Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the first five bowls of wrath in Revelation, explaining that they reveal God's character and serve as a warning to the nations. He draws parallels between the bowls and the plagues of Egypt, highlighting that these judgments are meant to lead people to repentance and understanding of God's justice. Bickle stresses the importance of the church in proclaiming these truths, as they prepare for the return of Christ and the ultimate victory over evil. He encourages believers to embrace the reality of Jesus as both Savior and Judge, and to be active witnesses of His coming judgments.

I ask you in the name of Jesus to release your hand upon us, even now, as we open our heart before you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Session 12, the first five bowls, so we'll cover five of them tonight. We won't get through all the notes, as always. That's why they're there, so you can read them on your own. Row number one, the context for understanding the bowls of wrath. First, the question is, why do we care? I've had a number of believers say, it's just not practical. Give me something practical. Well, the church has a mandate from God to proclaim, well, first to understand, and then to proclaim the reality, the prophetic message of the seven bowls of wrath. In doing so, we are giving witness to the truth of God's character. We gain great insight as to what God is like, because he determined, he designed these bowls. He's the one that set his heart and his mind to involve these in his end-time plan. So, in proclaiming the bowls, we give witness to God's character in judgment, but we also give warning to the nations of the earth. Now, some of the people of the earth, when they hear the message of the seven bowls, they will actually get saved now, I mean, in this hour. Others, who resist the message, while the bowls are being poured out and the events are happening, the Holy Spirit will actually bring it to their remembrance, that they had heard it proclaimed, even in earlier days. But another reason the church has to understand and then proclaim the message is that God's justice requires that even the guilty, the unrepentant, who have no interest in turning, God's justice requires that they have a clear warning about the judgment that's coming to them, even though they have no intention of repenting. Because God, just the way His character is, He goes, I must tell them with clarity. And, of course, the ones that will tell them are His prophetic messengers, forerunners. Paragraph B. Now, understanding the timing of the seven bowls is not such a difficult thing to do, because the book of Revelation, it's in chronological order. The storyline unfolds in order. There's five chronological sections, of which the storyline happens one event after the other, as it's recorded in the book of Revelation. And so, as we understand the five chronological sections, what events are in those sections, it's easy to follow the storyline. Paragraph B. The last event in the storyline was the seventh trumpet. That's the rapture of the church, the last trumpet. So, the church has been raptured. That was the last event that happened in the storyline of the book of Revelation. And at the time of the seventh trumpet, the church is raptured, and Jesus begins what I call His royal procession around the earth, because it said every eye has to see Him. So, He has to cover the earth in such a way where every unbeliever, not just believer, it says every eye will see Him, and they will mourn over Him. So, He takes time. I don't know how long it takes Him. It's more than a minute or two. He's got it covered. Every single human being on the earth has to see Him. I don't understand exactly the dynamics of it, but it will take a little bit of time. I call that the beginning of His royal procession across the nations to proclaim and assert His kingship over the earth. Now, we know this, that the bowls, they happen after the seventh trumpet. So, they happen after the church is raptured, Revelation 11, but they happen before Revelation 19 when He enters into Jerusalem. So, it's after the church is raptured, but before Revelation 19, the famous passage with the white horse, He enters into the battle that's surrounding the city of Jerusalem, and He defeats the enemy. So, in the order of the events, Revelation 11, the rapture happens. Revelation 16, now Jesus is on His royal procession. He's involved in it. He's on the ground marching up to Jerusalem. He doesn't enter into Jerusalem until Revelation 19 on the white horse. Now, paragraph C, the Scripture's clear. Now, this isn't something that everybody is real familiar with, but they will be before the Lord returns. The idea that Jesus is marching up through the land to enter into Jerusalem. He doesn't come to Jerusalem from the sky, but He comes to Jerusalem by way of the land. He's marching up to the land on a white horse with His armies, killing the Antichrist armies. And then when He gets to Jerusalem, He finalizes the battle, and the remnant of Israel receives Him as their king, and He sets up His throne there. He splits them out of olives, and a lot of things happen in Jerusalem. Now, we don't know where, we're not sure where His touchdown point is, but there's some point in the area of the wilderness of where the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years. There's a touchdown point somewhere, and now He marches up through the land, and it's clear in the Old Testament prophets that that's what He's doing at this point in time before He enters Jerusalem for His final entrance to be received by the nation of Israel. Now, what He's doing in paragraph C I have, He's marching up through Jordan. Now, we know, of course, Jordan, the nation of Jordan is right next to Israel. That's the final nation He marches through. We don't know exactly all the nations He touches, but we know that He comes through Jordan, which in the ancient world it was called Edom. He marches up through Edom, which is modern-day Jordan, and He's fighting the Antichrist armies, and He is rescuing the remnant of Israel. He's rescuing Jewish prisoners that have been held in slave camps. He's doing to them what Moses did in the days of old. He's liberating the slaves of the children of Israel from the hostile nations. Paragraph D. Now, the reason you need to know this, this is the context of what's happening when the bowls of wrath are being poured out. Paragraph D. Jesus will come back to the earth to be crowned king, but He comes as the greater Moses. Moses was only a picture. He was only a dress rehearsal of the real event that would happen at the end of the age. Now, as Moses released the ten plagues of Egypt, Jesus will be releasing the seven bowls of wrath. The plagues of Egypt only affected Egypt, but the bowls of wrath will have a global impact. And as Moses defeated Pharaoh, the greater Moses, which is Jesus, will defeat the end-time Pharaoh, which is the Antichrist. It's the same storyline told on a grand eschatological scale. Eschatological meaning an end-time scale. The Moses story is told again. And we find out from the Scriptures that the Moses event, though in its own right was significant part of history, it was also served as a prophetic picture of the grand deliverance from bondage of the nations of the earth from the end-time Pharaoh called the Antichrist. Now, one point I'm going to focus on, and I don't know how many verses, maybe 10 or 15 verses in the Scripture. We have them on our website, maybe more. But it's quite a list of verses that describe a portion of the nation of Israel in slave camps at the time of Jesus' coming, and he liberates the captives in a physical, literal sense of opening prison doors. Now, we know those verses. There's quite a few verses on that, and we have mostly made it symbolic that he opens the doors of our bondage and our fears and our phobias, and that is true. But those passages, most of them are talking about literal prison doors, literally being opened when he comes on his march to the city of Jerusalem, because once he goes to Jerusalem and he's accepted by the nation of Israel, he is king forever in Jerusalem upon the throne of glory. Zechariah 14, one of the most prominent. Half of the city of Jerusalem will be taken away against their will into slave camps. Now, that would be several hundred thousand people, according to today's numbers. Well, many of these slaves are going to be liberated by the end-time Moses. Jesus will liberate the slaves of the children of Israel again as Moses did. Look at Isaiah 27. This is a very straightforward one. Verse 13, So it shall be in that day, the great trumpet, that's the rapture, they will come, those who are about to perish. Now, there's a group of people that are about to perish. It's the remnant of Israel. They're in the land of Assyria, which is, again, in the general area of Jordan and Iraq today. Ancient Assyria. And they are also called the outcasts in Egypt. There will be Jewish slaves in Egypt that are in bondage. And they will be liberated, and they will end up marching with Jesus to Jerusalem, to the promised land, and they will worship Jesus in Jerusalem, free from their captivity. Now, that's a passage talking about the future. Isaiah 40 is one of my favorites. Verse 10, The Lord, that's Jesus, will come, second coming. He's going to come to Israel. Isaiah 40 is talking about Israel specifically. He's going to come to Israel with a strong hand. And, of course, the strong hand, part of it is the seven bowls of wrath. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather them. He will carry them. He will lead them. He's not talking about raptured saints. He's talking about the nation of Israel that wasn't caught in the rapture. They were not saved at the time of the seventh trumpet, but they get saved through this process. He will come to them tenderly and attend to their oppression. He will deliver them, and He will bring them Himself back to the land of Israel. He will march through the wilderness just like Moses and Joshua did. Paragraph E, I call it the royal procession because Jesus' kingship over the earth is being proclaimed, and all the nations will hear it. They will all see Him, and He will exert His right over that nation. In His procession, He will march through Edom. Now this is a well-known passage, Isaiah 63. Who is this? This is a question that the prophet is asking, and of course it's describing Jesus. The prophet asked, or the people of the nations will actually be asking the question. Isaiah the prophet put the question in their mouth. He understood what was going on, I assume. The question, who is this? Who comes from Edom? Again, Edom was the ancient name for modern-day Jordan. His garments are dyed. He's coming from Basra. Basra is the capital city in the ancient world. I mean of ancient Edom. But He's traveling in strength. He's going through the nation, but with great strength. That's the bowls of wrath that He's releasing. Verse 2, they ask Him a question. You can read the whole passage on your own in its full context because we only have a little bit of space here in the notes to put some of the key points for this teaching. So the question is asked Him, Why are your garments red? How did your clothing get red? How did it become red? And Jesus answered, I've trodden the nations. That's what it says in context. Again, I took some of it out here just for space. The blood of these nations got sprinkled upon my garments. This is literal. This is not figurative. He's marching up through Jordan and the blood actually gets on His garments, which this is intentional that we understand. He's saying, I'm not at a distance. I'm not in a remote place. I'm there deeply involved with the nation of Israel, delivering them not only as the greater Moses, the greater Joshua, but as the greater David. The great warrior king is coming into Israel again. And the news is going out around the nation. There's a Jewish man with power liberating the Jews, marching up to Jerusalem. And what happens, the nations gather together, we'll look at this next week, to go to war against Him at Jerusalem. It's a real war where there's real bloodshed. It's real, it's not, He doesn't wave His hand and have a, it's all over in one minute. It's real. He tells them in verse 4, the day of vengeance is in my heart. That's why He allows blood on His garments. He's involved in close, upfront, hand-to-hand combat. Well, I don't know about hand-to-hand, but He's involved in the battles, what I'm trying to say. He's up close. That's the point of the prophet sharing that the blood got on His garments. Now, the bowls of wrath, Revelation 1, I mean, Revelation 15, verse 1 and verse 7, I don't have this on the notes, but we looked at it last week. The bowls of wrath are called the fullness and the final wrath of God on the earth. So when Jesus says the day of vengeance is in my heart, John finds out later, Revelation 15, verse 1, it's the full wrath of God, and it's the final wrath of God. Jesus is talking in Isaiah 63, I mean, through the prophetic vision of Isaiah, He's referring to the hour in history, which is the seven bowls of wrath, which the full vengeance of God and the final vengeance of God will be released by Him on the nations. Paragraph F, then Habakkuk, he describes it too. There's quite a few passages in the Old Testament that fill in the blank. John gives us what the angels do in pouring out the bowls, but the Old Testament prophets, they fill in the gaps of the storyline. They tell us what Jesus is actually doing in the drama. And you put the two together, and it's a very clear picture in the scripture. We get the impact of what happens to the wicked in the seven bowls, but when we study the prophets, we see the personal and dynamic interaction and involvement that Jesus has in the pouring out of these bowls, as like Moses and Joshua, marching the slaves of Israel through the wilderness, right on in across the Jordan, into the land of Israel, and then the remnant of Israel that's there in the land, they receive Him as He comes marching with these prisoners that He has liberated in this process. Now Habakkuk, it's a very amazing chapter, Habakkuk 3. I mean, the details are, I mean, you could spend a year on Habakkuk 3. It's one of my favorite second coming passages. It's about the second coming that happened in part in the generation of Moses where the Lord showed His glory, but only a few of the details happened in the Moses generation. Habakkuk 3, clearly, most of the details are yet future. And here's what it says. Verse 5, this is the Messiah. Before Him, in other words, before He gets there, right in front of Him, pestilence is breaking out. And we're going to see that pestilence in the bowls. The pestilence is breaking out before Him and behind Him, the fever is breaking out. Now this is related to the second coming. So pestilence and fever are before Him and behind Him as He's marching up through the nations. Again, it's all right there in the Middle East. He doesn't take a trip and, you know, visit South America and stop over in North America for a while. It's all Middle East involvement. We don't know all the nations and we don't know all the extent of it. But we do know it's Assyria and Egypt and the area of Jordan. We do know this. The area of Babylon and Iraq. We do know it's those nations immediately in immediate proximity to the nation of Israel. Now look what it says. Before Him, the pestilence. Those are the bowls of wrath. Several of the bowls could come under that category. And after Him was fever. Verse 6. This is the understatement. He startled the nations. I love that. He startled the nations like, Yes, Habakkuk, that is right. He startled the nations. Verse 11. The sun and the moon stood still. So those are involved in the book of Revelation judgments. Verse 12. He describes it. Or the prophet describes it. You marched through the land in your indignation or anger. It's the same thing. You trampled the nations in your anger. Why did you do this? Verse 13. For the salvation of your people and in the context of Habakkuk, his people are the remnant of Israel. So Habakkuk and Isaiah and several of the others, they used the terminology marched and trampled. That's the terms that are used in the Old Testament most often to describe Jesus' procession on the land going to the city of Jerusalem for the triumphal entry when they receive Him this time as the Messiah and it's a permanent reception. Let's go to top of page 2. Now I realize I've given a long introduction but you have to get the context because when I read the bowls of wrath I don't read them with just the idea the angels are involved in an invisible way but I see the greater Moses, the greater Joshua, the greater David marching in as a warrior to overthrow the nations in reality in a great war around the city of Jerusalem. The second coming is in context to a military conflict. It's the greatest military conflict in history and it's not just He waves His hands and they all die and evaporate and disappear. It's a true military conflict that goes on for a, not an extended period of time but more than a minute. We don't know how long it goes on but it goes on enough for real people to die and it will take seven months to bury them. That's how Ezekiel says take seven months to bury the dead after the battle around Jerusalem. Seven months. That's a real battle. Okay, paragraph G, top of page 2. David, now this is King David writing. I think David liked these kind of verses that he, talking about the Messiah at the time of the second coming he will execute kings. Look at verse 6. He will fill the places, the land, with dead bodies. What? He will fill the land or the places, the geographic places that He's marching with dead bodies. You read it in context. This is about Jesus at the second coming. I remember, I just have to have a little comic relief here for a moment. A couple of you know what I'm going to say. Back when we first started doing the worship of the Word, back in 99, we had the teams and they were all learning how to sing through the Psalms. Well, somebody picked Psalm 110 because they like, because Jesus, it's a really famous Psalm about Jesus. But nobody, most people never read verse 6. They kind of read, you know, the Lord said to my Lord, set up my right hand and I'll make all the nations and all your enemies bow at your feet. It's a really great Psalm. But almost, most people quit before the last verse, verse 6 and 7. So this poor guy is singing and they've talked about all the nations bowing down and Jesus reigning and all of His enemies at His footstool is going great. And towards the end of the two-hour set, he didn't really prepare, so he's kind of surprised here. He goes, it's a really great voice, but he said, He shall, singing, fill the places with dead bodies. And the gal next to him said, Dead bodies, dead bodies. It just didn't work. And he looked at me and he went, What do I do? It's in the Bible. I said, you know, we don't have to sing all the verses in every set. Now some of you knew when I said comic relief, you knew that because you were here in those days and you knew what I was going to talk about. The guy looked at me, he's the worship leader, he went, What do I do? I said, Bill, go back to verse 1. I said, Bill, quick, go back to verse 1. He will execute the heads of many countries. This is Jesus at the second coming. Again, some folks have the idea he comes, he waves his hands and all the events are over in one moment. No, there's a real drama unfolding and a real military victory and a real displacing of all the governmental leaders of the earth. Now Psalm 45 is one of the favorites. It's talking to the Messiah about the Messiah. Well, it's a prayer directly addressing him. Gird your sword on your thigh, verse 4, and ride victoriously is what one translation says. So this is Jesus at the battle of Armageddon with the sword on the horse marching through the land with armies at his side. That's what Psalm 45 is talking about in this verse. Of course, we all know Psalm 149 with the high praises of God in our mouth, two-edged sword in their hands. What are they doing? They're executing vengeance on nations. This isn't just the spirit of revival. They're actually executing vengeance and they're binding kings with chains. This isn't just figurative. This is real. It's an overthrow of all the evil governments of the earth. Psalm 149 is in context to Jesus marching up through the land and the seven bowls of wrath are top on the... in terms of the description of the judgments that Jesus is giving the word and then the angels are pouring out the bowl. At the word of his mouth, the angels go forth and they release the bowls and it's just decimating the armies as he's marching up in front of him but these bowls are being released on a global level as well. I love the verse in Habakkuk. The one I already mentioned. It says that he will startle the nations. I just think, wow, what a sentence. Paragraph H. Now on this journey as he's coming up and then we'll look at the bowls and we'll just look at them one, two, three, four pretty quick and again, I'll leave you with more notes that we'll have time to cover but on this journey, this is what Jesus described. I mean, what David described. I mean, Jesus will break the nations. Psalm 2, 9 and he will dash them. He will break them and he will dash them. Now, a lot of folks have never really thought about that verse. They read Psalm 2, verse 8 where the father says, I'll give you the nations as your inheritance at the time when the nations become his inheritance. When do the nations become his inheritance? I mean, in real historical manifestation. I mean, the nations are his from the beginning. I mean, he was always head of the nations because he's the creator of the earth and then at the resurrection and ascension, there's another sense of which he is king of the nations but this is talking about when it's openly manifest for all to see, believers and unbelievers alike. When does Jesus receive his inheritance of the nations at the time of the seventh trumpet when they proclaim that the kingdoms of the earth are now yours and he possesses them at that time, that's at the seventh trumpet. They're his. He appears in the sky and the next thing that happens after the announcement that the nations are his, the inheritance of the nations belongs to him. David really focuses it on that. The Messiah will break the nations and he will dash them. Now, he won't dash them in a kind of a gentle way. He said like an iron rod against a clay pot. When you smash a clay pot with an iron rod, it breaks because of the brittle nature of the clay. It is shattered. The seven bowls of wrath, when the sea becomes blood, the rivers become blood, sores fill the earth, earthquakes, 600 pound hell stones, the nations are literally dashed and destroyed. The infrastructure is completely annihilated because Jesus believes, rightly, that it will be more effective and better to completely decimate the infrastructure and start from scratch than it will be to try to repair every single piece of it. He's going to dash the nations and then reconstruct them and build all the cities and rule on the earth forever. That's why it talks about many times in the Prophets that the Messiah will rebuild and restore the cities. Now, we can take that figuratively now that is restoring our lives, restoring parts of cities. Now, in some ways, that's very real and that's very important actually because there's a continuity between what we do now and what happens then. But those passages about the Messiah restoring and rebuilding cities are after the second coming, after the seventh trumpet. He's literally going to dash the nations and literally rebuild them and literally put in new government over all the nations at every level of society. And the saints will have a dynamic part of that government. Well, David talks about him breaking nations and dashing nations. That's the clearest description of the seven bowls of wrath. They break and they dash. Now, the question is why? Why is he so thorough? Because the harlot Babylon system, the values of the harlot Babylon religion have thoroughly permeated society from the educational systems to the media, to the tax code, I mean to all the levels of society and the educational system, military, wherever, the harlot Babylon religion will have so thoroughly permeated the nations that they need to be dashed and reconstructed. Now, wherever there's righteousness that's in place before the Lord returns, that's a part of the nations. I'm talking about righteous character and laws in place. That's a part of the nations that does not have to be reconstructed. Like our vision is to see abortion made illegal. But if abortion's illegal and our nation or part of our nation, that's one law. The Lord, Jesus, doesn't have to reestablish. It's already in place. But there will be a wholesale dashing of the nations. Okay, let's go to Roman numeral two. Now we spent more than half our time giving the introduction, but I tell you, you have to get the introduction or you can't grasp the, I believe with clarity, the implications of these bolts. Okay, let's go to Roman numeral two, I mean Roman numeral three. The first bowl, Lotham's sores. Now remember we read in Habakkuk that before the Lord will go pestilence and after him will come fever. So there's some of that happening right here. So the Lord gives the command for the exact timing that the angel pours the bowl out. So the angel's pouring the bowl, but it's the word of Jesus that's going forward. He's the one marching up to the land, defeating the enemies around the nation of Israel. He pours out the first bowl. Revelation chapter six, verse two. And a foul and Lotham's sore came upon the man who had the mark of the beast. Now the saints have been raptured because the first bowl is actually the first event after the seventh trumpet. The saints are not on the earth. There's two groups of people on the earth. Those that have taken the mark of the beast and those, and I call them the reprobate, meaning they cannot repent, they don't want to repent and they can't repent, they have no interest in it. It's the equivalency of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, taking the mark of the beast. But there's another group of people on the earth and that's what I call the resistors. They didn't go up in the rapture, they were not born again, but they haven't taken the mark of the beast. They don't like the Antichrist. They didn't want to worship Jesus, but they didn't want to follow the Antichrist and there will be people like that, there'll be many of them. And the analogy that I give, it's like in World War II, the French resistance, a tremendous resistance movement against Hitler. They didn't want to be under Hitler. They didn't do it for Jesus, they did it because they didn't like Hitler and they liked their nation, they were patriots. They said, we're not going to be under Hitler, forget it. They were not doing it as righteous martyrs of Jesus, it had nothing to do with that, they just didn't like Hitler. There will be plenty of those kind of folks around. The foul and loathsome sores will not come on them, but only the people that have the mark of the beast. So this will be, this will be a bit of an eye-opener to them. This will actually give them some resolve. As things heat up in the final weeks before the Lord enters into Jerusalem and the whole battle's over. Because once He enters into Jerusalem, the battle's over, He's crowned King, then it's a whole nother day now. But there's just a few weeks to go in the unfolding of all these dramatic international events. Paragraph B, the sores are foul, they're revolting, they have offensive odor, like you could talk about meat as being rotten or foul. It's a horrible, foul, revolting sight and smell. But it's more than that. It will be loathsome. It will be so painful that men will loathe life itself, these sores. Let's go to top of page three. Second bolt. It's poured on the sea. And the sea became blood, became the blood as a dead man. And every creature in the sea died. And you can imagine the implications of this. Paragraph A, the sea will become thickened like congealed blood of a dead man. It won't be flowing blood but congealed, thick. It will kill all the marine life in the sea. The stench will be unbearable. It will destroy sea trade. But the battle's about to heat up in the sixth and seventh bowl and there's not much time before he enters in Jerusalem and wins the battle of Jerusalem and overthrows the Antichrist, casts him into the lake of fire, sets up his throne. It's just, it's weeks away of these international events are unfolding in very rapid succession, one after the other. But still, it's a pretty ominous reality for the nations to be facing. Now, we are supposed to proclaim this now. This isn't just a kind of pie-in-the-sky Bible chapter and say, well, you know, I've heard it, you know, just over time, different ones, the old Revelation 16, is it really practical? I go, no, no, we need to proclaim it. We need to bear witness to the truth. We need to declare what God is like in His zeal as a judge because the way He is then is how He is now because He never changes. And it's a perfect manifestation of love. And the proclamation, I'm repeating how I started this message, some people will get saved now through the proclamation. Others, it will be in their memory and the Spirit will bring it back and they will get saved as the events unfold. But others will not be saved, but God wants a faithful witness of justice against them before this severe judgment touches them. And so the only ones that will proclaim this is the church that believes it. It will be the church operating with the spirit of prophecy. It will be forerunners that are proclaiming, millions of them from many different streams in the body of Christ. I don't know if it's millions, but many, many, many. I have no idea the number, but many streams in the body of Christ, God will raise up forerunners that will be announcing these truths before the hour that they unfold. And we're one of many, many streams in the body of Christ that the Lord is stirring up in this way for the forerunner calling and forerunner ministry. And I want to say that over and over that the Lord's stirring up many streams, some now and some later. It's a sovereign work not related to us or them or him or her. It's a massive preparation work that the Holy Spirit's doing in the end time church. Okay, Roman numeral 5, the third bowl. The poisoning of the fresh water. The third bowl was poured on the rivers and the springs of water. Now this is Jesus doing it. Now the angels are pouring the bowl out, but they're under his authority. They're doing it at his command. He is going to cause the drinking water in the nations to become blood. That's an intense concept. The Jesus we love is going to do this. And he doesn't change personalities. He's the same Jesus now as he will be then. Filled with love, filled with tenderness, filled with zeal to remove everything that hinders love. He will confront everything in a proper proportion that is hindering love. There's no exaggeration in his actions. Every one of his deeds are necessary and they're precise. I mean he doesn't overdo it. He does it with precise timing and precise proportion. But paragraph 8, entire cities will be endangered because of the water supply. It's turned to blood. Panic will fill the nations. Again, there's two types of people. At this time the rapture's happened. The rapture was the event right before the first and second bowl here, the third bowl. Rapture was just some days earlier. We don't know how many days, but a few days have passed now. These events are happening in rapid succession, the seven bowls. But the two types of people, there's the, those taking the mark of the beast, it's over for them. But there's still millions that are resistors and they're going, now wait a second. What is going on here? It's getting more severe. And actually the Lord is using these bowls as a wake-up call for them. And a last opportunity for salvation. Paragraph C, now when we study the plagues of Egypt, because the plagues, we get, we study the plagues of Egypt to gain more details on the trumpets and the bowls. And it's, we are meant to. Meaning the Bible, we use the Bible to interpret the Bible. So when, we are meant to understand the bowls as having their prophetic forecasting was in the ten plagues of Egypt. So we go back and say, what, how did God turn water to blood? Because we know He never changes His personality. His brilliance is perfect. So if God was going to change rivers into blood, how would He do it? And what would He do it? And what would it look like? So we go to Exodus 7 and we get details. And those details are meant to be understood. Even for the end time church. Now verse 17, we're just going to look at it for a moment. The Lord told Moses and Aaron, He says, go tell them this. I'm doing this so that they will know me. I'm doing this so that Egypt will say yes to me. So that's helpful right there already. We get insight into when God turns rivers to blood, what's on his heart. I want them to know I'm God. So they can receive my salvation or they can refuse it and rise up in a contest against me. And of course that's what many of the nations do. I will strike the waters which are in the river. They shall be turned to blood. The fish will die. The river shall stink. Your rod, take your rod, stretch it out over the waters, the streams, the rivers, the ponds, the pools, they'll all become blood. Now that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that without knowing how God did it the first time. Gives us insight into some of the ways he will do it the second time. He won't do it exactly the same, but it gives us insight. It's in the word of God for our edification. Look at this. The buckets of wood and the pitchers of stone, the water that was in the water pitchers turned to blood. Verse 25 And this lasted for seven days then it lifted. So we know it's short term. He wants to get the attention of the nations. Top of page 4. Now I'm not going to give the examples, but in paragraph D I have a few. Where God in the Old Testament reversed bitter water and made it fresh. There are several times in the Scripture where the water was poisoned or bitter and by the miracle work of the Spirit it was reversed to fresh water. Now those are insightful. We're meant to understand that God does reverse the problem. Because when Jesus comes as He's marching up through the land and that royal procession proclaiming His kingship and exerting His rule and defeating the enemies in real time and space He's causing the waters to turn to blood. But there's a time, a short period of time, it's a few days I assume, nobody knows, but I assume it's a very short amount of time. He reverses it. Because when He's defeated His enemies in the Antichrist, the days are ticking and He's going to be defeated in Jerusalem by a face-to-face confrontation with Jesus. And it says by the brightness of His appearing He will destroy Him. By the brightness, Jesus will look at Him and He will give that look. You know some people say when that guy or that woman gives that one look, oh my, that's intense. Well He will look and the full glory of God will come out of His countenance and absolutely destroy Him. I mean His anger at this man, we cannot understand it. And His zeal to remove Him from the planet forever. Because of what He's done to the nations, what He has done to His people. Well that's another story I'm getting ahead of myself, that's Revelation 19. But it's my favorite part of the story. But when Jesus reverses, when the Antichrist is defeated, He's cast alive with the false prophet into the lake of fire, then all the water is going to be reversed. It's all going to be changed now. Well if He could turn the water into wine, He could turn the water into blood, He could turn the blood water back into fresh water. He has all power, it's no problem. Now paragraph E, we've read these verses over the years, and it's okay, I like to do this, I like to quote these streams of water flowing in the desert as revival verses. I've prayed these through the years. I will do a new thing, Isaiah 43. I will release rivers in the desert, waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, so my people can drink. I've prayed that through the years, and I still like it. And say, Lord release the spirit of revival. He goes, that's okay, you can borrow it, but it's not about the spirit of revival, it's about literal waters being supernaturally produced as the slaves of Israel have been set free, and they're physically walking back to Israel. Because there's not going to be any planes to pick them up. They don't have resurrected bodies. They didn't go up in the rapture. They are only coming to terms with who Jesus is while he's defeating their enemies. Well some of them have got to walk back to Israel a couple hundred miles, or more or less. I mean, you know, different ones. It's like the story of World War II, if you've seen the documentaries. Millions of people are marching for just days on end, because the Russians are in Germany and they've got to get back to Russia. The Germans are in Russia and they've got to get back to Germany. They've all got to go somewhere where they're not. And these dispossessed nations traveling and well anyway, these captives have got to walk back. There's not a plane. There's not a train. Those things are not working. The hundred pound hell stones messed up a whole lot of things. When the nations were dashed, the transportation systems were absolutely destroyed. Jesus doesn't wave his hand and have several million of the remnant of Israel, who again, they were not saved but as they're encountering him, they're getting saved. And they're going, wow, this is intense. You are the real Jesus of Nazareth. It'll be the most awesome reality that we can imagine. But they've got to get home and they're thirsty. Because when they were in those prison camps, and they won't all be in prison camps, but many will and many won't. We don't know the number. But we know it's a large number to be in the Scripture repeated a number of times. They're thirsty. And when the water got distorted, you could be sure their captors didn't give them the water. They're thirsty. So it's not a small thing. It's maybe mentioned, I'm just doing this by memory, six, seven, eight times in the prophets that the waters break forth on the high places because they're literally walking back over mountains and hills and valleys. It's a very practical reality and that's what these verses are. But you can still quote them for revival for now. He does not matter. He doesn't mind, I mean. I still say, oh Lord can I borrow these out of context and pray for revival? Rivers in the desert. He goes go ahead. I get what you mean. I'm real smart. I get it. But I only gave you two passages. There's five or six or seven of them. They're remarkable because they mean what they say and they say what they mean. You don't need to symbolize them and make them something other. It literally means that when Jesus is marching them back, he literally makes water come out come forth. Fantastic. Okay, Romans number six. Now the angel breaks forth, verse five, when the rivers turn to blood, this angel it's called, verse five, the angel over the waters. Did you know that the different spheres of life have angelic authority over them? And my assumption is that there's a demonic counterpart to resist them. That's an assumption. I think it's a good assumption. But it's clear in the Bible that different spheres of life have angelic authority over domains of life. And there's this one angel, he's over the waters of the earth. Well, two categories of water have just turned to blood, the sea and the rivers. So his whole job description, his whole domain has been impacted by the judgment of God. So he speaks up around the court of heaven and he says, I want to say this. This is right. This is good. This is necessary that this domain has been interrupted by the judgment of God by a divine intervention. So this angel says, I know it's my two areas, the sea and the rivers, but I say this to you, Jesus, to the Father as well, you are righteous. In other words, the judgment is right. The one who is, who was, and who is to come, because you've judged these things. Verse six, you have shed the blood of the saints and you have given them blood to drink. It is their just due. And then there's another voice, heavenly voice that speaks up in verse seven and agrees with it, says nearly the same thing. So there's two oracles, two heavenly witnesses that says this is right. Now paragraph D, they say you're righteous. Now the church today is to take a stand to give witness to God's judgment. Now we don't want to become, we don't want to preach on judgment with a wrong spirit. A lot of folks through the years that have preached on judgment, they do it with an angry spirit. We want to preach on judgment with a tender spirit because we know that judgment is the way that love increases. When God's judgments go forth, the situation will change and more people will receive the love of God and more will grow in love. And so we agree with His judgments. But many in the church today are embarrassed about Jesus the judge. They want Jesus the healer but not Jesus the judge because they think it's two different things and Jesus the judge is judging to heal the nations. He's judging for the point of healing. So I have energy about this. I want to say to the Lord, Lord, I want to stand up for You even in the church when many certainly in the nations are angry at Your judgments and many in the church are buying into that wrong spirit as though we kind of tuck away Jesus the judge in the back room when the neighbors come over. We kind of hide Him in the back room so nobody quite sees Him. No, He forgives and that's it. He doesn't only forgive, He confronts. And He drives rebellion off the planet. That's what He's about. So that love prospers. So I say, Lord, I love who You are. I don't want to cover up part of You. I don't want to pretend part of You isn't right. I want to be a faithful witness to You. You can read a little bit there on the righteous judgment. That the judgment is fair, it's necessary and it's helpful. It's all three. It isn't a dark spot in Jesus' character. It's comes out of the brightness of His love for people and for the nations. Paragraph F. Here's what this angel says. It's right. It's their just due. They were bloodthirsty so You gave them blood to drink. The bloodthirsty nations have been given blood to drink. And that's what the angel speaks up and says. Top of page 5. Now when the angel is worshiping the Lord and thanking Him for His judgment, paragraph G, the angel points out God's eternal nature. The God who is, who was and who is to come. It talks about the eternal nature of God. Here's one reason why we have to see the big picture of God's eternal purposes or His temporal judgments will not make sense to us. One of the reasons why much of the church trips and stumbles over Jesus the judge because they only have a vision for the now. For things to be easier now for their life. They don't have a big picture. When we see the big picture, the temporal judgments, the judgments that are temporary when He confronts darkness in the nations, they make sense when we touch the big picture, the God who's eternal because He's not operating out of just the here and now. He has a big plan that He's working towards and His judgments serve that plan to cause love to fill the earth. Okay, Roman numeral 7, the fourth bowl. The fourth bowl or the fourth angel poured out his bowl. Again, Jesus is on the earth commanding it and the angels releasing it. I have no doubt that when Moses commanded it, there were angels involved in it. Matter of fact, it says that on the 10th plague, the angel of death came and took the firstborn but it was in relationship to the decree of Moses to Pharaoh. So there's an earthly involvement of the Moses, of course this case, the greater Moses, Jesus, and there's a heavenly interaction with it but it's always been that way. When David did mighty acts, the angels were involved with him when he was under the unction of the Holy Spirit. Well anyway, verse 8. The fourth bowl poured on the sun. The sun scorched men with fire. The men didn't repent. They became angry and they blasphemed God. They blamed God. They knew it was God. They blamed Him for the fire that was scorching them instead of their sin. Now we don't know if anyone repented but we assume there are some who have not taken the mark of the beast. They're going, you know, I'm just going to hang in there for a few more minutes before I give a final opinion here because we know that many of these resistors, when the Lord, when they encounter the Lord, they actually get saved and they're the ones that populate the millennial earth. These unsaved resistors at the time of the rapture, so they don't go up in the rapture but they're here and they get saved in the process of the bowls and all these events surrounding Jerusalem. These international events. They haven't taken the mark of the beast. And there could be tens of millions. I don't, my opinion is it's not hundreds and hundreds of millions. We don't know. It could be. But it's more than a few. I'm guessing it's tens of millions or maybe some more. I don't know. It's a very small percent of the earth but it's enough for the millennial earth. It's where its population base will be of people with natural bodies. So they're watching this. And many men are blaspheming God. Now paragraph C, what's going on with this scorching fire? Part of what's going on, it's a prophetic message. The Lord's saying to them, you think this fire is bad? You take the mark of the beast because others are undoubtedly, some of these resistors are being tempted to, you will be an unquenchable fire in a very short amount of time. If you think the sun is hot, do you have any idea where you're going if you take the mark of the beast and refuse my salvation? So even in this there's a there's a cry of love and redemption though there's clearly a punitive dimension that's emphasized here in the scripture. He's stopping the wicked Antichrist empire. He's dismantling its global infrastructure with these, I call them like heavenly arsenal, just destroying the resources of the Antichrist empire. Paragraph, I mean the next one, Roman numeral 8, the fifth bowl, the final one, bring this to an end. The fifth bowl poured out, the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, the Antichrist. Now the Antichrist has a governmental seat and this darkness hit the governmental seat in an intensive way. His kingdom became full of darkness. Not just his governmental seat, his governmental center of power but his entire infrastructure, physical darkness came on them, just like it happened in Egypt. But here they gnawed their tongues because of the pain but they wouldn't repent. Of course the Antichrist, Mark of the Beast people can't repent and they don't want to repent. So Jesus is going to turn the lights out on the whole kingdom of the Antichrist. Top of page 6. Paragraph C. Now when we read the ninth plague of Egypt, we get insight into this plague of darkness. It's interesting that when the darkness fell in the days of Moses because it's parallel. We're meant to gain insight from the Moses experience. There will be darkness over the land of Egypt. Darkness which may be felt. That's interesting. Darkness that can be felt. What does that mean? How do you feel darkness? Because here's what it means, I believe. There's a realm of demonic activity. There's a presence with this darkness. It's not just the absence of light. It's the involvement of the demonic realm in the darkness. Sometimes you've been in darkness where just the lights were off. Sometimes you've experienced darkness where there was a demonic presence tormenting you. There's a difference. It's not just the absence of light. There's a spiritual darkness as well as a natural darkness that sets in. They felt it. Verse 22, it was thick. Thick. I mean how do you get a handful of darkness? What thick? You mean black? No, it's thick. There's a weight to it. There's a demonic dimension to it. It's not just dark. It's thick. There's a weightiness. There's a dimension to it that we're not that familiar with. And it lasted for three days. And nobody even rose up from their house for three days. It just shut down the whole land of Egypt. Well, the Lord's doing this. He's shutting down the Antichrist empire. Now they're gathering for war because we'll see in the sixth bowl in a minute after all these five things they gather the nations to go to war not just against Israel, against Jesus. They see a Jewish military leader with an entourage of angels releasing the captives and the resurrected saints are with him and they want to go to war against him in Jerusalem. That's next week. But I remember when I first began to understand some of this and I don't understand that much of it. There's more I don't understand than I do. But I remember when I first read this it said they are gathering the nations to war against Jesus. I go, you mean against Israel? No, they want to war against him. Well, what are they going to shoot like slingshots up to the sky and try to hit him? Like what does that mean? And I didn't realize some years ago when I first started studying this that Jesus was actually on the ground in a military confrontation with them. Well, the thick darkness is the event before that so this is really messing up the Antichrist's mobilization abilities. Paragraph E The famous verse of Isaiah 60 related to the second coming. Arise and shine for the glory of the Lord is risen for darkness shall cover the earth. Deep darkness. That's the fifth bowl here. It is deep darkness covering the earth on the fifth bowl and the glory of God is about to break open over the land of Israel. Well, we'll just end with that. We've got a few more points there but you can just read those on your own. Let's go ahead and stand. Now, I realize this has been like, okay, my brain is on overload. If you've never studied this before, if you have, it's actually pretty straightforward. If you're brand new, you can be in overload for a little while but I want to encourage you the information is just pretty straightforward. They mean what they say and they say what they mean. That's the key to these passages. Read it for what it says. Don't try to make some other symbolic meaning. Read it at face value. It's going to have the music just begin without the worship and we're just going to wait on the Lord for a minute. Here we are, Lord. I want to be a foreigner. I mean, this may be some decades away. If it's some decades away, I want to start getting people ready to understand it so in a few decades, it's not brand new to much of the earth. I want to see movies made out of these stories. I mean many, not just one or two. I mean lots of places. I don't mean I make them. I mean all of the kingdom of God. See, houses of prayer raise up who understand these things. You've got to raise up those with understanding. We have to get it ourselves. I'm taking this next decade or two to get understanding because I tell you, 10 years will go by in a minute. We're at our 10 year IHOP anniversary. You know, we had it just the other day. 10 years will go by in a minute. It'll be 10 years from now in a minute. We don't want to be uninformed and the people connected to us even more uninformed because we studied that but they don't at all. We want to be informed the best we can and we want them to be as informed of what the Bible says. That's what we're doing in these next years ahead of us. So we're saying Holy Spirit just come and touch us. Even now I ask you. He's going to wait on the Lord for a minute. Come Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit we say we agree with you. We agree with the scripture. We love you Jesus. We won't back away from who you are. We won't play it safe. We want to preach the Jesus of the Bible. We don't want to play it safe even in the church. We want to declare your love, your judgments, your plans for salvation. Your plans for confronting evil. We say yes. I'm going to have some of you that it's new in the last weeks or months where you're saying yes in a new way. Lord I'll take a stand. I won't back away from the political incorrectness of Jesus the judge. I agree with that angel. You're righteous is right. It's all of the root. Different ones. You say just recently. Whether it's tonight or the last few weeks or whatever. You've just resolved in your heart you're going to take a stand. You're not going to back away. I want you to come and stand up here. I'm going to pray for you.