Shane Idleman explores Revelation 6, discussing the various interpretations of the seals opened by Jesus and the implications for believers today. He emphasizes the importance of humility in understanding the book of Revelation, acknowledging that many views exist regarding the end times, including pre-tribulation and post-tribulation perspectives. Idleman warns of the coming judgment and encourages listeners to prepare spiritually, likening it to the mindset of doomsday preppers who stockpile resources for physical survival. He stresses the necessity of spiritual nourishment, living water, and reliance on God as the ultimate source of strength and healing. Ultimately, he calls for repentance and a genuine relationship with Jesus, reminding that the day of God's wrath is coming and urging believers to be ready.

And this morning, we find ourselves in Revelation 6. Doomsday preppers. Jesus opens the seals. Let me put up the disclaimer about Revelation just to remind you, I don't have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. I'm not the final authority as we go through the book of Revelation. We need to search the Scriptures and let humility and truth guide us. And the reason I show different views is so people aren't caught off guard. Because a lot of us, we were raised in a certain setting and a certain belief system. And so that's kind of how we believe the book of Revelation unfolds. But then there's others who believe a little bit differently. And the reason is because it's not crystal clear. There's a lot of allegory. There's a lot of similes. There's a lot of metaphors, analogies, and then there's a lot of things that are literal. And it's a hard book to interpret. And I don't want to be one of those people that say, well, this is exactly how it's going to unfold. Because no one truly knows exactly how it's going to unfold other than we know Jesus is coming again. And are we to be ready and prepared? He's going to rule. He's going to reign. And so I'm going to look at Revelation 6. But I want to show you that there's actually a few different views. I know there's probably about six or so. But the four main prevalent views of the book of Revelation, and if you go back, you can listen to me talk about some of these. All-millennialism is people like Sam Storm. A lot of the Reformers were all-millennial. They would believe there's no literal, open, visible 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth. Now, all-millennial is a little misleading because they don't believe in a millennium. They believe that we're actually in the millennial type of kingdom now. Again, you can do a lot of research and read more about how they come up with this conclusion. And then there's historic premillennialism. Historic premillennialism that Christ will return physically and visibly to usher in the millennial reign. And then there's post-millennialism. I kind of like this one, even though I have some doubts about it. But they believe things are going to get better. Oh, wouldn't that be good? The ever-expanding progress of the Gospel until the world becomes markedly Christian. Then Christ returns. So, what happens though, is it's easy to poke fun at different things when we live where we live now, like, oh, how could things get better? But if you go back 1,500 years, or even the Dark Ages, or when the Roman Empire and the emperors around 2,000 years ago, it was barbaric. The things they did, it was incredible. So, on one hand, you can see how now that the Gospel's here in the Middle East and China and the different areas in here, how a lot of things are getting better. But then we see it and we're like, things are getting worse from our perspective. But that is the post-millennial. That's why post means Jesus is coming later. And then also dispensationalism. The bottom right-hand corner is what probably many of you would believe. I would probably, that's where I would lean because I was raised with that teaching. That would be the Calvary chapels and a lot of the dispensationalism. Mirza Farti, you watch him. Jack Hibbs, of course, and all the Calvary guys. It's the millennial reign of Christ will begin after His return at the end of a distinct seven-year period known as a tribulation. So what they teach is there is a rapture and then the tribulation comes and then Christ returns. Where others, like the post-tribulation, believe believers go through the tribulation and then Christ returns. And you can see, we can get into preterism which believes all the prophecies have been fulfilled which that's hard to believe, you know. And then there's partial preterism. And the reason there's different views is because Scripture is not crystal clear on how these things, for example, there's no verse at all that says we're out of here before the tribulation. There's not a verse. So what we do is we pull in certain things. We're not to receive the wrath of God and the church has to be removed so God can have His plan with Israel and we pull in Matthew 24 and let's go get Daniel talking about the 70 weeks of Daniel and let's bring in some Ezekiel and let's put this here and this is our view. And then another group would say, well, no, I think this is our view. And you can listen to my podcast. I did a podcast on my YouTube channel with Sam Storm on all millennialism. I did one, I think we did one on post-tribulation where we're gonna go through the tribulation. And there's books I've recommended on all sites. And the reason is because great men of God are divided and I just want to equip people with what not only the Bible teaches but what are the different views out there. And I don't think it's being wishy-washy. I think it's being sincere and genuine and honest because we truly don't know how it's going to pan out. That's why there is a view known as pan-trib. I'm gonna see how it all pans out. And it's a healthy view because I see all points to me have a pretty good grip on what is going on and they look at things differently and they view things differently. And so people have strong opinions on it which is okay. That's why it gives us a great opportunity to practice unity and realize that revelation is relevant for every generation. It's relevant for every generation. And personally, I like the view where we're gonna be out of here before there's a tribulation. And I like the view and it's getting better. Things are getting better, oh, isn't that good? But what's actually gonna play out and only God knows. And we can definitely see things moving toward a one-world system. We can definitely see things moving toward a mark where you don't buy or sell. That's pretty close. I mean, COVID almost took us there. Do you remember the talk? Do you remember what they were saying? Without the jab passport, you might not be able to travel very far. Restaurants wouldn't serve you. I mean, it's really close. And then we can see how they're wanting to shut the mouth of truth. And if you hate speech, if you say this and you can't tell kids that they can't switch their gender, especially in California, parents can be punished. I mean, we have clearly lost our mind. We have delved into the waters of insanity. And so we can clearly see how all this can happen. We can see that we'll be looking for that one leader who will tell us that there will be peace. And then when you get into how the theologians break apart the 70 weeks of Daniel and different things, and it gets a little convoluted because there's so much information. And we'd like to know the when, the why, the how, the where. And we want to try to pinpoint all these areas of prophecy and it gets a little challenging. Now, here's why this is so important. When the book of Revelation was written, this plays a critical role in our understanding of Revelation and especially Revelation 6. When the book was written plays an incredible role. And if you don't know why, let me tell you why briefly. In 70 AD, no matter what side of the debate you're on, we all can agree on this, I believe. In 70 AD, a monumentous, important, critical event took place that even Jesus spoke about. What happened in 70 AD? Jerusalem's destruction finally came. Not one stone was left upon another stone. Do you remember Jesus talking about that? As they're looking here at this great temple, He says, hey, the time is coming where not one stone will be left upon another. It will be decimated. And that came about 40 years later after Jesus said that in 70 AD. Titus, the Roman general, came in and conquered the city. Just completely destroyed it. Now, where people get divided is after that when the disciples said, and when is the age of your coming? And when is going to be the end of the age? Or when is the time of your coming? When is going to be the end of the age? So some people put that in a three-part series. You know, we have 70 AD, and then we have future events. Where others would say it all happened at one time. Because Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place and fulfilled. And so what happened in AD 70 is this cataclysmic event on Jerusalem. And a million Jews were wiped out. And if we have time, I'm hoping to get into Matthew 24, and we can kind of shed a little bit more light on this. So, here's where I'm going with all of this. Some would say that what I'm about to read to you has already taken place. It's already taken place because Jesus spoke about it, and these seal judgments and the bull judgments, not the bull, but we're going to talk about the seal judgments, were upon the nation of Israel in 70 AD. Now, if the book was written, if Revelation was written in 70 AD, or let's say prior to 70 AD, then John was writing to the Jews about all these events that are going to come upon the Jewish people, not us. Now, if the book of Revelation was written, say 90-95 AD, well, game over. That doesn't work because 70 AD already happened and John is writing 25 years later about these cataclysmic events that obviously are going to happen to us. So you can see why the debate on when the book of Revelation was written is pretty heated. Because if it was written prior to 70 AD, then John could be talking about things that happened to the nation of Israel. But if it was written later, and so how do we know? Because we don't know when the book was written. It doesn't say when the book was written. So what we do is, what some people do is they look to early church fathers. Irenaeus, he actually lived within a few decades of John. And then you have Eusebius, Victorinus, and Jerome. They all indicate that the vision given John occurred during his incarceration on Patmos at the hand of Domitia. Domitia, I think I'm pronouncing that right. And places it approximately 95 AD. Okay, so early church fathers say that John was on this island and they place it around 95 AD. However, others say it's possible that Irenaeus is referring to John himself. So John was on the island for a long period of time all the way until 95 AD. However, that doesn't mean he didn't have his vision of Revelation earlier on, around 69 AD. And this is going to talk about the destruction of the Jewish nation. And also in John Wesley's commentary, John Wesley, when did he live? The 1700s? He said that Josephus' history of the Jewish war is the best commentary on the chapter of Revelation. In other words, he's saying what Josephus wrote around that time is actually talking about what happened to the Jewish people when Jerusalem was ransacked and destroyed. Gets confusing, doesn't it? But that's why there are different views. So I'm going to put up a image up there from pursuing truth. Pursuing truth. And so, here's why this is interesting. John, what we're going to read here shortly, in Revelation 6-4, talks about the seventh seal. Well, in Josephus' work, he was a Jewish historian, in all those references, he writes about things that could have taken place and they actually talk about the second seal. And the trumpets, and the other trumpets, and the bold judgments. So all these judgments are not for us, they would say. They already took place, and Josephus references them in his works written around 75 A.D. And this is what his works look like. Josephus' works, right here. You can read it from 2,000 years ago. So he says this is what happened to the Jewish people. A lot of dust came out. So this is what happened to the Jewish people. And it lines up with the bold judgment, some of the bold judgment, some of the seals being opened, and some of the trumpets. So this being poured out happened in A.D. 70, it's not for us today. And that's what a lot of people believe. And then others believe that this is going to happen to us. Well, then others would say it's not because we're out of here based on the rapture. This is going to happen to future generations or coming up shortly once the church is lifted out of here. And again, I went into more detail. You can go listen to the sermon series on Revelation from the months prior. But let's talk about now Revelation 6. In Revelation 5, last week, Jesus is given this scroll to open. So he's got this scroll to open, and it has seven seals that are sealing the scroll. Now, was Jesus given a literal big scroll with these seals on it? Seals would be made out of wax and melted? Or is that an imagery? Is that a metaphor? Or is he giving an analogy? Because the scroll could be the deed to the earth, many say, and the deed to the earth. And he's the rightful king again. He's going to open the seals and pronounce these judgments. So is it a literal scroll? That's what John saw. But we know it could be more spiritual and have spiritual ramifications. And so that's what Revelation 5 is. Jesus is given this scroll because he's worthy. He's the only one worthy to undo these seals and pronounce the judgment on a world that is Christ-rejecting, God-rejecting culture. And that could be us today, is what some would say. So the throne room of heaven bows down to Jesus in chapter 5, and they worship this conquering king who will reclaim his rightful spot. And so we go into chapter 6, and the first seal is opened. And he said, now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals. So he opens the seal. Who knows how, if you've ever seen a scroll, the seal is probably, it's gotta be ripped off of the parchment. And as he opens this, he hears this loud thundering voice. John, come and see. And I looked, and what did I see? I saw a white horse. Now these horses that we're gonna talk about, four horses, they're often called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. You've heard that term before. Okay, and that's where it comes from. So this white horse has a rider, and what is in the rider's hand? A bow to shoot, and he was given a crown, so this conquering person, and he went out conquering and to conquer. So, back to the different views. Some would say, and this is just truth, okay, I'm not speculating, Roman generals often rode on white horses. So you could see how some people would say, this is Titus coming in, he's conquering, he's got a bow, which is military, and that's what this represents. One view, now obviously I can't say that because it doesn't say it. And a friend of mine who actually wrote, he has a PhD, I think he wrote his dissertation on the book of Revelation. And he sent me his book, and I might have him on the podcast at some point. And he even told me, he goes, we don't know exactly how all this is gonna pan out, but here's my thoughts on it. And he actually said, in his book, I read it last night, the white horse that is coming and has a bow and a crown, that is the Antichrist. And he goes on to make a point about it. And for the life of me, I don't know how in the world he came up with that one. I'm not saying it's a Roman general representing Titus either, but I'm sure not saying it's the Antichrist. How in the world do you come up with this stuff? And so that's my beef about the book of Revelation. We can just kind of say, hey, this is, no, you can't say that. Now you can say, here's how it could be, and here's how it could unfold, and here's what it could mean, but there's nowhere else in Scripture, I cross-referenced, I looked, I did these things, I mean, Jesus comes back actually riding a white horse, and on his head are many crowns, and the armies of heaven followed after him, and out of his mouth goes a sword that he will rule the nations and judge them. Now you could say more clearly that this could be Jesus coming. And so you see, that's why there's different views. And then what happens is people like to argue and get in debates and show how much they know. And that's where pride can come in. And all we know here is there is going to be a white horse, could have been past tense, could have been future tense, and he had a bow on his crown, and he went out conquering and to conquer. That's all it says. That's the first horse. The second one, when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come and see, and now here's another horse. He's fiery red. He went out and was granted to him who set on it to take peace from the earth, that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. So if that's for us today, what does that represent? Could it be that the Holy Spirit is removed, as some say? I personally don't believe the Holy Spirit will ever be removed, no matter where the eschatology lies. I believe that the Holy Spirit is not the restrainer. Thessalonians, I'll get into that later. Now it could be, I'm just saying my view, I believe the Holy Spirit is always acting because people come to saving faith even during the tribulation. And we're gonna read about the martyrs and different things now. You could argue different things on that, but something was, peace was removed, it looks like. And what happened? As a result, people began to kill themselves or kill one another. Now of course, as my mind thinks, and sure many of you, well, people always kill people. Stalin, Hitler, I mean, look around, it's happening a lot. So this had to be significant. So it's either for us, again, future, futuristic view, or if you read into this, that this happened already in 70 A.D. with Titus conquering Jerusalem, what would you do? Well, what did Josephus say? Well, this is actually pretty interesting. He wrote this about the civil war among the Jews. There were beside disorders and civil wars in every city, and all those that were quiet from the Romans turned their hands against one another. It was as if peace left. At first, this quarrelsome temper caught hold of private families who were against each other, and then it got into their being barbaric and iniquity and sin of the same nation. It didn't even differ from the way the Romans slew them, and it seemed to be much a lighter thing to be ruined by the Romans than by themselves. So there was great civil war. There was unrest. People were killing each other. So if Josephus is talking about what happened to the Jews, and it did happen, this is all historical fact. Nobody can deny this. What we argue about is where the application is, and so this is either a future event of peace being taken from the earth, or it has to do with what Josephus actually wrote about. So then this third seal, the third seal is scarcity on the earth. Now, I should remind you that in prophecy and in things like this, there's always seasons where things repeat themselves. There's been famines and wars and leaders rising up, and so there's a continual pattern that we'll always see these types of things, but this seal judgment being unleashed seems to be more intense. And so when he opened the third seal, I heard the living creature say, come and see, and behold, a black horse. And who sat on the black horse? He had a pair of scales in his hand. And so what were the scales? It said, I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a denarius. That's a loaf of bread for a day's work. And three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine. So there's coming, again, a futuristic view, there's coming a time of severe scarcity. And what's challenging is millions of people are already facing this in Africa, in different places. North Korea, the starvation is incredible of what that leader does. And so, but we could see it could be a time of unparalleled, unparalleled scarcity. And I'm surprised it's not getting worse based on the food shortage. You remember seeing all the food plants that were the chickens and the cows and the food processing plants and scarcity and Bill Gates buying up all this farmland? I think he's the number one owner of farmland now. And so, interesting, for sure. And so you could see how there could be a time where you have to work all day just to get a basic, basic meal. And of course, do not harm the oil and the wine is a reminder, many would agree, that there is going to always be a very rich upper class controlling a lot of what goes down below. And I didn't wanna put it on here because I don't wanna, what I don't wanna do is say I'm supporting one view and I'm really trying to push this view. I would tell you what I believe and what I don't and that's what I'm trying to do. I can see a lot of good points on all sides. So what I try to do, just stick to the word, let's see what the word says, let's see how things all pan out. Let's be prepared, let's be ready for these types of things. So I would never tell, oh yeah, all this stuff already happened, don't worry about it. Because those horses could come. And we are not prepared if we think that it has already happened. However, and again, I don't wanna show it, but Josephus actually talks about during that time where the price of wheat and everything got so expensive and scarcity. So when people say what they believe that this was already fulfilled, they're not throwing caution to the wind, they're not hanging up their brains at the door. There is a lot of information that supports why they believe that. And they've got some really good points on this issue. So now here comes the fourth seal. Fourth seal. And you remember in Tombstone, he quoted this in Spanish, right? What did he say, what did he say? Oh, he's coming a pale horse, and he who rides on it is death, and hell falls after him. After he just shot the wedding people up, and it's a, don't go see the movie. I saw it when I was younger. I don't remember if it was good or bad now, but yeah, that's what this is, the fourth seal. When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice, and this is the, one of the, of all the seals, this is the most often quoted, you know, kind of cataclysmic, the crescendo of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I don't know if you've ever seen any drawings of them, but they're pretty cool. You know, it's got the horse, the white horse, and the guy with the bow, and then this pale horse. It's not white. It's that death, it's the look of death. If you've ever seen that look. And I'll still never forget, I think I've told many of you, I saw my dad after he had died at Avey Hospital. They pulled me in, and he didn't survive his heart attack. And they still had the tubes in his mouth, and he's just laying there in that color. I'll never forget that color. And just began weeping and not having a final say. He actually died, I'll be his age in September, when he died, young man. And that's his color, the pale horse. And the name on him who sat on that horse, his name was Death, and hell followed after him. We could break down Hades and Sheol, and there's different names, the place of the grave, the place of the dead, or eternal punishment, and I'll get through that when I get to the topic of hell. But right now, death and Hades followed after him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, and with death, and by the beast of the earth. So some say a fourth of the entire population. But again, when I looked at the Greek structure of the words, and it looks like a fourth of the earth, not the whole earth, the fourth of the earth, and then within that fourth, some were killed with the sword, and hunger, and with death. And the one that's challenging for me is I've had all these questions for 23 years. It's not like I've studied eschatology for 22 years. I've read all the different views, and the nuances, and the partial preterism, all millennial, but one thing that's always, this one is one of the things that has caught me. If this is in the future, a lot of people are gonna die by the beasts of the earth. Now, that doesn't happen much anymore, but that did actually happen a lot in Israel's day. You'll see, I mean, David fought a bear and a lion. One of the prophets was killed by a lion on the road. You would be killed often by wild beast, and when you would go and tame a land, you would push the beast back, and the people would live, and there was always this very difficult time of dealing with the beasts of the field, and God would actually pronounce judgment on people by the sword and by the beast, the lions, the tigers. Like, I've seen those things. I'm like, I would lose. A bear claw? You know, you see those things, the grizzly bears and the lions? It's like, you're toast. And so the beast, so this is hard for me. Okay, if this is in the future, like, are all the zoo doors gonna be open? Or are all the grizzlies from Alaska gonna come over? And people say, oh, no, Shane, it's not really. Well, that's how it reads. They killed the sword with hunger, with death, and the beasts of the earth, it's like God's restraining aspect is gonna be let loose. Now, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying, though, this would go to support, that section would go to support more of something that would be in the past. Now, I wanna talk about this for a minute. I wanna put up the points we've already covered. I think the top two. This one kind of drives me crazy sometimes. Why is America not mentioned in prophecy? I hear this a lot. Well, because we've been raptured, the majority of us, or we've been taken over by China and Russia, which seems more likely now with the current administration, correct? And they use that to kind of base their eschatology on it. But I've always thought Australia's not mentioned in prophecy, neither South America, neither Canada, neither Great Britain, neither is Mexico. Why? Because often prophecy is centralized on Israel. Syria, Turkey, China, 100 man, million army crossing Euphrates, Russia, it's all right there. That's prophecy. So this thing that America's not mentioned, well, you've gotta get rid of a lot of continents that aren't mentioned in prophecy, in end times prophecy. It could be that God still uses America to be that restraining force to a certain degree for a certain time. Or we could all fall underneath. You see, I'm definitely going towards that one world type of leadership, is it not? And at that point, and I don't know, maybe some of you can tell me afterwards, I've looked at, I've tried to, I've followed this a little bit, and reputable news sources came out where we recently, July, signed over our sovereignty to the World Health Organization for on the next pandemic that they can now shut down all countries that are part of it. So if there's another major breakout, our sovereignty is no longer in control. The World Health Organization is in control of America and many, many other nations that have signed over their sovereignty in case of a global pandemic. And that's why this topic is so fiery and you're seeing it in the news with Robert Kennedy, and he's upset the Democratic Party, his own party, because he's speaking the truth about Fauci and all the different things. And they used this, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'll go on record, if it was Obama in office and not Trump, you would have not saw the lockdowns and everything to the degree you did without a shadow of a doubt. I've looked at the numbers, I've studied, I've listened to lots of different doctors. It was a perfect storm. Now, was it legitimate? Of course. Were there precautions needed? To some degree. But the swine flu and things that used to come, it depends on who's on office on how they want to tilt the pandemic and how they want to influence the nation and the world at large. And especially when I started to see all the people dying with COVID, not of it. Died of a heart attack. Oh, but he had COVID, we better put it at COVID. And why are you giving hospitals 16,000 for a COVID patient or 30,000 if they're on a ventilator? Come on, stop drinking the Kool-Aid. Why is that any different? I mean, you would see so many nurses would tell me from UCLA and Bakersfield and like, Shane, these people, they have it, but they're not in here because of it. And they're trying to manipulate the numbers to get more money. We were schooled. We were just taken advantage of. This is not conspiracy theory. Let me not grab my tin hat. This is truth. This is all factual. And so if we did sign over our sovereignty, again, I'm trying to get some more information on it. You can see how it can all fall underneath a one world system. And if you fill in the blanks, you see it's gonna be pretty easy. When they start to go to, what's the digital dollar? Have you been following that at all, the cryptocurrency? XRP won their lawsuit, Ripple won their lawsuit. And meaning it's gonna be a legitimate cryptocurrency. They've already working with Visa and Wells Fargo and all the different major banks. And so they can just shut that down. PayPal recently did that on different people. I listened to Nick Vudicek. Do you know him without the arms and legs? Anytime I think I have problems, I just think, that poor guy. But anyway, he's up on this little thing. He's at a pastor's conference. Man, he's talking about how his bank shut him down. And he's wanting to start another bank at that time. And they can just, Connay, right? Didn't they give him some notice, 30 day notice? PayPal stopped. See, it's just shut down, just like this. Because now you don't have the gold and silver in your own cash, now you have it in digital and they can stop that digital dollar, that cryptocurrency. And they'll also, they'll probably have you exchange yours. They'll give you a certain amount. And then they say, but you have to use it within 30 days. Those sneaky little devils. Because they're being led by the devil. And so I see all this is going. So a lot of revelation, I think, is still coming up. And I should say, Luke reminded me, which is so true. All the points believe, all the different views believe that Christ is still coming again. There is another return of Him coming. He's coming. And so that's what we can all unite on. We should be united on He's coming again. Are you ready? Hey, we might go through a lot of this stuff. I'm not going to tell my kids, oh, don't worry about it. This was for the Bible. The Jews, nothing applies to us. Actually, things are getting better. You don't have to worry. We're going to conquer. The gospel is going to come out strong. And it could though, there could be a fight as far as truth and error, right and wrong, light and darkness, and this great cataclysmic event. And we do see that there's a one world type of system coming. And I'm going to get to that as I get through revelation and talk about the millennial. What are the different views on that? What's my thoughts on that? But we can see how there could be this massive one world leader. And at that point, America's sovereignty doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter. Because if we're all under one type of leadership, all under a digital dollar, my thought about the digital dollar is what happens when the power goes out for a while? Hey, I can't access my money. And a lot of people are speculating that on a Friday evening, we'll all find out that banks are down. And then come Monday, we're a digital dollar. And that's why I don't teach this and live in fear. We shouldn't live in fear. We should use wisdom and make right decisions. But understand that man, look at where everything is going. It's going to be unbelievable to see how it all pans out. That's why I guess I'm a pan-trib. And so, the fifth seal. And the reason I would just talk to a guy at the first service too about how many people, how many Christians, usually since around, I can go back, if you read books, 1700s, 1800s, you're like, they would sell everything. Even early 1900s, they would sell everything and go live on a mountain and wait for Jesus' return. 1914 on this day. And so many people have been let down by fell prophecies and fell views. I thought this was going to happen. I'm hoping I can get more information from him, but he was at the first service. He used to be kind of like a Jehovah's Witness historian. And now he's a believer because he sees all these fake prophecies, all these false things, how they view Jesus as completely wrong. It's always the watchtower. Anybody tells you how to interpret the Bible through their book, run. They can offer commentary, but they should point you to the Word of God. To the Word of God. Not what the watchtower says. Not what the Book of Mormon says because that is error interpreting truth. And when error interprets truth, they try to twist things to their belief system. I'm going to better get out of that one. So when the fifth seal, now the fifth seal is being opened. And he saw under the altar. So John sees this fifth seal open and under the altar, all the souls of those who have been killed for the Word of God. People have been killed for the Word of God. What a way to go. What a way to go. My family doesn't like me saying this, but they're not here this morning. But I'd rather go that way than just dying a slow death. And so he saw these people that were slain, past and future. I mean, it could be, again, past martyrs for sure, but it could be he's seeing future martyrs. And they cried with a loud voice saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true. They reminded themselves that God is holy and true. How long will you judge and avenge our blood? Or how long until you judge and avenge our blood? In other words, recompense. Retaliation. But I realize that waiting on God is a universal struggle. How long, Lord? Anybody saying that this morning? How long, Lord? How long, Lord? But praise God, we know at some point, at some point, that breakthrough will come. At some point, that deliverance will come. At some point, that healing will come. Even if it means not until I die. That final state of being healed and set free. But there will come a time. Then a white robe was given to all these different martyrs. And he said, listen, you need to rest a while. God's vengeance is not going to come just yet. Not until the number of your fellow servants, so they're still believers. Not until your fellow believers who would be killed as they were was complete. So, if this is during the tribulation, it's talking about believers, believers being killed and martyred, and that there's a number that is still not complete yet. And so this is why, when it comes to the tribulation, you know, I hope we're out of here, but I can also see that maybe we might go through it. Because there will be believers in the tribulation. But many people say, well, we're not appointed into God's wrath. Well, no, God will not give His wrath to us, to believers in the tribulation. But there are believers. And people say, well, they became believers during the tribulation. Well, nevertheless, you said that believers aren't going to go through God's wrath. But what about these believers? There's not consistency there. There's not consistency there. But again, I hope we're out of there, out of here, but you never know. You have to prepare for either or. So believers are being killed. And for me, this point is hard to support the pre-tribulation rapture view. No need to argue with me. After the service, I've looked at all views, and that's my conclusion. If you want to do it, go start a church and start preaching. No, I'm just saying. I'm just wore out from the debates. And sorry, my flesh gets in there sometimes. So chapter six continuing, verse 12 through 14. And I looked, and I looked, when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, and the moon became like blood. And I'm going to read to you in a minute how this is actually probably not physically happening. It's imagery, it's Old Testament imagery that John is using. He knows the Old Testament, and that's how God would describe His judgment coming. As a fig tree drops its late figs, then the sky receded as a scroll, and it's rolled up, and every mountain, every island was moved out of its place. So Joel 2.10 gives an example of this on God's judgment. He said, the earth shall quake before them. The heavens shall tremble, and the sun and the moon shall be dark. And the stars will withdraw their shining. See, they'll use certain language. We know that all the stars aren't falling, and all the stars are gone. How do you describe God's judgment? How do you describe a cataclysmic event with these types of illustrations? Ezekiel 32, and when shall I put thee out? I will cover the heavens, and I will make the stars thereof dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and I will set darkness upon the land, saith the Lord thy God. And so you look at these. These are all cataclysmic types of imagery that the writers use to talk about God's judgment. Now, if you say, no, the sun will physically become black, and the moon will look just like blood, and all the stars of heaven will fall to the earth. I don't know how we'd survive that, but let's just say, and all these things will actually physically happen, okay. That's fine. We can still agree to disagree and move forward. You see what I'm saying? It's like, okay, if this all, every mountain and every island is actually physically moved out of its place, hey, it could happen. I understand that. But what I'm doing is when you look at Scripture, you have to use Scripture to interpret Scripture. And I could give you, gosh, six or seven other, Isaiah, other places where he talked about the darkness and the stars shaking, and you see these things throughout Scripture that God uses this type of imagery. And another, I probably didn't put this in the right spot, but if we put Luke 11 up there, the reason a lot of people, some groups say that a lot of what I just read already happened in 70 AD when Titus conquered Jerusalem and God judged the people of Israel, this verse is huge. The current generation of religious leaders approved of their fathers killing the prophets. So that's the context of the verse. All these religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they approved of their parents, grandparents, killing the prophets of God because they made great tombs for them. And as a result, Jesus said, the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, able to, I believe, Zachariah, who was killed between the porch and the altar, it's going to be required upon this generation talking to them. Talking to them, not us. And so this was that judgment that was required. Jerusalem was wiped out in 70 AD, so they would say, and that is the kingpin verse that they would use. So now back to Revelation 6, 15 through 17, and the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and the rocks and the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us. So is this going to happen in the future? Possibly, that's a lot of rocks. Lot of mountains. Where do we find those? Maybe driving up to Bishop, Red Rock Canyon. And so this could be a time that's coming up. And they'll say, fall on us, hide from us the face of Him who sits on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb. So they know it's God. They're hiding from God's judgment and they're finding wherever they can hide. Now, I don't want to do this again, but I want to be honest here. Josephus, again, Josephus is going to describe, he's going to describe the attempts of the zealots. Zealots lived in a portion, I believe it was underneath Jerusalem. They're south of Jerusalem. And they were actually driven out of the land of Israel. So now this is just historical fact. I'm just reading what he said. Interesting nonetheless. He said this, now the last hope of those who supported the tyrants and those crews of robbers who were with them was they would go hide in the caves and the caverns underground. And he would go on to say, you can see here that the whole city should be destroyed and the Romans have gone away that they might come again and they escape from them. They tried to hide from the Romans in the rocks and the caves and the mountains. And this was no better than the dream of theirs for they were not able to lie hidden either from God or from the Romans. So they would go and they would hide in the clefts of the rocks and they would hide and they knew it was the judgment of God upon Jerusalem. So food for thought there on all those seals' judgments. And we'll get back to getting back on track next week with maybe I'll go into Matthew 24 when Jesus talks about this. And He said that, He said not one stone will be left upon another stone. And that was completely wiped out in AD 70. But then He goes on to say, they asked, well, when is the sign of your coming? And when is the end of the age? And if you look at a different Gospel, it makes it sound like that is all one question. But Matthew makes it sound like it's three different ones and Jesus seems to answer them differently. But then a lot of stuff in Matthew 24, I have questions about. I'm like, I don't think that was already fulfilled. There's some chunk there. And so that's why it gets a little confusing. We'll hopefully unpack that next week. But on this theme of doomsday preppers, on this theme of doomsday preppers, I'm gonna go quick, we're almost done. There are five things. Have you ever watched doomsday preppers? I haven't seen it in years and I just know they prep for doomsday. They build bomb shelters, they got tons of food, and that's kind of what they get ready for cataclysmic events like what I just read. And there's five things they say that are a necessity and I wanna share those same five things with you, but not from a physical perspective, but from a spiritual perspective. Number one, they say you must have sufficient food. And for us, we turn right to Job, where he says, I have not departed from the commandment of God's lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. We need to be ready for these things by going to God's Word and saying, that's the food I will consume. That's what I will eat. That's what I will focus my mind on because either faith is leading you or fear is leading you. Did you know you can't be led by both? Now, we struggle with both sometimes, right? We struggle, I want more faith, but if you're led by fear, you're gonna be making a lot of unwise decisions in the future. You have to be led by faith. Now, of course, I would encourage people to have extra food. They ask me that, do you think we should have extra food? Well, it's just wise, you know? It's just wise. I mean, we can get into details on the truckers and the fuel and food shortage and all that, but there's no problem in having extra food. Now, be encouraged, a lot of us can go a long time without food. Did you know God gave us some storage capacity? You want me to get into that? It's called ketosis, right? When your fat becomes fuel. That's the whole point of having extra is for extra times of need. Number two, they said make sure you have plenty of water. Don't go without water. But we need the living water. Jesus said, whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. Make sure you're drinking of the living water. That's why Christians are gonna be prepared for the end times. We might struggle with fear now and then and what's going on, but at the end of the day, we can go to sleep at night because we know who has our life in the palm of His hands. We know who is sovereign and we drink of the living water. And they say you must have enough ammunition. Oh, you must have enough ammunition. Have that Glock 9mm ready with about 400 rounds of ammunition, that AR-15 with lots of rounds. You better have that .30-06 and that .30-30 and that shield 9mm. You gotta have it all ready and that Glock and the .357 Magnum by Remington and Winchester. What does the Bible say? For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments at every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So the weapons of our warfare. Now I do believe personally in self-defense. I think I could support it biblically easily. It's not that you're living in fear of not trusting God, but sometimes God gives us wisdom, right? And if somebody's trying to break in your house, they might meet their maker. I mean, if you think of this through, like no, we're just supposed to, hey, come on, no, I'm not gonna do anything. Just, you know, I'm a doormat, whatever you want, whatever, no, we're actually called to restrain evil at some point. The Bible says if you don't even provide for your family, provide financially, you're worse than an unbeliever. How much more physically and spiritually? Well, I won't get into that, but let's just, it's important, yes, okay, if you want to have stored ammunition, go for it. Not a bad idea. Shelter, shelter, shelter. We need shelter. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Where is your shelter? And these guys, they'll spend hundreds of thousands, yes, in big underground bunkers. Look, we can live down here for a year. Yeah, but you're on your way to hell. Do you realize that? A person is on their way to hell without the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what you do. You can avoid hell on earth, but there's still a greater hell. We need to get our focus right. Dwell in the secret place of the Most High. Dwell and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And oh, you need medical supplies. Yes, you do. You need medical supplies. What is the best medical supply? Jeremiah cries out, is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician here? Well, then why are my people sick? Why are there no healing? Why are they not being healed and set free? And God says, my people have rejected me. Jeremiah, call them to repentance. Call this nation back to me. Return to me, God says, and I will return to you. That's your best medical supply. Yes, you can have the aspirin, the moxicillin, the penicillin, but do you have God on your side? If not, you can return to Him today. Just repent and renew your life and say, God, I need You. I humble myself before You. I am lost without You. As we just read, for the great day of His wrath has come. Who is able to stand it? For the great day, let that sink in. What I do know without a shadow of a doubt that the day of God's wrath is coming where the final judgment falls. And who is able to stand? Listen, if you look at the Bible, historical accuracy, the prophetic accuracy, the archeological accuracy, the scientific accuracy, the changed lives, the truth, the timeless truths for all time, it is consistent. Without error, that's why we call it the inerrant, inspired work of God. He says that day of wrath is coming, and who is able to stand? In other words, no one. No one is able to stand. My thought this morning is stop playing games with God. Stop playing games with God. And I've talked to pastors before, and the greatest harvest they usually see is when they teach through the book of Revelation. So why does it take fear to finally wake us up? Why does it take fear to finally wake us up? And it's so funny, people say, well, you just talk about hell and you just try to make people scared. I just preached the Word, and did you know Jesus did? Did you know Jesus preached more about hell than heaven? Go check it out. Go read the Bible. Find out for yourself. Do a little checklist. Every time you see it. He actually said don't fear man, but fear God who is able to cast both your body and your soul in hell. Where a worm does not die and the flame is not quenched. Oh, cities, Bethesda, Chorazin, if the good works that were done in you were done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago with sackcloth and ashes, but it'll be more tolerable for them than you on the day of judgment. Judgment, judgment, judgment. It's not to condemn you, it's to release you. Don't you, I'm under judgment. I need freedom. Thank you for the cross. That's how it works. So if you're rejecting it, that's on you. The judgment is on you because you want to stay under that judgment and not repent. That's on you, not God. That's God's fault. He says hey, it's a free gift. I'm gonna try not to get sarcastic. It's a free gift. No effort. No checklist. No good works. Just believe and repent and you will be saved and set free and the Son of God who the Son of God sets free is free indeed and the power of the Holy Spirit dwells in your life and now you can live for Christ and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Oh yeah, that sounds like bad news. Oh, that's so dreadful. Now, I will tell you the truth, it doesn't make life easier because all hell is against you. The devil hates you. The darkness is going to try to surround you. And shut you up. But you walk through that valley of the shadow of death because you fear no evil because you hold on to Christ every step of the way. Really take inventory of your life and say do you truly know? Do you truly know Jesus? Have I truly repented and believed? Not just a good idea, not just a concept because you're not gonna go to heaven over a concept. You're gonna go to heaven because you truly know Him.