The video discusses the breakdown of the family unit in society and the negative impact it has on marriages and children. It introduces Pastor Chuck Smith's Marriage and Family Bible Study as a helpful resource for families during the holiday season. The video then transitions to a discussion about the destruction of the earth and whether it is part of the final destruction or just a part of the great tribulation. The video concludes with Pastor Chuck Smith's closing comments, encouraging viewers to meditate on the Word of God and examine their own hearts and lives.

Welcome to The Word for Today. The Word for Today is a continuous study of the Bible, taught by Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently teaching from the Old Testament. And for those of you following along in your Bibles, we'll be continuing today in Isaiah, Chapter 24, beginning with verse 14, as we continue with an in-depth message entitled, The Judgment on Earth. One thing is needful, O my Father, One thing is needful, O my God, That I sit at your feet and pour out my love. This thing is needful, O my God. And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck. Now the pit, or this shaft, or bottomless pit, or abuso, is a shaft that goes from the surface of the earth down into Hades. And this abuso is the place of incarceration for fallen angels or demonic spirits. In this time of Great Tribulation, as Isaiah tells us here, the pit is, snare and the pit. During the time of the Great Tribulation, this pit, this abuso, is going to be open. He saw an angel come from heaven with a key to the abuso, and he opened up the abuso, and these spirit beings, these demons, invaded the earth. And their power to torment men who dwell upon the earth. And that's why I said, it's going to be hell on earth for a while, during the Great Tribulation period. As these demonic forces come out and inflict their suffering and their pain upon mankind. John tells you more about that in the book of Revelation. And so, Satan, and we'll get to this in a moment, but it'll give you a background for the rest of the text here. When Jesus comes again to establish the Kingdom of God upon the earth, and what we call his millennial reign, where he reigns over the earth for a thousand years, with his church, we shall reign with him as kings and priests. When Jesus comes again to establish his kingdom, the Antichrist and the false prophet, the beast and the false prophet, will be cast alive into Gehenna. Now Gehenna is another place. It is the eternal abode of the unrighteous. Hell is not an eternal abode. Hell will one day give up all of the dead which are in it to stand before God at the Great White Judgment, and then they will be cast into Gehenna. And Jesus mentioned Gehenna quite a bit. And it's important that you sort of dig into the Greek so that you'll know when the reference is to Gehenna and the reference is to Hades, because there is a great difference between the two. Now, Satan will be bound. He took a great chain and he bound Satan and he cast him into the abyssal during this thousand year period that Jesus will reign. Near the end of the thousand year period in which Jesus is reigning, Satan will be released for a short time from the abyssal and will go out to deceive the nations once more. And will gather together many from the nations to try to overthrow Jesus in Jerusalem. It is at that time that Satan is put, with those that follow him, on into Gehenna, into outer darkness, Jesus said, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, where the worm dieth not, neither is the fire quenched out of the scene. And there will be then the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The former things will not be remembered or brought into mind. And we enter into that eternal glorious realm of God's kingdom. In the beginning there was one government in the world, the government of God. It was a government of light and life. The universe was all in harmony with God. There were no dissenting voices. The whole universe worshiping God in harmony with God. But one of God's created beings, one of the highest order of his created beings, an angel by the name of Lucifer, whose name means son of the morning, who was a governing cherub, the anointed cherub that governs, was lifted up in pride and thought to exalt himself against God. And suddenly you had a second kingdom in the universe, a kingdom of death and darkness opposed to God's kingdom of light and life. And a third of the angels followed with Satan in his rebellion against God. And thus you have the two spirit forces in the universe. Those of righteousness following after God, faithful to God, and Satan followed by those angels which kept not their first estate. Now many of these angels that followed Satan are being reserved today in the abyssal for this day of judgment. And when the abyssal is open they will come out upon the earth in great numbers. With that kind of a background let's go into it now. Fear and the pit, the abyssal, and the snare are upon the O inhabitant of the earth. It shall come to pass that he who flees from the noise of the fear will fall into the pit. And he that comes out of the midst of the pit will be taken in the snare, the trap. For the windows from on high are open and the foundations of the earth to shake. And then he speaks about this great shaking of the earth. The earth is utterly broken down. The earth is clean dissolved. The earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard and shall be removed like a cottage. And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it and it shall fall and not rise again. And so the destruction of this earth. And whether or not this is that final destruction as is recorded by Peter or this is just part of the great tribulation when God shakes the earth up. Because we know during the great tribulation there's going to come a worldwide earthquake. An earthquake of such magnitude that everything that can be shaken will be shaken until only that which cannot be shaken will be left. And so the earth is broken down. Clean dissolved. Peter speaks about the earth being dissolved with the ferment heat. The elements burning. The earth is moved exceedingly. At the present time the earth is tilted at 23 and a third degrees in its axis in its relationship to the sun. The tilt of the earth's axis is what causes us to have the summer and the winter seasons. It's the result of the earth being tilted as we are revolving around the sun. The tilt gives us in the summertime a longer exposure to the sun and in the wintertime a shorter exposure to the sun in the relationship to the orbit in which we are going around the sun. We are getting now out to the end of that orbit where we are getting the days shorter and shorter and by next Saturday we will come to the shortest daylight of the year and then as we move away from that point the days will start getting longer and longer and longer until we come out to June 22nd and we hit the other end of the spectrum and then the days will start getting shorter. But it's that tilt of the axis. So it gives us our winter season, our summer seasons. And of course we know that right now as it is we are entering into the winter period. In South America they are entering into their summer period. And some gracious blessed soul had the thoughtfulness to give to me some apricots this morning that probably came from Chile. But you see right now it's apricot season down there. And they know my penchant for apricots and so they brought me some and no doubt from Chile and oh man did I enjoy them. I must confess I hoarded them. I didn't share them with the family at all. I ate them all before I left the office. But I guess my dream world would be to be able to live here during the apricot season and then move South America during the apricot season again. That's because of the tilt. Now the Earth's axis does change every once in a while. About every 5,000 years in fact. So that what is now our North Pole and South Pole were not always the North Pole and South Pole. The Earth was not always tilted at 23 and a third degrees. This axis does shift every once in a while. And so you read in the physics books of the polar axis shift. I believe that during the Great Tribulation period there will take place a polar axis shift. And it could be that when the polar axis shifts again that we will come into a truer alignment with the Sun. Now the effect of that would be tremendous climactic changes upon the Earth. First of all the polar ice caps would melt. It would give you more water. It would raise the level of the oceans and thus there would be less land surface and more water surface upon the Earth which would bring more water into the atmosphere which would bring more rain over the whole Earth and would cause a ceasing of the jet stream and thus a more mild climate over the whole Earth covered with a water canopy and could very well bring about again the conditions that existed during the time of the Garden of Eden where the whole Earth, the land surface would become just a verdant glorious garden and even the polar areas would become beautiful again tropical lush areas as they once were. We know that because of the charcoal deposits at the South Pole and the mammoths that have been found in the frozen tundra of Siberia. So the Earth we read here is going to be moved real to and fro, going to be moved like a cottage and there are other passages of Scripture that refer to this but with it there will be this gigantic earthquake that will just shake up everything upon the Earth not just a local earthquake such as we experience and we are told we are going to experience when the San Andres Fault makes its correction there's a slow gradual moving of the tectonic plates of the Earth and it's going to make its adjustment they say soon and when it does we're all going to be shook pretty bad but that's local, that only affects a small little segment this is going to be the whole Earth shaking. Now it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high. Now these high ones that are on high are a reference to the demonic forces that are in control of the world men guided by these demonic forces you remember Paul the Apostle said we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places he's talking about these spirit entities spirit forces, God's going to punish them also he will punish those kings who have been inspired by these demonic forces Hitler was inspired and governed by demonic forces Hitler was under the influence of men who were called the white masters men who were in league with demonic forces and powers and these demonic forces and powers are governing and controlling so many of the governments of man you wonder why can't they see what they are doing to the world maybe they can and maybe it is deliberate we know that it is being set up for the Antichrist and we know that we have this anarchy that's growing throughout the earth they'll be punished the Supreme Court, boy how they will be punished because of the damage that they have done to our nation spiritually those decisions by which they have ruled the Bible out and pornography in those decisions by which they have spared the lives of the murderers but they have caused the murder of 30 million babies the fallacy and the idiocy of the judgments that have been made and of the laws that have been enacted if you destroy an eagle's egg you can be fined a thousand dollars and you can spend a hundred days in jail if you break an eagle's egg it's just protected by our laws weird laws that will protect an eagle's egg recognizing that there is life potential there when does an eagle become an eagle? when does a baby become a baby? and so we find the inconsistencies and God is going to judge and they shall be gathered, verse 22 together as prisoners are gathered in the pit Satan will be bound and cast into the abyssal and they shall be shut up in this prison, in the abyssal and after many days they shall be visited as we told you at the end of the thousand year reign Satan is going to be released for a short season well if God has him bottled up why does he let him out again? why would God allow Satan to be loose at the end of the thousand years? because during that thousand year reign of Christ there will be many people who will be born during that period of time by those who have survived the great tribulation and allowed to live into the kingdom age so that by the end of the thousand years the earth's population will be quite large once again because they will be living in an ideal situation longevity of life such as the time of Adam will be restored the earth will be restored and the living conditions will be ideal there will be no sickness, no colds and that kind of stuff so it's going to be ideal living conditions during this thousand year reign but all of the people on the earth will be forced to be righteous we will rule with a rod of iron the reign of Christ will be an iron rule reign he will break in pieces those that would defy the laws it'll be an iron clad reign of Christ so that the people will serve the Lord, yes because they'll be forced to but whether or not they are really serving in their hearts we do not know we will not know until Satan is released and then those who are rebelling in their hearts against the Lord will follow after Satan in this final rebellion in which God will never be challenged or questioned in his judgment again of unrighteous men then the moon shall be confounded the sun ashamed when the Lord of hosts shall reign what that is saying is the brightness of the glory of Jesus as he reigns will cause the moon and the brightness of the moon and sun to just pale in the glory of the brightness of Jesus you remember when Peter and James and John were there on the Mount of Transfiguration and his face did shine like the sun read the Revelation chapter 1 the description of Jesus again the brightness of the glory of Jesus will be so bright that the sun will pale in contrast with the brightness of Jesus when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his ancients gloriously so the Lord will come with ten thousands of his saints Abraham David Samuel Daniel Paul Peter you and I coming again the ancients our fathers in the faith here upon the earth dwelling upon the earth at that time with Jesus as he establishes God's kingdom here upon the earth and rules and reigns over the earth with the ancients reigning gloriously Pastor Chuck Smith will return with a few closing comments but first I'd like to remind you that today's message is available in its unedited form on cassette or CD simply write or call and ask for ordering details on tape or CD number C3252 again that's tape or CD number C3252 well as the holiday season is approaching we'd like to bring to your attention a very helpful resource for families knowing it's the time of year when families gather together undoubtedly one of the most glaring signs that our society is in trouble is the breakdown of the family unit marriages just aren't making it today and kids are suffering as they watch the breakup of their homes the word for today would like to present Pastor Chuck Smith's Marriage and Family Bible Study in this series Pastor Chuck discusses basic principles designed to keep your family's love alive each member of the family has a different set of needs and responsibilities and when you know and apply God's principles everyone in your family can experience real peace real joy and unconditional love and when you call and order Pastor Chuck's Marriage and Family Series the word for today would like to bless you with a resource entitled Christian Family Relationships taken from the books of Ephesians and Colossians this study reveals the secret to a solid and biblically based Christian family relationship and right now you can get it for free when you order the Marriage and Family Series and remember the word for today would like to assist you this Christmas in spreading the gospel of Jesus to your family, friends and co-workers please call our customer service department to help you in finding that perfect gift that will reflect the true meaning of Christmas and if you call right now and mention this radio ad the word for today will give you a 20% discount on any resource carried by the word for today so call the word for today at 1-800-272-WORD or write to us at P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 once again that number to call is 1-800-272-9673 and for those of you that would like to visit our website you can do so at www.twft.com or if you would like to email us you can do so at info at twft.com well coming up next time on the word for today Pastor Chuck will be continuing his fascinating study through the book of Isaiah that's coming up next time on the word for today and now with a few closing comments here is Pastor Chuck I pray that you'll have a wonderful week as the word of God dwells in your heart and as you meditate upon it and as you sort of take inventory of yourself for let a man examine himself the scripture said and thus we will not be judged of the Lord looking at your own heart looking at your own life looking at your own thoughts especially those in the semi-conscious realm in order that you might be able to judge for yourself just how much you've sown to the spirit and how much you've sown to the flesh and may God give you that resolve and determination to forsake the flesh and the world and the things of this world that you might live a life that is wholly pleasing unto God living in the spirit and walking in the spirit and being led by the spirit feeding the spirit may it be a glorious week of feeding on the word living in the Lord being guided and directed by him filled with his spirit demonstrating his love fulfilling his purpose in Jesus' name Costa Mesa, California