WOLFL-2024-12
Transcript
Now this is the halfway point, only this hour and one more. This hour will be hard, but the next hour is amazing. This is about angels and demons. You know I teach a lot, and this is the one class everybody listens to when we get into the origin of Satan, where demons come from, what they can do, and everything else. This is probably the most exciting class about salvation. What I want to talk to you about is God the Savior. God is a Savior. Now think about that. God, the creator, so loved the world that He devised a plan of salvation that involved massacring His own Son for guilty people who didn’t want Him to be massacred for them. The whole thing. No religion in the world has anything like this. To think of the all-powerful God having His one and only beloved Son to be treated like sin.
If you understand justification, the longer you’re a Christian, you understand the immensity of what happened to Jesus. It was so awful to feel the coming weight of sin. In the Garden of Gethsemane, what started popping out of His skin? Sweating as it were, what? Yeah, His capillaries were exploding as He felt the darkness, the horror of all the sin. Do you know what it says? John the Baptist said in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verse 29, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the, what? Sin. It’s singular. Charles Spurgeon put it this way. Spurgeon, the famous British pastor. He said Jesus took away the sin, which is the totality of the mass, that’s the full weight of all the sins of all humans. He took it away in the sense that rested on Him. Now, that doesn’t mean that everybody gets forgiven, right? That’s universalism. But Jesus made it possible for you and me to look at anyone and say, Jesus can forgive you, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how bad. No matter how far. He can forgive you.
Let’s look at God as Savior, and that’s in Chapter 7. So, in Revelation 7, let me just read to you what we’re looking at, because it’s maybe one of the more boring chapters. Can you say anything’s boring in the Bible? But some people don’t like it. After this, I looked, this is 7:1, and I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the Earth. That’s why we have flat Earth Christians, and if this is any representation of America, there are those of you in here who believe the world is flat. That’s a held belief by born-again Christians, which is amazing. But this is why because it talks about the four corners. Many things in the scriptures talk about the Earth like it’s flat. Okay. I don’t believe it’s flat, but that isn’t the purpose of this course.
But I saw the four angels standing at the four corners of the Earth, holding the four winds of the Earth, that the wind should not blow on the Earth and the sea or any tree. So, you’re thinking of the four points of the compass, that there’s an angel there stopping the atmospheric engine. That’s unbelievable to say. Do you know what would happen to the Earth if all the winds stopped? You do see it in the next chapter, so we’ll talk about it there. Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having to seal the living God. He cried with a loud voice, to the four angels who were granted to harm the Earth and the sea, do not harm the Earth, the sea or the trees, verse 3 until we’ve sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. Before Satan’s mark, the mark of the beast, that’s on the forehead and the right hand, before he does that, God has been sealing people long before Satan does.
In fact, in a moment, I’ll show you how God sealed the Jews in Jerusalem when the Babylonian army was coming and conquering Jerusalem. They encamped around it, knocked down the walls, and they got in. As the troops came into the city, the soldiers were killing people as fast as they could. They were killing the people of Jerusalem. Before they got in the wall, God came in and marked the people in Jerusalem that He wanted to survive and that they were not killed by the soldiers. See, God is really good at marking people, and He marks these. I heard the number of those that were sealed, marked on the forehead. 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed. Then verses 5, 6, 7, and 8 give the 12 tribes. After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude in verse 9, that no one could number of all nations, tribes, and peoples.
What we’re seeing here in chapter 7 is God as the God of salvation. It’s the 144,000 witnesses. What did Jesus say in Acts 1:8? You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My what? Witnesses. What’s a witness? The Greek word is martyrion, we get the word martyr from it. It’s someone who believes so intently in something, they stand up and they say, it’s true! I’ve experienced it. I witnessed it. I saw, like witnesses of a crime or an accident only were witnesses that God is real. That’s all we do. We go around and tell people God is real and if they believe it absolutely, from the inside out, changes their life.
That’s what I love about soul-winning. It’s the most amazing thing to see God doing a miracle. The miracle Jesus still does is one we all need. The miracle of complete forgiveness. I’m a dispenser of that miracle. I can tell people how they can have that miracle happen in their life. I can be right next to them when it happens. That’s what witnessing, soul winning, is all about. So, God sends these tribulations, special forces, for God the evangelist and Savior. God is not willing that any should perish so He sends them into the world.
Now, where we are in our big chart of things, Christ’s Church on Earth is in Heaven. So, God, the Savior, starts deploying other witnesses. We’re gone. So here is finally Israel doing what He always wanted them to do. Did you know Israel was always supposed to be the evangelist for God to the whole world? That’s why God defeated all their enemies. That’s why God planted them on the crossroads of the Earth, right there in Israel. All the Asians have to go through there on their way to Africa. All the Africans have to go there on their way to Asia and Europe. All the Europeans have to go there on their way to Africa. It was the crossroads of the whole ancient world. God put Israel right in the middle with their big temple and the amazing things He did for them. So, everybody would hear about Him.
So the Tribulation events in Heaven and on Earth start with God giving us what we saw in the last hour. What I’m going to show you again, chapter 6 is all about the white conquering horse, the red bloody wars, the black famine, the green death, the martyrdom that comes in the cosmic earthquake. Now look at that box there, toward the right, the sealing of the 144,000 of the 12 tribes. In the middle of this unraveling of Earth, God pulls back the scene from all the death and destruction and lifts your sight to the angels holding back. You understand chapter 7 is an overview before all the bad stuff happens in chapters 6 and 8. Remember I told you that Revelation goes back and forth between all the mess on Earth and this scene in Heaven? This is one of those scenes in Heaven and God’s saying, hold it, all you angels, the four of you. Before you cause all this death and destruction and kill one-fourth of all the people on the Earth. That’s right there in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 6, that fourth seal there, the green one. Before that happens, He’s sending in these evangelists. Why? He’s not willing that any should perish. He wants them to hear the Gospel. By the way, it’s before the seventh seal, which is those seven trumpets.
Let’s go back to the whole purpose of Revelation. Did you know that the Early Church got this letter, and they needed to know that despite their limited mobility, most of the early Christians were poor and slaves? Most of the early believers, most were poor. That means they didn’t go anywhere, and they were slaves. They didn’t have any freedom. Most. Remember Jesus said the poor receive Me gladly? Even the nation of Israel was occupied. They were slaves of Rome except for the rich, but the rest of the people had to carry around the soldier’s backpacks and they had to pay all their taxes. So, everybody felt very limited. Jesus sent Revelation to say Jesus is all you need to live for Me in a very darkening world and I want to show you. All you’re supposed to do is reach the group of people I’ve placed in front of you, right there, in your little world. Don’t be frustrated that you can’t reach the whole world.
I meet a lot of people who want to reach the whole world, they’re not reaching anybody right where they are. Why would God send them to the whole world when they aren’t sharing the simple Gospel with the people that speak their language that they live around all the time that they know personally? It should be if you go to a public school that the people in the public school know that you’re a Christian. It should be the same if you work in any corporation.
I remember I worked for a Wall Street company. It was called, back then, American Home Products. Then it became Wyeth, and then it became Whitehall Labs, and then it became Pfizer. It was just this evolution of corporate America. Every new iteration when I worked for them in seminary, the big shots, the bosses from New York City would come and they’d ride in my car because it was a company car, and I worked for them. I was a salesman. They’d sit there and I would say, hey, I’d love to get to know you and talk to you. They would say, I’ve heard you’re religious. I would say I’d love to talk about that. But I would say, I’d never talk on company time. I would say, can I talk to you at lunch? And I got to share the Gospel with one after another of these high-rise New York executives who came out to the field to meet the salespeople. But I only would talk on my time, not on company time. See, that’s a danger we have. Don’t witness to someone who’s being paid $20 an hour to make money for their company because you’re making someone mad, their supervisor, or someone else. Find a way to share the Gospel without being a detriment. So, Jesus is all we need.
They needed to see, that the New Testament Church from Acts 1 to Revelation 5 is God’s plan for getting the Gospel into the world. But by chapter 5, they’re not in the world anymore, they’re around the throne. Now you see God has always had His evangelist. God Himself started talking to Adam and Eve. Then after the fall Adam, Eve, and Enoch became His witnesses, and then Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were affecting the world. Then the nation of Israel was to go into all the world. We have all of these that God chose. In the New Testament He chose the Church, but when the Church is gone, what’s next? The 144,000.
Here they are. Look at them. Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Who is missing? Let’s have a quiz. Those are not the 12 tribes of Israel, are they? Those are not the 12 sons of Jacob. Who’s missing? Does anybody see who’s missing? Dan is missing. Very good. So, because Dan is missing, you notice what happens. We have Levi there, and Levi didn’t get a tribal allotment, but we also have Joseph and Manasseh, but not Ephraim. Remember, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. There was no tribe of Joseph. There isn’t a tribe of Joseph. There are two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim because Levi didn’t get a tribal allotment.
Did you know the 12 tribes are like an alphabet of 14 letters that God uses to make 12-letter lists? He doesn’t put all 14 letters in. I know it’s early. You guys can figure that out later. But these are the ones because Dan apostatized. What does that mean? Dan is the tribe that abandoned God, built that ephod thing, and worshiped false gods. You can read all about that in the book of judges.
But here’s the sealing of the 144,000. What is sealing? Let’s talk about that. God always seals His own children by His Holy Spirit. Do not harm the sea. Verse 3, until we have sealed the servants of our God. So, these 144,000 are Jews. These are not super Christians. These are Jews. They’re from the 12 named tribes. It’s very exciting to think about. Do you know what that means? When the Tribulation starts, Jews are still here, Jerusalem is still here, and Jews still live in Jerusalem. That’s why I’ve always told people if I could afford it, I’d live in Israel because I know that Jerusalem is around to the end. It’ll never get destroyed because it’s there at the end of the Tribulation. That’s the focus of Armageddon. So, the Jews are there. The 12 tribes have these 144,000 that are sealed out of them. So, what does that mean, sealed? They get saved. That’s what sealing is. That’s what happens to all of us, 2 Corinthians 1:22 says. Let’s look at that and see what it says.
Every Christian is sealed or marked by God. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, God who has sealed us has given us the Spirit in our hearts as a, and the Greek word is arrabon. Now here’s my wedding ring. I gave a similar ring to this to Bonnie, before we got married, as our engagement ring. It was for everybody to see that’s who I was going to spend the rest of my life totally devoted to. That I would think about, look at, talk about, point at, etc., etc. To be, the Bible calls, our glory and our crown, and he that geteth a wife gets a good thing in favor from the Lord. But she wore an arrabon, which is the Greek word. It means a down payment. It’s like when you buy something before you fully pay for it, you pay for part of it, as to hold it. That’s what that word is. Look what it is in this, it’s the yellow word at the top of that slide. God has arraboned us. He’s sealed us with this guarantee. That’s what the Holy Spirit is. He’s the down payment. He’s the engagement ring, that we’re engaged to God.
Now look in the Old Testament. The bottom of that slide is Ezekiel 9:3 The Lord said to him, this is an angel, go through the midst of the city, that’s Jerusalem, through the midst of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within. Do you know what that means? Angels can see what you love and hate. Wow. God allowed those angels to look inside of people and see the ones that hated what was abominable to God. They agreed with God. Did you know that’s a definition of a Christian? We have been turned, Acts 26:18 says, from loving the darkness to loving the light. Jesus said in John 1, Men, before they’re saved, love darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. But when you come to Christ, you come to the light. So, God sealed or marked in Ezekiel 9.
By the way, anybody who was saved in the Old Testament was saved the same way we were, by faith in a substitute that died in their place. Everyone in the Old Testament, with all those sacrifices, was looking forward to the perfect Lamb. They just sacrificed a fragile, earthly lamb, but they were looking forward to the Lamb of God, Christ. All of us, on this side of the cross, look back. They looked forward to a cross. We look back that Jesus died in our place. But for both of us, it’s the power of the Spirit.
You say, ah, grace? Grace. We’re under a period of grace. Uh-huh. When did grace start? It starts in Genesis 6. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. We’re all saved the same way in different dispensations, in different household rules, but all by faith in the sacrificial Lamb of God.
But we’re sealed by the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30 says this, Ephesians 4:30, says this very tough word from Paul. And do not grieve, that’s present active imperative. That’s like raising your voice, putting it in all caps and bold. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Okay, I have a question. Why do believers sometimes not feel like getting into the Word, or even worse, why do Christians sometimes not even feel saved? Because they’re disobeying Ephesians 4:30. Do you know who makes us feel saved? Do you know who makes us hungry for the Word of God? The Holy Spirit. Look at the top of the slide. Beware of ever grieving the Holy Spirit of God who seals us. He’s the only barrier that keeps the devil out. That’s what being sealed is. Satan and his demons can’t come into us. They can shoot arrows at us, but they can’t indwell us. He’s the only one that’s our down payment that we’re going to Heaven, the Holy Spirit. So why do believers not feel like being in the Word of God? They don’t even feel saved.
The answer is that flesh-led living grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit. So, a great personal reflection is, in your life, not what you want to be someday, but today, are you Spirit-led? Is it the Holy Spirit that is pushing you around through life in the right direction, or is it your flesh that’s leading you? In other words, do you set what you want, your desires, Colossians 3, on things above, that’s Spirit-led living or things of the Earth? That’s flesh-led living. How do you know?
There’s a whole passage in the Bible, Galatians chapter 5. You probably already had Galatians. Verses 16 to 26. It tells us how to know whether you’re flesh-led or Spirit-led. Okay? A spirit-led person, on the left, has flowing out of them a supernatural kind of river of love and joy and peace and long-suffering. They’re the kindest people you know. Goodness just is their setting and they’re faithful. They’re loving, self-sacrificing, joyful, peaceful, very patient, very kind, always doing what’s good and faithful. That’s just their setting. That’s how they are.
It’s like a tea bag. Bonnie and I have our tea. Here’s my tea. Oh, look, it’s still in there. See, there’s my holder, the tea bag’s in there. Why? Because when you put hot water on it, whatever’s inside the tea bag comes out. You know what’s going on inside of your invisible you by hot water, by hard situations, what comes out of us. These actions. No matter what’s going on in our life, we want to eat the Word, we want to boldly witness, we’re generous givers because the Spirit, one of the things the Holy Spirit does is make you sacrificial. We have these personal disciplines. What’s a personal discipline? We deny ourselves. We deny our desires. See, Jesus said, this kind cometh not but by prayer and fasting. Prayer is seeking God. Fasting is denying myself. Personal disciplines teach me to deny myself.
What is a flesh-led person like? Anger. As soon as they get dipped in the hot water, anger comes out. Anger that smolders is wrath. Or they’re anxious. They’re fearful. They’re lustful. That means they never get enough of whatever they really want. They’re selfish. They want the best and the biggest for them. They’re irritated. People irritate them. They’re bitter because someone got something they didn’t get, or someone hurt them or they’re always…or no one… they’re bitter. Those are attitudes.
Now look at the difference. You can check this morning. By the way, these are biblical litmus tests. When you go get a blood test and they tell you medically what’s wrong, here’s the spiritual test of your spiritual blood. Is your attitude love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness? That is a byproduct of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit is filling and ruling in our lives, that’s what our attitudes are like. When our flesh is running the show, we’re angry, wrathful, anxious, fearful, lustful, selfish, irritated, and bitter.
What are the actions when the flesh is controlling? We lie. If we’re put on the spot, we cover for ourselves. We steal, we take what isn’t ours because we deserve it, and we think we do. We’re immoral. No one can tell me and limit me. I can have whatever I want. We’re lazy. That’s one of the characteristics they say between the World War II generations and our generation. The World War II people were really committed. Our generation is pretty committed. But they said the next generation and on, there’s this increasing desire to not work. It’s the fleshly laziness that the whole book of Proverbs is about. The slothful person that turns on their bed like a hinge to the door, etc.
Sarcastic, that’s speaking with cutting words. Erratic means they’re all over the place. Restless, that’s one of the characteristics of an unsaved person, they’re restless. They’re bored all the time. They’re just restless. They want action. They want movement. They want flashes. They want entertainment. They’re self-focused.
Okay, here’s the Spirit-led life. When you’re filled by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and controlled by the Spirit, these attitudes and actions are revealed. The peace, the joy, the hope, the love, the boldness, that’s a byproduct of the Holy Spirit. Holiness, being set apart to God. Passion. A passionate person can share something, and you just listen to them because you feel the passion. You say, where does that come from? It’s part of what the Holy Spirit does. You see it in the Book of Acts. They’re sensitive. They feel outside themselves for others. They’re sensitive to others. They’re not self-focused. They’re sensitive to others. They’re self-sacrificing. There’s a hunger for the Word. Remember Peter said, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word. There’s a hatred of sin. It’s not I’ll get caught. It’s not I’ll get in trouble. I hate that. I don’t want anything to do with that. There’s a revulsion of feeding the flesh. There’s a tender forgiveness of others. Remember, we’re kind and tenderhearted and forgiving everybody just like we know we’ve been forgiven. That’s what a Spirit-led life is.
You say I’m a Christian. I’m not like that. Uh-huh, that’s true. That’s like people that come up to me and they say, I have this iPhone, but mine doesn’t do what yours does. I say is it turned on? Have you downloaded the latest software? Do you have a virus? There are reasons, but what I’m presenting is the package that God made. This is a normal Christian life.
We already did this last week. In the seven churches, six of the seven were struggling with some part of the flesh. Even the church, remember the church that was suffering, going through Smyrna, the āMyrna church? The Lord said, don’t fear. The most repeated negative prohibition in the Bible, is fear not. Only Philadelphia was operating this way. This is the normal Christian life, it’s not perfect. Because how do we keep the attitudes and actions in our life, and emotions, right? When we sin, we confess, forsake, and we hate that sin. We agree with God. That’s what confession is, homologeo. I say the same thing about sin that God says. God says it’s heinous and horrible and I agree with Him. I hate it.
What does a flesh-led life look like? It is what the seven churches show us. Born-again Christians can have all of these attitudes, actions, and emotions. They can be harshly unforgiving and have that manner in their life. They can be anxious. They can be fearful. They can be selfish. They can be lethargic. They can have disinterest in the Word. They have no passion for the lost. They’re irritable, they’re bitter, and they’re moody.
What that means is, our emotions betray who’s leading us. If we’re Christians, and the Holy Spirit is leading us, His fruit is growing in our lives. If the flesh is leading us, our fallen flesh and we’re a Christian, we don’t look like Christ. It’s amazing.
So, this is the Spirit-led life. It starts in Romans 7, Galatians 5, Ephesians 5, and Colossians 3. Those are the four big chapters. If you’re a biblical counselor, you know those passages, because they’re all about what the Spirit-led mind looks like. A Spirit-led mind leads to a Spirit-ruled emotion. When Jesus, through His Spirit, is ruling me, His love, His joy, His peace, His gentleness, His kindness, His patience, His boldness, and His long-suffering flow out of me.
I told you the story, one of the gazillion stories I told you, about the big flea market we had at Grace Community Church, the world for sale. This big garage sale. They had the power cords, and someone plugged in this boombox radio and out comes the Christian radio show, Jay Vernon McGee. I’ll never forget that moment. That box just needed power and out came Christ. These Spirit-ruled emotions only need to be plugged into the power of the Spirit and that’s what broadcasts from my life. Love, joy, peace. It’s not produced by me. I was born self-centered, self-focused, selfish, a lying, thieving, angry little beast. That’s how I was born. Jesus described it, you’re of your father the Devil. All of us were born wickedly like our father the Devil. What’s the number one sin? Isaiah 53:6, All we like sheep have gone astray; weāve turned – everyone – to his own way. Me wanting my own way, pride, and self-centeredness is the ultimate sin that marks us as of our father the Devil.
So, a Spirit-led mind leads to Spirit-ruled emotions, which leads to a surrendered body. See, it’s the mind that affects the emotions that begin to control the body. Now that’s how God describes us. When Paul talks about us, he says, I pray God Your whole Spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Did you catch the order? I pray, God, Your whole Spirit, soul, and body. Your soul is the meeting place between your spirit and your body. That’s the emotional, that’s where the storms are. Spirit, born from above, that’s where the Holy Spirit lives within us. We’re Spirit-sealed. Emotions, that’s where the battle is, right here, in our soul. Body, that’s the battleground. That’s what Satan or the Holy Spirit wants to control.
A surrendered body is me doing what we started this class with. The very first verse I showed you is Matthew 6:33, Seek first the kingdom of God. God wants us every day to surrender to Him. More than once a day, just keep doing it. That starts with me agreeing with my mind, agreeing to allow His Spirit to rule my emotions, and surrendering my body. I deny ungodliness, Titus 2 says. I avoid sin. I focus on God. I serve according to His will. That’s exactly the opposite of the flesh-led life.
The flesh-led life has, first of all, a flesh-driven body. Notice it’s totally upside down. The body dictates everything. Everything is about the body. The body is restless. The body is undisciplined. The body is appetite-driven. It’s what can I get? I want it. It’s all about how can I get enough money. And I want it. It’s lust-filled, which means there’s always a wanting more and more of whatever the appetite wants. Never satisfied. Solomon said the eyes of man are never satisfied. How true. A body constantly defeated by sins. What is sin? Satan is the essence of sin, and God is the absolute essence of everything that’s not sin. So, we have sin and not sin, God and Satan. Which one do we want, our body to be dominated by sin that’s of the Devil, or not sin, which is of God?
So, what is a flesh-driven life like? That flesh-driven body produces these horrible emotions, volatility, lethargy, anxiety, anger, troubled, distraction, and impureness, these flesh-driven emotions which lead to the Holy Spirit quenched. There’s no stability, no spiritual boldness, no spiritual insights, no spiritual hunger, no Holy Spirit joy, just aimlessness. There’s no confidence. You know how Proverbs puts it? It says the righteous are as bold as a lion, but the wicked run when no one is chasing them. They just feel guilty about everything. There’s no confidence in their life. They feel empty.
I want to introduce you to someone. He called me. He was sitting in church, listening to me on the balcony, and I upset him. So, he decided he would call Bonnie and me every morning at 2 a.m. We lived in the church parsonage. The church parsonage had only one telephone, it was screwed to the wall, it had a cord about this long, so you could only get just this far away from it if you stretched the cord. Then it pulled you back and you hung it up there. That one phone had the world’s loudest ringer, and you couldn’t turn it off.
So, all of our kids lived in their cribs and their little trundle beds and everything upstairs. We had three little bedrooms, and we had the kids there. We were in one room. At 2 a.m. downstairs, loudly, like a fire alarm, the phone would start ringing. You couldn’t turn it off and you couldn’t take it off the hook because it was the church property. It was called the Parsonage. So, every morning at 2 a.m. he would call.
I was teaching verse by verse through Paul’s epistles. I had hit the section that lists off sexual sins. I taught through all of them and in the process angered this person. We began to get these middle-of-the-night phone calls that woke us up at 2 a.m. and all they did, the person, was scream four-letter words at me. In the midst of all that I started noticing, because I was half awake because I woke up at 2 a.m. every day, that when I would say the words “in conclusion” as I was preaching this guy in the balcony would stand up. I watch you guys. I watch the people when I’m speaking too.
I started practicing. About five minutes into my sermon, I’d say, “In conclusion”, he’d stand up. I found out he stood up when he thought I was done and left. So, I worked on that for a while, and I decided I was going to meet this mystery man by arranging for the chairman of the elders to close in prayer one day I never said in conclusion. I started walking to the only exit door from that balcony I asked the elder to close the service. I stood at the bottom of the steps, then it happened. Mr. In Conclusion, as soon as the elder started praying, stood up and started down those stairs. I came to the narrow doorway, and I stood right in the middle. I was going to meet this guy. He wouldn’t look at me and he walked down the stairs, and I moved. I kept moving until I blocked him, and I said hello, I want to meet you. He never looked up. He said hello. And I said I recognize your voice. You’re my two o’clock in the morning caller, I knew it was you. I’d found him.
As soon as he answered, I said, I know who you are, and I said, I’d love to talk to you. The Lord began a miraculous conversion of this man. I went on to meet with him and he shared his heart-rending story of pain and hatred. He had a flesh-driven life. He had 600 different sexual partners, and one of them had infected him with an incurable sexually transmitted disease. He was dying of that. He got his diagnosis from one of the godly Christian nurses who went to our church at our clinic. He hated God. He hated the Church. He hated his sin. He was afraid to die. He was bitter and angry and all he could do was just swear at me on the phone. So, the Lord began to work in his heart.
After he shared his story of pain and hatred, by the way, he would never lift his head. He was so guilty of his horrible sinful life, as if he was worse than anybody else. He would never look up. Finally, as we were meeting, I could tell something was happening week after week when I shared the Gospel because his head slowly would come up and he would glance at me, and glance at me, and glance at me. Finally, one day he started crying and he got on his knees and gave the most amazing weeping cry to the Lord. He just gave up and he said, I’m guilty. I’m a sinner and he was saved.
So I said, you need to give your amazing baptismal testimony before our entire congregation because we did that. Everyone that got saved stood in front of the baptistry in the water with a microphone and they told how they came to Christ. So, he did. So, he’s standing there telling about how he used to sit in the balcony, how he used to call me at 2 a.m., how he had had 600 sexual partners, how he had this incurable disease that he was dying of, which we know as AIDS. He got HIV. He said, the pastor trapped me at the bottom of the stairs and led me to Christ.
While he was giving his testimony, the chairman of the deacons that had closed that service in prayer had brought a bottle of Clorox to the baptismal service, and where no one could see it, he was dumping it in the baptistry. He told me he thought that I was going to get AIDS from him by being in the water with him. So, he was pouring Clorox, and that’s how fearful everybody was. But he shared the most glowing testimony and went on to live long enough that he became one of the biggest purveyors of Gospel tracts. I pack one in my wallet. I mean he took them by the box. He had 600 sexual partners. You know someone if you’ve had sex with them. He did. He shared the Gospel before he died, more widely with different people who never would have heard the Gospel and who others would have never seen.
Why am I telling you that? Because that’s the power of the Gospel. The difference between the flesh-led life, now he was the ultimate version of it, but he became the other, the ultimate version of the Spirit-led life. God’s answer to every sin is always the same, repent of that sin and submit to Me. That’s what he did.
Let’s get back to Revelation. Look at verse 4 I heard the number of those that were sealed. It was 144,000. Israel was always designed to share the Gospel with the world now all these Israelis are doing it. Look what they kick-off, the final super evangelism event. After these things, there’s this multitude no one could number. Look what they say in verse 10, the bottom of that slide. All these people who get saved cry with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne.
Do you know what Jonah said? The biggest revival in history before this one was in Nineveh. You all know that. That was the greatest moving of God ever recorded in the Bible. The whole city of Nineveh, which probably was several hundred thousand, turned in repentance to the true and living God through the eight-word Gospel presentation of Jonah. Yet, forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed, that’s all he said. He said it over and over, and they turned to his God and got saved.
The second biggest event is Nineveh. This is the first. This is the largest. This group, both this group in Revelation 7:10 and Jonah’s group, in Jonah 2:9 say the same thing. Do you know what they both say? Salvation is of the Lord. I hope you know that. He’s the only one who can turn 2 a.m. callers to salvation. He’s the only one that can turn people in the darkest time. These people get saved during the Tribulation, during all those demons, during all that death because God wants them to be saved. People get saved after the Rapture in huge numbers. These are the ones, look at verse 14 of chapter 7, who come out of the Great Tribulation. They’ve washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
There they are, look at verse 15, this is the result of salvation. There they are before the throne of God and he who sits on the throne dwells among them. They neither hunger, they don’t thirst, the sun doesn’t strike them, all that stuff that was happening during the Tribulation. For the Lamb, verse 17, in the midst of the throne shepherds them, and God wipes away every tear from their eyes. That’s the most beautiful picture of salvation.
Look what happens. This is what the 144,000 are going into. They’re going into chapter 8. Luke 21, Jesus describes what happens in Revelation this way, there’ll be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, on the Earth distress, perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, people’s hearts failing them because the powers of Heaven will be shaken. Here’s the shaking. When He opened the seventh seal. Now we’re only in the seventh seal. The first one is in chapter 6, verse 1; chapter 8, verse 1 is the seventh. There’s silence for half an hour. The seven angels that stand before God, to them were given the seven trumpets. The seven angels that stand before God. The same ones we met in chapter 1 are those flames that are always facing him. These are probably the archangels and they’re each given one of these trumpets.
God listens, time to pray. Look at verse 3. Another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. This is all in Heaven. Remember, Revelation keeps going whoop. You almost get a neckache going like this, trying to figure out where are we. Are we on Earth? Oh, now we’re in Heaven. Now, they’re at this altar that’s in Heaven. It was given much incense that he should offer it, look at this, with the prayers of all the saints.
Do you remember back in chapter 5 we saw that there’s this bowl in front of the throne of God where all the prayers go? Remember I told you, you should have been praying last week? All the prayers of the saints are there. He takes the censer. He takes prayers of the saints on the golden altar, which is before the throne. That’s where God is dealing with our prayers. When the prayers and incense come together, the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascends before God from the angel’s hand the angel takes this censer. This is an Old Testament picture from Exodus and Leviticus showing the Tabernacle. And filled it with fire from the altar. That altar is the picture of the sacrifice of Christ and the power of what He did. He ignited all those prayers and threw them to Earth and there were noises, thunderings, lightning. This is God answering prayer. Look what happens, doom arrives. That’s what the rest of chapter 8 is. It’s awful.
God strikes the environment that mankind protects. Chapter 8, verse 6. Verse 7, hail followed, mingled with blood, thrown to the Earth. A third of all the trees are burned up. Canada was only, I don’t know how many million acres burned last summer in Canada. This is a third of every tree that burns up. All green grass burns up. In verses 8 and 9, God shows what He can do with the oceans. Something like a great mountain. See John doesn’t know, he’s seeing stuff. He’s just saying, Wow, that looks like Mount Everest and it falls. So, he’s just recording what he’s seeing, but it’s thrown into the sea and a third of the sea becomes blood. A third. You notice these are thirds. The trumpets are only third. The bowls are all. See, it gets worse while the 144,000 are all going around leading people to Christ. A third of the ships were destroyed.
Now Jesus talked about this in Matthew 24. He said the stars will fall from Heaven and the powers of Heaven will be shaken. We have started to examine the stars since we got telescopes and have found out there are all kinds of things that look like stars. One of them is the asteroid Florence NASA said it was the largest near-Earth object ever approaching Earth. It flew between Earth and the Moon. It scared all the astronomers, but they calculated it and it wasn’t going to hit us. But this one in chapter 8 does and God shows how fragile our water supply is. A third of the rivers get hit in verse 10. The springs of water, that’s groundwater, get poisoned and in verse 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the water becomes wormwood and many men die from the water because it’s made bitter.
Then solar power gets hit, verse 12. The fourth angel blows his trumpet and a third of the sun is struck. A third of the moon. A third of the stars are diminishing their luminosity. A third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. It’s massive solar instabilities. That’s the fourth trumpet.
Now look at this. You can see it in a chart form. The first trumpet, a third of all trees and grass are burned. The second trumpet, a third of the ocean is poisoned. That’s the second trumpet. The third trumpet, a third of the groundwater is poisoned. Then the fourth trumpet, a third of the luminosity of the sun and stars and moon.
Then, the next hour after our break, it really gets bad. Look what happens next. Demons from the pit are allowed out to the Earth. Did you know right now there’s a holding tank on Earth, John said it and Jesus said it’s here, that God keeps confined the worst of the worst demons. And He lets them all out. But they can’t kill anybody, yet. They just sting people like scorpions. Then He allows one-third of all to be slain, but that’s next hour. So why am I saying this? Because the lesson of the 144,000 is that God is not willing that any should perish. Just before all that horror comes to the Earth God deploys the 144,000 evangelists. Do you know what they’re like? Each one of them is like a little Apostle Paul. They can’t wait to share the Gospel with every single person. It doesn’t matter what happens to them, they do it. That’s 144,000.
