The Eternal Gospel

WOLFL-2024-15

Transcript

We’re at the high point of the book of Revelation, chapter 14, and I want to read you the verse, and then I want to show it to you. Chapter 14 and verse 6 of Revelation you notice the Eternal Gospel. Now listen to what happens. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of Heaven, having the Everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the Earth. Now think of everything you know. The waters have all been poisoned, the ocean is dying. Armies are mobilized. These monster demons are wreaking havoc. A third of all the people on Earth have died in these demonic horsemen monsters. The Anti-christ is coming. He’s got the killing machine, which is the Terminator. The two witnesses just died. The 144,000 we’re going to see in this chapter are done. So basically, all the on the ground people working for God are off the field. 144,000 are in Heaven. They’ve finished. Two witnesses are in Heaven. They were martyred and they were given life and brought back up.

So, what does God do? He pulls out the highest picture of His love for lost humanity. He sends an angel who flies. in the midst of Heaven. So, he’s flying in the sky around the Earth and with a loud voice, he’s speaking to, he’s preaching to those who dwell on the Earth. And here’s his loud voice in verse seven saying, fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made Heaven and Earth, the sea and the springs of water.

What’s the Everlasting Gospel? Now, this is where I want to challenge you. If you’re going to be involved in sharing the Gospel the rest of your life, I would take at least one time and go through and find all the times the Gospels described. Don’t trust someone else to tell you about the most important thing in the world. It’s like someone that says, hey, I’ve cleaned out your room. Here’s all of your money that was in your drawer. Here it is. It’s in this box and you don’t open the box and look in it to make sure you’re all of your money’s in there. You don’t want to be duped. Open the box and check. It’s like you go to Chipotle and you order your online order, and most people open the bags, and they go through and make sure what they ordered is in the bag.

Do you know what the Gospel is? Do you care what the Gospel is? Have you ever studied what the Gospel is? Have you spent the time that you can describe to someone what the Gospel is. If you’re going to share the Gospel one of the greatest things you could do, I mean if you don’t have 72 hours just do the four Gospels and Acts. And then if you’re excited go on to the epistles only takes 18 hours to read the whole New Testament, 18 hours. That’s a very short period of time. If you put it into soccer games or anything that we do that we love to do, we spend hours. So basically, when I was your age, I went through and read Genesis to Revelation. I marked every time God describes the Gospel.

Then I got fascinated. I saw there’s the Calvinistic and Arminian. Both verses are in the Bible. Both types of verses. There are verses that, that seem to be what the Wesleyan Methodists and the Armenians and all those people believe, and then there are all those ones that the Calvinists and the Reformed people believe. And they’re all in the Bible, all those verses. So, I got enchanted by that. And so, I went through and looked up every Gospel presentation. I found 22 Gospel presentations in the book of Acts. They’re beautiful. How did Peter present the Gospel? How did Paul present the Gospel? How did John present the Gospel? How did all of those early saints present the Gospel? And then I started my next 72 hours. I went through and I marked every one of the Calvinistic and Armenian verses in the Bible.

Now, a friend of mine, I was talking about this, and he leads the Word of Life Bible Institute in Jeju Island in Korea. The next time I saw him, he said, I want to show you Bible. He says, I have a Bible that is only the Calvinistic and Armenian verses marked. And he said, just as we discussed, all of those verses are there. That’s why there’s a tension within the Church between those two groups, but I’m not teaching systematic theology. I’ll get back to the Eternal Gospel.

Here we go. Where we are right now is still in the Tribulation time. We’re between chapter 6 and 18. Lost humanity believes in evolution, reveres the Earth, and denies biblical creationism. So, God sends His 144,000 witnesses. So, they’re sharing the Gospel. They’re doing what Acts 1:8 says. You should be My witnesses. Only they’re all Jewish. They’re from those 12 tribes. And gives everyone an opportunity to hear the Gospel during the final divine environmental destruction. So, what’s happened in chapter 8 and what’s continuing to happen all the way through chapter 16 is the environment is falling apart. The air and the water and everything and all the trees. God the Son is creator, is systematically destroying the atmosphere, the oceans, and all the land. He’s sending earthquakes, smoke, fire, red tides.

Have you seen the red tide down here? They have it all the time down here in Florida. Where all the fish die. And you notice they die from small to big the longer the red tide goes first. It’s the smallest creatures. They crawl out of the sand, they go… they die. I have pictures. We always we’re always down here during the red tide event and it stinks. And you know the Florida beach people come and they rake all them up, put them in dump trucks, and dump the stinky stuff somewhere else. Can you imagine the whole world is going through a red tide? Can you imagine the smell when everything that lives in water dies? Unbelievable.

Global warming, it gets so hot the sun is burning people. Volcanoes are erupting. Tsunamis because of earthquakes and volcanoes. Asteroids or meteors or comets, all of that stuff is falling, and Armageddon’s coming.

So why did God send Revelation? Because all these things, in a small form, are happening to these people. There was the Antonian Plague. Where everybody was dying of this plague in the Roman Empire. There were famines, where everybody was starving. There were wars. There were murders. There were assassinations. There were demon problems. What the book of Revelation says is, no matter what time period you live in, Jesus is all we need.

But then, these people. Now I want you to look at the 144,000. We only were introduced to them in chapter 7. But now, they become the ultimate illustration of how to live for God in the ever darkening world. They actually are normal humans, as normal as us in this room. Only they’re Jewish, and they’re in the Tribulation. So, they’re not in the Church, they’re in the Tribulation, they’re Tribulation saints, they’re Jewish people that get saved. So, what can God do when someone gets saved? Let’s start reading about them.

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb with His 144,000. And His name and His Father’s name was written on their forehead. Now, this is beautiful. This is Jesus having a team meeting with these people that have gone through chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, all those demon monsters, chapter 10, chapter 11, the rise of the beast and Anti-christ and false prophet, chapter 12, Satan getting confined to Earth, chapter 13, the rise of Anti-christ with his killing machine. They’ve gone through all that. And look what it says, the Lamb is standing with them, and His name is written. Not just the name of Jesus, God the Father too.

This is the ultimate comfort. God wants us to feel the compassion of Jesus. Jesus commissioned these, and like He said in, remember in the Great Commission? Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That’s an illustration. We don’t go through all this alone. When you go back home, after summer camp or whenever the next time you should go home, and people start picking on you for wasting a year of your life going to Bible college when you could have advanced your career and gone to community college and you’d be a whole year ahead, and you know how people think. When relatives that say you’ve spent all that money, what’s [that] good [for], and you’re starting to get persecuted, the One that called you here, the One who is with you here, will be with you there. That’s the picture they’re seeing, that Jesus, what does compassion mean? Sympatheō, He feels with us. He goes through it with us.

But it doesn’t stop there. Look at verse 2. And I heard a voice from Heaven like the roar of many waters, like the sound of a loud thunder. And the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. So, John is trying to process what he’s hearing. And they were singing, look at this, a new song before the throne. Before the four living creatures, before the 24 elders. No one could learn the song except for the 144,000 that had been redeemed from the Earth. You know what God said? You guys are so faithful, you are so special, you get something no one else gets. And what I wrote there… By the way, these little 1, 2, 3’s, the red words, are just what I write in my journal because I’m doing the same devotional study you are. In fact, I do it every year. In fact, I even do it twice. I did it with the New Yorkers, the New York BI, and I did it with you in my journal. And what I wrote here for verses 2 and 3 is, Jesus offers true security and joy. Look where they are. They’re with Him. They’re in front of the throne. They’re standing there, safe and sound, happy as could be, with the name of God on them, singing to God a song nobody else has. They have a unique relationship with God.

Now look at this. And they’ve lived through the worst time in human history. In chapter 6, a fourth of all the people are killed in the fourth seal. In chapter 9, a third of all people are killed in the sixth trumpet. They have served through that, and here they are. Just another one of the evangelists.

We’re His current team, the Church. They are the next team. The two witnesses did their thing, but what happened to the two witnesses? They got massacred. See, we like happy endings where the hero doesn’t get killed, where the hero destroys the enemy. That’s not how God operates. God usually operates through His people being killed, which is a part of His plan to defeat the enemy. And that’s why Jesus said, if you’re faithful to death, I’ll give you a crown of life. Most people in these horrible times, in fact, most people during the Tribulation that come to Christ get killed.

Then the Gospel angel that we’re going to look at more, has this curious Eternal Gospel. Fear God, in verse 7. It’s, would you ever on the street, witness to someone, you’re doing a Gospel blitz, would you say this to them? You want to get saved? Fear God and give Him glory. No one, someone would say to you, when are you going to share Romans? This is the Eternal Gospel. The hour of his judgment has come. Watch out, God’s the Judge. Worship Him. Salvation involves worship. He’s the creator. He made Heaven and Earth, the sea and springs of water. Did you know there are actually Christians alive today on Earth that aren’t sure God is the creator? They believe in theistic evolution, that God formed all the ingredients and then let it happen. Even though God precisely tells us the order He created, the way He created the exact, sequence of His creation and the purpose of His creation. They go we aren’t sure that’s true.

Reminds me of the great Bible teacher, W. A. Criswell. He came up to his congregation in the sixties. And he took his Bible, and he says, you know what? There are people that don’t believe in creation. He opened his Bible, and he tore out Genesis and dramatically he tore the actual pages of his Bible, and he went [threw them into the air]. And all those pages went fluttering down. He said, and there are other people that says God doesn’t know what He’s talking about with the end of the world. And he tore out Revelation and he threw them. He really got the church’s attention. And what he said is, and pretty soon you don’t like the God of the Old Testament that’s killing all those Canaanites. So, he tore out the Pentateuch. And then he says, and then you wonder about all the prophetic passages in the minor prophets, and he tore them out. And he says then you doubt that Jesus is really God in the Gospels, and he threw that out. And when he got all done, he held up just the leather cover. He said, that’s what you have left.

I think a better way to do it is to wear a sweater. If I had a nice knitted sweater and I would start, I would tear it and I would pull one of the little stitches out and I would go like this and I’d undo my sweater. And I’d say, if you don’t believe in creation, and you start doubting the God that flooded the Earth, and I just keep pulling that sweater out. Until finally, it would just start going around and around me unraveling I said once you unravel part of it and don’t believe it. There’s nothing left

So let me ask you this God has said the Eternal Gospel is involved when God gets to give the Gospel to the whole Earth, it’s chapter 14 verses 6 and 7. That is never the way we would think of sharing it. Do you know why? We don’t connect at all. God says to go to Heaven you have to be a worshiper. To go to Heaven, you must acknowledge that I am your Creator, and that you’re fallen, you can’t sustain yourself, and you are lost. And so that’s what the Eternal Gospel does.

 By the way, none of you have asked me yet, but what’s going on in the Millennial Temple? How on Earth can God get them back to sacrificing animals? That’s what they do for a thousand years. Did you understand that? Ezekiel 40 to 48 describes every part of the Millennial Temple. How many acres it is, how big it is, all the tables, how they’re killing animals, they’re getting the blood, they’re doing all these sacrifices. That’s why when Martin Luther and John Calvin read those verses, they say they can’t possibly mean what they say. But they do. Why? Because in the Old Testament, God invented the sacrificial system. Have you ever thought of that? He invented the Ten Commandments. He invented the sacrifice rules in the tabernacle. Why? Because they were the most beautiful picture of Christ. Jesus is the spotless lamb. He’s a male, unblemished, guiltless, innocent, sacrificed, blood taken, poured out for the sin of others.

By the way, when you did a sacrifice in the Old Testament, the father would bring the lamb for his family at Passover, he’d bring it up, the priest would hold it and ask the father to lay his hands on the head of the animal. What was the dad doing? He was saying, I am saying this animal has taken all of our family’s sins on itself. And then the father would take his hands away and the priest would kill that little lamb that didn’t do anything wrong, and he was the substitute, and collect the blood.

So, the whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament was pointing people forward to look forward to the perfect sacrifice of Christ. At the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing, only we look back at Jesus, and the bread and cup picture the perfect body, and the perfect blood of Christ sacrificed for us. But, when you get to the Millennium here, they’re doing sacrifices and saying all of these sacrifices point back to the cross of Christ. God said that the Lord’s Supper is only for the Church until they’re home with Him. Then God reverts with Israel back to the sacrifices to point to Christ, and we’ll cover that when we get to Friday.

Okay, look what verse 4 says, how does he describe God, the 144,000? Now this is one that some of you should sit up and pay attention to. They have purity in a sea of filth. What did chapter 9, verse 21 of Revelation say? That all the people on Earth are doing… do you remember, there were six sins they were doing? They were murdering and their idols and they’re stealing and their drugs, their pharmakeia. Do you remember all that? Worshipping demons. What was the last one? Sexual immorality. The Tribulation is going to be the most unbridled lust of all history. It’s just going to be the whole world is at Woodstock. I don’t even remember [when]. 1969. Hundreds of thousands of young people, college kids, went to upstate New York to a concert of every famous rock group, it was called Woodstock, and it ended up being one giant drug induced, alcohol drinking, orgy. It’s just infamous what happened at Woodstock. I think of that in the Tribulation.

But look at these who are living in the midst of all that, they did not defile themselves, committing fornication with women. They are virgins. That means they never participated in extramarital or premarital sex. It is they who follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and these have been redeemed from mankind as First Fruits for God and the Lamb. Now, that’s what the verse says. We know what it means, that they were faithful to the Lord. How do you apply that to your life? What I wrote is this, only Jesus can offer us purity in a sea of filth. Only Jesus can keep us pure. By the way, He can. It’s do you want it? Do you want to be pure? Do you want to obey Him? He can do it.

He doesn’t stop with just the sexual purity. Jesus offers truth in a world of lies. Here in the time when the Anti-christ is deceiving the whole world, look at verse 5. In their mouth no lie was found. They’re blameless. Blameless? By the way, the French archaeologists were excavating at the turn of the century, like the 1890s. So, the turn of, the 19th to the 20th century. Back then, they were digging up in Thessaloniki, it’s modern day Greece, second largest city. They’re excavating a cemetery. Now remember, pagans lived and died in Necropolis, a city of the dead. Necropolis, city of the dead. Christianity changed all that, cemeteries were started by Christians.

Koimaō the word cemetery comes from is the word for sleeping. They called the place where they put the dead a sleeping place awaiting the resurrection. And so, every Roman town had the Necropolis for the pagans. And the growing number of Christians started being buried in the sleeping place where they were awaiting the resurrection. They were over digging in the Christian part, the French archaeologists, and they got the first gravestone, and they brushed it off, and blew on it. They announced, they carried it into the archaeologist’s tent, they said, there’s a family name on here, on this tombstone. So, they all gathered around, and they cleaned it with their little brushes, and the person got ready. This is the 1890s, they didn’t take a picture, they just wrote it down and they said the name of it is, and they looked at it and they said, wow it’s the word amemptos. So, it’s the Amemptos’ family that’s buried. That’s their gravestone. So, they recorded stone number one, Amemptos family, and they put it over where they store their archeological stuff. They went back to digging and someone said, I found another gravestone. And they took it up and they brought it and brushed it off. And guess what family it was, amemptos. All the gravestones had amemptos on it. Finally, they opened their Bibles, and they found that it is this word! It’s in 1 Thessalonians, that God may preserve you blameless, is what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, unto the coming of Christ.

Blameless? Never sinned, right? Isn’t that what blameless means? No. Blameless is the term they use for being justified. There is no record of my sin. There’s no penalty for my sin. My sins were paid for by Jesus. The record of my sin is on Jesus. The penalty of my sin is on Jesus. Satan can’t accuse me of my sins, it’s on Christ. That’s what justification is. And it’s all summarized by that one word right there. For they were blameless. The early Christians walked through life without guilt. Why?

They were blameless in the sight of God, not in sight of people. People knew them as their neighbors that were sometimes impatient, and sometimes selfish, and sometimes lustful, and sometimes not telling the truth, but they knew that God saw them as blameless. Why? Because as soon as they were aware of any sin of being selfish or lustful or untruthful they confessed their sins, and God is faithful and just to once and for all already have forgiven us.

Do you know the tenses of 1 John 1:9? If we’re constantly confessing our sins, present active indicative, God is faithful and just, aorist, once and for all, in the past tense, to have forgiven us. God does not forgive me every time I ask him to forgive me. He says, I already have forgiven you. But I want you to keep confessing so I can cleanse you. These 144,000 that were blameless were normal sinners that God kept from being immersed in the wickedness of this world and cleansed them and they went through life blameless.

The bottom line is God can deliver you anywhere, anywhere. Bonnie and I serve with missionaries in the worst parts of the world, whether it’s that doctor that was in the ISIS group or whatever.

How though do you stay healthy? There are only healthy Christians and sick Christians. Healthy Christians know they’re blameless, know their sins are on Christ. Sick Christians are guilty. They’re always feeling they’ve sinned too many times and God’s going to get them, and the devil just discourages and defeats them. So how do you know if you’re a healthy believer or not?

It’s really simple. They’re just, the Bible describes it. Healthy believers are prompted by love. Jesus said this, if you have My commandments and keep them, you love Me. The reason I obey the scriptures and the reason I spend time every day reading it and finding what God says and then I close by saying that’s what I want in my life. Do you know why I do that? Because I’m scared to death of God? Because I love Him.

When I met Bonnie 41 years ago, I actually kept a piece of paper in my wallet where every time she said, oh, my favorite flavor of ice cream is, Blue Bell Original Vanilla. Or she says, my favorite flowers are, and depending on the day, I would write that down. My favorite perfume is, and the longer I knew her I was collecting everything that was special to her on my little list. So that, I could show I loved her by keeping her commandments, what she said she liked. You know what God says? If you love Me, you find out what I like, and you want to do it. But what happens? He who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I will love him and manifest Myself to him. God manifests, God reveals. The way you get something out of the Bible is love the Lord so much that you look at it so you know what He wants and He says wow, you’re after My own heart like David, I’m going to show more and more of Myself to you. I just described Bible study for a healthy believer. It’s prompted by love. It’s obedience prompted by love. Not by fear. Not by not wanting to get punished. Not by hoping I make it to Heaven. I just love Him and whatever His commands are is what I want.

And then grace gets involved. Healthy believers get trained by grace. The grace of God that brought us salvation has appeared to all men, and that grace teaches me to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.

So, the 144,000 go through their ministry on Earth saying no to sin, saying no, I will not do that, that doesn’t please the Lord. I don’t want to defile myself. I don’t want to grieve the Spirit of God. I deny ungodliness. You know what deny means? You deny it a place. We just don’t leave room for the Devil. We just say, I’m not going to go to that place, it’s too tempting. I’m not going to watch that, it leads me to think things I shouldn’t. I’m not going to listen to that because those lyrics just won’t stop being in my mind. It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. So, we live soberly. That’s an interesting word, that means not intoxicated by the lies, the poison gases of Satan. Righteously, that has how I relate to people. Godly, that’s what I’m like, I’m a reflection of God in the present age. And that’s what 144, 000 were. But what were they looking forward to? The blessed hope. And we saw them there. They’re standing in Heaven around the throne, rejoicing in Christ.

Healthy believers make daily choices. In Ephesians, Paul taught the Ephesians to put off what they used to be like, every time that shows up, the old man that’s corrupt. Be renewed, get your mind focused on things above. And then put on the new man which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Righteousness how I relate to people and holiness how I relate to God. And I put that on every day. You know the people don’t change their clothes every day, right? After about the third day you go, [sniff, sniff, sniff] have you changed your clothes lately? We’re supposed, look what this says, put off. Constantly be getting rid of the old garments of our former conduct. You know how people say they lose their temper. They don’t lose their temper, they found it. You know what I mean? You’re supposed to lose it. You’re supposed to take it off. You’re supposed to be renewed. You’re supposed to put on the new man.

But like this, I love Psalm 101. You want a great study? The 101st Psalm is David telling you why he was a man after God’s own heart. It has his sacred vows in it, a lot of them. Here’s just one. David said, the man after God’s own heart, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. What does God call wicked? Gratuitous bloodshed. We’re not supposed to be entertained with bloodshed. Yet, what is the common denominator in most video gaming? Think about it. Most movies, other than the romance ones, but how many guys like romance movies. It’s the action ones. See, we’re drawn to that. David said, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away from, he’s talking about God, who aren’t going after God’s way. And look what he said, this is his vow. I don’t want it to cling to me. Did you know our brains have the capacity for an oct.., I think it’s 600 octillion neural connections. That means you can have all of YouTube’s, videos, stored away in your mind. That’s how big our brains are. Most of us hardly use a percentage, a small percentage of our brains. Healthy believers take a sacred vow. I don’t want to see, hear, think, be involved, I don’t want that in front of my eyes because my eyes are recording all that in my brain and I don’t want that in there where the Lord lives. He indwells me.

What happens when we get some bad files? Healthy believers purge the bad files out? I’ll never forget. I didn’t go to college right out of high school. I worked and I was a truck driver. And I used to drive my truck. Remember I grew up in a very strict Christian home. We went to church three, four or five times a week. All the time. It seems like we lived there. It’s like going to Word of Life. And so, I was very sheltered. And I remember my first day on the job. I backed my truck, delivering batteries into the loading dock, grabbed the clipboard under my shoulder, or I mean under my arm, and I ran up the stairs, and I went to the loading dock. And I just went, [gasp!] I’d never seen, in my whole life, what I saw the first day on my job. There was a six foot high, life size, full color, centerfold from Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine. Not one of them, the whole wall was pasted with what they called pin up girls. And they didn’t, they weren’t like National Geographic, tribal people. They were healthy Americans, young ladies filling the wall, life size. I just went… It was just like… I’d never seen… I’d never seen a girl without her clothes on in my life. And I went like this, and I put my clipboard up, and I went to the men’s room. I thought I would recover from that, and I went to wash my hands, and I looked. Smaller ones were totally pasted on the wall. There were stacks of magazines. Welcome to the real world.

Did you know, in just that one flash, your brain and my brain has a gigapixel camera. There’s a picture and here it was. So, I was back after that summer, which that happened over and over every loading dock. I had to go in like this and not look at the pornography. I got back to college, and I was memorizing the book of Hebrews. There’s 303 verses. I got to this verse. I was pacing at night. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from works that lead to death, to serve the living God? And I stopped. I thought, what is that verse saying? How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, this is speaking what’s going on the cross, the whole drama of redemption, cleanse your conscience from dead works. I went, wow, God! You mean You can erase those pictures from this summer? That’s what that verse says.

Now look what the next verse says. Verse 22. So I’m still pacing the floor memorizing Hebrews and I get to 10:22. Let us draw near with a full heart and, or with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. What I saw is, we can reclaim boldness. We can say to the devil, No. I did see that, but I hate it. That doesn’t please God. I want you to purge my mind. Do you know what? All of us have file cabinets full of junk that we’ve seen, and heard, and said, and watched, and done. And the Lord says part of what He wants to do is, number one, purge the bad files, and number two, give us back the full assurance of our faith. We can be sprinkled from an evil conscience so Satan can’t accuse us. And we say no, I did see that. I did enjoy that. That was sin. And Jesus paid for that sin and took the record forever away. And Satan, I hate that. That’s not what I want. And we resist him.

And then what we do is, what you all know, we renew our consecration. What did Paul say in Romans 6 and 12? We know the 12 one. I beseech you brethren, this is for believers, by the mercy of God who forgave us and erased the record, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice. A sacrifice is killed. A living one just keeps over and over being killed. How did Paul put it? I die daily. It’s your reasonable service. Don’t be conformed to the world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So, we renew our consecration to God. And that’s the only way we know God’s perfect will for our life.

Okay, let’s get back to that angel. We’re in verse 6. Another angel flying directly overhead, he had the Eternal Gospel he proclaimed to everyone that dwelt on the Earth, to every nation, and tribe, and language, and people, so he covers the world. And we’re not sure, but he could just be doing this from then on until Armageddon. That’s how God is. He keeps giving people an opportunity. And the angels saying, fear God. Give Him glory. Even if you get killed for it by the terminator, remember that’s chapter 13, that monster robot is killing everybody that won’t take the mark and won’t bow to Satan. Worship Him, the Creator. He made Heaven and Earth. He made the oceans, the springs of water. That’s the salvation offer globally.

Did you know anybody anywhere can hear the simple truth of the Gospel and it can change their life? While all of you were freshmen, in high school and COVID started, Bonnie and I were scheduled to speak at Jeju Island in Korea. And they called us, and they said, our board told us they’re closing airports in America. They told me they were closing airports in the Far East and in Asia. And so, they said, you shouldn’t come to Korea, you might get trapped here, you won’t be able to get out. Or you might not be able to get in after you fly all that way. I said, what do you want me to do? They said, Zoom in your class. I said, Zoom? What is Zoom? I’d never heard of Zoom. They said, it’s something where you can teach and we’ll watch it on TV because the students are here, they can’t leave because of COVID and you’re there. You can’t leave. Zoom in. I didn’t know what Zoom was.

My son came and he’s amazing. I could tell you stories about my son. He’s a genius. But he said, dad, don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. And he set up a bunch of cameras, screwed into our wall, whiteboards. Set up the cameras and put Bonnie behind the console, going between the six cameras and the audio and everything else. And one looks at my Bible, and another one connects to my computer, another one’s on my iPad. It was just like wow, in our basement. And I taught 13 Word of Life students in Korea for 15 hours the book of Isaiah. I had the best time of my life. I got letters from them, and they took pictures, and said, we’re watching you. And I went through Isaiah with them. Took me 60, 80, 100 hours to get the 15 hours for them ready. And then it took me hours and hours to make the slides. And then Bonnie and I took 15 hours recording it for 13 kids. And that was a blessing. It took us about two months to do all this. My son said, what are you going to do with your 15 classes? I said, they’re done. He said, they’re not done, dad. He said, this is COVID. Everybody’s stuck. They’re binging on Prime and Netflix and watching everything and watching it twice. And they’re gaming until their fingers hurt. And they’re stuck wearing their mask. He said, they’re just looking for stuff. He said, do something with them. I said, what? He said, we’ll take care of it. So, they posted the Isaiah class on YouTube.

I started getting letters. I got a letter from someone at the University of California, Berkeley. And they said it. They said, we’re required to stay in our offices because of our tuition that the students have paid, and they said so I’ve watched everything on Netflix, everything on Hulu, and YouTube, and everything on Prime. And they said, I just still was… nothing to do. And so, I typed, Knowing God. That was one of the 15 classes in Isaiah. And Google put that Isaiah class in their feed. And they watched Isaiah, a Berkeley staff member, University of California, Berkeley. And in the class, I started talking about what the Old Testament says salvation is. Salvation is a new heart I will give you, a new spirit I’ll put within you That’s what Ezekiel 36:26 says. I’ll take away your hard stony heart, I’ll put in you a soft heart and you’ll know Me. And it’s the whole Gospel. So this person, that was like class 7, they went back to class 1 and they said over the next two weeks they watched all 15 hours sitting in their little cubicle in their office.

On the last class as I do here, you’ve heard me say many times, I’m not sure how many of you really know the Lord. But he’s only an arm’s length away and right where you are you can reach out to Him. And I gave the plan of salvation. This guy in his Berkeley office bowed his head and said God I don’t know You, but I’m reaching out. I want to know you. I want to be saved.

He said nothing happened. No lightning or anything. But he got in his car and drove home, and he said he pulled out his keys. And he put the key in the apartment door where he’d lived for 15 years with his girlfriend. And as he was turning the key she pulled the door open. She heard him and said, Hi, honey. And he backed up and he said, we shouldn’t be living together. She said, what are you smoking? What’s wrong with you? What do you mean? We’ve been living together 15 years. He said, I became a Christian today, and living with you, not married to you, is wrong. And she realized he wasn’t smoking. She said, what were you watching? He said, I came to know God in Isaiah. She said, I want to try. So, she went to the TV and watched this class. She said, I don’t like that at all. Does he have any others? She switched to the Gospel of John. She had a different wavelength.

And I heard from them, and what they said is, they sent me a clip of this couple getting baptized in a storefront church in San Francisco, in a cow or a horse trough, where you give water to horses. This church brought it in, filled it with water, and she gave her testimony. She said what I just told you. And they, the couple… And he said, you know what? God gave me a new heart, sitting in my office at UC Berkeley. Do you know what that is? That’s called a miracle. That’s salvation. That’s what did I say on the thing you shouldn’t live with your girlfriend? I didn’t say that. The Holy Spirit. See, salvation is a miracle. All we do is offer it to people, and God does all the rest. He came in and changed this guy from inside out, changed his girlfriend. By the way, they got married. They’re in this little storefront church. They’re serving the Lord in San Francisco today, because that’s what God does.

And for those that don’t receive Him, God has holy wrath. And that’s what we see next. Another angel said, if anyone worships the beast and his image receives the mark on his forehead, he drinks the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength. Now look at this and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. That tells you something. Hell is not annihilation and Hell doesn’t go away. And it isn’t like God puts Hell off and says, forget about it. It’s in front. In fact, Isaiah, I just told you I taught Isaiah. Do you know what Isaiah 66 says? People in Heaven are going to come out to the edge and they’re going to look and they’re going to see over there the Lake of Fire. God doesn’t hide it. God is holy in His wrath, and He doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t think it’s something bad. Jesus talked more about Hell than Heaven and it’s for all those who refuse. You understand? The angels going, fear God and keep His commandments, and they’re saying I won’t. And God says, okay, you’ll pay for that forever.

True believers never stop believing. Here’s the call for endurance of saints. That’s what verse 12 says. Those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. People in the Tribulation are saved the same way that people in the New Testament are saved. [The New Testament] Church are saved the same way that people are saved in the Old Testament. True believers, as it says in Hebrews, look for a city whose builder maker is God.

Now we get to chapter 15. This is really interesting. And it’s late. We only have seven minutes and you guys are still have more classes after this. I’m only the warm up for today and you have a lot more. I want you to, for a moment, think about what you’re seeing in chapter 15. It’s a very short chapter. I saw another sign in Heaven. Remember the woman, remember that whole woman with the stars and the dragon and all that? Israel and Satan. Now here’s another sign. A great marvelous, seven angels have been the seven before the last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. What does he see? The bowls are coming. The seven bowls of God’s wrath. But now look at verse 2. This is the neat part. And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire. Telling us a little bit about the throne. The floor of Heaven, the crystal sea, is like gold you can see through. The streets are pure gold, but you, it’s like glass, gold glass, you can see through it. And it’s got fire. Remember the fire, the whole throne’s on fire? It’s glistening, see what it said? Glass mingled with fire.

What did Jesus say in Smyrna last week? that you’re going to face fiery trials. Peter put it that way in, in his letter to the same group. Fiery trials, that’s persecution. These people did have fiery trials. Look at them. They had victory over the beast, over his image, over his mark, over the number, his name, and they’re standing on the sea of glass. Do you know what they are? These are the martyrs, the ones that in chapter 5 he says, wait, wait, wait, wait, your time is [not yet], we haven’t got all of you up here yet. Now, when the last martyr, they all come out and they stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. And what we would say is, on Earth… Do you remember Jim Elliot? The Auca Indians killed him? Do you remember Nate Saint? The Auca. Remember those great Christian martyrs? There’s lots of them. We just say, oh, they were martyred. And the last time we saw them they were laying on an Orinoco riverbank filled with spears and arrows, bleeding to death, and their bodies floating down the river. That’s how we think of martyrs. Burnt at the stake, whatever. How does God look at them? I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire and those who had victory over the beast.

We already read that the way they had victory over the beast is they did not deny Christ to the death. The only way they got up there is they got killed. You understand that? These people, there’s no Rapture during the Tribulation as before. The only way to Heaven is to die, be martyred, but look how God looks at them. They have victory over the beast and they’re standing on this sea of glass mingled with fire, and they sing verse 3 the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb and they go into this worship; Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God Almighty. Just in true your ways, O King of the Nations. This final song is a reminder we have endless life. Did you know we have endless life today? If you’re saved, you have eternal life today, and no one can take it away from you, even though they kill your body.

And the final song is sung, and then God’s wrath comes. Verses 4 to 8, who will not fear you, O Lord God, and glorify Your name? You alone are holy. Remember I told you that, focus on holiness, that worship changes us. All nations will come and worship You. Your righteous acts have been revealed. And after this I heard, I looked, and the sanctuary and the tent of witness and Heaven was opened. And out of the sanctuary come the seven angels with the seven plagues. They’re clothed in pure bright linen, golden sashes around their chest. One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of wrath. So, the cherubim are handing out these bowls. Of the God who lives forever and ever. The sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power. No one could enter the sanctuary till the seven plagues were finished. And here they come.

These bowls, see the top? The first bowl are sores on men with the mark of the beast. The Lord gives them an oozing sore wherever they got that mark of the beast. Then all the oceans die with the second bowl. Then all the rivers become blood. All the fresh water gets polluted, that’s the third one. The sun scorches everyone with fire. Then there’s darkness, just like in the plagues. By the way, these parallel the plagues of Moses. Then the Euphrates kings come across the Euphrates River. And then Armageddon, and it is done.

By the way, do you notice that they parallel the trumpets? All of the sea becomes dead, in the second bowl, a third of the sea got polluted. In the third bowl all of the rivers get polluted, in the trumpet, only a third. The bottom lot row are the trumpets. They’re only a partial, because the 144,000 are still ministering, and the two witnesses. All that’s going on. But now that God’s pulled them off and has the angel broadcasting, He destroys everything. And then… By the way, I’m just introducing tomorrow, Armageddon, and the seven bowls mark the end.

Before we go, I want to tell you this. That’s my wonderful wife, if you’ve never seen her in the back. We are full time missionaries. This is our prayer card. And we collect your prayer cards when you guys become missionaries. And we love being a part of your lives. And this is our prayer card. That’s my email address that goes to my website. And we do have a service that anything I’ve taught about, anything, we have a group of people that will point you to what I’ve taught about on anything. And Bruce over there, my favorite octogenarian student is sitting there. And I told him about the DTBM Academy where everything, all the slides are there. And that’s a link right there, that QR code, to our YouTube where we share these classes, freely to all.

And that’s the Eternal Gospel.