Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles to the book of Revelation, chapter 16. That's
where our lesson will be from this morning. I believe I've
got a lesson that will be of great interest to everyone this
morning. Before we begin, let's bow in
prayer. Our great God and our Heavenly
Father, we come into your courts this morning with thanksgiving
and with joy. Father, how thankful we are that
you've given us yet another opportunity to meet together to worship and
praise your matchless name. Father, I pray that you would
enable us to do that this morning, that you would deliver us from
just going through the motions of religion, but enable us to
truly worship you in spirit and in truth. Enable us to truly
praise you from the heart. Praise you as you ought to be
praised. I pray, Father, that You'd bless Your Word as it's
preached and taught this morning. You've promised us that Your
Word would not return unto You void. And we pray that this morning
that You'd send Your Word forth in power to break the stony heart,
to give life to the dead, to comfort and strengthen and edify
Your people, to teach us more of our Lord Jesus Christ and
to draw us ever closer to Him, to cause us to ever rest more
and more fully upon him. I pray that you'd be with us
in this class this morning. We pray especially that you'd
be with the classes for our children and young people this morning,
that you'd bless our teachers, that you'd bless our children
with the hearing ear, that you'd use this time to plant the seeds
of faith in their heart. Father, we're so thankful for
all your blessings and mercies to us. We know that you've given
us every spiritual blessing in our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything. Father, we're thankful. And we
beg your forgiveness for the times that we look upon just
the things of the flesh and are not nearly as thankful and grateful
as we ought to be. And we also thank you for all
these material, fleshly blessings that you've given to us, you
have blessed us beyond measure. Thankful that you've seen fit
to restore Mike back to us and pray you continue to bless him
and his family and others, Father, who need you especially. We pray
that you'd be with them, that you'd heal and comfort and above
all, that you'd give a special portion of your presence to lead
and to guide and comfort their hearts until such time as you
see fit to provide a way out. Bless us as we look into your
word. Cause us to see our Lord Jesus Christ in his glory and
sufficiency in your word this morning. It's in his precious
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, Revelation chapter
16. I've titled the lesson this morning,
Armageddon Begins. I know that title is going to
get everybody's attention, Armageddon. You know, most of y'all know
Janet spent the week last week up in Lexington with Savannah
and Clark. She called one evening and she
asked me, she said, what have you been doing today? I said,
well, I've been getting ready to fight the battle of Armageddon.
And she said, oh, that's been a big day. Armageddon. Now that gets everybody's attention,
doesn't it? It puts visions of a war in our head. Visions of
a war that's so destructive it destroys the whole world. Now
let me tell you this right from the beginning to try to cut through
this preconceived notion that's in our head. Armageddon is not
some horrible war here on earth. It's not a nuclear holocaust
or something. And North Korea is not getting
ready to start Armageddon. Armageddon is a spiritual warfare. Armageddon is Christ's final
victory over Satan. And it will be a complete victory.
So Armageddon is not something that we ought to fear. Armageddon
is something that we ought to be longing for. Armageddon is
the place of Christ's final victory over Satan and his final victory
over everything that opposes him. Now, Armageddon is not a
specific place on Earth. It's not an actual place over
in the Middle East or something. Every time something that seems
significant starts to happen in the Middle East, everybody
thinks this is going to be the start of Armageddon. Well, that's
not true. The very word Armageddon, if
you look it up in Strong's, it just means a symbolic place.
And it's made up of two words, meaning mountain range and rendezvous. Let me give you the spiritual
significance of this symbolic place, Armageddon. God will gather
every enemy who opposes Christ and opposes His church into one
place. We saw that last week. Remember
the sixth vial was poured out and the rivers were dried up
and What that meant was how God had removed every obstacle that
the people of the world had been stopping them from attacking
the church. Now, all those obstacles have
been removed. The enemies of the church had nothing stopping
them from coming together to attack God's church. They all
gathered together in one place. Well, that's the beginning of
Armageddon. We saw that in verse. Get in the right place here.
In verse 16, last week, he gathered them together into one place
called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon. They'd all been gathered
together. All these enemies have been gathered
together in one place. Now they all came together thinking
they had such strength in numbers that they're going to win this
great victory over the church. When in fact, they've been brought
together for God's purpose to destroy them all in one place
in one fell swoop. That's the part of the word rendezvous. They've all been brought together.
Well, the other part of the word Armageddon means a mountain range
or hills. And this is what that means.
The Lord is going to destroy everyone who exalts himself,
who lifts himself up and exalts himself to oppose God. Now, primarily,
that's Satan who's lifted himself up, tried to magnify himself
against God to take the throne of God. But it also includes
all Satan's followers who have exalted themselves. They've exalted
themselves in false religion. They've exalted themselves in
other places of the flesh. And God's going to destroy them.
Every prominent place of rebellion against God is going to be destroyed.
That's what a mountain represents. You know, those giant mountains,
you can see them from a long way off. They just dominate the
area where they are. Well, that represents those people
who have lifted themselves up, made themselves prominent in
an area of rebellion against God, and they will be destroyed. Our Lord told us that plainly,
whosoever exalted himself shall be abased. That's the whole meaning
of Armageddon. Let's see if that's not what
our text teaches us, beginning in verse 17. And the seventh angel poured
out his vial into the air. And there came a great voice
out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying, it is done. Now this is the seventh and final
plague or strike that God lays upon those people who refuse
to believe the gospel, refuse to repent when they hear the
gospel. This is the final judgment, the beginning of the final judgment
at the end of the world. Now, what we've seen in the book
of Revelation, each each vision in the book of Revelation shows
us the entire history of the church on earth. These things
are not just individual events that happen right at the very
end of time. John showed us different visions of the whole history
of the church on earth. And all the events, all the experiences
of the church throughout history, they've all been ordained of
God. This happened specifically at that time for God's purpose.
And it all happened for this one purpose, so that God wins. That's the message of the book
of Revelation. God wins. Christ will be exalted. God's purpose is also this. Since
he wins, since Christ is going to be exalted, all of his people
will win in him. They'll all be more than conquerors
in him. All of God's people will be saved. Not one of them will perish because
God wins. And God's going to use his church
on earth to do it. He's going to use his church
on earth to preach the gospel so that that gospel goes out
into the world to call out God's elect, to call them to faith,
to call them to repentance, to call them to life in Christ.
God's going to use the church to feed the sheep. So the sheep
are fed, so they're strengthened, so they're comforted, so they
You know, they've got some place to go to hear the Savior. And
that encourages the church to persevere in the faith. No matter
how bleak the situation looks right now, just keep doing what
God's given us to do. Just keep preaching the gospel.
It won't fail. The gospel will not fail. It's
going to feed God's sheep. It's going to call out God's
people. So no matter how bleak it looks, just keep doing what
God's given us to do. And we know this, the end of this thing,
The end of all time is going to end this way. God's going
to win. Now, that's the comfort of the
church, no matter how bad the situation looks now, no matter
how strong our enemies look, no matter how much they've got
something over us, it's all right. We know the end. God wins. That's how this thing ends. And
that helps us, encourages us to persevere in the faith. But
there's going to be a day when God's purpose of redemption for
His people is complete. All His elect have been saved,
and when that happens, God's going to wrap this thing up.
He's going to come with a great shout from heaven, and everybody's
going to hear Him say it. It is done. It is done. Now all of God's purpose is finished. And there'll be no more longsuffering
with men. The time of judgment has come.
It's done. God has a purpose. Now, it seems
like to us it's lasting forever and ever and ever and ever. It
is going on, but there's going to come a moment. In a moment,
it is done. All of God's purpose has been
wrapped up and finished. You know, I thought about this.
Our Savior left the cross crying, it is finished. The great transaction
is done. The sin of God's elect is finished.
It's all been put away under the blood of Christ. That's how
he left the cross. It is finished. And he's gonna
come back to earth crying, it is done. Everyone for whom he
died has been saved. Locked, stocked, and barreled.
And when he comes back saying, it is done, what's made obvious
to everybody, Christ wins. He's come back, he wins. And
his people are gonna win in him. When that day comes, God's gonna
bring all of his people to be with him forever. Those who have
died, he's gonna come back and say, it is done. And all those
who died in the faith are going to be resurrected in glorified
bodies and taken to be with the Lord. They won, didn't they? God gave them the victory. And
all those who remain, who remain in the faith in a twinkling of
an eye, they're going to be changed, brought up in the air, taken
to be with the Lord forever. They won. God gave them the victory,
didn't he? In the end, after God's taken
his people out of this earth, God's going to judge and he's
going to dance. all those who refuse to believe
on Him. And that judgment is going to
be severe. And that's what's pictured in
these next verses. Look at verse 18. And there were voices and
thunders and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake,
such as was not since men were upon the earth. So mighty an
earthquake and so great. Now, you're welcome to read everything
you can find out about these verses. And nobody knows if these
voices and the thunder and the lightning and the earthquake,
nobody knows if those things are physically real or not. They
might be. I don't know. I really don't
think so. I think that these things are
given to us as a picture of spiritual truth, but they may be literal.
I don't know. But it doesn't really matter
whether they're physical voices and lightnings and thunderings
and earthquakes. It doesn't matter if they're physical or not because
the significance of these things are spiritual. Just like everything
in scripture, the significance of everything being taught in
the scripture, the book of Revelation included, is spiritual, not physical. The voices from heaven represent
God speaking. And here is when he's going to
be speaking. His people have been taken out of the earth.
He's speaking in awful judgment. Can you imagine how horrible
it would be to hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ saying,
depart from them. I never knew. Awful voices. To hear him say, the judge of
all the earth say, bind them hand and foot and cast them into
outer darkness or they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That is a frightening lightning thunder voices from heaven. When
that happens, men are going to be shocked. They're going to
be utterly shocked. They never heard anything like
this before. Nobody ever told them this is how God is. Nobody's
ever told them before. God's holy. God's righteous. God is just. Whatever God does
must be just. And God's going to judge every
sin with an absolute white hot fury. Nobody ever told them God's
like that. Nobody ever told them that's
what being holy means. They thought God was some sweet
old grandpa, you know, with gray hair and a long beard who's just
soft. And, you know, he just loves
everybody. You know, I was watching some movie. I just channel circled
around late at night, you know, I came upon these two men talking
and one of them said, I don't know. you know, about what God
even is. Tell me about your God. And that's
exactly what he said. He's got white hair and a long
white beard and just like an old grandpa. They're going to
be shocked to find out what God really is like. That he's holy
and that he's just and he hates sin. That's why he's going to
punish it forever. And the earthquake, that represents
the foundation of everything these people believe being shaken
so badly. It's just all going to crumble
apart and they're going to be left without a foundation because
the earthquake just shook their foundation away from them. They
don't have a rock on which to stand. They don't have a rock
in which to hide when the overflowing scourge of God's wrath comes
sweeping through. Now, it's good to stop right
here and remind everybody, anyone who believes Christ, I implore
you. Anybody who's built upon Christ doesn't have to worry
about these thunders and lightnings and earthquakes and voices from
heaven because our rock is not like their rock. Nothing built
upon the Lord Jesus Christ can ever be shaken by anything. Nothing
built upon Christ can ever be destroyed. So we need to remember
that now about the false religion of our day. We can't do anything
to join with the We can't do anything to cooperate in their
ways, not just their message, but the manner in which they
operate. We can't join with that in any way. And I know people
say, well, you know, I look at these people, they seem like
such good people. And you listen to me carefully. I know they
seem like such good people. They do so many good things,
but you listen carefully. Their good works is what's going
down. God's going to pour out His fury upon their good works
because they trusted in those things rather than Christ alone. So we pity Him now, pray for
Him, but don't join up with Him in any way. Why would you want
to? God's wrath is upon them. God's wrath. God's holy. And
people are going to be shocked to find out this is what God's
really like. and it's going to shake away
everything that they ever believed. They're going to find out it
was all a false refuge. God hates this false religion
and that's what he's going to utterly destroy with the fiercest
of his wrath. Verse 19, God's fiercest wrath
is going to be reserved for false religion. And the great city
was divided into three parts and the cities of the nation
fell and great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give
unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Now, in scripture, Babylon represents false religion. It's the religion
of this world. Babylon is where all the smartest
of people went, the engineering and medicine and all the things
that they did, you know, just like Nebuchadnezzar. Well, that
represents man's religion, what the smartest of men can come
up with. And when the seventh vial is poured out, it's poured
out on this world specifically for false religion. Back up here
in verse 17, it says the seventh angel poured out his vial into
the air. It's just into the air across
the whole world that kills everything because everything needs air.
And this destruction is not only is everybody just killed, just
the air sucked out, you know, it's drastic. The destruction is drastic. Babylon
is crushed. False religion is crushed. It's
like first it's broken in pieces, broken in three parts. Now, God
had been long suffering with them, hadn't he? For thousands
of years, God had been long suffering with those in false religion
to accomplish his purpose. But God's been long suffering
with them. Thousands of years has passed, but now God didn't
forget. He didn't forget their rebellion.
He didn't forget their idolatry. He didn't forget their persecution
of his people. He remembers everything. This
is the time of reckoning. This is why God pours out the
fierceness of His wrath upon them, because He remembers everything.
And He gives them the wine of His wrath to drink. And they
can't refuse the cup. They've got to drink it all.
But here's the problem. They can never finish it. Men
can never finish this cup. While they were on earth, while
they were in their false religion and babbling and doing what the
smartest of men said, What did they do? They refused to believe
Christ. It was foolishness to them, wasn't
it? Foolishness to the Greek. I'm smarter than that. This is
too simple. They refused to believe on Christ.
They were so religious. Oh, they were so religious. But
they didn't want Christ. And you know why they didn't
want him? Because they didn't think they
needed him. They thought they were so good at what they were
doing that they didn't need Christ. Now Christ came to this earth
to save his people from their sin. When he went to Calvary,
Christ drank the cup of damnation dry. God gave him that cup and
he drank it dry. He drank the very dregs of that
cup for his people so that there is not a drop, not one drop of
God's wrath left for his people. Christ took it all away. He drank
it all. He took it all in his body on the tree. He suffered
it all. So that God said, there's no fury left in me. Because Christ
drank the cup dry. That's why heaven is eternal
for God's love. Christ drank all that dry. He
saved him. So they're going to enjoy that
salvation eternally. But everyone outside of Christ,
they have to drink that whole cup of God's damnation themselves.
And like I said, we can't drink the whole cup. We can't do it.
That's why damnation is eternal. It's eternal. So every enemy
of God is going to be destroyed, but not just destroyed, annihilated. First, they're described as being
broken in three pieces. And then verse 20 describes them
as being annihilated. And every island fled away and
the mountains were not found. Now remember the mountains, they
represent Satan. He's exalted himself up against
God. They represent men and false
religion who've exalted themselves up to oppose God. And when Christ
comes and says, it's done, they're going to be just totally destroyed,
just annihilated. People are going to go looking
for those mountains and they're going to think, well, I'd be
easy to find a mountain. I mean, you know, just think
about the Rocky Mountains. You think, well, that's not going to be too hard
to find. I mean, just keep going. Eventually you can't miss it.
And they're going to be looking for those mountains and they
can't find them. Because God's just destroyed
them, just leveled them. And that destruction is going
to be shocking to me, just shocking to me. And the islands represent
men who thought they were self-sufficient. One of two ways they thought
they were self-sufficient. One, they thought, you know,
this religion in this world, I mean, they're all saying different
things. Who knows what's right? I'm just gonna go off and do
my own thing. I'm just not gonna get caught into any of their
lies. I'm gonna go off and do my own
thing. I'm just gonna be an island, you know, unto myself. And, you
know, I'll worship God on my island, you know, in the trees
and the waves or whatever, you know. And they're gonna find
out there can't be any salvation in that. The island is destroyed.
Or they thought that their righteousness was good enough, that it would
protect them from God's wrath. Their righteousness is so good,
it's going to protect God's wrath from finding them. Just like
people who live on islands, you know, in the middle of the ocean,
they've always felt like they're kind of protected, right? Because
it's very difficult for a land army to attack an island. Well,
they thought they're kind of protected. That's the way these
people in false religion are. They thought they were protected.
They thought they were protected by their own righteousness. But
God's wrath did find them and annihilated them because God's
wrath is justice finds every sin. And people will be shocked. They thought that island was
a sure thing and they got there looking for the island. It ought
to be easy to find. I mean, just, you know, there's
an island in the middle of the sea sticking up. It ought to
be easy to find, but they can't find it because it's just been
annihilated, just wiped out. And that destruction will be
to me to find out this is what God's really like. He won't tolerate
sin. He annihilates it. But here's
the thing about the nature of man, and we saw this last week,
we saw a whole lesson on this thing about repentance. The end
of the world, not just the thought of the end of the world, not
just the threat of the end of the world, a threat of God's
fierce anger against sin, not just the thought of it. But seeing
it in person, seeing the end of the world, seeing God's fierce
anger poured out on sin still will not change the nature of
man. Verse 21. And there fell upon
men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight
of a talent, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of
the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Those great
hailstones that weigh a talent, they're about 100 pounds each. 100 pound rocks falling on men
from the sky. Now, again, I think this is figurative
language to show us a spiritual truth. It could be real, you
know, I don't know. But whether it's real or not
is not the important thing for us to find out here. The important
lesson for us here is a spiritual lesson. that God's judgment against
sin will be crushing. It will be crushing. It will
be an awesome, fearful thing for men to behold. It's just
crushing like a hundred pound rocks just falling from the sky
upon people. And when men see that, when they're
experiencing, when they're feeling God's fierce anger against their
sin, it feels like these hundred pound rocks just falling upon
them, they still won't repent. They still won't. I mean, God's
just sending down these hundred pound rocks upon them, and they
still won't ask God for mercy. They still won't ask him for
mercy to quit this judgment because the human nature has not changed.
Preaching hellfire and brimstone, hundred pound rocks on fire falling
on people will not bring people to Christ. Won't do it. It won't
do it. Having it actually fall on men
is not going to cause them to repent and beg for mercy. The
only way anybody can repent and remember repenting is not just
being sorry for my sin. You think if God was lobbing
a hundred pound rocks on you, you know, you'd be, at least
you'd be sorry for your sin, but they're not even sorry for
it. But more than that, they won't turn to Christ. And the
only way anybody will turn to Christ, to trust Him to be all
of their salvation is if God gives them a new nature. Now
that brings me to the point that I want to end with. You'll hear
talking about Armageddon, the final judgment, Christ's final
victory over Satan, over everything that opposes him. Now that is
true. This is what the Word teaches.
That day is coming and it's good for us to be taught that. But
it seems kind of scary, doesn't it? Well, I want to end on something
that will give us some comfort. and some assurance and a reason
to repent and turn to Christ. This day of Armageddon is awful,
it's horrible, but there's some comfort to be found, some assurance
to be found for God's people. Now remember, all the book of
Revelation is not written to tell us the signs so we can try
to figure out the signs of the day that Christ is coming back.
The book of Revelation is written to show us seven visions of all
of the history of the church on earth. All the things that
we experience are taught to us here. It's God's will. It's something
that God is doing to save his people from their sin. Now, there
is the final day of Armageddon, the day of God's judgment against
sin. But there are many other days, different days of Armageddon
throughout the history of the church on earth. You think about
Israel or the past. How many times did a whole army
just be surrounding them? I mean, all is lost. There is
no way that this army that's surrounding them is not going
to destroy them. And in one night, God wipes the whole army out.
It was the day of Armageddon, wasn't it? That mountain that
raised himself up, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, whoever it was
that raised himself up to oppose God's people. The day of Armageddon
came and they were destroyed. There are times in the lives
of every believer when there's a trial, we're in the midst of
it, it's just got such a grip on us, and we're just sure that
that trial is finally just going to absolutely crush us. I can't bear it another second.
And suddenly, the trial is gone. What's caused that crushing?
What's caused that pain? The day of Armageddon came for
that thing that opposed God's people. But there is a day of
Armageddon that every believer experiences in the heart. There's
a personal day of Armageddon that God has appointed for all
of his people. It's the day that the Lord conquers
me. It's the day that the Lord conquers
you, his people. Now you remember that the Lord
has laid out these seven plagues upon the earth on people who
refuse to believe. He's done it through preaching.
He had these seven angels or seven preachers. These plagues
are poured out on people because they refuse to believe the gospel
that's preached. And when they refuse to believe
it, that final day of Armageddon comes. But you know, the Lord
brings the day of Armageddon to the hearts of his people through
preaching. Isaiah told us, and it's not
just any preaching, you're not just going through any religious
service, it's through the preaching of Christ. You remember Isaiah
told us in Isaiah 40 that when the Messiah comes, every valley
is going to be thawed. Every mountain is going to be
laid low. All the crooked places should be made straight and the
rough places clean. That's Christ the Messiah. When
He comes, He's going to lift up all of His people out of the
valley of sin. Lift them up to righteousness
and glory. Lift them up to be with Him.
And He's going to come and lay low every mountain. And that's
all of us. You know, every one of God's
people is both a mountain and a valley. We're low. We're down
low in the valley of sin. He raises us up. But we're all
mountains too. Every one of us has exalted ourselves
a whole lot higher than we ought to be. We think more highly of
ourselves than we ought to think. But when Christ comes, when he
comes in the power of the gospel, that day of Armageddon, what
happens? He lays us low. He lays us low
so we fall at his feet, begging for mercy. Christ comes and makes
every crooked sinner straight, makes them straight in his righteousness.
That's the day of Armageddon, a personal day of Armageddon.
If you look in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, This is a fulfillment of what
Isaiah wrote in Isaiah chapter 40 and second Corinthians chapter
10. Verse three, although we walk
in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. See, that's why I
told you Armageddon It's not a fleshly, earthly war, it's
a spiritual war. Yeah, we're in the flesh, but
we're not warring with the flesh. We're fighting a spiritual war
for the souls of men and women. Verse four, for the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high
thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Now,
we don't need fleshly weapons. We don't need psychology and,
you know, tricks to use people, to trick people to, you know,
whatever you're trying to trick them to do. I don't know. My
brother tells me, you know, all false religion is, is sales.
It's just sales. He's like, go to these sales
training things. I think that's what false preachers are doing.
He said, and they're not even doing a good job of it. I mean,
if you're going to do it, you may as well, you know, do a good
job of it. We don't need those things. We don't. Our weapons
are not fleshly. We're not trying to trick people
into doing stuff with psychology. We just preach the gospel because
that's the only weapon that God uses. It's his word. We preach
the word. We preach the gospel because
it's only this word that God's ever going to use to give spiritual
life to his people. And that's what we're fighting
for, for the spiritual life of God's people. We're contending
to bring people to Christ. And God's going to use his gospel
to bring his people into captivity, not being held against their
will. He's going to use his gospel to make his people willing servants
of Christ, to willingly bow to him. And God uses his gospel
to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And
you know what that means? It means that God uses the gospel,
the gospel priest, to teach us that the only obedience we have
is the obedience of Christ. And it brings us into captivity
to that, so that we won't trust anything, not any of our works,
not anything anybody else does, but we're going to trust Christ
completely. Our mind, our heart is brought
into captivity to trust Him only. We can't trust anything else.
And when a heart is conquered like that, that's the day of
personal promaganda. What happened in that day? God
won, didn't he? Christ was exalted. He was exalted
in the salvation of another one of his people. God won. You know
what? One of God's elect just received
the victory too. They just received the victory
in Christ. So when people start talking
about Armageddon, don't be afraid of it. Don't fear what those
things are going to happen. The believer longs for that day. I long for that day. He had a
personal Armageddon, and God conquered me. I long for that
day of Armageddon when he puts down everything that ever opposes
him, because on that day his people will be with him forever.
That's the teaching of Armageddon. All right, the Lord bless you.