Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of Revelation 16, focusing on the seven bowls of wrath as a crucial aspect of God's judgment and love for humanity. He explains that these judgments reveal God's wisdom and passion, and that preachers must not shy away from discussing them due to the fear of man. Bickle encourages believers to understand and articulate the message of God's judgment clearly, as it is essential for evangelism and the end times. He highlights the importance of being familiar with scripture to strengthen one's faith and witness, especially regarding the second coming of Christ and the events surrounding it.

Filled with revelation of your wisdom and your character. I ask that you would show us more about yourself from Revelation chapter 16. We thank you for that in the name of Jesus, amen. Well, it says session 13 because I'm taking advantage of the teen track. We had a couple of weeks and we got a couple of weeks again and on Saturday nights I'm going to some real basic things for the teens. It's really, I'm quite enjoying it and I'm wanting to be more basic anyway, more simple. But, so I got this free week and can't do this, can't do that and I didn't finish the last session in a series about eight months ago. And so, it was session 13, it was literally last whatever. So it's for my sake and for those that have been around but Revelation chapter 15 and 16, I know we're going to really focus on chapter 16. It's the seven bowls of wrath. The most intense, it will be the most intense time of human history. And the author of the seven bowls of wrath is the man we love, Christ Jesus. And the issue of these seven bowls of wrath, they're called bowls because Jesus pours them out where the angel does at his command. He pours them out in fullness like a deluge. The idea of pouring means abundance, means swift. It's just coming like all at once. And they do come in rapid succession, one after the other. Incidentally, the word that is used in Revelation 16 to pour out is the same word, pour out your spirit. And so, the same Jesus is pouring out a deluge of the Holy Spirit on one end and then on the other extreme, he's pouring out a deluge of an abundance of his wrath. But his wrath is revealing his wisdom, his power but more than anything, it's revealing his passion, his love, his holy love for his people. And the issue of God's judgment is the most difficult issue that we will have to clearly articulate to the nations in the hour of which it will be most necessary to articulate it. When God's servants, preachers of the word, yield to the fear of man, almost always, it's related to the issue of judgment. I wanna say that again because that's why we need this chapter. When we yield to the fear of man, it happens all the time for preachers and many of you are preachers now, even though your congregation may only be three at the coffee shop, but that's how it starts. It really does start that way. I go on a little bunny trail here. I spent a couple years where most of my Bible teaching and I came with a handful of notes was the three, four, eight, 10 people in a living room. Poor guys, I would come there, big stack of notes. They'd go, oh no, they took it as a threat, as a formal threat. When I'd pull out my notes, cause it was a big stack because I didn't know how to talk from my heart. I mean, I could talk from my heart but I get confused from one verse to the next. So I would sit down and most of my Bible studies in the first number of years, most of my teaching was five, six, seven, three, four, five people sitting around a circle and going through it verse by verse. And that's really how I learned how to teach the word. Okay, off of that. So a lot of you are teachers right now. Your congregations are small, but that's good for you because you can make mistakes and you can be not fully aware of what you're saying. And it's not so bad. You know, they'll look at you and go, I was a little bit confused by that and they'll give you mercy. But be a teacher even now. Don't wait till you get a big congregation. Be a teacher now. But the issue of the wrath of God, of the judgment of God is the issue of which God's servants yield to the fear of man and they reduce it. It happens all the time. I saw recently on, well, you see it all the time though. On the big kind of media presentation, famous preachers. I saw a couple of them in the last several months and they got on TV, worldwide audience type deal or at least millions and millions. And the subject always of God's judgment comes up and each of them reduced it to almost nothing. And I said, not how terrible they are because until you get in front of millions of people, you just don't know exactly what you're gonna do. But I thought, Lord, it's painful to my heart that the body of Christ does not have the strength. And the reason they don't have the strength is because they don't have the clarity. The Bible's filled with the subject, but they don't study it. Because when they read the passages about the judgment of God, the passages are so unfamiliar and there's verses they don't understand. They go, I don't really get this judgment of God stuff. So they don't read it because they don't read it because they're not familiar with it. Because they're not familiar with it, they don't read it. And they don't read it because they're not familiar with it. And it goes on and on. Therefore, when they get in a position, they don't have strength and clarity in their soul and they just bring it right down to nearly nothing. Some of the most experienced preachers in the land do that because they don't study this subject. So I wanna push you on this subject. Revelation 16 is the absolute pinnacle. It's the high mark of the Bible on the subject of the judgment of God. And if you can make sense of a loving, beautiful Jesus in Revelation 16, you can make sense of him in his beauty and his love anywhere in the word of God. Now, if you stumble here, well, this is the hardest actually. So if you stumble here, don't give up on yourself. But the reason people don't talk about Revelation 16 is they feel like they don't grasp it because you never hear it taught on. And so though I know many of you are new on the subject of the end times, nobody is so new they don't need to hear Revelation 16. Everybody needs to hear this. Makes us familiar. And then we get familiar with the scripture, our spirit gets strong and we get clear. We get clear and strong, then we don't yield to the fear of man. Now, Revelation 16, someone might say, well, what's it have to do with me? I mean, I won't even be here when this is happening. Remember this, that most of the prophets in the Bible prophesied to a generation, they prophesied to people past even their lifetime. Most of the prophets, the majority of what they said had something to do with even beyond their time on the earth. Because God wants a clear witness. I wanna say that again. He wants the nations to have a very clear witness of Revelation 16, the very chapter that is rarely ever mentioned anywhere in the earth. The most important chapter for the people to have a witness of, but the clearly, at the very top of the list of the most neglected chapter. The only way the nations are going to know about this is that God's servants have proclaimed it and they've held the line and they've understood God's heart. Meaning we don't see a contradiction in Revelation 16 to the beautiful Jesus. We've had a revelation of his heart, we've grappled with it, we've settled it, we're familiar with it, our spirit is bold, we're not yielding to fear and we're proclaiming it clearly. Even in the time of the seals and the trumpets, we're proclaiming the bowls. There are seven seals, those are judgments. There are seven trumpets, those are judgments. There are seven bowls, there are judgments. There's three judgment series. Even when, and each of them are more intense than the one before them, even when the seals are happening, we're gonna tell people, this is intense, but it's going to be worse, but there is an answer that is adequate for you. So even when the seals are going forth, and the seals are really intense judgments compared to anything we've ever experienced, the seals will be causing the whole planet to be reeling, and we will say, not only is this of God, something even more intense is yet around the corner. God's requiring his church to give a witness to what's in his heart and what's coming. Then after the seals go, the seven seals are done, then more intense, the seven trumpets, and we're gonna talk about the seven trumpets to the nations, but we're gonna tell them, even though they're more intense than what just happened in the seven seals, the seven trumpets are more intense, but something even more intense is yet coming. We are not backing off of it. We're not cowering, we're not yielding to the fear of man, and we're proclaiming it as a witness to the nations because it's the message of the trumpets that's going to lead millions, hundreds of millions of people to Jesus. It's going to be their understanding of the trumpets because of the witness of the church. So understanding this, I realize that right now the vast majority of the room is like, well, what's it got to do with me and who really cares? It's really about a great ingathering of souls at the end of the age. The Revelation chapter 16 is going to be at the very centerpiece of evangelism. It's gonna go way beyond, way beyond how would you like to have a happy life and to be rich and famous, invite Jesus into your life. I mean, before this thing is over, we're gonna have the real gospel of the kingdom being preached, not the cotton candy American gospel that is so popular today, that is so powerless and so profoundly not true. The message of the gospel isn't only the judgments are coming, but the message of the gospel is that God owns the earth. He wants the full control of it back. He is going to remove everything that hinders love. That's called judgment, but he has an answer for anybody who will repent. He has an answer and he's got a plan for them. And that's the message of Revelation chapter 16. Well, I'm taking a deep breath here because Roman numeral one, the seventh trumpet is clearly the most exciting. And all that's involved with the seventh trumpet, but it's a subject that's not understood much by the body of Christ. And our next semester, September, October, November, we're gonna go through, we're gonna spend 10 sessions, Lord willing, and I think he is. We're gonna spend 10 sessions on the second coming and the battle and the Armageddon campaign and the battle for Jerusalem, the battle of Jerusalem, more accurately, all involved in the second coming. So I'm gonna give you a couple of points now that I'm not gonna prove to you because I'm gonna take 10 weeks to prove them to you. But I want you to put your seatbelt on because what the Bible says about the second coming of Christ is almost completely, completely foreign to the church today. I will say it again, I don't wanna say it to be offensive, I wanna say it to kind of stir you up. I want you to kind of lean forward and say, okay, okay, Mr. Hotshot, this better be good if you're gonna make that big statement. I'm gonna make some statements tonight that I can back up with hundreds. That's probably exaggerated, hundreds, but a hundred isn't. Many, many, many passages, many, many, many passages. Take us 10 weeks to go through them all. On the second coming, the grand event of history, Jesus coming to the earth. Wow. Well, the second coming, understanding it, of which in my opinion, it is profoundly misunderstood today by the church. The nature of it, how it works, the unfolding of it. And it flows out of our understanding of the seventh trumpet. Again, we're gonna spend 10 weeks on that. So I'm kinda getting a little bit ahead of myself, but I have to get this session 13 in from last, you know, I got a free week, so let's do it, even though I know many of you are new here. Revelation chapter 11, verse 15 to 18, the seventh trumpet. It says, then the seventh angel sounded. Revelation 11, verse 15 to 18. This is the background, this is the context to understanding the seven bowls of wrath. Without understanding the seventh trumpet, the seven bowls of wrath are kinda in a vacuum. You kinda, you don't fully grasp how we're supposed to preach them or why we're supposed to preach them. Says the seventh angel sounded. Seventh angel, the trumpet number one sounded, trumpet two, three, four, five, six, and now here's the angel, the seventh angel with the trumpet in his hand. Dah, dah, dah, dah. I'm sure it's better than that. He sounds forth in the heavens. Now, when he did that, the loud voices in heaven, the choirs of heaven, absolutely were just released. They just started, hallelujah, the whole bit. And here's what they're saying. They didn't sing Handel's Messiah, but they sang or said, proclaimed all the voices in heaven, the loud voices in heaven, the kingdoms of the world, the empires of the world. Instead of the word kingdoms, put the word empires or nations. The empires of the world have become the empires, plural, the nations that belong to God and to his son, Jesus. That's what they say. The nations of all the earth, 210 nations, they now belong to Jesus. They're under his authority. The process is now openly manifest where he will take authority, open authority over all 210 nations of the earth. That's what this angel, when he blows the trumpet, that's what the choirs of heaven break out and say. Speaking it undoubtedly, some are singing it. Verse 17, and they're so grateful because Jesus and the father, they've taken their great power and they begin to reign, which means they begin to manifest it openly to the natural realm. That's what it means, begin to reign. Jesus has been reigning at the right hand of the father, but his reign in terms of being manifest in the natural world is very limited right now. Most of the world is not obeying Jesus. Most of the church is barely obeying Jesus. And I mean, I'm saying that real, not trying to be negative, meaning obedience to Jesus is one of the rarest things happening on the earth, but it's going to happen. And when he takes his power and reigns, it doesn't mean he now has power. He's always had power and he's always reigning in heaven. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about manifesting it openly before people and demons and angels. And it happens in the world in time and space on the earth. That begins at the seventh trumpet. And what happens also at the seventh trumpet, his wrath has come. And now he's talking about the wrath. He's talking about the seven bowls of wrath. He's talking about his wrath has been here all through the ages a little bit. God manifest his wrath. And certainly God's manifesting his wrath somewhat in the seals and in the trumpets. But the seven bowls of wrath is the main course. God is serving the main course negatively to the earth. It's the ultimate of the wrath of God is now being manifest openly. When it says his wrath has come, it means it's manifest openly for all to see it. And here's what he's going to do at the same time. He says, you're going to reward your servants. This is the time when the da-da-da-da, the trumpet, the seventh trumpet blows. God gives his reward to his servants, the born again body of Christ. And he destroys the people who destroy the earth. See, and this is part of our message. We're going to say it. We're going to tell people that God is going to destroy the people who are destroying the earth. I mean, that is just not something you ever hear. But the angels, I mean, the voices in heaven proclaim that, and God is looking for faithful messengers that won't yield to the fear of man that will hold the line on this thing. Okay, now, for those of you that are, oh, no, you don't have notes in your hand, so you're not worried, okay, because I always have, I was thinking you had notes in your hand, because I have 10 pages of notes. I was going to say, don't worry. I only do about three pages, and then I just leave the rest to you. So if you're new here, don't be nervous, but you don't have them in your hand, so I didn't have to say that to you. You don't know how many are on that screen, but I got 10 pages worth. And by the way, you can, if you want the notes, obviously, you can download them. Anybody can. A, the seventh trumpet, this is the part I'm not going to prove to you, but for 10 weeks, we're going to look at it. And again, I have many, many, many, many verses on this. The seventh trumpet begins the time when the empires of the world, the nations of the earth, the kingdoms of the world come under Jesus's manifest leadership. The seventh trumpet is the time, this is, boy, we love the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet is a time when the saints are rewarded. That's when we get our reward in our resurrected bodies. This is when the rapture, he catches up the church to meet the Lord in the air. This is the time when God destroys those who destroy the earth. I said all that, but I thought I'd do you well to hear it twice. The seventh trumpet initiates the events. And that's the key phrase, the word events related to the rapture. The seventh trumpet initiates those events. Because the reason I say events is because most people, when they think of the rapture, the catching up to meet the Lord in the air, they have a very wrong idea that one afternoon at four o'clock, Jesus appears. And if you ask somebody where, they always assume over their house. They're gonna look straight up because if Jesus would come to six billion people on the earth, why wouldn't he come to your neighborhood first? It's the same rationale that the little kid, the poor little thing, thought Santa Claus came to their house first. It's the same, it's just, I've asked people, I go, when the Lord returns, what are you gonna do? It's gonna be right there. It's gonna be me and him. But here's what the scripture says, that he's going to appear to every eye, every eye of the earth in every longitude and latitude, every single human will see him. And you won't see him simultaneously because he's gonna come in the height of a man, the size of a man. And he's gonna cover every longitude and latitude of the planet. It won't happen in one second. Your body will be transformed in one second when he appears over you, but he's gonna cross the earth. And I don't know how long it's gonna take, but it's not gonna take, it's gonna be more than a minute. Could be several days. He's going fast, but he's not going so fast because every person has to be able to see him with their eyes. And they will mourn. They're gonna be raptured if they love the Lord, they're gonna be caught up to meet him. But the majority of the earth won't, they will mourn, they'll go, oh no, and they'll cry out because they will make sense of what is going on. Now, if there's an air balloon going across the sky, how high, how low would the air balloon have to be for you to be able to see the face of the person? Because Jesus is coming back in the height of a man. He's not coming back 300 feet. And the people have, he's gonna be low enough when he comes where they can see him and make sense of him. How long will it take for him to cover the earth? Well, we're gonna, I don't know the answer, but we're gonna talk a little bit more about that in September. But it's gonna take a little while. Then when he comes to the earth, he's going to touch down. And where I believe that he's gonna touch the earth, it's not Jerusalem first, because he marches up to Jerusalem. That's what the seven bowls are all about. If you read, I mean, there's so many passages. He marches into Jerusalem with an army. He doesn't go to Jerusalem from the sky. He marches up through the nation of Jordan, through Eden and Moab and Basra, which is the capital city of Eden, of ancient Eden. It's a modern day Jordan today. Many, many passages. It will be surprising to a number of you because they're kind of assuming Jesus is gonna appear over their house first and then land in Jerusalem, preferably with us kind of leading it, you know, right next to him. Out of the billion, we would certainly be the ones right next to him up front, out of the billion that are caught up to meet him. Well, he marches up. I don't wanna get too many details, but he marches up through the land. And when he marches up through the land, through the Sinai Peninsula, he touches Egypt. He goes through the wilderness again, just like Moses. He goes through the nation of Jordan, several places. I don't wanna go there right now. Again, many Bible verses. It's very exciting. It's terrifying, dynamic. It makes the Bible come alive. And what he does, he's on the ground marching up and he's killing people and liberating others. Particularly, he's liberating the Jews that are in prison camps. He said he'd come and set the captives free. You know, there's about 10 verses. He comes and sets the prisoners free. Yes, he does set people free with eating disorders, but that's not mostly what he's talking about when he's talking about setting the captives free. He's talking about opening the prison doors of Jews in prison camps at the second coming. And yes, he sets us free of many things between now and then. But he marches up through the land. I told you I'd have you on tilt. You'd be already tilting going, what? I thought he was gonna appear over my house and it was gonna be over in one minute and all of us would see him together over my neighborhood. I guess I'd never thought about it. Jesus is not in a hurry. He's not in a hurry to get this thing done called the second coming. He's been working, planning it for a long time and waiting for a long time. Anyway, he marches up through the land on the ground, killing people. This is a Jesus most of us don't have any grid for. But it's all over the Bible. He's killing the enemies. The Antichrist kingdom and infrastructure has many enemies against God's people. There's gonna be many unbelievers on the earth who are not buying into the Antichrist. I'm guessing there could be 500 million to a billion people. I don't know. It's a made up number, of course. But I believe there's a substantial number of people who don't say yes to Jesus, but they don't yield to the Antichrist either. They don't want anything to do with him. They want nothing to do with him. They don't trust him. They don't love God, but they don't like the other guy as well. So Jesus, he marches up through the land and I'm leaving a lot of details out on purpose because we'll look at it later. And the situation that he finds Jerusalem is this. Jerusalem is surrounded by the nations of the earth. Meaning the great armies of the earth. I mean, I'm talking about millions, millions undoubtedly soldiers of all the nations of the earth. They are surrounding Jerusalem and Jesus marches into Jerusalem as the greater Moses. Moses was a picture and he delivers Israel in real time and space with supernatural power against real armies and he really kills the armies. And when he enters into Jerusalem and they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and the Jewish leadership accepts him in Jerusalem, then the second coming is completed because the second coming means not just that he appears in the sky. That's the procession before the second coming. The second coming in its truest sense only happens when he comes second, the second time to Jerusalem to take his rightful place as king of Jerusalem and then the whole earth. Did you know that Jesus that heals you, that loves you, that forgives you is the king of all the earth, a human king, a Jewish human king and he will base his worldwide empire in Jerusalem and he's coming into Jerusalem to take it back by military means. Again, the most normal idea is he appears in the sky over my neighborhood, he waves his hand and 6 billion people die. But where did the 6 billion bodies go? They just disappear. I don't know, where do those bodies go if they die? They're buried, scripture talks about it. The amount of time it's gonna take to bury the dead around Jerusalem, it'll take seven months with incredible workforce just to bury the corpses at the second coming. So I realize some of you already going, where's this in the Bible? But you're guessing he wouldn't be up there telling us this and having a 10 week course on it with handouts that we can show everybody if he didn't have verses. Good, that's good logic. And then I would tell people, I would say this tongue in cheek, just in humor, it's in the Bible but how much do you read the Bible to even know if it's in the Bible? And that's where the body of Christ goes silent because it's all over the Bible but the lack of information the church has in the Bible on the grandest subject in history is Jesus having paid the price of redemption is coming to bring the blessing to the earth. That's the grand reality of human life. Yes, and yet many, many passages, most of us are, no three of them out of the hundreds possibly again, it's hundreds of verses for sure. I'm just, I said, I took back the word hundreds a minute ago because I was thinking of large passages is counting as one, hundreds of verses, hundreds and hundreds of verses. So what I'm doing right now is kind of stirring you up a little bit to say, I know a number of you are new here and you're in internships but here's what I want you to say. I want to learn this stuff because I want to love the Jesus who's coming. I mean, I want to love the Jesus of the Bible not just the Jesus of cotton candy, American Christianity, churchianity is better. I want to know the real Jesus who's the king of the earth, who loves me. That's one reason we want to know this. The second reason we want to know it, we want to be a faithful witness, don't we? Because the subject of God's judgment, the subject of God's judgment, again, I started with this, is the subject the church compromises in really, really easily and regularly. And the reason we compromise in it, in the fear of man, I'm going to say what I said 15 minutes ago, the reason we compromise is because we're so unfamiliar with it that it's not in our hearts. We're not familiar with it. We're stumbling because we don't know the verses. And the reason we don't know the verses is because when we read them once, they seem so odd that we don't read them again. And so we're stuck kind of in a catch-22. We don't read them because they don't make sense. And they don't make sense because we don't read them. And how are we going to be a faithful witness? Because when Jesus marches up through the land, that's when he releases the seven bowls, when he marches up through the land. I want to say that again. This is new to some of you undoubtedly. He goes around the earth. I don't know how long that takes. It takes more than a minute and a half though, because he's got to cover every longitude and latitude at an altitude where he can be recognized on the earth. People have got to be able to see him. Again, I just picture the air balloon. The guy's coming across your neighborhood. How low does he have to be for you to be able to know who's in the balloon? He can't be 5,000 feet high. He's got to be recognizable to the earth. So we know that the whole catching up, the rapture process takes a little bit of time. I'm not going to venture to identify how much time, but it certainly takes more than an hour or two. That's for sure. Then Jesus comes down to the earth, leaving it just kind of a little fuzzy where and how and when and all that for another time. But he marches through Egypt. That's real clear. He marches through the Sinai Peninsula, which is the wilderness, you know, back with Moses and the Ten Commandments. He marches through there. He marches up through the nation of Jordan. He goes up to Jerusalem and around Jerusalem are millions of soldiers that are all over the nation of Israel. Millions from all over the world. All the nations of the earth have gathered together around Jerusalem. Now, here's the question. Why, why are millions of soldiers traveling to Israel? What would motivate millions of soldiers to do this? Do you know how expensive it will cost the nations of the earth to bring millions of soldiers to the Middle East? I don't mean 5,000. Enough for every nation of the earth to participate in this. Then the question you ask, and maybe you've never thought of it, why would they come? Let's not concern ourself with the notes here, though they are good. Let's go to Revelation 16. Let's look at the sixth bowl for just a minute. Hopefully you'll learn a few new things, but more than even just getting all the information clear, what I wanna stir is a passion in you to go learn this stuff because it is learnable. Is that a word? It's learnable. This, it is within your reach to learn this. And it is the grandest event of all of history is this Jewish king coming back with us to take over the earth and we're gonna rule with him. I mean, this is like really a part of who we are. Really, it is. This is one of the strangest passages until you connect what's really happening and then it makes total sense. But without understanding, Jesus is marching up through the land to overthrow the armies, it doesn't really make sense, the sixth bowl. Let's read the sixth bowl. I remember for years I read that and I thought, this is seems out of place. Number one, it seems a little extreme that all the nations of the earth are gonna do this. You know what? Before we do that, let's do this. Put your finger there. I'm gonna read one passage verse to you. Turn to Zechariah 14. Because Zechariah 14 is the main passage of which this is the whole thing is built on. Zechariah 14, second to the last of the Old Testament. So if you go to Malachi, just go back one book, Zechariah 14, and this is a really well-known chapter. Zechariah 14 to people who study in times, all through history. I mean, if you're gonna be equipped to the end times, Zechariah 14 is like Matthew 24. It's the absolute one of the number one chapters in the Old Testament on the end times on the man you love Jesus coming to the earth is Zechariah 14. So you gotta know Zechariah 14. So tonight even when you leave here, some of you might go over to IHOP for a little while, some of you might go home. Read Zechariah 14 if you never read it. I wanna say it again. It is one of the most important chapters in the whole Bible about the end times, but let's say it a little differently. It's one of the most important chapters in the whole Bible about Jesus becoming king of the earth. Zechariah 14. But again, when you read it tonight, get ready for your mind to be really stretched because most people have never studied this fundamental basic, it's a very basic truth. Jesus is coming back. Here's what happens. Here's the context of which Jesus is coming back to. He's marching up through the land. He's already gone across the whole earth, every longitude and latitude at an adequate altitude where he can be recognized. I don't know what that altitude is, but it's where the height of a man, the man can be seen by the nations. And he's marching up to Jerusalem to solve the problem of Zechariah 14. Here it is. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming. Zechariah 14, verse one. The day of the Lord is coming. He's talking to Jerusalem right now. And your spoil will be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. Now circle the word all. There's 210 nations, or if you count another way with all the territories, there's 262 nations of the earth, but 210 in the more traditional sense. God, if this is not like stretch your mind, verse two, I, God, I, the Lord, I will gather all 210 nations to Jerusalem to fight them. Wait, why would the God of Israel bring all the nations to fight Israel? Isn't that an odd concept? Because the God of Israel has been rejected by Israel and he's gonna get Israel's attention and he's gonna show himself to be the greater Moses as he marches in and delivers them and the whole earth will bow down and worship this deliverer when he comes into Jerusalem. No, not when he comes in, but when the whole drama's over. God's setting it up. God the Father thought the whole thing through. And then, you know, I'm sure it didn't work this way, but I imagine it's the Father saying, Jesus, this way back like billions of years before Genesis one, Jesus. You know how we've been talking about creating humans on a big rock called the earth? Yeah, I got this phenomenal plan on how sinful people, when they rebel against this, are going to buy into the whole thing. I got a great plan. What? Well, I'm gonna put it in Zechariah 14. Sure it didn't happen that way, but verse two. I, the Lord, I'm gonna read it again. I just want you to maybe look at your neighbor and go, this is intense. God, the God of Israel is gonna bring all the nations to war against Israel to get Israel's attention and more than that, more than get Israel's attention, to get the attention of the whole earth, but more than that, to show his kindness to Israel. He says, well, he's kind of going about it a strange way. I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. Hold your breath. The city shall be taken. The city will be captured. The city will be conquered by the bad guys. But hang on, it doesn't end there. That's only one part of the drama. The city of Jerusalem is going to be captured by the Gentile Islamic, not only Islamic, but there will be a very powerful Islamic base to the whole, well, right now, I mean, Islam would right now would probably say, thank you for the compliment. I didn't know that was in the Hebrew Bible that we're gonna take the city. Well, you have to read the whole Bible before you get excited. The city shall be taken. The houses rifled or destroyed or the houses, they come and they tear them down and they conquer them and all that kind of stuff. They plunder them, you know, all that. And the women will be raped. It's intense, isn't it? It's a hostile army. Half of the city of Jerusalem is gonna go into captivity. Half of the city is gonna be taken away into prison camps. They're gonna go into captivity. There's many, many verses in the Bible about the Jewish captives in prison camps when the Lord comes and he comes to deliver them. Nobody likes that message. The nation of Israel doesn't like the message. The Gentiles don't like it. Maybe, you know, militant Islam likes it, but almost nobody likes it. Like what? Beloved, this is the Bible. It's what we believe. But the remnant of the people in Jerusalem, they will not be cut off. They will not be killed. There's gonna be a remnant that God's gonna save. It's gonna be a remnant, the remnant of Israel, but at first they're unsaved, but the Lord has got his hands sovereignly on them, protecting them even before their salvation. They don't know they're gonna get saved, but they're gonna get saved. There's a remnant that's being protected. They'll not be cut off, which means they won't be killed. Oh, I just looked up there. They got it up on the screen. Here I am wearing out my little old eyes here. There you go, it's real big print, okay. Verse three, man, I didn't even see it up there. Then, verse three, the Lord will go forth. That's a nice phrase, the Lord will go forth, go forth. Means Jesus as the military captain is going to go, he's gonna march into the city and conquer it. He will fight, now say to yourself, fight? He's gonna fight, why does he fight? Because he's going to have a military conflict that's going to have a very natural process. He's gonna have supernatural power, but it's literally going to be people killed in battle. He's on the ground, he's not standing in the air. He doesn't wave his hand, he actually kills them. He fights against those nations as he fights in the day of a battle. If he's the greater Moses, he's also the greater David. He's the great commander of the nation of Israel. Okay, next verse, and in that day, he's marched into Jerusalem. Now, we've left out a whole lot, it's not in Zechariah, and I mean, there's one passage, it's several times in Zechariah, but it's all through the prophets how he marches up to Jerusalem. That's the part that most people overlook, that part, although there's many passages about him marching into the land, on the ground. And he's liberating the captives, all the Jewish prisoners, and you and I, with resurrected bodies, are with him on the ground. We're not floating, we're with him. We're walking. Well, we're on horses, actually. We're on horses. And someone says, those horses have gotta be figurative. No, the horses are real. Horses are real. Because one thing that folks don't understand is that the bowls of wrath that we're not gonna get to tonight, but you can read them now, I think I got you interested. The bowls of wrath have destroyed all the infrastructure and the highways, and all of the travel systems are in total disarray. And the only person prepared is Jesus with horses. Everybody else is going computers and tanks, and they won't get anywhere. The only one that knows the end of the story has got horses marching through the land. And the captives, as the unsaved, unsaved Jewish people in prisoners, the door is open, and they go, who are you? We're with a Jewish king, and we're here to set you free. Huh, you look like you're a Gentile. I am a Gentile. Your body looks funny. Yeah, it feels real good. Now, incidentally, another bunny trail. I'm the king of the bunny trails. Bunny trail here, we're going off the course here. Our resident, I'm saying this to those that are new with us in the last couple of weeks. Those have been around, we've said this so many times. Our resurrected bodies will be as material as our bodies are right now. They will be infinitely superior, but they will have a materiality. When you grab a person with a resurrected body, you will feel a body just like this. You won't like grab them in your hand, go through them. Oops, sorry, I didn't know you were a ghost. I thought you were a person. You won't go through them. You will hit a material body, and you will have a material body forever. And that body, you will be able to eat. When Jesus appeared in the resurrection, he ate fish. They gave him the fish. There's a very material, physical dimension of our resurrected body. It has supernatural properties to it, but it's still a physical body. And we're on the earth, and we're ruling it. And when angels appear on the earth, one time an angel appears, appears to a man or a woman, and they get so afraid, they, ah, you know, the angel of glory. The next time the same angel appears, the person, they look like a man or a woman. Like when Jesus was raised from the dead, they went to the garden. They thought the guy was the gardener, he's an angel. And the idea is that I'm shifting in your thinking is that we have this idea that we have this, ah, this existence that's kind of, we're floating on a cloud. We don't have real bodies. We don't really grab things. We don't eat, we don't drink. We're not hungry. We will be hungry. We will be thirsty. There is a pleasure that God has built into our resurrected bodies, which is the satisfaction of hunger and thirst being satisfied. It won't gain weight. Working out will be fun and easy. So we're off the, we're off the bunny trail. We're back on the thing. Here's my point. When the captives are set free and they're, I mean, there are many of them are in prison and many others are in prison too, not just the Jewish captives. There'll be Gentiles in prison who were resistant to the Antichrist regime who are not saved. They were saved, they would have been raptured. They're in prison too. And we will be part of the army that opens the doors. Well, I just thought the doors would just open. Jesus goes, no, there's gonna be a material world I'm coming to and I'm bringing a supernatural dimension. We're gonna live forever on the earth. We're gonna live on the earth forever with a material body, talking, working, learning, fellowshipping, eating, drinking. No, you're not gonna get married. That's what they all ask. You won't get married. And your heart will be very, very satisfied about that because you will be married. It's called the bride of Christ. There will be an experience in the anointing in our physical experience that will be the most exhilarating reality in the anointing, but with a physical material body. And your hearts will be so satisfied. You'll have the deepest friendships and the greatest satisfaction. And we're gonna reign on the earth. And the reason we don't have resurrected bodies when we go to heaven, you know, because we go to heaven right now. Somebody dies today and goes to heaven. They go to heaven, their spirit man goes to heaven. Their body doesn't. They don't get a resurrected body till the second coming, till the Lord appears. I mean, the rapture. That's when you get a resurrected body. So all those guys in heaven are in disembodied spirits. Their spirit man is real, but they don't have a body. They don't eat. They don't have a physical body in heaven. The reason they don't have a physical body in heaven because they don't need one. They don't need a physical body to relate to the environment of heaven. You need a physical body at the second coming because you're gonna relate to a material, physical environment called the earth. And we're gonna live on the earth forever and ever and ever. And beloved, it's really exciting what God has planned for you. It's really exciting on the earth. But part of it here is that there's a natural process to the whole thing. There's a human natural process. And that's what we have, our minds are confused about. We think that because it's Jesus, the physical dimension is gone. And all of a sudden it's only kind of like a spirit being. We don't know what it's like. And Jesus is going to have the natural human process, but enhanced with great supernatural power, but it still will be a natural process, but with a supernatural dimension, not to suspend the natural, but to enhance the natural. Won't suspend it. It's not either or, it's both and. And the second coming, the most difficult thing to get people to understand is that at the second coming, and all the events, there is natural time process. There's an unfolding of events. There's a learning, a surprise, a wow, an interaction, a talking, a learning by people in resurrected bodies and those without were learning. It's exhilarating, it's a real experience. And it's not a momentary one. It really happens in time and space. And the second coming events, there's a number of them that are involved in the one grand reality called the second coming. And again, when you say second coming, most people think of he comes to the sky. A coming to the sky is not a coming. It's not a coming until he's on the earth. By definition, he doesn't come until he comes to the earth. And more particularly to Jerusalem. So back to Zechariah 14. I'm running out of time here, but I think some of you are gonna read Zechariah 14 a little bit. And the Lord will go forth, verse three, he will fight, and you and I will be a part of it. And the captives that are liberated that don't have resurrected bodies, because they're unsaved. They didn't yield to the Antichrist, but they're still unsaved. But they're gonna get saved real quick and it's gonna be real powerful. They're gonna say, this is intense. Where is this in the Bible? And we're gonna say, well, we're glad you asked because they will wanna know where this is at in their own Hebrew Bible. Some of these Jewish people, but many, many Gentiles will get saved at this time as well. Now look at this, verse 14. No, verse four, I mean. And in that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Now he doesn't come from heaven to the Mount of Olives. He comes from heaven and he marches through the land to the city of Jerusalem that's surrounded. He fights the armies, defeats them. Then he goes to the Mount of Olives after he's defeated all the armies. And there's a lot going on when he fights the armies. Again, lots of Bible verses on it. He stands on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And look at what's gonna happen. The Mount of Olives shall split in two from east to west, making a very large valley. Half the mountain will move towards the north. Half the mountain will move towards the south. He's gonna stand on the mountain and the mountain is going to split. Of huge, it says a very large, making a very large valley. How large is large? I don't know, but it's a very large valley. Now here's the interesting thing, verse five. Now this is the part, this is really gonna stretch your mind. Then you, not you, because you'll have a resurrected body and you'll be with the Lord. That is talking about the unsaved remnant of Israel. Because if they were saved, they would've gone up in the rapture. They're saved, they're born again, they're caught up. They're still on the ground. And they don't know Jesus yet. They don't know who he is yet. They've not wanted into the Antichrist because he's been really mean to them. And they definitely don't want Christianity. That seems weird. They're looking, they're not looking for Jesus, they think. They don't know who they're looking for, but they need a supernatural solution. That's they're sure of. Verse five, then you shall flee through my mountain valley. For the mountain valley shall be called Azel. Then he goes, yes, you shall flee. Because he says, you will flee. The guy goes, just like you did, flee? Why would you have to flee? Because to flee means you're in danger, right? It doesn't say you'll stroll in the park on through the valley. It says you'll flee. Flee means you're still in danger or you perceive you're in danger. Their backs are against the wall. The armies of the nations of the earth have Israel back and they've already taken half the city into captivity. They've conquered the city and they wanna bring every single Jew into prison camps and to kill them. Their back against the wall. Jesus stands on the top of the mountain and they look at him, they go, who's he? And who's all those people with him? Where did he get the horse? He was the only person thinking through because the highway systems are all broken down because of the bowls and the earthquakes and the mountains are moved. I mean, it's really heavy duty. What's going on? Boy, he's prepared and he looks Jewish. Who is that guy? The man, the Jewish man, the King, the one we love, Jesus, Yeshua, he puts his hand, I'm making this part up. I mean, he's gotta be Pentecostal, so he's gotta do some of that stuff. I mean, I know he believes in all that stuff. So he puts his hand out, that's made up, and he says to the mountain, move in the name of Jesus. And the mountain flees, it splits the mountain down. And it does the same thing that happened at the Red Sea when Moses and their backs were against the wall at the Red Sea and Moses stretched out the rod, that's where I get the sticking the hand out. But it's not the Red Sea in Egypt, it's the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, surrounded by the hostile nations like Pharaoh's army. But instead of the Red Sea splitting, the mountain splits. And they don't stroll, they flee. Because at this point, they're not connected with the idea he's God. They're definitely paying attention to the man that raised his hand and the mountain split. But they're not, they don't know for sure who he is. So they flee and they escape. Interesting that this Red Sea division dividing like Moses, the Red Sea split. Now it's the mountain in Jerusalem, it's the same deal. It's meant to be parallel, it's meant to be understood. Interesting, and I got this on the notes, but you know, we won't worry about it. In Mark chapter 11, verse one, it says Jesus is standing on the Mount of Olives. Mark 11, verse one, he's standing on the Mount of Olives. This is so interesting. Then Mark 11, verse 23, same chapter, same place. It's the same conversation, he's standing there. He says, and you will say to this mountain, and undoubtedly he points to it, this mountain, and he's at the Mount of Olives, that you will be cast up and thrown into the sea and it will happen. Everybody think that's a great faith verse. And Jesus looks up to the Father and says, this is going to blow their minds when I speak to this mountain in the day of crisis in the future. And it moves out of the way. I mean, he's literally at the Mount of Olives when he gives that teaching. Of course, he knew Zachariah real well. You know how come he knew the book of Zachariah well? Because he told Zachariah this prophecy. He's the one that gave it to Zachariah. It was the Father's plan. The Father said, Jesus, great idea. Again, it didn't happen this way. I'm going to have the whole nations of the earth around and I'm going to have you split it. Are you in? Oh, that's awesome, Father. I love this. It's going to blow the minds of all of Israel and all the nations of the earth as well. He splits it. You know, another interesting bunny trail, and I'm totally out of time, so I can't go on too many bunny trails, a short one. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, right? Up on a little hill in Nazareth. When Jesus looked out of his backyard, do you know what he looked down the valley? That's the valley. That's the place where the battle, where the Armageddon is, was in his backyard. His whole childhood, he would go out there and sit. He'd be reading, sit on a little rock and be reading. He'd say, Father, this is it. When I am king, this is the battle. This is the place. It was within the sight of a young boy from Nazareth can see the, I mean, I don't know exactly where you'd stand, but you can, the battle of Armageddon or the valley of Jezreel is right there where it's called Armageddon. It's in his backyard. Not in the most literal sense, but he could have viewed the valley if he'd been in the right place. So he's growing up. He's eight, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28, before he's released, and he would just go out there and cut wood and look at that big place. He goes, oh, Father, look at this. Ooh. Okay, we're done with that. We're gonna go back to, I'm not gonna give you the details because we're out of time, but we're gonna go back to Revelation 16. I just wanted to point out something and let you go think on it yourself. I'll give you an assignment. Revelation 16, the sixth bowl, the sixth bowl. Revelation 16, verse 12. This was our main point tonight in the notes. I was gonna talk about this, but it says, Revelation 16, verse 12, and the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. That's in Iraq. You know, the Euphrates River, Middle East. And the river was dried up so that the way of the kings of the East would be prepared, that the Asian nations, many nations from the whole Pacific realm in Asia, so they could be prepared if the river Euphrates dried up so they could do what? Come to Jerusalem to fight against two. That's the question. Verse three, so the river dries up. Now, here's what's strange. Well, no, let me finish it. I saw the three unclean spirits like frogs, and they were in the mouth of the dragon, that's Satan, in the mouth of the beast, that's the Antichrist, in the mouth of the false prophet. So there's these demonic spirits that when Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet would speak, demonic spirits would go forth and work miracles when they would speak. Verse 14, for these are the spirits of demons that perform signs and wonders. They're performing signs. They're demonic signs, but they're real signs. I mean, they're signs that the nations can see. And they go to all the kings of the earth. And a minute ago, it was only to the kings of the East, to the Asian kings. Now it's to all the kings of the earth and the whole world. And here's the point of what these demon spirits are gonna do miracles, to gather all 210 nations to the battle of the great day of God. The battle of the great day of God. Verse 16, verse 16. Then they gathered them together to a place in Hebrew called Armageddon. Now here's what I wanna leave you with. I'm not even gonna, I'm not gonna answer it. I was, I'm gonna leave you with this. A couple of questions. Question number one, you got seven seals, right? They're all judgments. Seven trumpets, they're judgments, but they're worse than the seals. And you have seven bowls, which are worse than the trumpets. So the three seals, series of judgment series, each get more intense. The seals are bad, and they're still in the future. We haven't seen the seals. They're far more severe than anything we ever saw at 9-1-1 or anything like that. The seals are coming, that's intense. And then the trumpets, then the bowls. Question number one I want you to go think on. Why would, out of seven events times three different judgment series, 21 events, how could this is the 20th of the 21 events. This should be the, and it is, the 20th most severe of all of the ones before it. This one is more severe than the 19 before it. What is so severe about the Euphrates River drying up? I used to read this and say, it looks like you got it out of order. The 20th most severe judgment looks like it's the easiest one of all. It's not. It is truly the 20th most severe. And the 21st is the next one, the seventh bowl. That's the worst. That's the only one worse. So I wanna ask you, I want you to go figure that out. I want you to say, what is it that I'm not catching about this? Just talk to each other. Then second question I'm gonna leave you with. Why would the kings of the east spend billions of dollars? Why would the kings of the east spend billions of dollars to send hundreds of thousands, I don't know about millions, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Israel? Why would they do that? Now remember, don't think of them going to Israel like today it's been 19 judgment events. The water has turned to blood. There's been terrible things happening and wars and broken down systems and economies and famine. And why would they spend billions of dollars to go to Israel? What's on their mind? It's important. You can be sure of this. They didn't go to fight a little ragtag Jewish army with no weapons. That's not why they went there. Do you think the kings of Asia are gonna go there to fight an ill-equipped small army of Israeli tanks? They're not going there to fight Israel. And the number three question I'm gonna leave you with, this is the last one. Why would Satan, it's the only time Satan comes out of the shadows in the whole book of Revelation, it's the only time he comes out from his covering and he goes public with miracles that are attributed directly to his words as a spirit being. Why are they using this level of, we're not talking about their little guys that can fill up a stadium. We're talking about the main three, Satan, the Antichrist and the false prophet are using their greatest miracles to make sure this happens. What is so intense that Satan is coming public, meaning he's always been behind the scenes. You never see him, but he's coming out and he's going on the line. And the spirit being the fallen angel, Satan is. And the miracles are intense. And how could this be the 20th most severe? What is going on? I'll give you one hint. There's a Jewish man marching up through the land with power on his life. Amen, let's stand. And he's threatening all the nations of the earth. It's a little tip off.