almost laughable if it wasn't so pathetic.
23:01-23:03
But that's where people's minds went.
23:03-23:07
What if the price of avocados goes up?
23:07-23:10
Oh, boo-hoo, you don't really like avocados anyways.
23:10-23:11
Nobody really does.
23:11-23:12
It's like kale.
23:13-23:20
We pretend to like it because we're told it's the superfood and we all have to let people know that we like it.
23:20-23:24
We pretend to just so people think that we're trendy, but nobody really likes avocados.
23:25-23:27
You just eating that to get to the toast.
23:27-23:30
We start playing around, but you see the point.
23:30-23:34
No outrage, no outrage over people being sold.
23:34-23:39
Much outrage on the prospect that our precious avocados might go up in price.
23:40-23:40
What's the point?
23:40-23:41
Here's the point.
23:42-24:11
At this point in Revelation, if worldly people's state of mind is still in question, if God's judgment still seems rash, I think it's fitting that the thing that God chooses to highlight to John and to us is that after experiencing all these manifestations of God's wrath on the earth because of sin, People still only care about themselves.
24:11-24:12
I think that's the whole point.
24:13-24:24
He's showing us that there's worldwide mourning, not over sin, not over the destruction of sin, but over the loss of dollars, over the loss of avocado toast.
24:25-24:27
And if you really do like avocados, I meant no offense.
24:28-24:29
But you see the point.
24:29-24:35
Jesus said in Mark 8.36, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" You can have it all.
24:36-24:38
and you're going to die, and where does your stuff go?
24:39-24:41
You forfeited your life in order to pursue stuff.
24:42-24:46
And that's just the mark of those who have the mark of the beast.
24:47-24:50
Number five, wrapping up here, two more parts, the celebration.
24:51-24:56
The celebration, verse 20, now, this isn't part of a typical funeral either.
24:57-24:58
Just throw that out here.
24:58-25:05
If you're going to use this as an outline, like if somebody in your family dies, and you're like, "Yeah, Pastor Jeff asked me to do the funeral." I would say don't put this in the funeral.
25:06-25:12
This is the part of the funeral where there's rejoicing over the fact that the person is deceased.
25:13-25:16
Not typical, but we have a shift.
25:16-25:18
The angel is speaking again.
25:18-25:19
Look at verse 20.
25:20-25:29
It says, "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her." Rejoice.
25:29-25:37
"The redeemed in heaven rejoice over the triumph of righteousness." Rejoice over the prayer that we studied "Clear back in chapter 6.
25:38-25:41
How long until you do something about all this, God?
25:41-25:43
How long?" Chapter 6, verses 9-11.
25:44-25:46
"How long?" It's finally answered.
25:46-25:48
It's finally answered, and there's great celebration.
25:49-25:52
Like, "Well, wait a minute, I thought God didn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
25:53-26:02
So if God doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked, why is all of heaven celebrating the downfall of this city?" Well, God doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked.
26:02-26:05
In fact, God would rather people turn to Him and receive Christ.
26:06-26:08
But something God does delight in is righteousness.
26:09-26:16
Something God does delight in is to see the suffering of His people finally come to an end.
26:16-26:20
All of heaven delighting in justice finally being carried out.
26:21-26:25
All of heaven delighting in the truth that the wicked are no longer shedding blood.
26:25-26:29
And then finally, this is the last part of a good funeral service, you've got to have the committal.
26:29-26:30
You've got to have the committal.
26:30-26:32
We usually say these at the graveside.
26:33-26:34
This will be the last few verses here.
26:35-26:50
"Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, 'So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more.'" Quick demonstration, picturing Babylon's destruction.
26:50-26:56
A millstone was about four or five feet in diameter, and it was about a foot thick.
26:56-27:02
So this angel takes this giant millstone and says, This thing represents Babylon.
27:03-27:05
Bloop! Into the water.
27:05-27:10
Point is, here it is, and suddenly and instantly and totally, bloop! Gone.
27:10-27:12
We'll be found no more.
27:12-27:19
Look at verse 22, "And the sound of the harpists and musicians of flute players and trumpeters will be heard in you no more.
27:19-27:23
And a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more.
27:23-27:27
And the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more.
27:27-27:30
And the light of a lamp will shine in you no more.
27:31-27:35
And the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more.
27:35-27:42
For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
27:42-27:52
And in her was found the blood of the prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on earth." Recurring phrase there, "no more." No more. No more!
27:52-27:54
You lived how you wanted.
27:54-27:59
You deceived and you hated and you abused and you murdered.
27:59-28:01
No more. It's over.
28:01-28:02
Nothing will be left.
28:02-28:04
No music. No working.
28:04-28:06
No making food. No light.
28:07-28:09
No weddings. No more.
28:10-28:11
You've rejected your Creator.
28:11-28:13
You've despised the blood of Christ.
28:14-28:15
And you've killed His people.
28:16-28:18
No more. Fallen. Fallen.
28:19-28:20
Is Babylon the Great.
28:21-28:24
This concludes the funeral service for Babylon.
28:24-28:28
I'm not going to say, Well, she's in a better place.
28:28-28:34
And I'm certainly not going to say, "Well, she'll be missed." I usually just close a funeral with a prayer.
28:34-28:35
Shall we?
28:35-28:39
Father in Heaven, You are merciful, and You are slow to anger.
28:39-28:48
But the day is coming when You will say, "No more." And today, Father, I pray that we would all take a look at Babylon and see if there are any of Babylon's ways in us.
28:48-28:53
Pride, self-sufficiency, living according to the lusts of the flesh.
28:54-28:56
Father, show us if there's any way of Babylon in us.
28:56-28:57
Grant us repentance.
28:58-29:08
God, we thank You that You don't tolerate these things, because tolerating these would keep people from coming to Christ, would keep justice and judgment from truly happening.
29:08-29:10
So Father, let Your Holy Spirit bring us to the place.
29:11-29:13
Let Your Holy Spirit grant us repentance.
29:13-29:14
We thank You, Father.
29:15-29:19
In the glorious name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 18

GROUP

What was your big “take-away” from the passage / message?
Review the sins of Babylon for which she faced judgment (v7). How do you see these sins in our culture? Be specific.
If God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), why is heaven rejoicing over Babylon’s destruction in verse 20?
Why exactly are the people of earth crying in verses 9, 11, 15, 18, and 19? What does this tell you about those facing judgment during the Tribulation?

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another. Pray for God’s mercy on our nation.

Jeff Miller

May 19, 2019

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon: The End of Religion.

Jeff Miller

May 19, 2019

Coming Soon!

Introduction:

The INTRODUCTION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:1-6)
The EXPLANATION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:7-14)

Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome.

Antichrist’s world empire.

The DESTRUCTION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:15-18)

Why did God choose to destroy Babylon this way, with the beast and the kings, instead of a direct blast with a plague?

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

01:04-01:09
Alright, open up your Bibles with me please to Revelation 17.
01:11-01:12
Here's a universal truth.
01:14-01:20
No matter where you go, geographically, no matter where you go in history, here's a universal truth.
01:20-01:22
Everybody worships something.
01:24-01:25
Everybody worships something.
01:25-01:35
And if people don't want to worship God, the true God, the Creator God, They're going to fill that void with something else.
01:37-01:39
Have you ever heard people say something like this?
01:40-01:43
"I'm a spiritual person. I don't go to church.
01:44-01:47
But I'm a real spiritual person." You ever heard anybody say that?
01:48-01:50
You know what they're really saying?
01:50-01:55
And if that's you, look, I'm not trying to intentionally offend you, but...
01:55-01:56
Here's what you're saying.
01:58-02:04
I don't think of myself as spiritual, but I don't want any authority or accountability in my life.
02:07-02:08
And that is idolatry.
02:10-02:15
Coming to spiritual realities on my own terms.
02:17-02:25
During the tribulation, as we've seen, God's judgment is being poured on the earth, and there's going to be a lot of people turning to religion.
02:26-02:30
but turning to religion to try to deal with what's happening.
02:31-02:33
And Satan is going to give people religion.
02:33-02:39
Satan is going to give people idolatry to sort of satisfy their spiritual hunger.
02:41-02:49
There's coming a one-world religion that the unsaved are going to rally behind.
02:50-02:51
She has a name.
02:52-02:55
Her name is Mystery Babylon.
02:58-03:03
She's a city, and she's the subject of the next two chapters.
03:04-03:07
Now we're going through the chronology of Revelation.
03:07-03:30
Remember chapters 12 through 14 were sort of a break from the action, and then we got back to it with 15 and 16, but now we're taking another break from the chronology with chapters 17 and 18 because these two chapters aren't looking at God's judgment, these two chapters are looking at what God is judging.
03:31-03:32
And that's Babylon.
03:34-03:36
Let's talk about Babylon for a second.
03:36-03:40
Babylon is the mother of false religions.
03:41-03:42
Where did it come from?
03:44-03:48
We're not going to turn there today, but it comes clear back from Genesis chapter 11.
03:50-03:59
You remember in those days, a man named Nimrod, yes, that was his name, became a great insult for children of the '80s.
04:00-04:01
Nice job, Nimrod.
04:01-04:08
But he had this idea with several others, "We were going to unite the world together, okay?
04:08-04:21
And we're going to build this city, and we're going to have a one-world government, and we're going to have this one-world religion," God said, "Spread out, fill the earth." And they were like, "No, we're not going to do that.
04:22-04:23
We're going to stay right here.
04:24-04:25
We're going to establish our own thing.
04:26-04:37
Thank you very much." God said, "I don't think you are." You remember the story? He confused their languages, and they couldn't understand each other, so they spread out all over the world.
04:37-04:38
But here's what happened.
04:38-04:43
When they spread out, they all took that idolatry with them.
04:44-04:52
That's why we can say Babylon is really the mother of all religions, of all false religions.
04:53-05:18
So when we get to Revelation 17, and this is important, we get to Revelation 17, we see the final false religion, which is tied into a world government, which is connected to a city, is called Babylon.
05:20-05:27
Just like in Genesis 11, we get to Revelation 17, and really what we see is God's story has come to be certain.
05:28-05:37
We started with a one world religion, one world government, city, And that's how it's going to end.
05:38-05:47
And this city, this Babylon, and this vision in Revelation 17 is depicted as a prostitute.
05:49-05:51
So let's get to the text here.
05:52-05:53
The introduction of the prostitute.
05:56-06:00
Now look, I believe, this is just my opinion, I believe this is the hardest chapter in Revelation.
06:02-06:04
But we're going to get through this, okay?
06:04-06:06
We're going to get through this together. You with me?
06:07-06:08
All right, let's do it.
06:10-06:11
Revelation 17, verse 1.
06:12-06:38
He says, "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters.'" Okay, so obviously this is coming from the previous vision John saw last week, we saw the bold judgments of God.
06:38-07:04
And John says, "Okay, then one of those angels came and spoke to me." He says, "I want to show you something. I want to show you a vision, show you the judgment of the great prostitute." Now in the Old Testament, spiritual adultery, which we call idolatry, Spiritual adultery was often symbolized by physical adultery.
07:06-07:10
This is so key - don't tune out already - this is so key to understanding this passage.
07:10-07:21
In the Old Testament, oftentimes places were referred to as prostitutes because they were very idolatrous places.
07:22-07:24
Can you give me an example of that? I sure can.
07:25-07:27
You see that with Nineveh and Nahum 3.
07:28-07:33
Nineveh is called a prostitute because she was so idolatrous.
07:35-07:39
You see Isaiah 23, the city called Tyre.
07:39-07:44
Tyre was so idolatrous that God compared her to a prostitute.
07:45-07:54
Instead of being faithful to your husband, God, You are a harlot.
07:54-07:58
You are selling yourself out for anyone.
08:00-08:04
So this Babylon that we're going to look at in Revelation 17 is a city.
08:06-08:15
Now look, I know you can get ten preachers in a room talking about Revelation and you can get twelve different opinions about what is going on in this passage.
08:15-08:16
I get that.
08:16-08:17
But here's what I don't get.
08:17-08:24
When people try to say, "Well, here's what it really means The text actually tells you what it really means, right?
08:24-08:26
That's what I don't get.
08:26-08:36
Because if you looked at verse 18, it says, "And the woman that you saw is the great city." I'm like, I wonder what the woman represents.
08:36-08:38
Tell me, what does a woman represent?
08:39-08:40
The great city, right?
08:42-08:44
Like, well, maybe great city's like a symbol for something.
08:45-08:49
No, the woman is the symbol for something, and the something she is a symbol of is the?
08:50-08:51
The great city, right?
08:52-08:55
Which is called Babylon, as you'll see in a second.
08:56-08:58
Verse 15 explains what the many waters are.
08:58-08:59
They're the peoples of the earth.
08:59-09:05
It's showing that this woman, her idolatry, has a global impact, all right?
09:06-09:20
Verse two, "With whom the kings of the earth "have committed sexual immorality, "and with the wine of whose sexual morality "the dwellers on earth have become drunk." That's more symbolism.
09:20-09:23
for the idolatry that this woman propagates.
09:24-09:34
And what John sees here, kings and regular Joes worldwide are allured into idolatry.
09:36-09:40
And I imagine in these days, idolatry is an easy sell with all of these plagues going on.
09:41-09:45
People looking for spiritual answers, they're going to be provided.
09:46-09:47
Now let's get to verse 3.
09:47-10:00
And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
10:02-10:11
John sees this woman, symbolizing this idolatrous city, sitting on or supported by a beast.
10:11-10:15
You're like, "Well, what's the beast?" Well, we know what this beast is from chapter 13.
10:15-10:17
That's the exact same description.
10:19-10:22
This is the Antichrist and his kingdom.
10:23-10:31
So the point here is John sees the beast and the woman coexisting.
10:33-10:36
Meaning that the beast is going to establish a one-world religion.
10:38-10:41
That's what's going to happen during the tribulation, one-world religion.
10:42-10:44
Look at verse 4.
10:47-11:08
It says, "The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality." So this spiritual prostitute appears very attractive.
11:10-11:15
She's adorning herself like actual prostitute.
11:15-11:19
She's presenting herself to the world and to John in this vision.
11:19-11:25
She's presenting herself as very wealthy, very wicked at the same time.
11:26-11:34
And it says she has a gold cup full of abominations, idolatries, and sexual immorality.
11:36-11:39
Okay, so she's a city.
11:40-11:42
I think we can totally understand the analogy here.
11:42-11:48
Can you think of a city that's sort of personified as a place of idolatry and sexual immorality?
11:49-11:50
Can you think of a city like that?
11:51-11:57
When I was studying this, no offense if you're from there or whatever, I thought of Las Vegas, right?
11:57-11:59
I mean, what's Vegas known as?
12:00-12:02
Sin City, and what's Vegas known for?
12:02-12:08
Gambling and prostitution, There's wonderful people in Vegas, I'm sure.
12:08-12:12
But Vegas just has this reputation of being a city of immorality.
12:13-12:16
And that's kind of what's going on here in Revelation 17.
12:16-12:23
The Babylon is sort of like, I have in my notes, she's like Vegas on steroids, okay?
12:24-12:30
She's not just like Las Vegas, she's like Lots Vegas, if you know what I mean.
12:30-12:35
He's just like all of that, but so much more and so much worse.
12:36-12:37
And that's what's being depicted here.
12:39-12:41
That helps me make sense of it anyways.
12:41-12:42
Look at verse 5.
12:43-12:53
"And on her forehead was written a name of Mystery Babylon." That's actually a title that goes together in the Greek, okay?
12:53-12:55
Her name is Mystery Babylon.
12:55-12:56
We're going to talk about what that means in a second.
12:57-13:06
"Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Prostitutes and of Earth's Abominations." Okay, "Mystery" is part of the title. What does that mean?
13:06-13:09
It means that she wasn't part of any previous Babylon.
13:09-13:14
"Mystery" means something that was not revealed before is now being revealed.
13:14-13:20
Like you've never seen her in this form before, but here she is.
13:22-13:26
It's a yet-to-come version of Babylon.
13:28-13:37
And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs, getting back to her wick.
13:38-13:46
Somehow this city is directly connected to not just idolatry, not just sexual immorality, but to killing God's people.
13:48-13:54
that she's depicted as enjoying it so much that she's drunk on it.
13:56-13:57
John says, look at the rest of verse six.
13:58-14:01
When I saw her, I marveled greatly.
14:02-14:03
And I'm like, yes, I get that part.
14:04-14:06
I understand that part, right?
14:06-14:08
Like, he sees this image, could you imagine?
14:09-14:10
Like, we're seeing it in written form.
14:11-14:13
He was looking at all of this and he's describing it for us.
14:13-14:20
He says, when I saw this image, you got this woman and this beast, And he goes, I'm marveled greatly.
14:21-14:24
Whoa, what in the world is going on here?
14:24-14:25
What is this?
14:27-14:28
Well, let's look at the explanation.
14:30-14:33
The explanation of the prostitute, you're taking notes.
14:36-14:44
Now here, here is where you've got to laser focus, because there's a lot going on here, all right?
14:44-14:45
You with me?
14:46-14:47
You with me?
14:47-14:48
All right, let's do this.
14:49-14:50
Verses seven and eight.
14:51-14:51
Here's the explanation.
14:51-14:53
We kind of look over John's shoulder and sees it.
14:55-14:59
Verse seven, "But the angel said to me, "why do you marvel?
15:01-15:22
"I will tell you the mystery of the woman "and of the beast with seven heads and 10 horns "that carries her." He says, "The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction.
15:23-15:40
And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beasts, because it was and is not and is to come." Okay, so John sees this picture, but he didn't quite make the connection.
15:42-15:52
The angel has to, remember that horrible word that people were using a few months ago, maybe a year ago now, mansplaining.
15:52-15:54
Remember that? How many people remember mansplaining?
15:55-15:59
What? Terrible concept, ugly word.
16:00-16:05
But what we have here is this angel is going to explain some things to John.
16:08-16:16
John's like, "What in the world is going on here?" The angel says, "Okay, let's talk about the beast." Much greater detail than we saw in chapter 13.
16:18-16:25
The angel wants John to see who the beast is and how the prostitute is connected to the beast.
16:26-16:28
So the beast, as we know, as we've said, is the Antichrist.
16:28-16:29
It's Satan's man.
16:30-16:38
You're like, "Well, what's that phrase, 'was' and 'is not' and 'is about to come'?" We see that phrase twice in verse 8, and we see it once in verse 11.
16:39-16:40
What does that phrase mean?
16:40-16:43
I believe in allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture.
16:43-16:51
And if you go back to chapters 12 and 13, we see that the Antichrist, during the Tribulation, is going to fake his death.
16:53-16:55
And he's going to fake his resurrection.
16:57-16:59
And it's the ultimate form of blasphemy, really.
17:00-17:01
That's what Satan's doing, right?
17:02-17:03
Because what do we do when we come together for church?
17:04-17:08
We say, let's worship the one who died and rose from the dead.
17:08-17:10
Let's praise His name, right? Don't we do that?
17:11-17:14
Jesus Christ died and rose. That's like our whole thing.
17:14-17:15
That's our whole message.
17:15-17:18
During a tribulation, Satan's going to imitate that with the Antichrist.
17:19-17:22
And that's going to be the message being broadcast to the world.
17:23-17:31
To say, "Worship this guy because he died and he rose from the dead." And we saw that the false prophet is going to use that to deceive the whole world.
17:32-17:37
It's Satan's way of trying to imitate Jesus Christ.
17:38-17:39
the ultimate blasphemy.
17:40-17:43
But he's going to use that to have the world worship the Antichrist.
17:43-17:46
Isn't that just disgusting?
17:47-18:00
Satan would say to God, "They're not going to worship your Christ, they'll worship mine." Well, at this point, the Antichrist empire coexists with Babylon.
18:00-18:04
That's why verse 7 says that the beast carries her.
18:06-18:16
we're going to see after the resurrection, the fake resurrection, the Satan-empowered Antichrist is going to become the only object of worship.
18:17-18:28
He's going to destroy the prostitute, we'll see that in a second in the text, and eventually he's only going to allow one religion on the earth, which is the worship of himself.
18:28-18:29
That's where this is going.
18:31-18:39
How can we get the world from all following the same religion to all worshiping the same guy.
18:40-18:42
That's what's happening in this passage.
18:44-18:50
The Antichrist, after his fake resurrection, after the death of the two witnesses, he's going to seem unstoppable.
18:51-18:56
We see twice in this passage, verse 8 here, we're going to see it again in verse 11, he's just being set up.
18:58-19:05
Verse 9, he says, "This calls for a mind with wisdom." Good call.
19:06-19:07
This call is reminded with wisdom.
19:07-19:09
The seven heads...
19:09-19:12
Okay, so now he's explaining the beast a little bit in more detail.
19:13-19:20
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated.
19:22-19:26
So apparently these seven mountains have been a support for this woman.
19:26-19:57
He says, verse 10, "They are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come, he must remain only a little while." He says, "Okay, mind of wisdom, pay close attention." And I really believe that only the believers who are alive during this time, people who come to Christ during the tribulation, I think they're really the only ones that are going to be able to fully comprehend what's going on.
19:58-20:00
for the symbolism, jot some things down.
20:01-20:05
The mountains represent seven kings.
20:07-20:16
These are world empires embodied in their rulers who have notoriously opposed God.
20:16-20:20
Again, the prostitute is seated on them.
20:21-20:31
All of these throughout history have been wicked, idolatrous kingdoms through time.
20:33-20:34
Like what kingdoms are they?
20:35-20:38
We can guess, my best guess is this.
20:38-20:40
He says five have fallen, right?
20:40-20:43
These are world kingdoms that have opposed God, opposed God's people.
20:44-20:45
He said five have fallen.
20:45-20:52
I believe that these five are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire.
20:53-21:01
I believe those are the five that fall, meaning in John's day when John was getting this revelation, these empires had come and gone.
21:03-21:08
Then the angel says that one existed, one is, meaning one of these was present to John.
21:10-21:11
And what would that empire have been?
21:11-21:12
That would have been Rome, right?
21:14-21:22
But he says that there's one that's yet to come, and that's the Antichrist's world empire.
21:24-21:29
When he says he'll remain a little while, He's talking about the seven year tribulation.
21:31-21:33
Look at verse 11 again.
21:35-21:52
He says, "As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eight, but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction." Like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
21:54-22:08
Okay, so there's seven global empires, five came and went, one exists, that's Rome, that's six, one's yet to come, that's seven, and now there's one that's an ape that's part of the seven, like, what's he talking about?
22:10-22:14
Well, notice he keeps using the phrase that the beast was and is not.
22:14-22:25
I believe what he's talking about is the beast being in power, the Antichrist being in power before his fake death, and then after his fake resurrection, comes into power again.
22:25-22:30
So the Antichrist is like king number seven, and then he's king number eight.
22:31-22:34
But eight really belongs to the seven because it's the same guy.
22:35-22:45
And I believe that because once again in verse 11, he says, "And it goes to destruction." Same terminology used to talk about him back in verse eight.
22:47-22:48
All right, verse 12.
22:50-23:04
and the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beasts.
23:06-23:12
These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beasts.
23:12-23:27
They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, For he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.
23:29-23:38
So we know the woman is Babylon, the city of idolatry and wickedness.
23:38-23:44
The beast is the Antichrist, and we see the symbol of the heads, but what are the horns?
23:46-23:52
Well, he says the ten horns are ten kings, not known to any earlier generation, they have not yet received a kingdom.
23:53-23:55
They're part of the Antichrist's future kingdom.
23:55-23:59
They're going to reign for a short time, he says, for one hour.
23:59-24:08
I don't think it literally means 60 minutes, it's just a figure of speech that they're going to come on the scene, and their time is going to come and go quickly.
24:10-24:13
They dedicate themselves to the Antichrist's rule.
24:14-24:15
Like for what purpose?
24:16-24:18
Well, their purpose is to fight against the lamp.
24:19-24:21
You're going to see that here in just a second.
24:22-24:32
But the goal that God has is to get everybody assembled for one final showdown at Armageddon.
24:32-24:34
We talked about that last week.
24:34-24:39
Remember the demons that look like frogs, deceiving them, getting them to come.
24:40-24:48
So there's this ten-nation kingdom in the future that's going to back the Antichrist that God is going to use.
24:50-24:52
And God is going to destroy.
24:54-25:02
The Lamb is going to overcome them, and those with the Lamb are called and chosen and faithful.
25:04-25:05
That's what John saw in the vision.
25:07-25:08
How do I get all that?
25:10-25:16
I know it's a lot of stuff, but these messages are available on our website, and maybe you want to listen to it again.
25:16-25:18
There's a lot of stuff happening.
25:21-25:22
There's one more thing we have to cover.
25:22-25:29
Not only do we meet this prostitute, and he sort of explains her by explaining the beast and everything that's going on with the beast.
25:31-25:35
This is the main point that he's driving to, finally, the destruction of the prostitute.
25:37-25:38
the destruction of the prostitute.
25:39-25:40
Look at verses 15 and 16.
25:40-25:51
It says, "And the angel said to me, 'The waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.'" Again, global impact stuff.
25:52-25:57
"And the ten horns that you saw..." Remember the ten kings that are yet to come?
25:58-26:05
"The ten horns that you saw, they and the beast, the Antichrist, will hate the prostitute." Wait, wait, wait, wait.
26:08-26:09
That's the part where-- OK.
26:09-26:13
It's complicated, and we're kind of tracking the images.
26:14-26:15
But then you get to this point, like, wait a minute.
26:16-26:21
All this time, they have been sort of supporting the prostitute.
26:21-26:23
Why do they hate her all of a sudden?
26:24-26:26
It says, not only do they hate her-- look at the next phrase.
26:27-26:35
"They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire.
26:36-26:46
So this alliance that the Antichrist has with this mystery Babylon, with this idolatrous world religion, it's only going to be temporary.
26:48-27:08
He's going to use mystery Babylon to get into power, going to be the ultimate union of church and state worldwide but eventually, he's going to, and he and the 10 kings are going to hate her and destroy her, and he's going to set himself up as the only object of worship, as we saw back in chapter two.
27:09-27:13
It's going to get to the point that the Antichrist says, we don't need religion.
27:15-27:15
I'm your religion now.
27:17-27:21
You don't need to go to church, you worship me.
27:24-27:37
Like, well, why in the world, if they were on the same team here, like a couple of verses ago, "Why all of a sudden do they hate her and destroy her and burn her down?" Well, here's the answer.
27:39-27:47
Where there's power to be had, wicked people will kill, even each other.
27:50-27:52
And this is where the Antichrist sees his opportunity.
27:53-27:55
He doesn't need the idolatry anymore.
27:56-27:58
He's got the death and resurrection gimmick.
28:01-28:02
He's like, "They're gonna worship me.
28:03-28:04
So we don't need her.
28:05-28:34
We're going to get rid of her." Verse 17 says, I love this, "For God has put it in their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled." And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.
28:37-28:40
I love this verse because it reminds us that God is still in control, right?
28:40-28:59
We're sort of reading through, getting this image and seeing what's happening with these world powers, and then it's, "Oh, by the way, by the way, God's still in control of all of this." These ten kings think that their best course of action is going to be, Let's get rid of religion and let's throw in with this guy, with the Antichrist.
29:03-29:06
God is the one that put that in their hearts, because he wanted his word fulfilled.
29:10-29:18
It reminds us of the reality that men fulfill God's will, even while they oppose God's will.
29:19-29:22
And that is God's will.
29:25-29:28
"Really?" Like, remember the cross of Jesus Christ?
29:29-29:33
They thought, the people thought that they were killing Jesus.
29:34-29:37
We don't want Him, get rid of Him, we'd rather have Barabbas.
29:38-29:42
And they thought they were doing their thing by killing Jesus.
29:43-29:51
The Bible said God was using that for all Jesus to become the sacrifice, the Lamb of God to take away the sins.
29:53-29:58
So those men thought they were opposing God's will, but they were actually fulfilling God's will.
29:59-30:00
See, that's what's happening here.
30:02-30:08
The Antichrist and his ten kings, his ten kingdoms, saying, "We don't need Babylon anymore.
30:08-30:16
We're going to wipe her out." And God's like, "Yeah, this is all playing exactly how I planned." That's called sovereignty.
30:19-30:26
So God uses Satan and the Antichrist and the world's forces to destroy Babylon so that they all unite together.
30:28-30:28
Why?
30:30-30:32
So God can destroy them in one final strike.
30:35-30:36
That is Revelation 17.
30:39-30:51
And when we look at passages like this, we get to thinking, do some reading, maybe you're like me, you look at this and think, What city is this?
30:53-30:55
I mean, Mystery Babylon, you have to come back.
30:55-30:59
What city is Mystery Babylon?
30:59-31:00
Is she...
31:00-31:03
A lot of people say she's Ancient Babylon rebuilt.
31:05-31:55
Ancient Babylon is rebuilt, and one of the reasons given for that is Ancient Babylon, somebody did the geographical math on this, I did not, but somebody had said that Ancient Babylon is actually the geographic center of the Earth's landmass. I don't know. Here's what I do know though. Do you remember Saddam Hussein? How many people remember Saddam Hussein? Okay, most of us in here. Younger people, he was like a big deal like a while ago, but Saddam Hussein had this dream that he was going to rebuild Babylon. Do you know that? And it started somewhere around 1983, he's like, "We're going to rebuild Babylon." He actually put $5 million into rebuilding Babylon.
31:57-31:58
Like, what happened?
31:59-32:02
Well, the same thing happened to Babylon that happened to Saddam Hussein.
32:05-32:09
I mean, if you heard any news about the rebuilding of Babylon lately, I haven't.
32:11-32:15
The whole project just vanished when he was taken.
32:16-32:28
It just doesn't seem like it's poised to be the global idolatrous significant empire some people think it's going to be.
32:31-32:33
What city could it be?
32:36-32:39
Well, I'm going to give you some food for thought this week.
32:41-32:49
Before you throw tomatoes, People still do that at churches, but before you throw tomatoes, I want you to hear me out.
32:52-33:00
Before you turn to your neighbor and say, "Looks like Pastor Jeff needs fitted for another tinfoil hat." This is food for thought.
33:01-33:02
I want you to look this stuff up.
33:03-33:12
This isn't my opinion because trust me, I spent a lot of time this week studying this from as many different sources as I can.
33:12-33:13
I'm like, "Is this really true?
33:13-33:25
I don't know if this is true." from as many different sources as I can, not just religious Christian sources, but from... I was looking for very secular sources to see what did they say about this.
33:25-33:31
And this is food for thought. You can do with this what you will, but at the very least, you're going to find this interesting.
33:34-33:43
Do you know what is the largest handmade idol in the world?
33:43-33:43
Do you know what it is?
33:44-33:48
When I say handmade, I mean like some people worship the mountain or worship the rock.
33:48-33:49
I'm not talking about that.
33:49-33:54
I'm talking about a statue representing a God, the largest one ever made.
33:55-33:56
Do you know what it is?
33:57-34:05
I guarantee you know what it is because it is the symbol of America, the Statue of Liberty.
34:06-34:15
Like, "I know it! Pastor Jeff has been sniffing glue in his office or something." Listen to this. Now you can look this up.
34:17-34:25
The Statue of Liberty was designed by a French man who was a Mason.
34:28-34:30
You ever wonder what he designed the statue after?
34:31-34:32
That wasn't his grandma.
34:33-34:38
Like, "Hold still, Grandma, we're going to make a statue that looks like you, and it's going to be awesome." That wasn't his sister.
34:39-34:48
He designed the statue, this Mason, this French Mason, designed the Statue of Liberty after something very specific.
34:49-34:54
The Babylonian goddess named Ishtar.
34:55-34:56
Look it up. Not now.
34:57-35:00
Ishtar, write this down now. I-S-H-T-A-R, look that up.
35:03-35:07
Now she's had different names throughout history, Ishtar has.
35:08-35:16
Because you know how gods sort of get passed down from generation to generation, from civilization to civilization, and they all sort of put their name on it?
35:18-35:21
Here's a really interesting name that she got from one culture.
35:23-35:30
It actually translates to the English word "liberty." That was what the one culture called her.
35:30-35:32
And you're like, "Well, liberty is great!
35:33-35:35
Land of the free, home of the brave!
35:35-35:41
"America the beautiful!" That's not how it's meant.
35:42-35:49
You see, the goddess representing liberty, Ishtar, it's sexual.
35:50-35:53
Meaning, you can do whatever you want.
35:54-36:00
And that's why in some of these ancient religions, they've had cult prostitutes.
36:00-36:19
It's disgusting and I wish I didn't have to talk about this, but it was through indulgence of that you got close to the gods and goddesses, and that's why you had the prostitutes at the churches, and that's where liberty comes in.
36:19-36:21
It was freedom, you do whatever you want.
36:21-36:22
You do whatever you want.
36:22-36:32
So in New York City, we have this giant statue patterned after Ishtar and we call her Liberty, And we're like, nothing suspicious there.
36:35-36:42
Ishtar, the idol by the way, she was called the mother of harlots.
36:43-36:44
That was her name as an idol.
36:44-36:45
She was called the mother of harlots.
36:46-36:55
And I got to tell you, with that in mind, you get sort of a chill when you go to Revelation 17 and the angel says, hey, come and see the harlot that's sitting on the waters.
36:58-37:05
You know, originally, the design of the Statue of Liberty, the original design, she was holding a cup.
37:06-37:07
Did you know that?
37:08-37:10
Like, now she's holding a torch.
37:10-37:11
She wasn't originally holding a torch.
37:11-37:12
She was originally holding a cup.
37:13-37:14
Here's what happened.
37:16-37:29
The New York Harbor Patrol said, instead of a cup, can we have her holding a torch so that it sort of illuminates the area and ships coming in, and it's sort of like this beacon of light thing.
37:30-37:31
And I'm like, yeah, we can do that.
37:31-37:41
And I read somewhere that the actual cup that was designed ended up being sold to the Russians, and they sort of-- they put it on eBay or resold it or something to pay off some national debt.
37:41-37:43
But the Russians had the original cup.
37:43-37:46
But originally, the Statue of Liberty was designed to hold a cup.
37:47-37:53
And then we turn to Revelation chapter 17, verse 4, and it says the prostitute is holding a what?
37:55-37:56
You can say it.
37:56-37:57
She was holding a what?
37:58-37:59
She was holding a cup!
38:01-38:11
The original Babylon in Genesis 11, it became a great place by people coming together from everywhere.
38:14-38:15
Kind of like America, right?
38:16-38:19
Greatest country in the world from people coming together from everywhere.
38:23-38:24
Every false religion.
38:26-38:31
Every false religion has two things, two common denominators.
38:34-38:38
It's sexual immorality and child sacrifice.
38:41-38:44
Do I have to give you a sales pitch for the sexual immorality of our country?
38:44-38:50
Do you know that the United States is responsible for 65% of the pornography production in the world?
38:51-38:54
For the world being produced here.
38:56-39:01
You're like, "Oh, I hear what you're saying, Pastor Jeff, but child sacrifice, we don't do that.
39:02-39:08
We don't do child sacrifice." And I would say, "Under which rock have you been living?
39:10-39:12
What was the hot button last week?
39:12-39:13
What was everybody talking about?
39:13-39:14
Was everybody talking about?
39:15-39:16
Oh yeah, I remember.
39:16-39:20
It was all of these mothers protesting for the right to murder their own babies.
39:21-39:22
That's what they were protesting.
39:22-39:29
And I look at that and the legislation for late-term abortion in New York City, and do you know what I see?
39:31-39:39
You can paint it up or try to describe it as whatever you want, but it's just child sacrifice to the prostitute.
39:41-39:42
That's all it is.
39:45-39:50
Another interesting thing is verse 18 says that this city, this Babylon, has dominion over kings.
39:52-39:59
You see that? "She has dominion over the kings of the earth." Now that's interesting. Where's the United Nations located?
40:02-40:05
You can look this stuff up. No. Hear me.
40:07-40:11
I'm not saying emphatically that New York City is Mystery Babylon.
40:12-40:13
I am not saying that.
40:14-40:16
I'm saying this.
40:17-40:27
If you're like Pastor Jeff, looking at all the clues in the Bible, and looking at all the clues currently in the world today, where do you connect the most dots? I'm like, hmm?
40:31-40:31
We don't know.
40:33-40:34
Yet to be revealed.
40:37-40:39
I just want to close with one question.
40:40-40:54
I know this was long today. This was a very hard passage, but I do want to close one question that's sort of It sort of bothered me, and I thought maybe in sharing this it might bother some of you.
40:55-41:05
The question is this, why did God choose to destroy Babylon in the way that he did in Revelation 17?
41:05-41:16
Meaning, why did God choose to destroy Babylon with the beast and the ten kings instead of a direct blast with a flag?
41:17-41:17
That was my question.
41:18-41:19
All through Revelation, what have we seen?
41:20-41:21
Plagues, right?
41:21-41:33
Seals and trumpets and bulls and seals and trumpets, and we've seen all these plagues, and then all of a sudden you get to Babylon, like Vegas on steroids, and God's like, we're gonna do something different here.
41:33-41:36
We're gonna use the antichrist and the 10 kings to destroy her.
41:37-41:41
Why didn't God just drop a giant rock on this city?
41:41-41:43
Like, he could have.
41:44-41:48
I mean, you're like, well, it says right here why he did it, it was in order to fulfill his word.
41:48-41:49
And again, I get that.
41:50-41:52
But why is this his word?
41:53-41:55
Why did he want it this way?
41:58-41:59
Here's the answer I came up with.
42:01-42:24
I wrote down in my notes, perhaps it's God's way of showing that sin and idolatry and everything that people worship that isn't named Jesus Christ, it all ends up self-destructing and bringing even more misery upon itself.
42:27-42:30
That prostitute, she reminds us something else about sin.
42:32-42:35
We dare not say in church that we're going to.
42:37-42:38
Sin is attractive.
42:40-42:40
Attractive.
42:42-42:54
That's why this prostitute was depicted as attractive and alluring and promising and fulfilling and that's why the world buys in and church, that's why you and I buy in.
42:55-42:55
Sin.
42:56-42:57
Because she's attractive.
42:59-43:01
She's never depicted as she really is.
43:02-43:09
empty, ugly, unsatisfying, condemning.
43:11-43:16
So as we close today, I want you to pray.
43:18-43:20
Not just today, today yes, but throughout this week.
43:21-43:23
I want you to have one prayer, if you would do this for me.
43:23-43:29
I want you to have one prayer that no matter what else you pray, I want you to include this one prayer in your prayers this week.
43:29-43:30
Will you do this?
43:30-43:34
I want you to pray that God will give you eyes to see your sin.
43:38-43:55
That we stop looking at sin like it's this attractive, vivacious woman, and seeing her for what she is, an ugly prostitute that brings nothing but misery.
43:58-43:59
You can't see it for what it is.
44:02-44:06
I want you to pray this week that God would give you eyes to see your sin for what it really is.
44:08-44:14
That unforgiveness in your life, maybe you've excused it and justified it.
44:17-44:19
Pray that God lets you see it for what it is.
44:20-44:21
Do you know what it is?
44:22-44:22
It's hatred.
44:23-44:25
It's murder according to Jesus.
44:26-44:28
It's the opposite of Christ-like behavior.
44:30-44:32
Pray that God will let you see your sin for what it is.
44:33-44:40
Pornography, as we've discussed, it has seduced you into bondage.
44:42-44:46
It destroys your walk with God, and it destroys your relationship with your spouse.
44:47-44:50
If you're not married, it destroys your relationship with a future spouse.
44:53-44:55
Pray that God would open your eyes I see it.
44:59-44:59
Idolatry.
45:00-45:14
Anything you've allowed to be more important in your life than Jesus Christ, even if it's something that looks like a good thing, but this thing has become more important in my life than worshiping Christ and walking with Christ and working for Christ.
45:17-45:20
Pray that God will let you see that thing for what it is.
45:21-45:21
as an idol.
45:25-45:33
And after you pray for God to open your eyes to see things as they are, pray for this nation to open its eyes.
45:35-45:47
Because God will make sure that everything that pathetically competes against Him will ultimately be destroyed.
45:49-45:54
In chapter 17, we see that God is going to destroy Babylon.
45:55-46:01
In chapter 18, what we're going to see is how her destruction devastates the entire world.
46:03-46:15
Father in heaven, we simply want to close our time in the Word here, asking that you would give us eyes to see.
46:17-46:21
Father, we are masters of being blind to our own sin.
46:23-46:32
We excuse it, we justify it, and there's a reason it's okay for us, or it's somebody else's fault, or whatever.
46:34-46:36
But sin is sin. It's idolatry.
46:38-46:44
And I pray, God, that You would give us eyes to see it for what it is.
46:46-46:47
Let us start there.
46:49-47:06
Father, after you do that work in our hearts, I pray that we would be people who pray for our nation, a nation of sexual immorality, a nation that fights about whether it should be legal to murder a baby.
47:10-47:16
Sort of like Isaiah, "I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
47:16-47:17
God, open our eyes.
47:19-47:25
Open our eyes in ourselves, in our families, in our church, in our community, and Father of this nation.
47:28-47:30
Please, God, let us see sin for what it really is.
47:31-47:32
We pray in Jesus' name.
47:33-47:33
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 17

GROUP

What was your big “take-away” from the passage / sermon?
Explain: the prostitute, the waters, the beast, the heads, and the horns. What do they symbolize? What is their connection?
Rev 17:16-17 - Why does God put it in the 10 kings’ hearts to unite with the beast? Why does God choose to destroy Babylon THIS way, instead of with a plague?

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another to have eyes to see sin as God does. First for yourself, then for your nation.

Jeff Miller

May 12, 2019

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon: Judgment, Phase 3: The Bowls, Part 2

Jeff Miller

May 12, 2019

Coming Soon!

The 1st Bowl: SORES (Rev 16:2)

The 2nd Bowl: SEAS into Blood (Rev 16:3)

The 3rd Bowl: FRESHWATER into blood. (Rev 16:4-7)

The 4th Bowl: scorching HEAT (Rev 16:8-9)

The 5th bowl: DARKNESS on the kingdom.(Rev 16:10-11)

The 6th bowl: Euphrates DRIED up.(Rev 16:12-16)

The 7th bowl: Earth is SHAKEN! (Rev 16:17-21)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:18-00:20
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to Revelation.
00:20-00:22
We're going to be in chapter 16.
00:23-00:36
While you're turning there, we do want to take today, as Brian said, "Happy Mother's Day." Now, when I say "Happy Mother's Day," I understand that not all ladies are mothers, but you may have been a mother figure to somebody.
00:36-00:39
Yesterday, our family did our Mother's Day tour.
00:39-00:51
We went and saw Aaron's mom, then we went and saw my mom, and then we went and saw another lady who, Though she has never had any biological children of her own, we consider her like mom to us.
00:51-00:53
An extra mom, so we are so blessed by that.
00:53-00:55
And that might be you for somebody else.
00:55-01:02
So as a way of saying thank you for being a mom or a mom figure, ladies, there are flowers in the hall on the way out.
01:02-01:03
How many are they supposed to take her in?
01:03-01:05
You can take one to three flowers, right?
01:06-01:07
So choose your own adventure there.
01:07-01:15
But it's just our hospitality team and our church's way of saying thank you so much, moms, for all that you do.
01:15-01:25
So, when I do the preaching calendar, I take a week in July, and I do the preaching calendar for the whole year, starting October all the way to September.
01:26-01:47
And there's a lot of things you have to think about when you do the preaching calendar, because you have to think about, you know, there's Christmas, and there's Easter, and you've got to be... New Testament content, and Old Testament content, and maybe a topical series, and we have some guest speakers, and there's a lot of pieces to sort of fit in the puzzle, okay?
01:47-02:01
And it just hit me a week or two ago that I might have done a bad thing this year, and that it's Mother's Day, and we are looking at probably the most horrifying chapter in the entire Bible.
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So, moms, we love you, but at the same time we are committed to preaching the Word of God, a verse at a time, straight through, and we love God's Word, and we love Jesus.
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And if you brought your mother today, and this is your mother's first time, you're like, "Mom, I'd like you to meet those dear, sweet people at our church." And your mother walks out of here just like white as a sheet, like, "Don't ever invite me back to that church again." But you know, in Revelation 16, there is something in this chapter that reminds me of moms.
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You're like, "Oh, I can't wait to hear this." is. You're gonna see this, okay? So I want you to mark this. You're gonna see this.
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It reminds me of moms. But moms have a way, when they're disciplining their children, moms have a way of letting the punishment fit the crime. Moms, do you know what I'm talking about? Because if I asked your kids, they probably know what I'm talking about. In disciplines, moms are the masters of letting the punishment fit the crime. I was reading some of these this week, and I jotted some down and I wanted to share a couple ways that some mothers had let the punishment fit the crime and this is sort of a Mother's Day gift for you. You can use these, okay? I found these online and you can use these and you don't have to thank me and your kids are going to hate me for this, but here's a couple things that I saw punishment fitting the crime. The one mother posted that when her children use bathroom words at the dinner table and you know what bathroom words are-- I'm not going to give you an example.
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OK, when your kids use bathroom words at the dinner table, instead of dessert, you have to go scrub the bathroom.
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I'm like, that's appropriate, right?
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The punishment fits the crime.
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Another-- I love this one.
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Another one is this mother had a son that kept correcting her.
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No matter what she said, her son would be like, well, actually, mother, the truth of it.
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And it just drove her insane.
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I see some heads turning looking at people that may or may not do that.
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But the son was always correcting, always correcting, and the mother was just like it or what's that.
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So she said, "Here's what I do.
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"Now, when my son corrects me on something, "I make him write a five-page paper on that subject.
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"He might find out that he's right, "he might find out that he's wrong, "but it kept him busy for two or three hours." And you know, I got thinking, there's a whole bunch of other ones, you can look these up.
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But I got to thinking about punishment fitting to crime, punishment fitting to crime, Mother's Day, all that stuff.
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And I thought, you know, probably the most common one, I'm sure it resonates with a lot of us.
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We've either done it or we've received it.
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But when you use dirty words, your mother washes your mouth out with.
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Okay, how many people, show of hands, how many people have been the recipient of a mouth soaping?
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Wow, like all of you.
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I hope you learned your lesson.
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I hope you don't use that word anymore.
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It happened to me once when I was a kid.
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I said some pretty bad things to, our younger brother, and I'm on the way home from, you know, shopping or whatever, and my mom grabbed me and tilted my head back and she dispensed soft soap into my mouth.
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It was all like, "Ugh!" But the punishment fit the crime.
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But when we get to Revelation 16, ultra-serious now, when we get to Revelation 16, the punishment fitting the crime, we're going to see this concept on a global theological scale.
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And I want you, before we look at the, we're gonna go through verse at a time here, but I want you to just jump down to verse six real quick.
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The last phrase in verse six, I want you to underline that in your Bible.
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Last phrase in verse six, where an angel commenting on the actions of God, the judgments of God.
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Look at this last phrase.
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This angel says, "It is what they deserve." You're gonna see that theme throughout this chapter.
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God's going to give people what they deserve.
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The punishment is going to fit the crime.
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God is just.
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And Revelation outlining the culmination, the consummation of all things includes the judgment of God.
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And God is giving those who have rejected Him and killed His people what they deserve.
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The punishment fits the crime.
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So this is it.
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This is the final outpouring of God's wrath before the return of Jesus Christ.
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Are you ready?
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Look at verse 1.
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John says, "Then I heard a loud voice from the temple." in heaven. We talked about that. Then I heard a lot of voice from the temple telling the seven angels go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God. Okay, this is God's voice and these judgments that are coming on the earth are purely expressions of vengeance and what you're going to see is these are given in a very specific order. These seven bowls, these seven manifestations of God's judgment. It's in a very specific order because they have a cumulative effect and the purpose here is to maximize suffering. So let's look at the first bowl. If you're taking notes and the messages end up on our website.
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If you want to listen through this again, if you miss some things we're going to go through this rather quickly because there's a lot to cover. The first bowl sores. Sores. Look at verse 2. "So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image." So these sores, your Bible says, are harmful and painful. Interestingly, those are two different words in the Greek, and both of those words in the Greek mean evil. So in our vernacular, it would be like John saying, "They were horrible and terrible sores." Okay, they weren't these little ouchy boo-boos. John saw these horribly disgusting, painful, festering, inflamed, oozing sores. Untreatable and unprecedented and only affecting those who have rejected God. Okay, the people who have rejected God, rejected Christ.
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I'm going to align myself with the beast, with the Antichrist, with his empire.
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I'm going to receive his mark." And God says, "Fine.
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You wanted the mark of the beast?
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Well, here are some more marks on your body that are gonna go with that deal." So the first bowl, these horrible, painful seals.
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Look at the second one, verse three.
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"The second bowl, the seas turn into blood." Says, "The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea and it became like the blood of a corpse and every living thing died that was in the sea.
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It was like the first plague in Egypt back in Exodus 7.20.
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And the second trumpet, which was in Revelation 8.9.
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The water's turning to blood, the only difference is this time it's worldwide.
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The earth is somewhere around 70% ocean.
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So this is going to be absolutely devastating.
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All of the waters of the ocean waters of the earth turning to blood, thick and dark and coagulated.
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And he says everything in the oceans die.
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And that's a problem, because that's the very foundation of our food chain.
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And suddenly, it's all dead.
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Look at the third bowl.
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Fresh water into blood.
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Verse 4, he says, "The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood." So what happens to the oceans is devastating, but the fresh water supply becoming blood, oh, that's even worse.
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There's no water to drink.
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There's no water to wash your sores.
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And there's no water to even refresh yourself from the upcoming fourth bowl, spoiler alert.
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You're gonna need some water for that.
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Verse five, "And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, 'Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments.
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For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, it is what they deserve." Now this is very important, these two verses, because just to be clear, make no mistake, this isn't science as people want to explain it away.
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This isn't some ecological anomaly that we're going to try to explain by natural processes.
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No, no. The angel says, "This is God." This is God.
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And to the people on the earth who have rejected God, who shed the blood of God's people, do you see what he's saying?
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He goes, "You like blood? You want blood?
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Well, guess what? Drink up. Drink up." He says, "It's what they deserve.
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They shed the blood of your people, God, so they can chug it down.
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It's what they deserve." Wow.
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Verse 7 says, "And I heard the altar saying, And yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments." And here it seems like the very altar spoke.
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Personally, I don't believe that it was an inanimate object speaking.
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I don't think that the altar itself was speaking.
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I believe that this is referring to the people that were near the altar.
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See, my understanding of this, it would sort of be like if I was walking into church today and walking past the kids' area, And I said to you, "Man, the whole children's area was laughing.
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The whole children's area was laughing." And I walked away, you wouldn't go, "Does he mean all the furniture and toys were laughing in the children's area and the walls and the carpet?" Like, no, you wouldn't know what I meant by that.
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Like all the kids in the kids' area, the children's area was laughing.
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That's how I understand this, because in chapter six, the saints were praying for vengeance, where? Under the altar, right?
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So I believe it's these saints, when he says, "And I heard the altar," I believe it's those saints saying, "Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just "are your judgments." In other words, they heard what the angel said.
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Okay, you wanna shed blood?
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You're gonna drink blood.
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And all of these saints basically right here are saying, "Amen!" Do you remember what amen means?
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Amen means yes, yes, God, that's right.
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It's the third bowl, the fresh water turns into blood.
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The fourth bowl, scorching heat.
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Look at verse eight, "A fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire.
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They were scorched by the fierce heat." Stop there for a second.
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So the first three angels, they pour out their bowls on the earth.
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This one pours out his bowl on the sun.
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Remember God himself created the sun and he created the sun to give us warmth and life and the plants grow.
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And he created it as a sort of a servant for man, you could say, but here, The sun itself turns into an instrument of judgment as God walks over to his thermostat on his wall in heaven and cranks it up.
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So the sun, obviously burning people, it would be a huge, indescribable type of suffering.
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But that's not the only problem that would result from this.
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With the sun being cranked up, it would also melt the polar ice caps.
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I did some studying this week.
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If the polar ice caps were to melt under such conditions, do you know how high the water level would raise?
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200 feet.
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How do you think that would affect coastal cities?
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If suddenly the water level rose 200 feet.
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Oh, and by the way, what kind of water is it?
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Yeah, bloody, nasty, full of dead creatures, that kind of water, devastating coastal city.
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It would destroy coastal cities.
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And you read this and you're like, man, sores and all the blood, and now they're burning.
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Like at this point, surely people are like, "God, I am sorry! I am so sorry!
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And we know this is You doing this!
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And I am so sorry!" Right? Right?
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Isn't that what you kind of expect at this point?
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Well, look at verse 9.
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"They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues." In case you don't know what that means, he explains that.
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He says, "They did not repent and give Him glory." Oh no, they're not going to fall on their faces and cry for forgiveness.
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They're going to curse God, who they know is the source of these plagues.
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They know that God is doing this, and they know that they should turn from their sin and turn to this merciful God who saves and redeems through Jesus Christ.
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They know that, but they absolutely refuse to repent.
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Take a note of that, because we're going to see that again.
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"A scorching heat as the fourth bowl." The fifth bowl.
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Darkness on the kingdom.
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Look at v. 10.
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It says, "The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
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People gnawed their tongues and anguished and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores." Notice the sores didn't heal.
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"They did not repent of their deeds." So apparently the darkness affects only the beast's kingdom.
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Like, how is that even possible?
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How is it possible for darkness to just cover part of the world?
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You know what? God's done it before, right?
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Remember in Egypt? He did it before.
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And I don't need to figure out how God does anything.
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He creates worlds by speaking.
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This isn't going to be anything difficult for him.
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But we have this cumulative effect.
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If you can try to wrap your brains around this, I've been trying all week and I can't.
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But think of covered with sores, and all the water is bloody, nasty, and this intense heat.
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I mean, it's warm in here today.
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This is nothing compared to the intense heat.
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And, "Oh, I just would like a drink of water, but there's not even water to drink." And then God turns the lights out.
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Why would He do that?
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Here's why I think He does that.
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The punishment fits the crime, right?
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Punishment fits the crime.
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Do you remember what Jesus said?
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John 3, verse 19.
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Jesus said, "Men love darkness rather than light." They don't want to come into the light and their deeds are exposed.
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Do you remember that?
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Jesus said, "Men love darkness." I think that's what's going on here.
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God says, "Oh, you like darkness, do you?
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All right, I'll just turn out the lights, And you can sit and suffer in the dark.
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Absolutely horrifying.
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And it says that their pain was so great, did you see at the end of verse 10, people gnawed their tongues in anguish.
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I'm going to be honest with you, I can't relate.
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I've been in some pain before, but I've never been in such horrible pain that I've gnawed my own tongue because it hurt.
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And you talk about the irony of punishment fitting the crime.
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They're gnawing their own tongues in anguish.
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the very tongues that they're using to blaspheme God, God's like, "Just chew on your tongue then.
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If you're going to use that tongue to curse me, you can just sit and chew on it." The sixth bowl, Euphrates.
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Euphrates dried up.
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Euphrates dried up. Look at verse 12.
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"The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and the water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east." Stop there for a second.
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I want to be honest with you, this seems a little out of place, right?
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We have suffering, suffering, suffering on people, on people, on people, on people.
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And then you get to the sixth bowl, and the angel shows up, and you think, "This one's going to be really bad." He's like, "I'm going to dry up this river." What?
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He's not attacking humanity, but it's very clear from the passage he's preparing for what is to come.
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You're like, "Well, what's going on here?" Well, the Euphrates River was seen for ages as the boundary between the East and the West.
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Now, if you've been going with us through this study, we talked about the Euphrates back in 9.14 with the sixth trumpet judgment.
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Do you remember what happened at the Euphrates with the sixth trumpet?
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Two hundred million demons were released.
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Do you remember that? And they attacked mankind.
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So what's going on here? Here's what I think is going on with this bowl.
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I imagine at this point in human history, nobody's going to want to go near the Euphrates River.
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Right? Because that was like the point of origin where all the demons...
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I imagine people did everything they could to avoid that area.
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But God has other plans.
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He needs people to come to this area for what's coming ahead.
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So He makes sure that this angel shows up basically to pave the way for them.
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Like, "Look, we're going to make this way nice and clear.
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We're going to remove the waters, which were probably nasty, and it's going to be nice and clear." You're like, "Well, that's really nice of God to do that, clear the way for them.
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Well, God's not doing them a favor, because we're going to see in just a couple of chapters, God wants to bring everyone who hates Him, everyone who hates God, God wants to bring them all to one area for the final showdown.
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We're going to take care of this once and for all." You're going to see that here in a second.
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He's bringing them together to be slaughtered.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, hang on a second, Pastor Jeff.
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Why in the world would people make this trip through the heat and the sores and the darkness?
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I mean, wouldn't you think at this point in history, with everything that everybody's endured, they'd be like, "You know what? God, you win. I'm just going to lay here and die." What could possibly entice these people to go fight against God?
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I mean, what could possibly entice somebody to do something That idiotic!
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Let's go fight God?
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What in the world would get people to do that?
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I'm glad you asked that question, because look back at the text.
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It says, "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.
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For they are demonic spirits performing signs who will go abroad to the kings of the whole world to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.
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So from the dragon, that's Satan.
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From the beast, that's the Antichrist.
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And from the false prophets, these three demons come out.
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And John, remember we've said this so many times, John's not explaining as much as he is describing.
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And like, "John, what did those demons look like?
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What did they look like?" Shout it out.
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"Frogs! I mean, how creepy is that?" And I don't think it was like Kermit the Frog, okay?
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Like a real, if you picture a real frog with the big buggy eyes and the slimy mouth,
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(gagging)
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it was this, he's like, it was this disgusting looking thing.
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The only thing I can think to compare it to, he said they were like, they look kind of like frogs.
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To these demons, it says they influenced and enticed the kings of the earth, 10 of them, we're going to see that in chapter 17.
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So these demons show up, and they entice the kings of the earth, "It's time to fight against God." They probably make quite a show of it.
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"Look, we have the power, we have the numbers, God spent His power, we can take them.
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And what we're going to do is we're going to assemble, and we're going to fight.
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We're going to fight! We're going to fight!" It was like some locker room thing, "He's getting everybody, I'll fire it up, we're going to go, yeah, we're going to go fight against God!" And that's the showdown we're going to see in chapter 19.
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I'm not going to spoil it for you.
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You can read ahead if you want.
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But let's just say it's not much of a fight.
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Pretty lopsided.
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But He convinces them, "Let's go fight." Verse 15, we have a little parenthetical statement here.
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"Behold," this is Jesus speaking, "Behold, I am coming like a thief.
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Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed." Wow, I had almost a whole other sermon prepared just from this statement, and maybe for another time.
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just for today.
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This is a parenthetical statement to encourage believers before the seventh bowl.
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And here's the short version of the sermon.
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It's God has not forgotten you.
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The people living through this at this point might feel like, where's God?
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And the interjection here is, look, God hasn't forgotten you.
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You who've been faithful, here's a word of encouragement, here's a word of exhortation.
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Be ready, be ready.
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The imagery here is like a soldier being on duty, right?
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Be dressed, be ready, because Christ's return is like a thief, right?
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Sudden and unexpected.
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Sudden and unexpected.
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And then it says, "And they assembled them," back to the judgment here, "and they assembled them at the place," that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
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So the nations are gathering at this place, which literally is Har, which means hill country, Megiddo, Har-Megiddo, which is where we get the word Armageddon.
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You're like, what's that?
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Well, it's a hill country 60 miles north of Jerusalem.
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It's prophesied in the Old Testament in the last days, Jerusalem is going to be attacked, and God's going to make sure that everyone gets in Jerusalem's neighborhood, and that's exactly where Har Megiddo is.
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But before the battle, and I use that term loosely, the seventh and final bowl must be poured out.
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Here's the last one, the seventh bowl.
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The seventh bowl, the earth is shaken.
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Look at verse 17.
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It says, "The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, 'It is done!'" Okay, so the bowl gets poured out under the air, and God Himself declares, "It is done." "It is done." Love that phrase. I love that phrase.
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Because God's not like a lot of us guys who start a project and don't finish it.
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Come on, any guy in here besides me?
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Anyone besides me?
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Start a project and don't finish it?
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"Oh, okay, a couple of you are man enough to confess?" God's not like that.
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God's not like that.
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Remember what Jesus said when he was on the cross?
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John chapter 19.
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Remember when he cried out?
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It is finished.
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Your salvation was purchased by Jesus Christ.
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That's how much God loves you.
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And in the midst of these horrible events, I feel that we need to remind you, God loves you.
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God doesn't delight in the death of the wicked.
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God's not taking pleasure in this.
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If you say, "God, what do you want people to do?" God says, "I want people to get saved.
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I want people to receive my salvation in Jesus Christ.
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And when Jesus was on the cross, He cried out, "It is finished! It's done!" The work for salvation has been totally accomplished by Jesus Christ.
24:53-24:56
You can't add anything to it. You can't take anything away from it.
24:57-25:00
You don't earn it. You don't deserve it. It's a gift that God wants you to receive.
25:01-25:01
It is done.
25:02-25:22
And we get to Revelation 21, verse 6, Right after Jesus said, "Behold, I'm making all things new," He says, "It is done." So this project of preparing eternity for the people of God, Jesus says, "It is done." So, right here we're talking about the judgment on the earth.
25:22-25:35
And God says again, verse 18, "And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth." So great was the earthquake.
25:35-25:37
The worst earthquake ever.
25:37-25:45
God grabs the entire earth with His hand and just shakes it, changing the entire landscape of the earth.
25:45-25:46
Look at verse 19.
25:46-25:52
"The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.
25:52-26:00
And God remembered Babylon the Great to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath.
26:00-26:15
And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found, and great hailstones, about 100 pounds each, fell from heaven on people, and they cursed God for the plague of the hail because the plague was so severe." The great city is Jerusalem.
26:16-26:18
We know that from chapter 11, verse 8.
26:18-26:23
It's distinguished from the cities of the nations that he mentions here in the text.
26:23-26:28
Jerusalem is going to be raised up as the capital city for Christ's reign.
26:28-26:29
We're going to talk about that down the road.
26:29-26:32
But do you notice he mentions Babylon.
26:32-26:39
He's like, "God remembered Babylon the great. What is Babylon?" Well, Babylon is the capital of the beast's empire.
26:39-26:44
"I can't believe you didn't say very much about that." Well, the next two chapters are all about Babylon.
26:44-26:47
Okay, so we're going to get into that the next couple of weeks.
26:48-26:51
But he talks about hailstones falling from heaven on people.
26:52-26:53
Now, these aren't the normal hailstones.
26:54-26:57
When we think of hailstones, what's hail made out of?
26:57-26:59
What we think of it, what's it made out of?
27:00-27:00
Ice, right?
27:00-27:26
the balls of ice and actually in the Greek the word "hail" refers to anything falling from the sky and the word "stone" in the Greek always and only refers to something made out of rock. So if you're looking at this passage straightforwardly, God is dropping hundred-pound rocks on people at this point. And what do they do? As the rocks are falling, do you see the last phrase?
27:26-27:57
here it is again, and they curse God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe. So, this is... I know there's some people sitting here thinking, "This is absolutely horrible. This is horrible. How could a loving God bring such judgment? This is just way too harsh. This is too harsh. A loving God wouldn't do something like this. I'm going to a church where they talk about about our loving God, because this is harsh.
27:57-27:58
This is too harsh.
27:58-28:01
Let's discuss the harshness of God for a minute, shall we?
28:01-28:03
Can we discuss the harshness of God?
28:03-28:09
I want you to consider for a second what God has provided and what He has promised through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
28:10-28:12
This is how harsh God is.
28:12-28:49
Though we are rebellious and basically spit in God's face from birth, God came to this earth Himself in the form of a man, Jesus Christ and suffered the most horrible, brutal, humiliating, painful death a human being could ever experience. He did that for you. He rose from the dead to give you the promise of the Holy Spirit, right? And we have—well, the Holy Spirit—God Himself lives and dwells inside of his people. God wants to personally indwell you and guide and encourage you and give you wisdom.
28:50-28:52
And He promised to never leave you or forsake you.
28:53-28:57
He promised to provide every single thing that is needed.
28:57-29:02
And though life can be hard, we all experience blessings from time to time, right?
29:02-29:05
Family, friends, work, children.
29:06-29:15
We have this promise of eternity in heaven, a place of constant joy and fulfillment and forever free of anything that would ever cause any kind of pain.
29:16-29:18
And you're like, "I think God's harsh." Really?
29:18-29:19
Let me ask you this.
29:20-29:26
If you think God is harsh, I want you to consider what God's provided in the gospel and what he's promised in the gospel.
29:27-29:28
I just want to ask you a question.
29:29-29:36
What else could God do that would make you think, "Now I think he's loving." Is there anything else that God could do?
29:36-29:38
Anything, anything at all?
29:38-29:38
Shout it out.
29:39-29:43
Anything at all that you think would make God more gracious and more loving than he is?
29:44-29:44
Anything at all?
29:44-29:45
Shout it out.
29:45-30:09
anything. What is it? What could it possibly be? What could God possibly give you that He hasn't already given you when He's given you Himself? And, okay, this is our God. And did you see the response of people to God in this chapter? And we see some of this in our day today. But the response of people, "I don't want you. I don't want your Son.
30:09-30:14
I don't want your wisdom. I don't want your word. I don't want anything to do with you.
30:14-30:18
I'm going to live life on my own terms, thank you very much.
30:18-30:22
And by the way, the people who do want to worship you, God, I'm going to kill them.
30:22-30:34
So, in the face of such cursing and hostility towards such a God, the question I really want you to answer is, "What should God do?" What should God do in light of all of this?
30:34-30:35
What should God do?
30:36-30:48
And before we get all indignant towards God for the judgments that we see in this chapter, I want to remind you in verses 9 and 11, it says that they refused to repent.
30:48-30:51
This is the last mention in Revelation of people refusing to repent.
30:52-30:53
This is it. This is last call.
30:54-30:57
Oh, they could have repented. Technically, they could have repented.
30:57-30:58
But they refused.
30:59-31:02
And honestly, at this point, repentance isn't even on their radar.
31:02-31:09
These people aren't sitting here thinking, "Should I curse God or should I repent?" It's autopilot. I'm cursing God.
31:09-31:15
And this is a bitter truth, church, and I wish it were otherwise for people's sake.
31:16-31:18
But the bitter truth is some people just will not repent.
31:19-31:20
That's hard to swallow.
31:20-31:24
Some people will not repent. Some people will not turn to God.
31:24-31:27
Some people will not receive His gift of salvation.
31:27-31:28
So what should God do?
31:29-31:34
And somebody would say, "Let them into heaven anyways!" Really? Is that your solution?
31:35-31:37
So you want to let them into heaven anyways?
31:37-31:39
Well, can we bark up that tree for a second?
31:40-31:47
You're telling me somebody that spent their entire life saying, "I don't want God. I don't want God's truth. I don't want to worship God.
31:47-31:51
I don't want to be around God's people." Do you know what heaven is?
31:51-31:56
God, God's truth, worshiping God, God's people.
31:56-32:05
Do you think those people are going to be happy in heaven when every minute of every day is filled with the things that they say they hate so much?
32:06-32:07
They're going to be miserable in heaven.
32:08-32:09
Heaven's not the place for them.
32:09-32:13
So God is preparing a different place for them.
32:13-32:16
Well, some have thought, you know, maybe, you know, maybe there's another chance.
32:17-32:19
Maybe, maybe some people have said this.
32:19-32:21
Maybe you can repent in hell.
32:22-32:29
Maybe, maybe, maybe the suffering of hell is so bad that it's going to make people want to repent.
32:30-32:31
Have you ever thought that?
32:31-32:52
Hell's so bad that there's going to be people in hell that it's just, "Oh, the suffering, the suffering is so bad, I just want to repent right now." And the answer is, "No way." Because if you think that suffering softens the heart of someone who has not allowed Jesus Christ, His rightful place in their life, then you haven't been listening to a word I've said for the past however long I've been speaking.
32:52-33:00
Because as God is unleashing the worst suffering on earth, verse 9, verse 11, verse 21, all through this chapter, what did they do?
33:01-33:01
They cursed God.
33:02-33:03
What do you think is happening in hell right now?
33:04-33:09
Do you think people were crying, "I wish I could repent," or do you think people were crying out curses to God?
33:09-33:15
Under judgment, instead of forsaking their sin, they doubled down on it and increased it.
33:15-33:18
And I ask you again, what should God do about that?
33:19-33:28
These God rejecters have not only ignored the preaching of God's people, they've massacred God's people, and God is going to execute judgment for His people.
33:28-33:39
So, in light of God's grace that's available right now, And in light of God's judgment that is coming, maybe the question isn't what should God do?
33:39-33:44
Maybe the question that you need to ask is, what should I, let's pray.
33:45-33:48
Father in heaven, Father in heaven, we echo what the angel said.
33:49-33:53
Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was.
33:54-33:55
God, we echo that.
33:56-34:02
We echo those who cried out under the altar, yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments.
34:02-34:09
And God, nobody likes to think of anybody suffering like this, especially you.
34:10-34:26
But God, you have made it very clear that when people have chosen to reject their Creator, when people have chosen to reject their Savior, when people have despised the blood of the Lamb, the only alternative is to face your judgment.
34:26-34:44
God, I pray today that somebody sitting here or somebody listening to this podcast later down the road, I pray, Father, that you would get people's attention with the seriousness of your Word in regards to these actions that you will execute.
34:45-34:46
These aren't idle threats.
34:47-34:49
This isn't just some kind of a warning of what might happen, God.
34:49-34:53
This is a written account of what's going to happen.
34:54-34:55
So use your Word, Father.
34:56-35:03
I ask, God, that you use your Word to bring people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, through whom you've demonstrated your love.
35:04-35:06
We pray in His glorious name.
35:06-35:08
All of God's people said, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 16

GROUP

What was your big “take-away” from the passage / message?
Which of the bowl judgments seemed most horrifying to you? Why?
What is the purpose of verse 15? How would you restate that, and apply that, to today?
Why would People, in the face of all this suffering, curse God instead of repent (Rev 16:9, 11, 21)? How do you see this attitude play out today?
How would you respond to someone who says, “This is too harsh! A loving God wouldn’t do stuff like this!”

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

May 5, 2019

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon: Judgment, Phase 3: The Bowls, Part 1

Jeff Miller

May 5, 2019

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon: The Bowls, Part 1. (Revelation 15)

Intro:

The Prelude to the End

The PRAISE (Rev 15:1-4)
The PREPARATION (Rev 15:3)

See: Mark 11:24 | Romans 4:20 | Acts 16:25-26 | John 11:41 | Philippians 4:6

Revelation 15:3-4

I praise you, God, because you are at WORK (Rev 15:3)
I praise you, God, because you always do what is RIGHT (Rev 15:3)
I praise you, God, because what you promised WILL HAPPEN. (Rev 15:4)

Amen

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 15

What was your big “take-away” from the passage / message?
What is the purpose of music in worship? What does it tell you that worship in heaven is to music (Rev 15:2)?
Do your personal prayers reflect faith by thanking God for what He WILL DO? Why or why not? How will you pray in faith and thanksgiving this week?

Breakout

Pray with one another - prayers of faith and thanksgiving for what God WILL DO.

Jeff Miller

April 28, 2019

Spiritual Disciplines

When You Fast… (Matthew 6:16-18)

Jeff Miller

April 28, 2019

Spiritual Disciplines

Intro / Review:

What is fasting?

Abstaining from food (and/or other things) for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.

Fasting is NOT:

Fasting IS:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Am I hungry for ATTENTION ? (Mat 6:16)
...Or Am I hungry for GOD ? (Mat 6:17-18)

Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:18-00:22
Open up your Bibles with me please to Matthew chapter 6.
00:23-00:28
This is part 3 of a 3-part message from Matthew 6 that we started I think in January.
00:28-00:33
And next week we will be back in Revelation for 2 months and finish that book.
00:33-00:38
And that will take us all the way to July when we have the Fantastic Four coming in and preaching.
00:39-00:43
So people from our own church will be bringing the messages in July.
00:43-00:52
In Matthew 6, "When you fast..." And the key to all three of these sermons is really Matthew 6.1.
00:52-01:23
Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." That word for "seen," reminder, is the Greek word "theotomi," which is where we get the word "theater." Jesus is saying, when you do religious actions, for lack of a better phrase, so that people see you doing them, not for God, but so that people see you, Jesus said you're putting on a performance.
01:24-01:27
You want applause, you want pats on the back, you want attention.
01:27-01:33
And specifically, Jesus goes after three things that God's people are expected to do.
01:33-01:36
And the first one is giving to the needy, right?
01:36-01:38
I don't have to give much of a sales pitch for that, do I?
01:38-01:42
We see someone in need, it's our responsibility to give to the needy.
01:42-01:46
And the second one is praying. I don't have to give much of a sales pitch for praying, right?
01:46-01:48
God's people are expected to pray.
01:49-01:52
But the third thing on the list is fasting.
01:53-01:55
And I gotta be honest with you, I feel like I'm playing from behind here.
01:55-02:03
Because while people recognize that giving and praying are normal things for Christians, fasting? Like, really?
02:04-02:05
Well, look at verse 16.
02:05-02:09
Jesus said, just his first phrase here, but look at his phrase, this is huge.
02:10-02:17
Jesus said, "And when you fast," same phrasing he used for giving and praying.
02:17-02:20
And it's just as expected.
02:20-02:24
Fasting is just as expected as giving and praying.
02:24-02:29
We're going to talk about fasting and what it is and what it means, and it's going to be easy for people to tune out.
02:30-02:34
But I want you to see what the Bible actually says about fasting, all right?
02:35-02:42
It's a hard sell in this culture, because we are absolutely obsessed with food in our culture.
02:43-02:43
True or false?
02:44-02:45
We're obsessed with food.
02:45-02:51
We don't like to eat something unless we first take a picture of it.
02:52-03:00
Like, "Oh, this alphabet soup looks so alphabetty." And I know my friends want to know that I'm eating alphabet soup.
03:00-03:01
And we take pictures of it.
03:01-03:04
And look, if that's your thing, I'm not criticizing you.
03:04-03:07
I'm just saying true or false, that's a reality of our culture.
03:07-03:07
Don't we do that?
03:08-03:09
We do that.
03:09-03:14
That's only the thing that completely baffles me about our culture, eating contests.
03:15-03:20
And I think, you know, one time I think it was on ESPN, there was an eating contest.
03:20-03:22
And I'm like, this is a sport really?
03:22-03:27
And what must other countries where you have starving people what must they think when they see that?
03:28-03:32
Like we don't have enough money to feed our, or enough food, excuse me, to feed our family.
03:32-03:35
But these people are having eating contests.
03:36-03:39
I looked this up this week, 'cause I'm familiar like you are.
03:39-03:44
We're probably most familiar with the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, right?
03:44-03:47
How many of you have at least heard of the Hot Dog Eating Contest, right?
03:47-03:50
Most of us have heard of the Hot Dog Eating Contest.
03:50-03:55
But you know, that's not the only eating contest that we have in our culture, our food obsessed culture.
03:56-03:57
There's a taco eating contest.
03:58-04:00
There's a chicken wing eating contest.
04:01-04:04
There's a guyoza eating contest.
04:04-04:05
Does anybody know what a guyoza is?
04:06-04:07
I had to look this one up.
04:07-04:09
It's a meat and vegetable filled dumpling.
04:11-04:18
There's a gyro eating contest or gyro for the cultured among us, I guess.
04:18-04:22
Okay, how about the, there's an oyster eating contest.
04:22-04:26
Oysters, Matthew Gates, how many oysters do you think you can get down?
04:26-04:29
Three, oh, zero, I thought you were like three.
04:29-04:31
He's like, no, no, no, this is the part you look at.
04:32-04:33
I was like, wow, that's three more than me.
04:33-04:35
Okay, deep fried asparagus.
04:36-04:38
There's a deep fried asparagus eating contest.
04:38-04:42
And there is a slug burger eating contest.
04:42-04:44
And I know what you're thinking.
04:44-04:45
What is a slug burger?
04:46-04:47
You look that one up on your own time.
04:47-04:48
I don't care to know.
04:49-04:52
But there is a slug burger eating contest.
04:52-04:55
But of all these eating contests, here's the one that really got my attention.
04:55-05:02
There's an eating contest for the consumption of a 72 ounce steak, a 72 ounce steak.
05:03-05:12
And I read of this individual who took this challenge, a woman, oh, it gets better, a 120 pound woman.
05:13-05:15
Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second, Pastor Jeff.
05:15-05:19
You're telling me that 120 pound woman ate a 72 ounce steak?
05:20-05:22
I'm not telling you that, she ate three of them.
05:23-05:25
Oh, no, no, it gets better, it gets better.
05:26-05:27
You're like, "She ate three 72-ounce steaks.
05:28-05:32
She ate three 72-ounce steaks in 20 minutes." Oh, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
05:33-05:36
I'm gonna give you time to get your gasp out like for all of it.
05:36-05:47
She ate not only three 72-ounce steaks in 20 minutes, but with that, she ate three baked potatoes, three shrimp cocktails, three salads, and three buttered rolls.
05:47-05:50
Yeah, we have a food-obsessed culture.
05:50-05:53
They're like, "We're gonna talk about fasting today." You're gonna talk about what?
05:53-05:55
We have so many TV shows about foods.
05:56-06:00
We have TV shows about people that just travel around and eat stuff.
06:00-06:06
Look, again, I'm not criticizing if this is your thing, but have you ever sat and watched somebody else eat?
06:06-06:07
It's disgusting.
06:07-06:12
And we watch people traveling around, you know, eating these weird things.
06:12-06:16
And then we have all these TV shows about people that make cakes.
06:16-06:23
And so we have this one channel where people are traveling around and eating and they're making all these, you know, cakes the size of a Buick.
06:24-06:25
and we have on that channel.
06:26-06:36
And then we wonder why the other channel has a TV program on it called "My 600-lb Life" about people that, sad people who can't stop eating.
06:36-06:42
America is taught that life is about consuming, not refusing consumption.
06:43-06:50
And then we open our Bibles for a word from Jesus, and he says, "When you fast." Notice he didn't say, "If you fast," right?
06:50-06:51
He didn't say that.
06:51-06:57
He said, "When you fast." assuming that his people were going to fast.
06:58-07:02
And we're going to see what Jesus says about fasting.
07:02-07:08
The real question isn't even if you fast, the real question is for God's people, how you fast.
07:09-07:09
That's the real question.
07:10-07:12
Let's all get on the same page definition-wise.
07:12-07:12
What is fasting?
07:13-07:23
Fasting is abstaining from food and/or other things for measured periods of time in order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
07:23-07:26
Okay, so we're abstaining from food and/or other things, we'll talk about that in a second.
07:27-07:30
For measured periods of time, why would I do such a thing?
07:31-07:34
This last phrase is huge and you've got to get this or you're going to miss the whole sermon.
07:34-07:38
In order to heighten my hunger for the things of God.
07:39-07:40
There's different kinds of fasts.
07:40-07:45
There's a partial fast where you, maybe for a season you just have vegetables and juice.
07:46-07:55
There's the absolute fast where you say, "I'm not going to have anything at all." There's corporate fasts where we are going to fast together.
07:56-07:59
Now yes, it is true that you can fast from other things.
08:00-08:02
Look, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV.
08:02-08:09
I'm not a doctor, so I can't give you medical advice if you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, I have this health condition.
08:10-08:13
I'm not sure it's good for me to fast." Talk to your doctor about that, okay?
08:13-08:21
But if you have a health condition that you're like, "I absolutely cannot go without eating," you can certainly fast from other things, okay?
08:21-08:27
But primarily today, with that said, primarily today, we are going to talk about food.
08:27-08:33
Because that's what Jesus is talking about, and that is really the most common expected kind of fasting.
08:33-08:35
Through the Bible, fasting is connected with prayer.
08:35-08:37
We have so many examples throughout Scripture.
08:38-08:39
Jesus Himself fasted.
08:39-08:43
It's mentioned over 77 times in God's Word.
08:43-08:45
Fasting, various occasions.
08:45-08:47
Maybe it's repentance from sin.
08:47-08:50
Maybe you're in mourning over the loss of a loved one.
08:50-08:53
denying yourself to give to others.
08:53-08:55
That's Isaiah 58 type fasting.
08:55-08:58
Seeking God's wisdom at critical times.
08:58-09:01
That's what the early church did in the book of Acts, chapters 13 and 14.
09:02-09:04
We need God's wisdom and direction.
09:05-09:07
So we're going to church, we're going to fast.
09:08-09:12
And right now, somebody's thinking, I came to church on the wrong day.
09:12-09:17
I don't know where he's going with this because fasting is never commanded in the New Testament.
09:17-09:18
And that's true.
09:18-09:21
fasting is not ever commanded in the New Testament.
09:21-09:24
But Jesus just assumed that we would.
09:24-09:25
You can't get around that.
09:26-09:33
Jesus said, "When you fast." And the Greek tense of that phrase is habitual, customary.
09:33-09:35
Jesus says, "This is going to be part of your life.
09:35-09:41
So when you do it, our Lord expects that we're going to fast." And the early church did, okay?
09:42-09:45
So fasting is not, let's talk about that.
09:45-09:47
Fasting is not, everybody say fasting is not.
09:48-09:52
Fasting is not, first of all, if you're taking notes, fasting is not self-punishment, okay?
09:53-10:01
Like, oh, I was really bad and I committed these sins and I'm going to fast and like it's some sort of a self-punishment thing.
10:01-10:03
That's not what fasting is.
10:03-10:09
All of the punishment that you deserve, Jesus Christ took that on himself on the cross, okay?
10:09-10:13
There's no more punishment to be doled out if you're a born-again believer in Christ.
10:13-10:15
So fasting is not self-punishment.
10:15-10:19
Fasting is also, it's not, everybody say not.
10:19-10:21
Fasting is not self-serving.
10:22-10:25
Meaning somebody could hear a message on fasting and say, "Hey, you know what?
10:26-10:27
I could stand to lose a couple pounds.
10:28-10:33
So maybe I'll do a fast and there are some health benefits." And that's absolutely true.
10:33-10:41
There's tremendous health benefits from fasting and you might lose some weight, but that's not a motivation to fast biblically, okay?
10:42-10:45
We're talking about spiritual reasons for fasting.
10:45-10:49
And if you're like, well, two birds with one stone here, I'm just saying you gotta check your motives there.
10:49-10:50
It's not about self-serving.
10:51-10:53
The focus is on seeking the Lord.
10:54-10:58
Now fasting is not, everybody say not, it's not a bargaining chip.
10:59-11:00
Fasting is not a bargaining chip.
11:00-11:03
Like, all right, God, look, I really need this job.
11:04-11:05
And I'm going in for this job interview.
11:05-11:07
So I'm going to fast.
11:07-11:09
Now you make sure I get that job.
11:10-11:20
Almost like we're bringing some offer to the table and God's like, "Well, I guess I gotta get him that job because he's fasting." That's not what fasting is about.
11:20-11:21
It is not a bargaining chip.
11:22-11:26
Like, "Look, God, you have to cash in for me because I'm doing something for you." That is not what fasting is about.
11:27-11:29
Fasting is not, everybody say not.
11:29-11:32
Fasting is not something that makes you holy, okay?
11:32-11:34
Fasting does not make you holy.
11:35-11:36
Just a little bit of review from last Sunday.
11:37-11:38
Jesus Christ makes you holy.
11:39-11:41
He gives you his holiness.
11:41-11:46
You know, what was the sermon? He was raised for our justification.
11:46-11:50
So this idea that fasting makes me a holy person, it does not.
11:51-11:53
Jesus Christ makes you a holy person.
11:53-11:58
Fasting does not... Everybody say "not." Fasting does not get God's attention.
11:59-12:07
Okay, catch this. Fasting is not, "Hey, notice me, God!" Fasting is about me noticing God.
12:07-12:09
Fasting doesn't make your prayers more powerful.
12:10-12:11
Fasting makes you more focused.
12:11-12:13
So that's what fasting is not.
12:13-12:15
Here's what fasting is.
12:15-12:16
Here's what fasting is.
12:16-12:20
First of all, fasting is saying no to the flesh and yes to the spirits.
12:20-12:23
It's a way of preferring God over the gifts that God has given.
12:24-12:25
This is so important.
12:25-12:29
Fasting is, write this down, fasting is a means to an end.
12:29-12:31
Fasting is not an end.
12:31-12:35
In other words, we don't fast just for the sake of fasting.
12:36-12:41
They're like, "Well, then why do we do it?" Because we sort of give for the sake of giving, and we sort of pray for the sake of praying.
12:41-12:43
Why don't we fast for the sake of fasting?
12:43-12:45
Fasting is a means to an end.
12:46-12:47
What end is that?
12:47-12:49
Well, here's our problem, Christians.
12:49-12:53
Mine too, all of us, individually, Christians.
12:53-12:55
We want to focus on God in our lives, right?
12:56-13:00
Don't we want to live a God-centered, God-focused life?
13:00-13:01
We all want that.
13:01-13:08
But the problem is oftentimes, myself included, We want to focus on God, but we want other things more.
13:08-13:19
The question is, what do I do when what I want, which is a God-centered mindset, what do I do when what I want isn't what I choose because of all this other stuff?
13:20-13:21
Well, fasting is the answer.
13:21-13:27
Fasting is stopping the feeding of ourselves with other things in order to focus on our relationship with God.
13:28-13:32
Because you only have the capacity to consume so much every day.
13:33-13:37
You only have so much capacity for satisfaction.
13:37-13:40
So, that was a really long introduction.
13:40-13:43
But that's okay, because the sermon is one question.
13:44-13:49
One question to evaluate your fasting, because like Jesus, I'm assuming that you're fasting.
13:49-13:55
So one question to evaluate your fasting, and we're going to look at the question in two parts, as Jesus presented it.
13:55-14:01
Number one, first question is, "Am I hungry for attention?" "Am I hungry for attention?" Look at verse 16.
14:02-14:11
Jesus says that when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
14:12-14:15
Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
14:16-14:18
See, fasting was a part of Jewish culture.
14:18-14:19
It's certainly not part of ours.
14:20-14:22
You're like, well, then how relevant is this stuff?
14:22-14:33
And I would suggest to you, maybe a little more, because since it's not a part of our culture, Even more so today, people who fast are going to stand out.
14:34-14:37
Then we become tempted to fast with the wrong motive.
14:37-14:39
Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on a second.
14:40-14:48
Jesus said, "Don't look gloomy like the hypocrites." I have a question about this. Why in the world is this hypocrisy?
14:48-14:55
Okay, like, if you are fasting, and you look like you're fasting, how in the world is that hypocrisy?
14:56-14:59
Because fasting is supposed to be about seeking the Lord.
14:59-15:02
Fasting is not supposed to be about seeking attention.
15:02-15:03
That's the hypocrisy.
15:03-15:06
Let's be honest. We love the attention.
15:06-15:08
Let's be honest. We love attention.
15:08-15:10
That's the whole basis of social media.
15:10-15:12
That's the whole basis of selfies.
15:12-15:14
We love attention from people.
15:14-15:17
How many likes did I get? How many shares did I get?
15:18-15:20
How many comments did I get?
15:21-15:23
Look, I'm not condemning it. I'm just saying this is a reality.
15:23-15:28
And Jesus knew this is a reality, which is why He taught what He taught.
15:28-15:32
One of the problems with hypocrisy is how successful it is.
15:33-15:34
I mean, we've all been there.
15:34-15:39
Someone makes a comment about how devoted we must be to the Lord, and we're so proud of ourselves.
15:40-15:48
We're walking around the rest of the day like, "Yeah, I'm like the greatest thing since the Apostle Paul to ever happen to Christendom." And we love the attention.
15:49-15:51
And the people in Jesus' day, boy, they made it a show.
15:52-16:00
That's why Jesus said, "Don't look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces." Their fasting may be seen by others.
16:00-16:09
"They disfigure their faces." They, with their facial expressions, wanted people to know that they were fasting.
16:10-16:10
Okay?
16:11-16:19
So I want you to turn to your neighbor right now and make your best, "I haven't eaten in six hours and I'm starving to death" face.
16:19-16:20
Go ahead.
16:20-16:22
Looks like some of you have been practicing this week.
16:24-16:41
But Jesus was like, "Don't be like these people, they walk around..." "What's the matter with you?" "I'm fasting." "Oh, why are you making that face then?" But Jesus said that's what they did.
16:41-16:48
In fact, I read this week that a lot of Jews would actually take ashes and smear ashes on their eyes when they were fasting.
16:48-17:02
It's like, "Dude, why do you look so horrible?" "Because I'm so spiritual, that's why." Jesus said when you do that, when your goal is to make sure that people know that you're fasting, and they notice, there's the reward.
17:02-17:03
There's the reward.
17:04-17:12
"What's the matter? You look sickly. You look like you're dying." "I'm fasting for spiritual reasons." "Wow, that's really cool." And there it is. There's your reward.
17:14-17:14
Yay!
17:16-17:16
Pretty lame, right?
17:17-17:19
Isn't that lame? It's lame.
17:19-17:22
But it's like giving, and it's like praying.
17:22-17:29
If you do it to be seen by others, and they applaud you, they pat you on the back, that's all you get. Enjoy that.
17:30-17:32
You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, Pastor Jeff.
17:32-17:37
You said there were examples of corporate fasting, like the church fasting.
17:38-17:42
I mean, when you're doing that, other people obviously have to know about it." Right on. Right on.
17:42-17:44
There are New Testament examples of that.
17:44-17:48
Again, Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 14, you see the church fasting.
17:48-18:00
They're like, "Ha ha ha ha, other people had to have known about that." Yeah, but you see, it's not about whether or not they knew, it's about whether you wanted them to know.
18:00-18:01
You see the difference?
18:02-18:05
It's not about whether they knew, it's about whether you want them to know.
18:05-18:08
In other words, it boils down to your motive.
18:09-18:09
What's your motive?
18:10-18:17
There's a difference between being seen fasting and fasting in order to be seen.
18:17-18:18
Huge difference.
18:19-18:21
When I fast, I tell Erin.
18:22-18:22
Why would I tell Erin?
18:23-18:25
Because I want her applause, right?
18:26-18:28
Now, next week we will have been married for what, 17 years?
18:29-18:32
And I know at this point she's not going to applaud me.
18:33-18:34
She deserves applause.
18:34-18:45
When I tell her, I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to be fasting starting on Monday." It's not for her attention or her applause or her to, "Oh, let me get on my social media and tell..." It's not that at all. Why would I tell her that?
18:45-18:47
Because she feeds a family, right?
18:47-18:57
and it's going to get really awkward the next few days if she's making a meal and I'm trying to concoct some sort of excuse why I'm not going to eat it because I don't want her to know I'm fasting.
18:57-19:08
She's like, "What's the matter?" I'm like, "Um, all of a sudden I don't like pizza." No, I tell her that because, not for applause, but because she feeds a family.
19:09-19:11
It boils down to the motives, church.
19:11-19:15
Just like giving, just like praying, applause for man equals no reward from God.
19:15-19:15
All right?
19:16-19:18
So am I hungry for attention or secondly, am I hungry for God?
19:19-19:21
Am I hungry for God? Look at the next two verses.
19:21-19:27
Home stretch here. Jesus says, "But when you fast..." Oh, there it is again. That assumption that you will.
19:28-19:36
"But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret.
19:37-19:57
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." So Jesus makes a contrast. Instead of making yourself look sickly, "I'm so gloomy and disfigured." Instead of doing that, Jesus said, "Anoint your head and wash your face." In other words, don't leave any physical clue, okay?
19:57-20:11
He wasn't, let's say you want to picture this as somebody might misunderstand this and think, "Okay, instead of the sign of a disfigured face, the sign that I let people know that I'm fasting is I'm just constantly washing my face." Like, what are you doing?
20:11-20:16
"Oh, Jesus said to do this when I'm fasting and that's exactly what I'm doing because I'm so spiritual.
20:16-20:17
No, that's not the point.
20:18-20:25
To draw attention to your fasting, the point is, as far as anybody else knows, nothing's different, everything's the same.
20:25-20:26
The obvious point, right?
20:27-20:29
Like giving, like praying, we've already studied.
20:29-20:32
Make fasting a secret between you and God.
20:32-20:34
And He sees, and He rewards.
20:35-20:39
Again, reward does not mean, "God, You owe me.
20:39-20:43
I did this for You, now You have to do this for me." That's not what the reward is.
20:43-20:45
Because you know God never works like that.
20:45-20:48
Everything that God gives is grace. Everything.
20:48-20:52
God never, ever, ever works on some kind of a reward system.
20:53-20:59
God doesn't show up at a swap meet and say, "Here's what I'll give, now here's what can you give." God does not work that way.
21:00-21:06
So when Jesus says God rewards, we're going to talk about what that means, but it's not a swap meet.
21:06-21:14
Your salvation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, your growing sanctification, all of that, It's a gift from God.
21:14-21:18
And the reward for fasting is connecting with God.
21:19-21:28
You see, with fasting, God is the reward because you are seeking Him in a very deliberate and focused way.
21:28-21:37
And you say, well, you're telling me that something spiritual happens if I choose not to eat or if I abstain from something else for a season.
21:38-21:44
And instead, I use that time and I use that appetite to seek the Lord.
21:44-21:48
You're telling me if I do that, something spiritual is going to happen.
21:48-21:50
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you.
21:51-21:55
And if you've never done it, it's very hard to understand somebody talk about it.
21:55-22:02
But you will understand it better after you do it, if you do it for the right reason.
22:02-22:04
And I want to encourage you to try it.
22:04-22:06
And you say, "You know what, this week I'm going to skip lunch.
22:07-22:10
and instead I'm going to spend that time praying instead.
22:11-22:16
You try that for a few days, and tell me there's not an awesome reward of connecting with God during that time.
22:17-22:18
Or maybe you say, "You know what?
22:18-22:36
I'm going to go one or two days this week with nothing but water, and instead of eating and mealtime, I'm going to spend some time in His Word, and I'm going to spend some time praying for my family." If you do that, and you will see that there is no greater reward that God can offer than the reward of Himself.
22:36-22:47
The reward of an experience of sweet fellowship with Jesus Christ that you don't normally have because we're so used to filling ourselves up with this other stuff.
22:48-22:51
And pardon the pun, but food is a sacred cow in our culture.
22:52-22:56
And as soon as you talk about fasting, some people say, "I just don't think I can skip a meal.
22:57-23:05
I hear what you're saying, and I don't have any health issues, but I just don't think I can go without eating for a day or two." I'll do respect.
23:06-23:12
If that's what you're saying or thinking right now, that might be a commentary for what appetite really controls you.
23:12-23:22
I ask you, are you hungry enough for God that you're willing to forego consuming food and consuming other things to focus solely on seeking Him?
23:22-23:24
Are you that hungry for God?
23:24-23:32
If you're in a season of your life right now where you've been finding that, you know, focusing on my walk with Christ has been so difficult.
23:32-23:34
It's just, there's so many distractions.
23:34-23:45
at work and at home and I have sick parents or sick grandparents and my kids require 24 hour attention and there's just so much stuff happening in my life.
23:45-23:51
I just feel like in this season of my life, my walk with Christ has not been what I want it to be.
23:51-23:55
I'm just gonna be honest, I haven't felt like I've had this appetite for prayer.
23:56-23:59
I haven't been seeking God in this season of my life.
24:00-24:03
If that's you, I got some wonderful news for you today.
24:03-24:09
God has given you a gift to help you get back to a place of sweet fellowship with Him.
24:10-24:14
He's given you a gift that allows you to redirect your appetite.
24:14-24:17
So when you give, don't blow the trumpet.
24:17-24:19
When you pray, don't make it a performance.
24:19-24:22
And when you fast, don't look like you're dying.
24:22-24:25
Jesus said, don't let the left hand know what the right hand's doing.
24:26-24:29
Jesus said, go into your room and shut the door when you pray.
24:29-24:35
And Jesus said, "When you fast, wash your face." I gotta confess something to you.
24:35-24:41
When I was preparing these messages, maybe this is considered cheating, I don't know.
24:41-24:43
I just have to confess this to you.
24:43-24:47
With these Matthew 6 sermons, I basically just gave the same sermon three times.
24:48-24:50
Just swapped out giving, praying, and fasting.
24:50-24:51
You swap out those words.
24:52-25:00
But I basically just gave the same exact sermon three times because in all of our religious actions, It's in the text.
25:00-25:01
It follows the same formula.
25:02-25:10
Jesus said, "If you give pray fast to be seen by others, you're going to miss God's reward." Same formula with all three.
25:11-25:20
But same formula, "If you do these things in secret, then God sees and God rewards." And there are rewards, church.
25:20-25:25
There are rewards for a faith that says, "I'm not looking for man's applause.
25:25-25:35
I'm getting alone and I'm getting real with God And fasting brings the greatest possible reward, and that's drawing closer to God Himself.
25:35-25:36
Let's pray.
25:36-25:40
Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of fasting.
25:40-25:47
You've given us the gift of giving and the gift of prayer, but Father, we confess in our culture the gift of fasting seems very strange.
25:48-25:49
But I pray, Father, for ears to hear.
25:50-25:51
These things are spiritually appraised.
25:52-26:02
And Father, I know that I have some brothers and sisters right here who are in a period of their life where they feel like they're in a desert place, that their walk with you has been dry.
26:02-26:11
They feel like you've been absent when we all know in our heads, God, that you promised to never leave us or forsake us, that when you feel absent, that's on us.
26:11-26:16
Father, I pray that we would be a people who fast with pure motives.
26:16-26:22
And Father, I pray for the people here that are sitting here right now and say, you know, I need to get closer in my walk with Christ.
26:23-26:23
I need to fast.
26:24-26:30
Father, I pray that this week they would see the fulfillment of Your Word unfold before their eyes.
26:31-26:38
When Jesus said, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you," I pray they experience that sweet fellowship this week.
26:39-26:45
And they might not understand it now, Father, but I know that they will understand it because of the integrity of Your Word.
26:46-26:48
They will understand it after they do it.
26:49-26:50
Manifest Your glory.
26:50-26:55
Draw us closer to You, Father, and teach us how to fast.
26:55-26:57
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 6:16-18

GROUP

1. What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another - to grow as prayers in these areas.

Coming Soon: Babylon's Funeral.

Introduction:

Coming Soon: The End of Religion.

Introduction:

Coming Soon: Judgment, Phase 3: The Bowls, Part 2

Coming Soon: Judgment, Phase 3: The Bowls, Part 1

Coming Soon: The Bowls, Part 1. (Revelation 15)

Intro:

The Prelude to the End

Revelation 15:3-4

Amen

When You Fast… (Matthew 6:16-18)

Intro / Review:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Audio Transcript

Audio Transcript

Coming Soon: The Bowls, Part 1. (Revelation 15)

Intro:

The Prelude to the End

Revelation 15:3-4

Amen

Intro / Review:

One question to evaluate your fasting (Matthew 6:16-18):

Audio Transcript