Leading The Way

Dr. Michael Youssef: Are you faithful in your daily time with God in worship and in praise and studying His word? Are you faithful in your moral conduct? Are you faithful with your time and with your money and with all the possessions that God placed in your hands? Are you faithful?

Guest (Male): No matter how stressful life feels, only one thing counts at the end of the day. Were you faithful in what the Father asked of you? Welcome to Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Today, Dr. Youssef continues his teaching series, looking at what the Bible says about the last days.

And by the way, if talk about last days makes you feel a little uncertain about your own life and eternity, then we invite you to speak with a Leading The Way pastor or counselor. And we've made that so easy. You can start that conversation at ltw.org/jesus. Here now is Dr. Youssef with his message.

Dr. Michael Youssef: As we come to the second last message from the book of Revelation, we're about to see God is going to take a wrecking ball to the universe. I mean, literally, he is about to destroy the old heaven and the old earth and replace it with a new heaven and a new earth.

Turn with me, please, to Revelation, beginning of chapter 17. In the beginning of chapter 17, John sees a harlot or a prostitute sitting on the Antichrist, the beast, the man of lawlessness. The Bible has many names for the Antichrist. And the beast with seven heads and ten horns, as we saw that in chapter 12 of the book of Revelation. This Antichrist, this beast, is Satan incarnate.

And this harlot is bedecked with jewels. In her hand, a golden bowl. Remember, God has a golden bowl. What's in that golden bowl that the Lord Jesus has? It has the prayers of the saints. But this false religious system, this harlot, also has a golden bowl, but hers was filled with sin and abomination.

Across the forehead of the harlot are the following words: Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth. She is drunk with the blood of the Christian martyrs. What is Babylon in the Bible? When you see the word Babylon, you understand that it is a symbol. It represents all false religions and any religion or any belief that is not focused and centered on Christ and His word is originated from Satan. And therefore, it is satanic.

Babylon is any religious system that sets itself against the word of God, the Bible. Something else that you need to know about biblical language, particularly symbolic language: in the Old Testament, prostitution stands for a false belief system. Every time you see the word idolatry in the Bible, almost synonymously, they use the word adultery or spiritual adultery.

Just like when one spouse betrays the marriage vows and cavorts with somebody else other than the spouse, there is infidelity, there is unfaithfulness. In the same way, when a person focuses on, worships, places the affection on anything or anyone other than the Lord Jesus Christ, it is called unfaithfulness. It is a spiritual adultery.

Even though she appears to be riding on the beast, that is, riding on the Antichrist, it even appears to be in control of the Antichrist, this false religious system, in the end, the beast is going to turn on that false religious system, is going to turn on that harlot, and he's going to try to destroy her.

You say, "But why? They make a good combination. Two devils instead of one, right? Two miserable things instead of one." Because the Antichrist wants to unify the whole world to worship him alone. He did not want any competition. And I'm going to explain to you in a language that you understand, that you hear it every day in our language in our culture today.

The Bible makes it clear that the church, that is, the true believers—the emphasis here is on true because there are a lot of people claim to be Christians—but the church which is made up of the true believers from every corner of the globe, that church is the bride of Christ. Christ Himself is the bridegroom.

And therefore, following anyone else, compromising that, following any false teachings, any false religious system, any false belief system is a spiritual prostitution for those who claim to belong to the body of Christ. In fact, anything that comes between the bride and the groom pollutes the relationship, as prostitutes would to a marriage.

Anything that seduces us from loving Jesus with our all is an intruder on the purity of our relationship with Christ. Let me plead with you: do not be misled by talk about global peace, unity, and harmony. It ain't going to happen. Don't be misled by talk about higher consciousness. Don't be misled by all the talk about mantras and spiritual healing. All these practices found in Babylon of old. Nothing is new.

And that is why I told you Babylon is a mere symbol of everything that is untrue and false. The next thing you see here is that the world leaders are bowing down, verse 8, and worshipping the Antichrist. The world leaders under the domination, united for one thing, and that is their hatred for Jesus, the hatred for those who love Jesus, the hatred for Christians.

Verse 14, they will declare war on the Lamb, but praise God, the Lamb defeats them. He conquers them. The believers here are called the faithful. So let me stop preaching and start meddling just for a moment. Are you faithful? That's what we are called here. Are you faithful in your daily time with God in worship and in praise and studying His word?

Are you faithful in your moral conduct? Are you faithful in your business conduct? Are you faithful in your speech conduct? Are you faithful in your thought conduct? Are you faithful with your time and with your money and with all the possession that God placed in your hands? Are you faithful? That's what the Christians are called. May the Lord Himself find us faithful.

Chapter 18, we see the destruction of the false economic system and the political system of the Antichrist in chapter 18. I'm not an economist, but I talk to world-respected economists to realize that today, the global debt crisis and the threat of terrorism and the shockwaves that are coming about wars in the Middle East literally makes the world economic system to be on the razor edge.

And it doesn't take much to turn the world economic system over a cliff. And this will affect everyone, rich or poor. And here's the fact, here's the truth: those who place their whole trust on wealth, those who place their whole confidence in wealth, those who focus all their attention on getting and hoarding and hiding and doing this and doing that and the other thing, they will weep when the world economic system collapses.

But by the same token, those who have placed all their hope in Jesus, those who have to consider the statement of their net worth is what they have given to the kingdom of God, those who see the real wealth is in what they sent on to heaven ahead of time, not one of them is going to be sorry.

If you put your whole faith in the world economic system, you will lose everything one day. But if your whole trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will never, never, never be disappointed. Your investments are safe in Him. Lot invested everything in Sodom, and when Sodom went up in smoke, he lost everything. Psalm 72:8 promises that the Lord will rule from sea to sea, and we're going to rule with Him.

Revelation 19, I could not wait to get away from 17 and 18 and get to 19. That's the truth. Because after witnessing so much judgment and so much death and calamity, we see the light of heaven break through the storm. Praise God. In heaven, we will hear a song of praise and worship. Why? For the destruction of the harlot.

You say, "Wait a minute, Michael, wait a minute, wait a minute. You just said in 17, it says that it is the Antichrist who's going to destroy the harlot. How can the believers are going to praise God in heaven and sing for the destruction of the harlot by the Antichrist?" Listen to me very carefully. This is one of the greatest lessons in the sovereignty of God.

For even the treachery of the Antichrist is going to serve God's righteous purpose. Verse 2 of chapter 19 tells us that God's judgments are just and true. The Antichrist had an evil motive in destroying the false religious system of the world because he wanted all to worship him alone, all to be dedicated to him alone. But what the Antichrist means for evil, God turns it for good.

The treachery of the Antichrist will lead to the avenging of the blood of the martyrs. And the next thing you see is the smoke rising from the ruins of the Antichrist kingdom. Babylon which, as I told you, symbol of rebellion against the one triune God, falls. Falls. And the redeemed in heaven sing, "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns." Say it with me. "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns."

And then Revelation 19 also introduces us to the marriage supper of the Lamb. You see, in our weddings, the bride is the focus of attention. But when it comes to the marriage supper of the Lamb, this is the groom's day. This is the groom's coronation day. This is the groom's enthronement as King of Kings and Lord of Lords day.

But you see, back in John's day, most Jewish weddings have three stages in them. The first stage is when the father of the bride and the father of the groom sit down and make an agreement. And it's a binding agreement, just like in Mary and Joseph’s case. It's a binding, it's not just like an engagement party that we have here, but it's a binding one.

And then the father of the groom prepare a place, extra room in the house for the bride to come to. And when the house is ready or the extra room is ready, the bridegroom's father goes in there and he brings the bride and presents her to his son. The third stage is the seven days of celebration, feasting.

In a similar way, we in our relationship with our bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ—the believers, the church of Jesus Christ, the bride—we have also three stages. The first stage is when the Holy Spirit comes to us and open our blind spiritual eyes. And make no mistake about it, every one of us born with blind spiritual eyes.

We don't see our need for salvation, we don't see our need for forgiveness. But then the Holy Spirit open those eyes and says, "Whoa, Lord, I am so sorry." We come in repentance and faith, recognizing that we can't save ourselves, we need the Savior. And so, at that moment, when the Lord adopts us into His family, our name is written in the register in heaven. The Bible calls it the Book of Life.

Then comes the second stage, that is the Lord's return to the bride, the church, the true believers—I keep saying the true believers. That day is slightly different from the average Jewish wedding. I already told you that in an average Jewish wedding, the father of the groom goes over to fetch the bride and brings her to his son.

In this case, in our case, the groom himself comes, the Lord Jesus. He comes in to take His church to His father's house and He presents His bride to the Father. The third stage, we celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb that Revelation talks about here. This is the greatest celebration the universe has ever known.

Just imagine the guest list. I told you you can have one-man revival with this one: Abraham and Sarah, and Moses and Joshua, King David, Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah, all the prophets of God, all the martyrs who died for Christ, all of the great heroes of the faith, all of the faithful saints of God who have been faithfully laboring for Christ in humility and in obscurity and not seeking the limelight.

I know many of you are working so hard serving the Lord faithfully. I want to encourage you today: the day is coming when you will be in the marriage supper of the Lamb. John the Baptist said it best in the Gospel of John chapter 3, verses 29 and 30. He said, "The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the groom," referring to himself, "he waits and listens to him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine," said John the Baptist, "and it is now complete. He must increase, and I must decrease."

The next thing you hear is the angel saying, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." Amen. Blessed. And at that point when John hears this, bless his heart, he was so excited and I don't blame him one bit. In his emotional excitement, he fell down and began to worship the angel.

And the angel pulls him up and says, "No, no, no, I'm your fellow servant, you need to worship the Lamb." I don't blame John, do you? I mean, when I see Jesus face-to-face, I'm going to be a basket case. The closing verses of chapter 19, we see Jesus riding on a white horse. He is called the faithful and true.

His eyes are flare with fire. What does that mean? It means that He sees everything. He sees everything including the dark secrets, including the quiet service. He sees everything that nobody else can see. He see our hearts, He see our motives, He see our thoughts before we think them.

His many crowns symbolize His authority over the whole universe as the king of kings. His name is Logos. Can you say Logos? The Word of God. His robe is dipped in His own blood. And we too going to have robes, but not dipped in our blood, it'll be dipped in His blood, symbolizing Jesus' righteousness.

Why? Because our righteousness would not even get us to the gate of heaven. Only the righteousness of Jesus Christ is going to get us to heaven. And that is why our robes have to be dipped in His blood. Finally, we see with our own eyes the fulfillment of the statement in the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

But then Revelation 20 talks about the thousand-year reign of Christ, thousand-year reign of peace, the millennium as most people refer to it. Through the years, there have been three schools, three theories, interpretations of that thousand-year reign of Christ, the millennium. There were those who are called postmillennialists, and those who are called amillennialists, and those who are called premillennialists.

The postmillennialists, not many of them living today. They were big in the late 1800s, early 1900s, because their main belief is that this world is going to get better and better and better and then we literally going to back into the millennium. As I said, very few of those left after two world wars and all the messes that we have in the world today. It ain't getting any better.

The amillennialists, when you see the word "a" in—it's in the Greek, it means no, it means no millennium. They believe that it's a figure of speech. The millennium is not a literal thousand years. They say Satan already bound because he cannot hurt or harm the believer, he cannot take away our eternal life. And therefore, they don’t believe in the millennium at all.

Then there are the premillennialists. They say that Jesus will come to earth and rule the whole earth from Jerusalem. And that's the thousand years rule of peace. As I said, always come clean with you and I'm going to tell you exactly to what interpretation that I personally belong to. I don't belong to any of them. I have started my own.

I have the Youssef interpretation of the millennium. Now, we have a very small number of followers. You say, "Well, Michael, what is that?" It's called pan-millennialists. What does that translate to? I'm going to wait and see how it's going to pan out. You're welcome to join us, but you're also welcome to the others and some of you already have your minds made up, that's fine, God bless you.

Verse 2, chapter 20 describes Satan in vivid terms: dragon, ancient serpent, the devil, Satan, which is actually a Hebrew word means adversary. That's what Satan means. Because he is our adversary. Peter said, "Be sober, be vigilant," because he's constantly conniving to seduce us.

The best part of Revelation 20 is the final destruction of Satan. John mentions Gog and Magog, which is a term that is found in Ezekiel 38:2. What does it mean? Listen carefully. These are symbols of the nations of the world that are hostile to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire with the unholy trinity. But the best part is in verse 12. It describes how God is going to judge the world. And it says there's only two groups of people: those whose names are written in the Book of Life and those whose names not written in the Book of Life. That's it.

Those whose names written in the Book of Life have nothing to fear. But those whose names not written in the Book of Life, all hope is lost. Here's what you need to know: God's judgment is not arbitrary and it's not unfair. He will judge based on evidence that's found in that book, in that register in heaven. Everything about us is in that book. Everything we do is in that book, everything we say is in that book.

And Jesus said many people are going to come and say on that day, "Lord, Lord, I went to church on occasions." Your name is not in the Book of Life. "I went to mass on a regular basis." Your name is not in the Book of Life. "I did some charitable work." Your name is not in the Book of Life. "I was kind to others." Your name is not written in the Book of Life.

Here's what Jesus is going to say. His own words: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only who? Who does the will of my Father in heaven." You say how can I be sure that my name is written in the Book of Life? Great question. Ask yourself: is doing the will of the Father, is obeying the Father, is paramount in my life?

Now, it doesn't mean that we don't fumble and stumble. I'm the chief fumbler, let me assure you. That's not what it means. But it means it's paramount, and that every time you fumble, you come back because that's against your nature to do that. The only reason I know my name is written in the Book of Life is because I came to Jesus as a sinner, repenting of my sins. And he said when you do that, your name is written in the Book of Life. Nobody can erase that.

But if somebody says to me, "I hope so, I'm not really sure, I think so," that means you don't. And you need to be sure, here and now. The reason I am absolute confident that the moment I'm going to close my eyes in death, I'll be seeing Jesus face-to-face is because what Jesus did on that cross for me. I know without a shadow of doubt that my name is written, and you can, too. And you can do that today.

Guest (Male): Thank you for making time in your day for the Bible teaching of Dr. Michael Youssef and the gospel ministry known across six continents as Leading The Way. Now, in case you missed any portion of today's message or you want to listen to more teaching from Dr. Youssef, please visit ltw.org. That's where you can stream content, learn about the Leading The Way podcast, the apps, and more. Again, that's ltw.org.

Dr. Michael Youssef: You are watching it on the news night after night: the rise of Islamization and Islamists taking places of leadership both in the United States and in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. I sought to write a book to explain to you the unholy alliance between the left and the Islamization, how they invited the Islamic invasion. This book is a must if you want to understand what's going on in the world today.

Guest (Male): Learn more about the content of Dr. Youssef's book, *The Unholy Alliance*, at ltw.org. And you can always talk to a ministry representative to order; call 866-626-4356. This program is brought to you by Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect further with audio and video content at ltw.org.