This sermon delves into the seven levels of judgment found in the Bible, highlighting instances where God's wrath was poured out on individuals, cities, and nations due to disobedience and rebellion. It emphasizes the need for repentance, seeking God's mercy, and interceding for others to avert cataclysmic events that result in mass casualties. The urgency to examine our own lives, confess sins, and proclaim the truth to those who need to hear it is underscored as a response to the impending judgment.

All right, we want to continue for our study on judgment. We look at seven levels of judgment and we have now come to the last one, judgment level number seven and we want to begin by reading in our scripture where this all has come from that we see the number seven throughout scripture over and over again it's used by God for completion. We see in Genesis chapter 1, six days of creation and on the seventh day God rested. We see in Revelation, we see the seven stars held in the hands of the Lord which are the seven churches representing seven as complete. We see the seven spirits in front of the throne of God that give honor and praise to him that go throughout all the earth to share and to do these things before God as seven being complete. The seven golden candlesticks, the seven trumpets, the seven plagues, the seven seals, all these sevens being complete and we have looked at six levels of judgments that God begins with and we'll go over those six and review quickly after we read our portion of scripture in Leviticus chapter 26. So I'm going to ask you to take your Bibles open up Leviticus chapter 26 and we will begin reading in verse 16. Now again we have based all seven levels of this judgment out of these verses here because of the phrase that I'll point out to us here in a moment that we see used several times throughout this passage that I'm about ready to read to you. Alright having your Bibles now ready let us begin in verse 16 Leviticus 26. I also will do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning age that shall consume the eyes, cause sorrow of heart, and you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And this is one of the verses that we have. And if you will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield her increase, and neither shall the trees of land yield their fruits. And if you walk contrary unto me, and you will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. And we'll also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate. And if you will not be reformed by me, by these things, but will walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times more for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant. When you are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have broken the staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by way, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. And if you will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Having read our background passage, we now come to level number seven of judgment, and so let us have a word of prayer, and then we'll review quickly the other six levels. Blessed Father, we ask of you now, having read, having begun to understand, Lord, where we're at in this time of history. Lord, it is the most needful of hours that we be ever so nigh unto you. Lord, you promised that if we would draw near to you, you would draw near to us. So, Lord, it is that we see men forsaking you and drawing further away from you instead of coming to you. Father, we pray for grace, we pray for mercy, we pray for your divine love to help us this hour, Lord, as we seek your face for favor, and not for judgment, and not for the destruction that we see unfolding in front of us. Lord, the sake of our children and grandchildren, the sake, O Lord, of your name is being to be declared, Father, throughout all the nations of the earth. We ask, O Father, we pray as you taught us to pray, let thy will be done on earth, on earth as it is in heaven, and help us this hour, Lord, as we study this, that you would help us, that we would have a discernment, we would have a wisdom, and a way, Father, to go in our life, to be able to speak and to share, Father, with those that are in need of this understanding tonight. Time is ever of the essence, and so, Lord, it is men are not concerned with eternity, they are only focused for their own selves. Lord, we would pray for a drastic change, a spirit of revival, to saturate your people once again, and to draw the loss, Father, into a saving relationship with you before it is eternally too late. In these things we yield and submit to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we pray, amen. Now, I want to go back as the state where we're at right now. We see the seven levels as they have unfolded. We see this repeated over in Leviticus chapter 26, that if you will not listen to me, if you will not hear me, then I will add or increase seven times more plagues, judgments on you, and that's the basis of where we have been looking for this. And so, quickly now, level number one is the judgment that begins where the first initial sin takes place. We know that all sin that is practiced this hour, this moment, in earth and life, that we know as it, began with one sin. And we go back to Genesis chapter 3, and we see that Eve, listening to the lies of Satan, to the deception of her own flesh, and she gave in to that sin, and that initial sin of disobedience that she took, and she made, gave to Adam, and Adam took, brought a curse on the earth that began this process of judgment. And we know the verses that teach us, for the wages of sin is death. And God commanded Adam and Eve on that day, saying, the day that you eat of that tree, you shall die. And men die because of sin. So we see that first level of judgment is the beginning of that initial sin that was instituted in Genesis chapter 3. But that may seem distant to people, so I tried to use the first level to bring it a little bit closer home to us, is that our own lives, we had one initial sin at that age of accountability, that we began to discern between good and evil, and between right and wrong, that we undertook in our own selves to make a choice, and we chose sin. And so in our life, we instituted, just as Adam and Eve did, that initial point of sin, we have our beginning of sin. Now it would be nice for us to be able to say, was that I did once and I never went back to it? Wonderful. But we know the reality. We have continued in sin throughout our lives, some more than others, but we began with that initial part of sin. Now those that are saved, when they come to Calvary, they come claiming the blood of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, and they know that His blood cleanses us from all iniquity. So no matter what our sin was, we have the blood of Christ that cleanses us and made us as if we had never sinned, because of Christ's atonement, His sacrifice, and His justification. But I'd also like to introduce to you that on that first level we looked at, that when sin was instituted, Adam and Eve first, our first sin, is that for some of us, we might remember that after we was born again, after we became Christians, that first time that we sinned. Many a soul has wrestled with that. Well, now what do I do? I've been saved, now I've gone back to sin. Am I saved? And so we looked at that beginning process of the first level of judgment when sin initially takes place. And that led us into the second level of judgment, God's response. God never lets sin go unanswered for. And so we saw that in Adam and Eve was that blood must be used for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Christ came, died on Calvary, shed His blood for the remission of sins for men, women, and children for generations. And we saw God's response in that second level of judgment that when men sin, they must answer to God for that sin. And so God has made a way that we can be delivered from the consequences of wrath. Now we come to the third level where it begins to impact the lives of the world, impact the lives of those that are around about us. And we see how these levels of judgments now go out into the world. By scripture we saw this, about how these different levels impact the world that we're in. Level number three of judgment is when God stretches forth His hand against the land. Now that can be through weather, that can be through nature, seasons. The earth is the Lord's. We know that it is groaning now due to tribulations and sins that we have brought upon this of our choices to sin. And God judges the land. Crops fail, drought comes, weather phenomena that we have seen in our lifetime here within the last 18 months. Record weather phenomena. These things do not come by accident. They come directly because of God's response to men's sin. So that it begins to afflict a people, an entire region, an entire nation, because they have turned away from God instead of turning back to God. And so that's level number three. Level number four is when God stretches forth His hand of judgment against the governments. The ruling power that is over a people. And we saw in the Old Testament it was the kings. God gave them the kings that could either bring them to God or that is Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin. And they followed after that sin and they never recovered from it. We see Nebuchadnezzar was raised up to judge the nations. We see where God allows for the Roman Empire to do its purpose for such a time as this. We see these things put into motion. So God reaches in judgment through governments, through kings, through principalities, through powers, through nations that these things then have unfolded. Level number five is when God comes against His own people. Now this becomes a little bit more personal. It's one thing for God to do something in the nations. It's one thing for God to do something in the land. But now when God afflicts His own people, it becomes more reality to us. We saw in the Old Testament through this passage of Scripture, God brought against the heathen judgment. But it was a little bit more personal when He said you are my people, my children. And so He afflicted the children of Israel, the children descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He brought judgment on them because they forsook Him and they served sin. Many times that phrase they served veil. But then we come to the New Testament and now God's people is the church. And so we've seen throughout 2,000 years of church history that God has brought judgment on the church. Churches that begin to wax thin. They begin to wax lean. They are not growing by leaps and bounds, but they're shrinking. This is God's judgment against His own people. People that pray, cry out to God, seeking God's faith and never get an answer. That's God's judgment against His own people. And we saw that in that verse, let judgment begin at the house of God. And then we come to the last sixth judgment that we took on the last time that we began to understand in this passage of Leviticus, we also saw where God says, I will send the wild beast among you that will rob you of your children. Unlike the other judgments that they are outward circumstances that affect us, level number six, all these judgments keep getting closer and closer to us. And so we see that He brings judgment on individuals, on families, on the church, and it becomes life and death. Where there is, say, an affliction through pestilence. There is an affliction through wars. There is an affliction through animals attacking in the earth and other things that we see in headlines today that we say, this is the judgment of God. And we begin to see life lost by this, where disease comes in, or a pestilence comes in, and it takes individuals, as we've seen with the meningitis, where a dozen individuals have lost their life. God allows for these things to jar us in these judgments because, again, we come back to the principle, we have forsaken God. God allows for each one of these levels of judgment to jar our world, to jar our way of life, that we begin to see our priorities are messed up. And we're not where we're supposed to be, and we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. And God says it again, if you will not listen to me, I'll keep ratcheting up the judgments hotter and hotter, fiercer and fiercer, stronger and stronger, till I do get your attention. And that brings us into this last judgment. This is level number seven, and I call it the cataclysmic judgment. Because it is where we saw individuals die in level number six. The entire difference between those other six judgments and level number seven is life and death. It is heaven and hell. And I'm going to take us through four principles here on this seventh level to define why this is not known in the midst of God's people today. Why we don't hear about it, why it's not received by people. And then I want us to look at this, of the difference here that we began to see from the other six levels to this level. And then I want to take you through portions of scripture that verify when God did this from Genesis clear to Revelation. And in our present day, when did God stretch out his hand and allow for a cataclysmic judgment that literally wiped scores of thousands of people off the face of the earth, and to see it historically. And to see it out in the scriptures. And then we'll come to the last part of this, which is God's response for us. What are we supposed to do in the event of a cataclysmic event? So, starting with this now, we have seen the scripture in Leviticus 26, and now we begin to answer the question, why is this not known among God's people? I know that when I share this, I preach, I teach, I write, I pray against this cataclysmic event of literally thousands of people being wiped off the earth in the blink of an eye, in a sudden instant. One fell swoop allows for this, and most people would say, I've never heard that. People that have sat in church for years, 60 years, and say, I've never heard this. And I want us to answer the question, why is this not known by God's people? Because truly, if we knew this and believed this, would we not respond appropriately to stop it, especially if it was our own children, our own loved ones, our own communities? Surely we would, but we don't know this truth. And one of the reasons is, is because the sadness of this day and hour is, is that most of God's people do not know God's word. Now it is, is that we have a clear command in 2 Timothy 2.15, study to show yourself approved unto God. Study is one of the most hated words by people near and far in the church today. Christians that to be asked that question, have you ever read the Bible? And the answer, resounding by 90% or more of the church to say, no, I've never read the Bible. You go to seminary, you go to pastors, and you ask them, have you ever read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? Now these are the men and women that stand and teach and preach and lead the people, and their answer is not much better than the pews, the people sitting in the pews. They have not read the word of God. If they don't read the word of God, then they don't know the word of God. And if they don't know the word of God, then they don't teach and preach the word of God. And this is why there is an absence for the answer to the question, what's going on today? It brings us to that place is to say, we've got to rectify this. We've got to know the word of God. And when you put the Bible from Genesis to Revelations together, you begin to see that God is consistent in the seven levels of judgment. He was consistent with his own people. He has been consistent with it in the nations. And he will be consistent with it for the church until the end times. And so it's an only right that we would know this, and that we would teach this, and that we would proclaim this. Is it acceptable? Absolutely not. If you try to go to government leaders, as we saw Jeremiah went to King Zedekiah, went to King Jehoiakim, he spoke to the kings, he told them the plan, and what was their response? We will not listen to you. When Moses went to Pharaoh, and he told him that the plagues were gonna continue to get worse and worse, what was Pharaoh's response? And he hardened his heart. Men in darkness will not receive the word of light. And so there's a disconnect between what God has revealed. This is what's happening in the world events today, in our national history. We are in a historic time in this year right now. And these things have come about, six levels of judgment. Well, in my personal belief, we are at the very level six of what we're seeing judgments now, and I preached that last time. That brings us is that we are on the horizon of a cataclysmic event, and the reality is that those who do not know God are not ready to go out to eternity. The church to respond to that is to say, God, give us time. So looking at this, this is why this is not popular. It's not known, it's not proclaimed, it's not shared with people, because people don't want to deal with this kind of reality of judgments in this. Now, a second question that needs to be answered as we move on in this is why? What is the difference between the first six levels and the seventh level? And as I already alluded to, it's simply stated in one little phrase there. It is the difference of the six levels is inconveniences. They are eye openers. They are things that brings into our life that causes us inconvenience. But this seventh level, after a cataclysmic event, there is no life. There is only death. And it is is that there are literally thousands that come in the place that their lives have been changed forever. It is is that when life and death has been brought in, and though death has come, there cannot be life in this world after death has come. We saw in the cataclysmic, or the weather phenomenon of tornadoes and hurricanes and floods. When they happen to our property, when they happen to our homes, what do people do after that? Well, a tornado lasts for only a few moments. And as soon as the tornado has gone through, people come out of their shelters and they begin to put their lives back together. They begin to repair the damage that was done. And after a flood, they root out all the things that have been destroyed by flood, and they rebuild. But what do you do after death has come? You don't do anything because death is now the end result of this. And so these cataclysmic events, it changes the scope of history. It is a defining moment where there is going to be a different course, a different path, and that's what we're gonna see in scripture, that brings us to this reality is that there is no hope for the lost after a cataclysmic event. A couple years ago, we saw on December the 25th, 2006, 2008, a tsunami that washed ashore from an earthquake on the Indonesian area there. And over 200,000 people were killed within a matter of moments. You didn't go back and rebuild because those people were gone. It changed the scope of history. And it is that it is the certainty of eternity then, heaven or hell. I don't fear a cataclysmic event for myself because if it happens to fall tonight, I'd go home, I'd get to go be with my Lord. But these people that are out here in this world are not ready for this event. The church has not responded to prepare them for this event. And that's where we're gonna look at here in a few moments. That is the difference between the first six levels and the seventh level. Seventh level is a finality. It is an historic event. It is a changing event, of course, of action in the lives of people and nations. Now we wanna come to the third, and I wanna begin to look at this in scriptures to prove about God's consistency of different individual circumstances where God smote a few individuals, where God smote a family, where God smote whole nations. And to see how God did this so that we begin to have an understanding of how God did it because we ought to understand that principle. God is a God the same yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't change. I love that little attribute in the book of Malachi, I am the God who changes not. That term, immutable, God is immutable, he changes not. And so if God did this in Genesis, and God did this in Jeremiah, and God did this in the book of Acts, and God has done this repeatedly throughout history, there is nothing for us to question that God can do it in 2012. So, taking our Bibles now, I'm going to give you portions of scripture. If you want to look at these verses, write them down and you can look them up later, but that we begin to put a consensus here from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible of God, how he did this. And I wanna begin, first of all, by showing how God did this to individuals. How he reached out, he didn't allow for a wild beast to come, as we saw when the children come out and they made fun of Elisha the prophet, and he must have been a bald man. And so the children come out to make fun of him and they said, you bald man, you bald man, and Elisha turned to the children and he cursed them. And two she bears come up out of the woods and ran down and killed 42 children right there on the spot, because they did not honor the man of God, tragic. Cataclysmic, not a cataclysmic judgment, but a sixth level judgment of loss of life, and God used animals to do that. People that died in freak accidents of flooding, they get out into the waters and they think that they can pass it and they're swept out. Riptides in the ocean and they are swept out into the ocean and they can't recover and their life is lost and they drown. Tragics are judgments of this that makes people shaken in their life to get their life back together, but I want us to see here in scripture when God stretches forth his hand, the right hand of God when it is stretched out tells us two things in the Bible, God is either stretching out his hand to afflict his people, to smite his people, or he is stretching out his right hand to bless his people, and you and I are to seek God for his favor. We are to seek God for his mercy, and in wrath, oh God, remember mercy. So let's begin in the book of Genesis, and we see that where God cursed Cain after he killed his brother Abel, God did not kill him, but God put a mark on him, and that mark was in his forehead. Now, he did not slay him on the spot. He allowed for his life to continue, and those generations to continue. But I'd like for you to think about the end result there. What happened to all the children, grandchildren, and all the descendants of Cain? They were swallowed up in the flood of Noah, weren't they? So it is that even though he only had a mark upon him, and he was cursed by God, the end result was his entire family was wiped out of existence. Now, in Genesis, we see an example of this, and it's found in chapter 38. The story of Joseph is unfolding. We see the tribes of Israel being done by the sons of Jacob. Reuben, on down to Joseph and Benjamin. And in this chapter 38, he kind of breaks away to give us the story of Judah. Now, the reason that Judah is so important, as many of you know, is that it's the lineage of David. It is the lineage of Christ. And so we see how did Christ's lineage, David's lineage, come from Judah? And it begins with sin. And so we see in chapter 38, verse 7, is that Judah has a couple sons. Ur and Obed are his sons. And we see in Ur's life, in verse 7, is that there is just one little statement made about him. And he did wicked in the sight of the Lord. He was evil in the sight of the Lord. And God struck him right where he stood, and he died. Now, it doesn't say what his sin was. It doesn't say what he did against God. But he did enough to provoke God that his life was instantly taken from him. And I would like to remind you of two verses of Scripture. Daniel, chapter 5, and Job, chapter 12, verse 10, that the breath of all mankind is in God's hand. God has the power to give life. God has the power to take life. And when men provoke God, in Judgment Level number 7, God takes life, because they have provoked him, and God responds appropriately. And we have that Ur was married to this woman. And as their tradition was in the book of Genesis, is that the next kin, the next brother, was supposed to go into his wife, his sister-in-law, and he was to bring up a child for his brother that had passed on. That was the tradition. So, O-Man goes into Ur's wife to bring up Sene for his namesake. And he commits trespass against God, because it says that he spilled it out on the ground, and he would not fulfill his responsibility. And this was counted as a provocation to God, and so it displeased the Lord, and so God struck O-Man dead. So we see back-to-back brothers offending God, provoking God, displeasing God, and God responding in right fashion there, is to say God struck him dead on the spot. We also see the sons of Aaron over in the book of Exodus, is that when they offered strange fire before the Lord, the fire of God fell right there on the spot, because of their transgression in provoking God, and God killed them on the spot. Now, it is that because a lot of people would say, well, that's Old Testament. God was angrier in the Old Testament. God was more fierce in the Old Testament. Let's go over to the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, the church is just beginning, Acts chapter 5. We see the story of Ananias and Sapphira. The church is multiplying. Thousands are coming to be followers of Christ, disciples. The church is preaching, praying, and they're broken. And all of a sudden, everything that begins to go good, Satan has got to do something to stop it. And immediately, when men choose wrong, God responds in those levels of judgment. And we see Ananias provoke God in the greatest of ways here, because in Acts chapter 5, verse 5, people were selling their properties. People were selling their goods, and they would take that money, and they would bring it to the church, and they would lay it at the apostles' feet, put it in the offering plates, and they would feed the poor. They would clothe the naked. They would take care of the orphans. They would take care of the widows. They was doing what the church was called to do. But then we see that Ananias, in his mind, greed, he says to the church, he says to Peter, and again, to put it in an illustration that we would understand, he says to them is to say, how much did you sell that piece of property for? Ananias says, well, I sold it for 20,000. And all along, he sold it for 30,000. So what did he do with the extra 10,000? He pocketed it. Now, he didn't get smoked dead on the spot because he lied to Peter, and he didn't get struck dead because he pocketed the $10,000. He didn't get struck dead because he lied to the church. It says, because you have lied to the Holy Spirit. It is instant. That response of lying to the Holy Spirit cost him his life, and God stretched out his hand, and that breath that was in Ananias, he took, and he dropped dead on the spot. And shortly thereafter, in Acts chapter 5, verse 10, Ananias' wife, Sapphira, she comes in, not knowing what happened to her husband. Peter calls her on the carpet. He says, did you sell the piece of property for X amount of dollars? And she says, yes. She lied, not to Peter, not to the church. She lied to the Holy Spirit. And those that had carried out Ananias dead came and now carried her out because her life was taken from her. So we see again, God's consistency. God slew the sons of Judah, Aaron and Onan. God slew the sons of Aaron because of sacrificing wrongly. And we see that God slew Ananias and Sapphira individuals, not by freak accidents or calamities out in this world, not by disease, pestilence, and those kind of things that takes a few individuals, but by God stretching his hand out against them. It is the most severest penalty of immediate response. And again, what could any of those individuals do after their life was gone? They can't repent, they can't confess, they can't make restitution, they can't be restored. It is finality. And that's the reason that I bring those individual lessons to you there out of Genesis and Exodus and Acts. But now I want to take the scriptures and use here for you to point out to you when it becomes greater numbers. And this is the one thing about level number seven. It's not normally just a few individuals as we've just looked at in three different portions of scripture, but it's when God smites literally thousands that he consumes in an instant. And this is what we want to look at. And so let's go back to Genesis. We go back to Genesis chapter seven and we see the days of Noah. And we see that God made man. Man began to multiply upon the face of the earth. And what did men do as they began to multiply? They did evil in the sight of the Lord. And only one man of all those thousands that were on the face and planet of God's creation made in the image of God. Only one man was found righteous in the sight of the Lord. And that was Noah. It wasn't his wife. It wasn't Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives. It was Noah. And because of Noah, his wife, his three sons and his three daughter-in-laws were spared. But it was what happened to the other thousands of people that were on the earth. They continued to provoke God. They continued to sit against God. They had heard the message for over a hundred years is to repent, repent, repent. And they said no. And as the judgments continue, God finally comes and he says, now in finality, make your just desserts. And so it was, was that the floodwaters came. And in Genesis chapter 7, verse 21, we read this account. And all the flesh of the earth died. All that walked, all that moved, all that was on the earth except for that which was preserved by God's mercy on the ark or Noah's ark, all the rest of it died. All the breath of life in men, women and children's lives. Thousands were slain in an instant and everything was changed from that given point. An historic moment in time when all that took place. All, verse 22, all whose nostrils was the breath of life and all that was on the dry land, they died. This was not just a few individuals that we just got done looking at. This was scores of individuals that were ushered out of this earth and this life and ushered immediately into eternity. And again, what do we know about them? They was wicked. So did God say to them as we know the practice of well done, God good and faithful servant? No, he did not. He condemned them because they were wicked. And they were in hell till the day that Jesus came and visited them as we saw in the scripture of first Peter of that account of those that died during the days of Noah. Now we move on, we see the next account. Not so much all the population of the earth being destroyed, but in other greater fashions we see it. And we come to Genesis chapter 19. And we know that in chapter 18, Abraham is told by God what he's getting ready to do. God says, I've looked down from my heavenly throne. I've looked down on, I've seen these two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, and I don't see anything good. And in Genesis 18, Abraham wrestles with God. Oh, for God to give us intercessors to wrestle with him. And he says, if I can find 50, Lord, will you destroy it? Thousands of people supposedly was in these cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the plain that was there where the Dead Sea is now. And he says, if I can find 50, I won't destroy it. And you know the account, 40, 30, 20. If I can find 10, will you destroy it? And God says, if you can find 10 righteous, I won't destroy it. That's God's mercy. But what happens when there is no mercy? What happens when God says, there's no one there to stop my wrath from being poured out? You see, God's wrath upon days of Noah, upon those individuals is reminded to me over there in Revelations where it says is that there is a cup, a cup of wrath, a chalice. And that chalice is filled up with drops. If you had a dropper of every sin, of every provocation to God, and those droppers are filling that cup up all the time. And what happens when that cup gets full? It's now at the brim of the top of the cup, the chalice. And then what happens? It flows out over. And God's wrath is poured out in like fashion. All the while that the dropper is dropping in the cup, there is time to repent. There's time to deal with the sin. There's time to turn away. But when that overflows, it is judgment level number seven, cataclysmic event, finality, eternity. And there is no more chance after that. So we see God comes down. He sends his two angels. Lot brings them into his home. We see the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we know that most people like to just attest, well, they was just guilty of the sin of homosexuality. That's not so. But we're in the book of Amos. It tells us is that they rejected the widows. They did not take care of the orphans. They had greed about them. They lived for themselves. And it was that they lived off of others for their own pleasure and desire. And then they came to that place that men lusted after one another and they gave up the use of the woman. That sin provoked God levels, chances of opportunity to repent. They would not repent. And so God, in Genesis chapter 19, verse 24, after getting locked and his two daughters out, the wife turned to a pillar of salt because she turned back. In 1924 of Genesis, then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the fire of the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground. Everything of those cities and that entire region was devastated in the blink of an eye because of level judgment, level number seven and thousands were ushered out of this earth into eternity and they were not ready to meet God. Now I made mention is that God judges his own people in one of the other six levels that we was talking about. What happens when God annihilates his own people and in a cataclysmic event? And we see this in Exodus chapter 32, verse 28, is that Moses is up on the mount and as he's serving the Lord and worshiping the Lord, people rose up and they said, we do not know what happened to this man Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt. Aaron, up and make us gods. And so Aaron says, give me all your gold earrings. And he took the gold earrings, he threw them into the fire and out of the fire comes this gold and he begins to shape it and craft it and he makes a golden calf. And it says that the children of Israel rose up and worshiped the calf and they began to play. They sinned against God. And so God sends Moses down to deal with the sin because they provoked him. And when Moses comes down, he sings the golden calf. He throws the 10 commandments down and shatters them. He melts the calf. He strews the gold out through the water. He makes them to drink of this. And then in Genesis 32, 28, he says, who's on the Lord's side? Who are those of you that have not sinned out of 600,000 men that come up out of Egypt? And there was a handful of Levites that said, we are for the Lord. We have not sinned. And Moses commands them in Exodus 32. And he said, take your swords and fall into the midst of the people and slay those men that have practiced this evil in the sight of God. And it says that the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses and there fell the people that day, 3,000 men. Now, again, this was not God by fire or him just jerking their life, but he used the righteous ones to afflict a cataclysmic event of thousands of people at a given moment to be slain because due directly to their sin against him. And we see in the 40 years of wilderness, the children of Israel continue to practice this evil. And in spurts, we see throughout the book of Numbers and Deuteronomy, the testimony that God sets himself against his own people, not against the lost, not against the heathen and the wicked, but against his own people who should have known better, but they didn't do better. So in Numbers 11, verse one, we have another occasion and when the people complain and we see this term again, it displeases the Lord. That ought to be on our hearts and minds in confession. That ought to be on our hearts and minds when we pray, Lord, what is displeasing to you? Because when we displease God, we've seen life ends. And so when the people complain, it displeases the Lord and the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt among them and it consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. So all those from the fringe on the outside received the judgment of God and scores of people were burned up by the fire of the Lord on the outside parts of the camp. The people don't learn their lesson. So they continue to complain. They're tired of the man. They're tired. They miss me. And so they're complaining to Moses and they're complaining against God and when you complain against God, you displease God and you promote God and so they complained and so God says, I'm going to give them meat and they're going to eat this quail and in verse 33 of chapter 11 of Numbers, God sends the quail to them so that they can have it and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, air was chewed, the wrath of God was kindled against the people and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. Verse 34, and he called the name of that place, Kiproth-Hadovah because there they buried the people that lusted. So again, sinning against God, God stretches forth in his wrath and he kills the people by scores at this particular point. Very next chapter, Numbers chapter 12, verse 23, we see it again unfold. They're getting ready to go up into the promised land. Moses sends 12 spies up The spies go up, they see the giants, they see the bars, they see the gates of the city, they see the walled cities, they say we can't do anything. We can't take this land and we know that Caleb and Joshua were the only two that came back that had faith and said we can take this land because God is for us and not against us. But the other 10 spies that went up brought an evil report and so it changed the heart of the people that they complained and they mourned and they agonized and it displeased God. And so God said from 20 years old and upward all those that came out of Egypt, men, women and children, 20 years and older will die in the wilderness. Now we have the account over 600,000 men come up out of Egypt and it was that in 40 years time 600,000 people, not wicked, not heathens, not unbelievers, God's own children of the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died in the wilderness because they provoked the Lord. The church is not oblivious to God's wrath when we complain and displease Him. It ought to remind us God did this to His own people and God can do it to us today. And then we come in chapter 16 verse 35 we see again a fire coming out when they rose up against Moses and they rose up against Aaron and there was 250 men that were offering fire at their censers and God's Spirit come down, the fire of the Lord come down and consume those 250 men that offered incense. Chapter 16 of Numbers verse 45 we see again the fire of the Lord comes out in the midst of them and we read get you up from among this congregation that I may consume them as in a moment. Now this is God's anger against all of the host of Israel when He tells Moses as He did in Exodus and He did in Numbers step out from among them and I will consume them in a moment. But Moses would not, he prayed, he sought God to deliver the majority of the people there. And then in verse 49 of chapter 16 and now we see again tragedy, cataclysmic event. Now they that died in the plague were 14,700 besides those that died about the matter of Korah. 14,000 in a brief brevity of time is consumed by God because they had sinned against the Lord. What would it look like in a county such as Hampshire County that has 24,000 and God is so angry with us and 14,000 people died tonight? You're talking about almost half, over half of your entire population gone. What would that look like for 330 million in North America today if God would take half of the population in a brief moment because we provoked Him and a cataclysmic event takes place. What happens when 200,000 people died in a tsunami and they're just gone? Right in a brief moment they're gone. It changes everything because we did not know that God in His mercy and grace stood there ready to cleanse us, ready to forgive us, but we would not. We continued on in our sin. We see another reference just for your own that you can write it down and share. Now these are not all the verses in the Bible. There are many other instances, but I'm just giving you a brevity of these verses that shows where literally scores of thousands are taken off this earth in the blink of an eye. Numbers chapter 25 verse 9. God sends another plague. Of those 600,000 that were going to die in the wilderness, these that died in this plague were 24,000. That's the entire population of Hampshire County. 24,000 died with that plague. We go over to 1 Samuel chapter 6 verse 19 where the children of Israel are in transgression against the Lord. Eli's the priest and they lose the ark to the Philistines. The Philistines capture the ark and you know that account of scripture or you should know it is that when they had the ark of the covenant in the temple of Dagon is that when they come in in the morning, the hands of Dagon were cut off and his head was cut off and that they had the emeralds and the mice that were afflicting the Philistines because they had the ark of the covenant and the ark of the covenant was supposed to be with the children of Israel. And so the Philistines don't know what to do so they take two cows and they send the ark back on a wagon and they give an offering for that and the ark comes on that wagon straight to the city of Beshemesh. And here when the men of Beshemesh see the ark of God coming, they, curiosity, look at this ark. No man is allowed to touch it but the priest. And they sin against God and they look inside of it and we have this account and he smoked the men of Beshemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord and he smoked to the people fifty thousand and three score and ten men. And the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great sloth. Now, not the Philistines, not the Hittites or the Ites of the land. He smoked the men of Beshemesh, the children of Israel because why? They disobeyed the word of the Lord. And it is, God is consistent. He will not tolerate rebellion in the midst of his own people. And then we have in 2 Kings chapter 19 verse 35, the story where the Assyrians come against the children of Judah and Hezekiah offers that great prayer during this particular time. And he prays for deliverance and he prays for the Assyrians to leave and to forsake him and this is when God comes in 2 Kings 19.35 and He came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and he smoked in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and four score and five thousand. And when they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. Now that same parallel, the angel of the Lord went out is the same of the tenth plague of Egypt when God smoked all the firstborn and that term that's used there is the death angel. You can look at throughout history, the bubonic plague, you can see disasters that take place in earthquakes and events where scores of hundreds of thousands are killed and the angel of the Lord goes out in this place here overnight and slays 185,000 men and they were all dead corpses by morning. Now again, are people prepared when such events come to go out of this life into the next life? We labor and pray for our loved ones, for our communities to get right with God because this cataclysmic event is on our horizon and we know not where it's going to hit or how it's going to hit or when it's going to hit but it is going to hit because there's been no repentance, there's been no turning back, there's been this chalice being filled by the droplets of sin and the droplets of displeasing God and rebellion it is now to the brim and it's ready to overflow and souls are going to be slain in the midst of it overnight and they're not ready. What if it's our sons and daughters? What if it's our mothers and fathers, husbands and wives? They're not ready. Old Testament, New Testament, throughout history, we see it repeated over and over. I'm going to take you to Jeremiah chapter 44 verse 27 where God, there's a small remnant that had been brought through the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Babylonians. The Babylonians had taken a remnant and gone taking them to Babylon and there they were serving Daniel and those children that were removed from the city of Jerusalem and Judah and there was a remnant removed. Those that remained in the city of Jerusalem died of the sword, died of the pestilence and died of famine. Scores of tens of thousands died because of the Babylonians and that assault against during the days of King Zedekiah. And that small remnant of poor people that were left by the Babylonians, Jeremiah was with them and they rose up in rebellion and they went down into Egypt, that small remnant that was left free and they went down into Egypt and they disobeyed God, they forsook God, they offended God by worshiping the son God and forsaking the Lord God and not listening to Jeremiah the prophet. And so God suddenly says to them, Jeremiah chapter 44 verse 27, I will watch over you for evil and not for good and all of you that have come into Egypt except for a very few shall escape but the rest of you will die here in Egypt. Why? Because they forsook the Lord God. Repeat over and over throughout Scripture is this rebellion and God reaches that place of saying, I'm going to judge you and I'm going to condemn you and I'm going to slay you. Then we come to the last portion of Scripture, Revelation. We see at the end of time that there are cataclysmic events in the great tribulation that's unfolding and the seven trumpets and the seven plagues and the seven seals and those things that are being done and we read in Revelation chapter 8 verse 9, seven billion people are on the face of the planet today and we read in Revelation chapter 8 verse 9 and a third part of the creatures in the sea that had life, they died and a third part of the ships, they were destroyed. How many ships are there on the oceans today? Thousands of sailors, thousands of people make their livelihood on the waters of the oceans and it says in one third of all those will be destroyed and to make it a little bit clearer, we go to Revelation chapter 9 verse 18 for one of these last portions of Scripture and we see, and by these three, there was a third part of all men were killed by fire, by the smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths. Now get that in your mind. We began by looking at a few individuals being smoothed by God, struck dead right on the spot. Then we looked at the floods of Noah and then we saw Sodom and Gomorrah, a city being destroyed and we've seen repeated scores of tens of thousands and then we saw a hundred of thousands that was destroyed. Out of seven billion people, one third are destroyed in the tribulation, one third. That's over two billion souls just like that by the fire of God, by the brimstone, by the calamity and these two billion ushered out immediately into the presence of God. Maybe now we begin to understand why Isaiah chapter five tells us is that hell has enlarged its mouths to accommodate the people going in there at. Billions are going to perish in an assault of God's cataclysmic judgment at the end of time and before that time, they're going to continue with the cataclysmic events in this nation and in the nations because we have been consistent like these people of being evil in the sight of the Lord and provoking him. I'd like to give you one other illustration in scripture and then we'll conclude with our last thoughts about our response. 600,000 men come up out of Egypt and God declares that of those 600,000, all those 20 years and older would die before the promised land in 40 years walking in the wilderness and they all died except for Joshua and except for Caleb, two individuals make it out. During the days of David and during the days of Solomon and those early kings about 1000 BC, there are numbers that are in the Old Testament that tells us is that the armies of Israel reached over 1 million soldiers, a million individuals, several million now are in the land of Israel in the land of Judah. When we came to the scripture about Jeremiah and I told you that there were literally thousands that were killed by famine, sword and pestilence and only a small remnant, 42,000 it says to us that came out of Babylon, 42,000 came out of Babylon after waiting down there for 70 years. If you had over a million people in the land of Israel, in the land of Judah and now you're down to 40,000 people, what happened to the other 960,000 people in that time frame? They were killed. They were removed. They were stricken by God because of the wickedness of their heart and the rebellion in their spirits and God removed them from the earth. Now, having shown these things, having looked at the verses, having looked at the scripture, we see levels up. We see what provokes God. We see why God did it. We see God's mercy in proclaiming His truth with the hope of being able to see men, women and children not continue and face His wrath but find mercy. God is merciful. God is just. God is full of love and kindness. It is not His desire to destroy. It is His desire to redeem. Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost and we come now to this last part of this to answer the question, what are we supposed to do with all this? What are we supposed to do before the cataclysmic event comes? We are to do exactly what God told us to do. We are to seek His face. We are to call upon His name. We are to confess the sins and we are to tell the people that they need to be made right with God. You see, where I began with this is that there was a people of God's own people that do not know His truth. Once you know this truth, what do you do with this truth? It is foolish for us to keep it to ourselves when we know that on the horizon that there is a cataclysmic event coming that is going to kill thousands of people and they are going to be ushered out of this world into a face of a just God who is going to say to them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. Especially if it is our own loved ones. So we prepare them and we meditate on these things and we sit before God as Moses did, as Jeremiah did, as Isaiah did, as these great ones have done in centuries, that they stood before God and they sought God in wrath, remember mercy. That ought to be our number one prayer phrase. In wrath, remember mercy. Why? Because His wrath is filled up in the cup and it's getting ready to overflow. And then the calamity will come. And it is that we are to do the response. We are to repent. We are to examine the sins that offended in these occasions and we are to make sure that they are not named among us today. You know of any that are complaining against God? Any that are murmuring against God? Do you know any that are displeasing to God? Do you know any that are like the days of Noah, that men are turning away their ear from a hundred years of preaching of the gospel, turning after their own desires, turning after their own ways? We are living in the midst of those things, aren't we? And we come to this is to say, God, we know that we would deserve anything of judgment that you would put on us as a people, as a nation, as a church, as a family, or as an individual. But God, it is that we are seeking you today for deliverance from those things. And we confess the sins and we repent of the sins and we proclaim the truth of this to those that need to hear it and those that need to deal with it. Why? Because we're running out of time. We'll come tonight. We'll come tomorrow. We'll come next week. Who can say? But only the Lord. But needless to say, we have fulfilled six levels of judgment. And I go back to the beginning of Leviticus chapter 26 is that he says, and if you will not turn and if you will not receive mercy, then I will intensify seven times and bring greater calamities upon you. And the finality of level number seven is the finality of life and death and eternity. It is for us to think upon these things. It is for us to consider these things and to respond. Because on the horizon that's coming, I see the cloud the size of a man's hand coming on the horizon as Elijah saw when he sent a servant, the prophet, to go look for a rain shower. These things being laid out, God being consistent the same yesterday, today, and forever, God is getting ready to do it again. We had a warning. We had Hurricane Katrina where over 3,000 people lost their lives, but it didn't change the nation. That was seven years ago. We had 9-11 where over 3,000 individuals lost their life, but it was 4,000 people during the plane crashes and the towers falling, but a nation did not repent then. Without repentance, we continue to provoke God. And so it is that in these moments of closure now as we get ready for the invitation time to deal with these things and to answer to these things, Lord, where am I at? We know now where our nation's at. We know now where world events are at, but Lord, where am I at? Are you doing all that you're supposed to be doing for His kingdom? Or do you know these facts and have you been meditating on these facts and have you been seeking God as an intercessor to stop it? Because an intercessor, as the droplets are being put into the chalice of the sins, an intercessor is taking drops out to keep it from filling up. But we have that scripture in Isaiah 59 where God says, and God wondered that there was no man who would intercede. There was none to take out the drops and so the drops just kept coming in and the cup overflowed and Israel and Judah were destroyed and carried away into captivity and over 950,000 were destroyed. We close now with the opportunity just to let God speak to us and for our lives to be what they're supposed to be for these coming days. Seven levels. Seven levels of judgment and this is the most severest and it is the finality. Level number seven. Judgment, cataclysmic events that we've seen unfold in scripture, history, and what we're getting ready for for the near future.