There are two really unusual verses in Scripture. One in Matthew 24 if you will turn there quickly and the parallel verse is Mark. In Matthew 24:15 Jesus gives an instruction, which I do not know of any other place in the Bible like this. He tells us to study the book of Daniel. These are His words, Matthew 24:15-16:
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
Christ is commending to us to be reading the book of Daniel to understand these things about the end. The parallel to that is in Mark 13:14; veritably the same words:
But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:
This is a prediction, these two verses of the Great Tribulation. One of the principal subjects of the whole Scripture the Great Tribulation, but it actually in many ways is secretly in the Bible and the Bible of course is a parable. All that Jesus taught is a parable. He said that in Matthew 13:34 and in Mark 4:34 that without a parable did He not speak to them. So all the Bible is a parable, and in fact when He opened the Scriptures to them He taught them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. So the subject of all the Bible as a parable is the person and work of the Lord Jesus. I once heard a professor (he was a well known speaker at Family Radio Conferences and died recently) say that if you read the Old Testament and you do not see the Lord Jesus, by the way the Lord Jesus is not mentioned by name in the Old Testament, but he said if you do not see Him written between every line in the Old Testament then you do not understand anything about the Old Testament. That is a powerful teaching. The Old Testament is all about the Lord Jesus—His person and work, and His Gospel plan. So we want to look at the Great Tribulation and we will take a little sidetrack if we have time, we will give an outline of the history of the earth from creation till now. It is only thirteen thousand years and if I have a couple minutes I will give you a capsulated version of the history of the world for the last thirteen thousand years.
Now this subject the Great Tribulation has been popularized by Bible teachers, and movies have been made about it, frightening movies. In fact it is popularly known as the final tribulation. There is nothing wrong with that title—it just does not appear in the Bible, “the final tribulation”. The Great Tribulation is in fact the final tribulation. A number of books have been written about it, and movies. The Great Tribulation is described by popular theologians or preachers as a time of great war and the battle of Armageddon at a time when no one can buy at the supermarket and people will be wearing the mark of the beast in order to buy groceries and so forth. These are all distortions of the true teaching of Scripture, which teaches that the Great Tribulation, these items mentioned of wars and famines, earthquakes, and battles, are spiritual teachings about the end of the world. Now does not the Bible repeatedly warn that we are not to know the day or the hour of Christ’s coming? You know John 3:16 is the most popular verse in the mind of people. I just can not help but saying the last presidential campaign we had a gentleman run for president and his counselors told him to be sure to appeal to the evangelical vote, whatever that is, and so he stood up in public and on television and said “my favorite verse is John 3:3,” and what he meant of course was John 3:16. And that is the best known I am sure in the Bible. By the way he just missed by a couple verses what could easily and should easily be known as the most important verse in the Bible and that is John 16:8 where Jesus says what the true Gospel is. Please do not ever miss that and then you will see Paul referring to that same Gospel in Acts 24:25. I see you turning to John 16:8 and I want to read it. Jesus is saying goodbye to the disciples and He is telling them not to be worried because He is going to send the Comforter to them who is the Holy Spirit, and He says in verse 8:
And when he…
That is God the Holy Spirit:
…is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
That word judgment is also translated damnation. And if you are listening to a gospel or if you believe a gospel, which is not concentrated on those three points I am so sorry to tell you I am actually brokenhearted because I know many that follow another gospel, not that one. Jesus said that is the Gospel—the Holy Spirit is going to come. He said that 2,000 years ago, and if you are entrenched in some other ideas about the Bible or the Gospel that ignore those three principal ideas you have completely missed the Gospel. It is about man’s utter sinfulness and the righteousness of Christ. In 1 John 2:1 that is His name, even “Jesus Christ the righteous.” He Himself is righteousness, and the judgment to come—there are no other subjects in the Gospel. If you think about the whole Bible they are the three subjects beginning in the first few pages; the fall and sin in the garden and leading right up to the last few pages we see those three subjects prominent in every page in between.
Well no, the Bible does not teach that we are not going to know the day or the hour. It appears to teach that but the Bible in fact teaches in 1 Thessalonians 5 and Hebrews 10:25 and in Daniel 12 where He says the wise will understand concerning the end. The Bible says over and over again that those who have been truly saved will understand the day or the hour and the time of Christ’s coming including the part we are speaking about this morning, the Great Tribulation. There is a great difference in the Bible between the children of the day in 1 Thessalonians 5 and the children of the night, the unsaved. They will not know a thing about the end of the world and they will be overtaken by a thief. But very specifically the Bible there says if you know Christ you will not, you will not and that is a frightening warning because the earth is filled with a billion people that say they know Christ, who profess to be Christians and they are resting in some hope that nobody is going to know the day or the hour. And as we have learned in Sunday School this morning they do not want to hear that—they do not want to hear about the day or the hour of Christ’s coming. It is the last thing they want to hear about. They are involved with their families, their work, their home, their retirement, their car, and their pension. It is not a focus of theirs they do not want to see judgment day bearing down on them. The Scripture in fact, in Revelation 3:3 says this literally for those that are not looking for the day and hour of Christ’s coming, He will come on them as a thief and they will not know what time He comes. This is in the fourth church, the church at Sardis. This is Revelation 3:3 this is what Jesus says, He is the speaker:
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
If, if you do not watch. That is 23 times in the New Testament that word watch. We spent a lot of time on that word here several months ago. I commend that to you for study, very important. Remember how Jesus commanded the three, Peter, James and John in the garden to watch and pray and they did not—they fell asleep. Be careful not to condemn them. Luke would know this, in the last few chapters of Luke it says they could not hold their eyes open and it says for much sorrow they knew their eyes were opened. In fact that the bleeding Saviour who was sweating, as it were, drops of blood and throwing Himself on the ground was undergoing the wrath of God. They knew it and they may even have known the next day He was going to be nailed to a cross. And so sometimes in great sorrow and agony we sleep. Sleep can soothe a lot of agony and that is what it says about the disciples.
Well when is this Great Tribulation? If we examine the Scriptures carefully beginning in Genesis 5 and 11 where there are great calendars published by God, and then look at all the calendar information since beginning with Abraham especially—those calendars leave off with Abraham by the way. But the Bible tells us when Abraham was born and when he lived and His son Isaac when he was born and how long he lived and his son Jacob and his son Joseph we just said lived 110 years in Sunday school. And the Bible has a calendar of the history of the world and it shows the world reached it is thirteen thousandth anniversary in 1988, and that was a pivotal and critical year. It also says that we are to be alert for the fig tree coming in leaf and that happened in May 14, 1948, when Israel again became a nation but with no fruit. Christ cursed that fig tree and so it does not bear fruit again. So the nation of Israel has never borne any Gospel fruit, but they are a nation again. They are in leaf, leaves—no fruit. The Great Tribulation has been prophesized to come secretly just like Christ coming as a thief in the night. The years before He comes as a thief in the night the Great Tribulation comes as a thief in the night. It comes as a secret. This thief comes by stealth, secretly and unknown. Not only that as Christ comes and I believe we can demonstrate from Scripture that this Great Tribulation did begin in 1988. I was saying to somebody this morning, to one of the fellows here at this Bible study, if you say that out loud or on television somebody will dial up the men in the white coats they will say “show me where 1988 is in the Bible.” Frankly you can demonstrate if you have patience, you have to study to show yourself approved unto God. You have to search the Scriptures. You have to compare Scripture with Scripture, spiritual to spiritual, but 1988 is in the Bible. Now I would have to put some pieces together, but it can be shown well, it is going to come on the world as a snare and it did in 1988 that is Luke 21:35. But if 1988 began the Great Tribulation and it was a great physical outburst of earthquakes and famine it would be in every newspaper in the world and it would be on every TV program. But that is not the type of Great Tribulation that came in 1988. The Biblical Great Tribulation came in 1988, and how long might it last? Well it might last 23 years. We notice how important 23 was in the length of time from creation to the flood. Those calendars in Genesis 5 and 11, which are highly detailed, suggest that the earth lasted 6,023 years until the great flood. Christ’s birth came 11,000 (years) and about 2300 days after creation. So this number 23 is very important in the Bible.
But there are other tribulations mentioned in the Bible and in fact they are called “Great Tribulations” and we want to consider them, we want to look at them.
You know God has been using great prophets in the Bible—in fact He never acted to bring judgment on the earth, which He did many times, without sending a prophet to warn of these things. And fortunately He has been sending His prophets to warn you. Remember when He sent fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? Before He went down He had appeared as a trinity, remember the three men came and appeared to Abraham and Sarah and said in your old age you are going to have a baby, and upon leaving they said the stench of Sodom and Gomorrah comes up in our nose and we are going to destroy them. And Abraham pleads for that city, he has a godly relative down there, Lot—he was a righteous man. Yes it was full of homosexuals, as the world is more and more today, but Abraham starts pleading for Lot for the cities of the plain. There are five cities there Admah, Zeboiim, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoar. God listens to his pleadings and it is quite detailed. He goes on and on, he gets down to saying, Lord if you could find ten righteous people there, would you spare? And the Lord could not find ten righteous people. The Scripture makes clear He found three righteous people, Lot and his two daughters. He destroyed the cities. But God did warn Abraham and Lot. He goes in person to Lot and warns him to leave and he had at least one day’s warning to leave but then Lot gets busy with his family. It is very touching and maybe like you. Seeing judgment day approaching as we heard in our Sunday school lesson this morning, you know maybe you are beginning to plead with your children, your parents, your brothers and sisters, your cousins, your spouse because we see that day approaching. Well that is what Lot did as soon as he got the message he has to get out of there.
Remember God appeared to Noah 120 years before He brought the flood and then just before the flood came He put him safely in the Ark with his three sons and their wives and his wife, Mrs. Noah.
God always gives a warning to Moses, He came and said He was going to bring plagues on Egypt and take the children of Israel out of the hand of Pharaoh. Moses replied by the way, I can not do this I do not even know how to talk. God said do not worry about it I will let your brother speak for you.
Now do you remember, God appears to Joshua and tells him to go around the wicked city of Jericho 13 times which is a prophesy of the end of the world in many ways. And when the walls came tumbling down that city was literally on fire and was burned. Every child and every woman in that city was killed except Rahab and her family, and she had a good sized family according to Scripture. They spared the gold, the silver, the brass and the iron and put that in the Lord’s house. They even killed all the animals in that city. It was a great judgment, a picture of the end of the world.
God sent Jonah to warn Nineveh. He gave them a 40-day warning. He sent John the Baptist when Christ came to bear the judgment on His people, for the first time, in the Spirit and power of Elijah. John the Baptist, he actually denied, when Christ said if you can receive it He was Elijah.
The scripture says in Amos 3:7:
Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
Speaking of Elijah by the way, remember he could call down fire from heaven. Remember in the first place Ahab, the spouse of Jezebel, he was a very wicked king of Israel. He desires, he is very mad at Elijah and calls him before him and Elijah said all right you worship Baal; you get the 450 prophets of Baal (note: the speaker said “400” here when he actually meant to say “450”) and see if they can call down fire from heaven. Remember he sets up a contest on Mount Carmel and by the way it says an additional 400 false prophets who maintained the groves in Israel were there. I think there were 950 false prophets there. Well Elijah called fire down from heaven. Later king Ahaziah, another wicked king in Israel (this is in 2 Kings, I think the first chapter), was sick and he calls for Elijah because he knew Elijah had power of God. Believe me after calling fire down from heaven on Mount Carmel that man had a reputation and so Ahaziah wants to get well and he is a wicked man. He sends a captain of fifty and fifty men, remember that, to arrest Elijah because he wants him to come into the court and said he was on his sick bed. And Elijah calls down fire from heaven and they are dead and then he sends a second captain and fifty men. What are we up to boys and girls are you doing your math? How many have been sent so far? One hundred and two, and what happened to them? He calls down fire from heaven and God kills them. You know Elijah is not a man to be fooled with, there are certain people on earth, you do not want to fool with. And then Ahaziah how many more does he send? A captain and fifty more? How many has he sent so far? One hundred fifty three, oh, that is an interesting number. Is that the number of fish in John 21 that were pulled in and what are fish in the Bible? What does Jesus say; I will make you fishers of men. It is an interesting connection between that but God has graciously even in this day sent information as the Bible has been opened up. Daniel 12:4 and 9, I heard on the radio this morning God has promised to open up the Bible things that have been hid in the Bible for thousands of years. They have been there for 3,500 years but an understanding will happen now, now that we are in this Great Tribulation. Remember in Revelation 5, John sees that book with seven seals on it and that book is even written on the back there is no room for further information. That book is the Word of God but it needs to be opened up especially at the end of time, which is what Revelation 5, and the whole book of Revelation is about. There is only one person who can open that book with the seven seals on it. Who is that person? The Lamb, worthy is the Lamb slain. He takes the book out of the Father’s hand and He unfolds things that we never knew before so if you have been around since 1988, faithful Bible teachers and faithful information has been forthcoming about the end of the world.
Now the word “Great Tribulation” in Greek is megas thlipsis (Strong’s # 3173 & 2347). Thl is a sound in Greek we do not have in English but if you practice that “thlip” you can get that sound out, megas thlipsis, and that expression is in the New Testament four times. Let us look at them. It is in Matthew 24:21:
For then …
Let us go back to then, that is what we just read, we see the abomination of desolation, that is Satan taking over the churches. When you see that pray that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day.
For then shall be Great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world …
That is the Garden of Eden, creation day,
… to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
All right, look in verse 29:
Immediately after the tribulation …
What tribulation? That refers to verse 21 the Great Tribulation. So here are two verses referring to the Great Tribulation. I want to caution you by the way before you jump to a conclusion about verse 29 to please be careful to look up that word “immediately” that can have other meanings. It sounds like there it means the very next second but if you look at that word very carefully get your Concordance out before you jump to a conclusion. There can be a passage of time involved in that word which is there translated “immediately”. Now interestingly if you turn over to Mark 13, we were there just a minute ago, Mark 13 you see the exact parallel to Matthew 24:21. In Mark 13 beginning in verse 19:
For in those days shall be affliction, …
It does not say great affliction but it is the word thlipsis and notice what it says:
… such as was not from the beginning of the creation …
That is the Garden of Eden:
… which God created unto this time, neither shall be.
It is the same words and Mark is recording the Olivet Discourse Christ on the Mount of Olives teaching, especially teaching Peter, James, and John but all the Disciples. By the way in Luke it says that was at night, at nighttime He taught from the Mount of Olives and He could look evidently over the walls of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and see the buildings of the Temple because they saw those buildings and they were marveling at how beautiful they were. This was 2,000 years ago, little did they know they were going to be torn apart within a few years but remember what Jesus said, every stone will be thrown down, and then He gives a great prophecy on the end of the world, the Olivet Discourse. Well the tribulation is referred to also in Mark 13:24:
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, …
Here is that word thlipsis again and it is referring to the Great Tribulation we started with.
So we have seen these four verses so far. Turn with me to Revelation 2, we see it mentioned again. Revelation 2 now if you profess to know Christ I am going to make an assumption and I think it is a good one that you would be very interested in this subject, the Great Tribulation and I venture it is an idea which may be new to some of you that is that it actually began like stealth, unknown in 1988, the 13,000th anniversary of the history of the world. We can, I believe, deduce that from Scripture. Look at verse 22 in Revelation 2. Here is a church in Thyatira, really a church in big, big trouble. They have a woman named Jezebel who calls herself a Bible teacher, see that in verse 20? They have a woman Bible teacher, Revelation 2:20, and she teaches there which is of course forbidden in Scripture. And she seduces His servants to commit fornication, that is she gets them to not have moral impurity, but the fornication here referred to is unfaithfulness to the Bible:
… and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Which is related to idol worship. Jesus says in verses 21-22:
And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into Great Tribulation,
Megas thlipsis, Great Tribulation—and this church is a picture of an end time church in great trouble rebelling against God with a woman leading it. That Jezebel is famous from the story of Ahab and Jezebel. So we are up to number 5, the fifth example of the use of this word tribulation. You will notice, by the way, the same word thlipsis is in verses 9 and 10 in the church in Smyrna. Lets look at the last direct example, turn just a couple of pages over to Revelation 7:14. Here we see that great multitude that no man can number, Revelation 7:14, and here is a vision that John is having. He sees the four angels standing in the four corners of the earth and let us begin reading in verse 13:
… What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of Great Tribulation, …
Megas thlipsis, they made it through this terrible time and they have:
… washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
And during this time Daniel says the same thing, many shall be made white, speaking of this very troubled time. Where is the trouble? Do you have trouble at your house? In your driveway? At your job, is there any bloodletting? Is our country at war, well there is sort of a minor war going on in Iraq—it is very troubling but is the world at war like World War II? No, there have always been wars, but no big wars. Any famines going on in the world? Well there are basically pockets of it, not very prominent. It does not seem like what people have said about the Great Tribulation. There is one more that is really interesting I wish I had a lot of time to spend on it. I would like to come back to it on another day. Turn with me to Acts 7 and here comes the Great Tribulation again and here is Stephen he is about to be murdered, remember Stephen the first martyr? And he is going to preach up a storm on his way out. I wonder how many of you would do that? You are under death sentence right, you are going to go to the electric chair or you are going to be tossed off a tall building and Stephen preaches his heart out. The Holy Spirit is with him and what he says is recorded here in Acts 7:8, he starts to tell about Abraham:
And he gave him the covenant …
Or the Gospel;
… of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: …
That was our Bible quiz this morning,
… but God was with him,
Verse 10:
And delivered him …
That is Joseph:
… out of all his afflictions,
That is this word, thlipsis:
… and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Now there came a dearth …
That is a famine. See verse 11?
Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, …
Here it is pronounced Chanaan which is the promised land:
and great affliction …
Megas thlipse, here it is. So God has graciously told us something really powerful and every one of you that know Christ I hope you rejoice because you are living through this Great Tribulation and many of you can define it in your personal life—what has happened to you, brutal, something that has probably never happened to you, we are going to talk about what that is. But here what Christ is saying through His prophet Stephen is consider what happened to Jacob. That was the first Great Tribulation and Joseph and what did Jacob do? He left the promised land he went into the land of bondage. How many years, 430? Was it sort of 430 years? No, it was 430 years to the day, that is how precise God’s calendar is. It is extremely precise, it is even repetitive in places. God reiterates things like Joseph living 110 years God repeats that and the last couple of verses of Genesis tell the same about Joshua, by the way, their birth age is given twice.
Well Amos 8 speaks about the famine of bread, not of physical bread but of hearing the Word of God. Is there a famine of bread in America? Terrible lack of Bibles in America is there not? Where are you going to find a Bible in America? Remember the time in Israel there was no Bible, they could not even locate a copy of the Scroll, do you remember that? Is that a problem in America? A survey, a Gallop Poll Survey said that the average home where there is a professing Christian and that is supposedly nearly 80% of the homes in America has six Bibles in it. And some of you are hanging your head right now because there are 16 in your house. You have them in the bathroom, in the bedroom, and in the living room, and in the kitchen. You open the kitchen shelf and what do you have, the Bible, praise the LORD. The King James Bible is the most published book in the history of the world, that Bible. Now there is a lack of Bibles in some places by God’s grace like Mongolia in 1990 was the last major language group in the world to receive a Bible. They received the New Testament in 1990. The Bible is in every indigenous people, every language group, 365 languages, the Bible. And the problem is not the lack of Bibles but it is a famine of the Great Tribulation. Famine of hearing, hearing the Word of God, understanding it, and wanting for a teacher. Now 50 years ago God raised up a Bible teacher in California and he wrote a book called Adam When and he began to talk about these calendars in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 and he began to peel away, you know a scientist heard about him—a famous scientist. A man that is in Who’s Who, that was nominated in May to American Men of Science and this scientist is a professing Christian and said that the calendars in Adam When are faithful to Science. The earth is 13,000 years old. Now a lot of scientists will say that you are crazy but not all the scientists because you know why? Because God has left a footprint in the earth like in the Mississippi River Delta, the Amazon River Delta, and the Nile River Delta. You can tell how long sediments been squishing down the Nile River then you measure the sides of that delta and you can find out how long the water’s been rolling down there. This old earth has not been around for millions of years as you have been told it has been around for 13,000 years. And for 7,000 years since the flood and that birthday comes up in the year 2011, the 7,000th anniversary since the flood. Well we just read in Matthew 24:21:
For then shall be Great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
Now I said I am going to give you history of the world. What has happened since the beginning of the world? What is this tribulation, what is going on here? Well here is the beginning of the world, first God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and He spoke to them face to face. And then He punished Cain and He spoke extensively to Cain, remember Cain complained, You are punishing me, I cannot bear Your punishment and there is a dialogue, God begins to converse with Cain. Then He engages Seth and after them, Enosh. Then men began to call on Jehovah and then He engages Enoch, a man that never died. Then after 6,000 years we see where He engages Noah and said you have 120 years before I am going to destroy the whole earth and He did, 1-2 million people drowned. And everything with breath in it is lungs was killed except the animal kingdom that was riding on that ark. That ark was one-and-a-half times the length of a football field, and was 75’ wide. Well then He speaks to some others. I am right at the end of my time but I said I was going to give you the history of the world. I just sped through 9,000 years. God speaks to men face to face. In fact if you think I am shortcutting the Bible I am not. These 9,000 years are discussed in the first eight or nine chapters of the Bible. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of chapters in the Bible but God covers 9,000 years like a rocket including the flood. Then He visits Abraham and He changes His way of dealing with man. Remember, first of all, face to face? Then with Abraham He changes His way of dealing with man, He visits man face to face as He did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He speaks to women also, women are not left out of this. But He establishes a corporation on earth that is going to represent Him and He tells Abraham, you are going to be the father of many nations and He establishes a ritual, circumcision. So first of all God spoke to men face to face, then Abraham, He visits him and He establishes a corporate church and somebody might raise their hand here and say Oh you can not call this a church. The Bible calls it a church. In one place the Bible calls Israel the church in the wilderness. The Scriptures say it is a template or an ensample, a pattern, a paradigm for what the Church Age is going to become. What happened to Israel, it is going to be repeated. And surely it has, very sadly it has. So for 500 years God goes on this way He has face to face dealings with certain Jewish people, just them and rarely anybody outside of Israel does He have any dealings. Then 500 years later He raises up Moses and He changes His way again. He meets with Moses on Mount Sinai and with the finger of God He starts to write down His Gospel, the Ten Commandments, He began with that. And then Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible plus Psalm 90 and Moses is a penman. Now when he did that you might want to guess he did that at around 1410, the children of Israel in 1407 went into the promised land. I do not know when Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible but it had to be before he died and was buried on Mount Nebo. So in round numbers it was around 1410, I do not know that date of Mount Sinai. And then God continued from Moses until Esther to meet with men face to face to create the Old Testament. So He met with these prophets, He met with Jeremiah in his mother’s womb. Oh does God care about babies in the womb? Have we time, we could look at eight individuals God dealt with in the womb. It is pure bloody murder to kill a child in the womb. God respects an infant from the moment of conception. It is a horrible thing—men may claim they do not understand or do not know that abortion is a terrible, terrible sin against God. It is a murder and do not put roses on that, please, it is a killing of the child made in God’s image. Did something change at Esther? Yes. It begins the 400 silent years. In 383BC God stops meeting and visiting with men and the Bible, the Old Testament, is finished. It finishes with Malachi but we can get the date 383 from the book of Esther and then in 8BC God starts speaking again. Boys and girls do you know who He spoke to in 8BC? Zacharias and Elisabeth, He said you are going to have a baby and he is going to be the baby that makes the way for the baby Jesus. So God changes again and until 33AD God begins speaking to the world through His Son through the Old Testament and the New Testament starts to be recorded and so for 50 years and probably 60 years after Christ went to Calvary and ascended into heaven in 33AD God continues to write the New Testament and He quits by the Apostle John in Revelation 22:18 and 19. He said there is going to be nothing more from God, no personal speech. So if you meet a man today a Bible teacher that wants to tell you God has met with him in a dream or a vision or a nightmare or a tongue or an interpretation of the tongue, you have somebody possessed by Satan, you have great danger in front of you when you meet somebody like that. God left off speaking in about 94AD when the Apostle John died on the island of Patmos. And there is a severe warning all the awful, horrible things in the Bible are going to be heaped on you if you pretend that God has spoken to you. Do not go there—it is a horrible, horrible thing. It is a type of demon possession to think that God is speaking to you. I hear people calling on the telephone on the radio programs I actually can be shaking, this is a horrible thing according to the Bible and the same thing with healing. If you are sick, go to a doctor that is what the Bible teaches. Yes you can pray, pray like Jesus did in the Garden, if it be Your will, let this pass from Me. But if you have cancer get to a cancer center, your children are sick get medical care. Because the alternative in believing in supernatural healing, you are dabbling with what Isaiah calls the wizards. It is like people who read their horoscope—that is the kingdom of Satan. You want to pray that it would be God’s will to heal your child, certainly any believer would pray that. Unbelievers pray that way when they get sick, if they get real sick. Alright after Christ and the Apostles comes 1955 years of the church. God pours out the Holy Spirit and He establishes the church and He establishes two rituals or rites or physical practices; water baptism and the Lord’s Table or Communion and they are to be a picture, a spiritual picture, and the world of course takes them and puts spiritual value on them. Very tragically the same thing the Jews did, they thought the ceremonies (they were supposed to be types and figures of the Lord Jesus and of the Gospel,) and they made them into salvation. There was not any salvation in the blood of bulls and goats the Scriptures say, so you cannot be saved. You can get baptized one million times in every county in America and in every continent in the world and it will not bring you one inch closer to God. There is no salvation in water baptism. I know a woman that took communion every morning of her life, 7:00am every morning even sick she went and took communion. That cannot get you close to God. What do those elements represent? The spiritual truth and God can work through that through His Word.
Well that is the end of the history of the world because in 1988 God begins His judgment on the house of God. The tribulation that is not like any time since creation. I just went over every way God dealt with men and no nor ever shall be is not a physical tribulation. It is a spiritual tribulation and there was another 70 years tribulation spoken of by Jeremiah. We are not going to stop there but that could be called the second tribulation when God destroyed Israel and then the two tribes of Judah and the temple in Jerusalem in 587BC and they entered bondage. Remember Daniel speaks of the 70 years in Daniel 9. Something I want to say about this Great Tribulation, the Scriptures, the King James translators took that word and instead of tribulation they also translate that word anguish, burden, persecution, trouble, and affliction. They are nasty words, they are real negative. So the Great Tribulation is a super negative time. Look at Matthew 24:9
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: …
Do you know any believer friends that have been killed since 1988? No, you probably do not. And if they were killed they were not killed probably by people that wanted to argue theology, they were probably killed by some murderer or run down by some car or killed in a car accident. What does 1 John 3:15 say? If you hate your brother you are guilty of murder. That is a parable and the whole Bible is a parable. Have any of you been hated by anybody for what you believe? You try and tell them that the world is in Great Tribulation and Christ came in 1988, to what? To destroy His church, let us look at that in closing. Turn with me to Ezekiel 9 first of all. This is what the Great Tribulation is about, Ezekiel chapter 9. In Ezekiel, which is right after Jeremiah and Lamentations, Ezekiel 9 let me quickly read a lot of it:
He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, …
That is the Holy City, the people of God:
… even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, …
That is the Lord Jesus, He is the man clothed in linen throughout the Bible:
… with a writer’s inkhorn …
He has an ink pen and extra ink in a small bottle:
… by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side; And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, …
This is the people of God:
… through the midst of Jerusalem, …
The Holy City:
… and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
That is what is happened in the church, it is filled with abominations. And this man is the Saviour. Oh could it be the Saviour passed your way with this inkhorn and with the pen in His hand and put a mark on you. Look what happens if you do not get the mark, look what is going to happen to you:
And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, …
Following the Saviour, 6 men now that have slaughter weapons:
… and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. …
1 Peter 4:17, judgment begins at the house of God, judgment begins at the house of God. This is the nature of the Great Tribulation. 2 Thessalonians 2 the abomination of desolation, Satan, takes his seat and rules in the temple, in the holy place and there is a lot of hatred of those who oppose the church, anybody that would say a word against the church. The hatred, by the way, the Scriptures say even the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law will tangle. Is there hatred in your family toward you because you are warning them this is a terrible time? Spouses divided, children hateful toward their parents, terrible things. We just went through Christmas and Thanksgiving probably all over the earth that is a wonderful time for families to get together to celebrate the Saviour’s birth, families parted, parted, could not even get together for a meal over the church because there is such hatred. It reminds us of the 11 brothers putting Joseph in that hole, hatred and anger because we would speak that God has come to destroy Israel. He destroyed Israel, He ruined Jerusalem, had the temple destroyed and He finally tore the veil of the temple when Christ hung on the Cross, fifty-foot high curtain that covered the holy place and the most holy. Begin at my sanctuary, verse 6 look at the end of this:
And, behold, the man clothed with linen, …
Which is the Lord Jesus, He is the one with salvation. Your only hope is if He puts this mark on you. He is the Saviour and He has the ink pen of salvation:
And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me.
This has been done. Just as we close turn to Jeremiah just turn back a little bit to Jeremiah 25:29:
For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? …
It has been God’s design from the very beginning God knew that His church would fall away. 1 Peter 4:17, what is to become of them that know not the Gospel? If He is going to destroy His own church, what about those that have nothing to do with the church? They are in huge trouble. At least the people in the church may know something about the Scripture. Jacob’s famine was not a famine of bread but a famine of hearing the Word of God. He left the Holy land, he left the promised land and went into the land of bondage. And God ordered Jeremiah to tell the Jews to get out of Jerusalem and go into bondage and come under Nebuchadnezzar’s control, and He allowed Jerusalem, He ordered Jerusalem to be destroyed.
It says the people that get this mark from the Saviour they sigh and they cry. Oh, if you have time just let me tell you, you look up those words in Hebrew. Are you able to sigh and cry for the church for the people stuck there? Are you brokenhearted? You are not a “told you so” to these people are you? The Saviour with a mark of salvation, it goes on those that are brokenhearted. For two thousand years it was imperfect—had a lot of problems—but it was Christ’s blessed institution. He poured out the Holy Spirit to begin it, the first day 3,000 were saved. In the history of the church, their missionaries begin in 1800 they went to every part of the globe and they were slaughtered, they were boiled in pots, I could read you for the rest of this day stories of the slaughtered. You cannot decide to cry for the church you do not know anything about the Bible. Christ designed the church and it had godly men for many years. A lot of problems, a lot of unfaithfulness in it… in recent times, nothing but an abomination. They have lost their way even the churches calling themselves Reformed cannot even explain the true Gospel because 2 Thessalonians 2 says God sent them a strong delusion. But if you are puffed up about the end of the world about this Great Tribulation and you are looking down your nose on the church, my whole family is from church, I hope you are brokenhearted because if you are brokenhearted Ezekiel 9 says the man dressed in linen, that is white linen, that is the Saviour, He is going to mark you, not for destruction, He is going to mark you for salvation. But the rest will undergo six men’s slaughter weapons.
May God give us grace to understand this Great Tribulation. May God give us brokenness and humility with our loved ones and our families still in these churches. Christ is mighty to save as we just heard in Sunday school. It is still the day of salvation. This is the day of the latter rain Christ is going to save outside the church and it could be, He could save a great multitude that are still entrapped in the church, but the Great Tribulation it never has been before, never will be (again). It is spiritual in nature and it is primarily that Christ has come first before, He comes again to undo His blessed institution. May God save you if that is His will. Amen