Leading The Way

Host (Female): Thank you for making time for Dr. Michael Youssef and another inspiring episode of Leading The Way audio. Now coming up next, Dr. Youssef helps you kind of get a practical look at the seven angels and the seven bowls that are found in the 15th and 16th chapters of Revelation. Stick with us.

And if you'd like to connect with Leading The Way and with Dr. Youssef, just start at LTW.org. That's where you can learn about the worldwide media ministry and the community-changing events. You can also order products and stand in generosity with Dr. Youssef. That's LTW.org or when you call us 866-626-4356. Now though, listen with me to Dr. Michael Youssef.

Dr. Michael Youssef: Revelation 15 and 16. At the very beginning of the forming of God's people, the Kingdom of God, there was a public confrontation between God and Satan, give or take 4,000 years ago. And the Bible tells us that at the very end, there's going to be a far greater, cosmic, global confrontation between God and Satan. History repeats itself, really makes sense.

In the beginning, the book of Exodus, we see a dress rehearsal for what is going to happen globally. Happened in the beginning of time and in Revelation is going to happen at the end of time. History repeats itself in the beginning and then the end. The first public confrontation with Satan was to free God's people physically from the slavery of Egypt. In the last confrontation is going to free God's people from spiritual bondage and suffering and pain.

The first confrontation with Satan, God brought about plagues that plagued a locality, Egypt, but in the last confrontation, these same plagues that God is going to bring upon the Antichrist and all of those who follow him, globally. And after the seven plagues are unleashed, John said something absolutely incredible. He said the wrath of God is completed. It is finished. It is done.

Question: How is this going to happen? Here we see in heaven, in the presence of God, John sees sea of glass mingled with fire. But he also sees something that is so wonderful. He sees the believers who have conquered the beast at the Antichrist are standing victoriously beside the sea of glass. The imagery that John gives us here is stunning, to say the least.

These images are derived from the book of Exodus. When God's people have crossed between the two parted waters of the Red Sea, they sang a song of praise, they called the song of Moses. It's a song of praise to God. You see that image is going to be repeated in heaven in a far, far, far greater way and more stupendous way and more global way.

It is the image of all the believers including you and me who love the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the ones who have been delivered from Satan harassment, will be singing victory song over Satan and his demons. Please hear me right on this one. We need to understand that in the Bible, Pharaoh is a symbolic type of Satan. And the Antichrist, of course, is Satan's tool.

Pharaoh was the slave driver, the tyrant, the oppressor of God's people, who's a type of Satan. And God delivered his people from Pharaoh's clutches. And we too are going to be delivered from Satan's clutches. We're already delivered here and now, but we will completely and fully and spiritually and eternally be delivered from his clutches by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're going to be in a state of continuous celebration, a state of continuous thanksgiving, a state of continuous praise, so you better get a head start.

In this song, there are five characteristics or attributes of Jesus. Don't miss them. He's the creator, great and amazing are your deeds. Secondly, he is the just and trustworthy judge, just and true are your ways. Thirdly, he alone is worthy of all of the worship. Fourthly, he alone is holy and finally, he is omnipotent. He is the king over all kings. He is the Lord of all lords. He is Lord of over all the nations.

And in the last verse of chapter 15, verse 8, we see the temple of heaven opens and seven angels with seven bowls of judgment come forward. God's glory and power symbolized by the smoke filled room. Always in the Bible, when God is present in a very special way, there's a smoke. You remember when Solomon was dedicating the temple, there came a smoke they couldn't see each other.

And we see it again in Isaiah chapter 6 when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up. He said there was so much smoke and surrounding representing the presence of God. In this similar way, in Exodus 19, when Moses was ascended on Mount Sinai and he met God and on the mountains, the mountain itself was wrapped with smoke symbolizing the presence of God.

Look with me please at chapter 16 of the book of Revelation. If you read this passage closely, if you read it intently, you discover the speeding of the pace of the judgment of God. It almost move so speedily it make your head swing because God has been patient for so long. Make no mistake about it, God has been patient. God is being mocked and been insulted by humanity.

God has been reviled and rejected by humanity. God's people have been persecuted and killed by evil people. And through it all, God is patient, so much so that some believers even saying, "God, where are you?" God is constantly entreating people to repent and believe in him. But then the day is coming when God's patience is going to come to an end.

And when the final day of judgment arrives, events are going to move very swiftly, very fast. The seven angels with the seven bowls will go forth in obedience to the command of God. And the angels pour the seven bowls of God's wrath upon the unbelievers. Chapter 16 of the book of Revelation is the most tragic chapter in the whole of the Bible.

Why do I say this? Because in it we see the ultimate collision between God's justice and man's disobedience. By that time the door of forgiveness is latched shut. The wrath of God is poured out, no retreat. Listen to me, in 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 9, Peter tells us that God longs for people to repent and come to him.

He did everything possible to make it possible for people to repent and turn to him and believe in him and receive his salvation from the cross of Calvary. God does not want people to perish. He longs for them to repent, but he will not overrule their free will. And so finally, after all of the pleading, after all of the cajoling, after all of the entreating of people to come to him and repent, all that comes to an end.

And so the first angel pours out the first bowl and all of those who worship the beast, that Antichrist, are afflicted with malignant sores. This, beloved, is the globalization of what took place in Exodus chapter 9 verses 8 to 12 in Egypt. The second angel pours his bowl upon the sea, the waters of the sea and the water becomes red like blood and every living sea creature dies.

Again, this is the globalization of what happened in Exodus 7:17 and 18 when God turned the water of the Nile into blood. And with all of the oceans dying, sea life will become extinct. Then the third angel pour his bowl on the rivers, on the springs, that's the drinking water and all of the drinking waters turn into blood.

And here the angel gives an explanation as to why water turned into blood. Please listen carefully. As if to say that all of those who have shed the blood of the saints, those who did it actively and those who did it silently, they have nothing to drink but blood. The Bible is very clear and the Bible said that God is not mocked.

What man sows, man shall reap, unless that man or woman or boy or girl run to the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on Calvary on the cross to be their own cover from the wrath of God. The fourth angel pours out his bowl upon the sun and the sun burns more fiercely, scorching the earth. Here's the irony: with all of that pain, humanity refuses to believe.

They refuse to repent. At that point people will even curse God for their suffering. Sometimes I imagine the atheist particularly and agnostic, the atheist who are constantly fighting and now they even spending money fighting a God that they believe he does not exist. You ever thought of the irony? And the fifth angel pours out his bowl directly at the throne of the Antichrist.

His entire satanic empire's going to plunge into darkness. All of those who worship the Antichrist will be gripped with panic. Imagine when it is as dark as midnight and at noon hour. The terror is so great that they will chew their own tongues. And yet they will blaspheme God for the suffering that they brought upon themselves. Again, this will be the globalization of Exodus 10:21 to 29, when the people of Egypt plunged into darkness.

You heard me say from this pulpit many a time that the Old Testament is basically the foreshadowing of the New Testament. And so the physical darkness that was experienced by the people of Egypt is a symbolic representation of the spiritual darkness that the whole world is going to experience. Jesus placed the believers in this world not only as salt to keep it from rotting, but he also called them the light of the world, that we are the light of the world.

But when the believers are taken out of this world, the light of Christ will be removed and the people of the earth will stumble in darkness, hardening their heart toward God even more. The sixth angel pours out his bowl on the river Euphrates. Its water dry up, preparing the way for the invasions of the kings of the east. This is very highly symbolic, this drying of the Euphrates.

What does it mean for the Euphrates to dry up? It means that the conditions have become ripe for the satanic forces to be unleashed. You say, "Michael, is it going to get worse?" Yes. The Euphrates is the natural boundary established by God. And by drying up the river, God erases that boundary. By now, evil forces in the world are unleashed.

So who are these kings of the east that John is talking about? They are not human beings. These are not kings and rulers as we know a king and a ruler of a human being. These are demonic rulers. The Bible tells us that certain nations and certain kingdoms, they have kings and have princesses that are invisible. These are demonic forces in the spiritual hierarchy of Satan's kingdom. These are one of the highest people in that hierarchy.

In fact, you find that spelled out in Deuteronomy 32, you find it in the book of Job, but more clearly you find it in the book of Daniel chapter 10. That is why beloved, listen to me, that is why Moses said to the people of Israel, he said, "The Lord rules over you. You do not have one of those demonic powers as a prince over you, you have Jehovah as your ruler."

And that is why later on when they demanded an earthly king and Samuel was brokenhearted and cry out to God and God said to him, "Samuel, Samuel, they not rejecting you, they rejecting me. Give them a king." But all those other nations, they have demonic ruler, they have a demonic invisible prince. In Daniel chapter 10 verse 13, he calls the demonic king that's ruling over Persia, the Prince of Persia.

In Daniel chapter 10 verse 20, the messenger refers to the Prince of Greece. That is the evil king, spiritual king that's ruling over Greece. In Psalms 56 and 82 refers to the demonic powers of nations. These invisible rulers in many countries today, these are demonic kings, the demonic prince. Please hear me right. We spent $1 trillion but more important than the dollars, thousands of precious lives in trying to bring the Persian Gulf into order, and look at it now.

We found in Revelation chapter 9, John tells us that God orders the angel and the angel releases the four angels that are bound in the great river Euphrates. Revelation 9 and Revelation 16 here talking about the same thing. It's the same event. When these four angels are released, the river Euphrates are dried up.

Revelation 9:16 John makes a very intriguing statement. He said the number of the troops that was there was twice 10,000, 10,000. And then he says, "I heard the number: 200 million soldiers." 200 million. And John finds it as amazing and shocking as we do. In fact, John finds this to be incomprehensible and that is why he reassures us, "I heard their number." As if to say, "I know, I can hardly believe it myself, but that's what I heard."

Now there are no nation or nations, all of the armies of the world would not come up to 200 million. In fact, there were not 200 million people in the population of the world in the time of John. China with all of its might and power and size and everything else only have 2 million soldiers in their army. That's 1% of the army John describes here. And that is why this massive number of soldiers can only be demonic forces.

But there's another symbol here regarding the Euphrates that I don't want you to miss. The Euphrates is the cradle of civilization. See, that's where the Garden of Eden was. And that's where they were try to build the Tower of Babel, the Babylonian Tower. It's the cradle of civilization and therefore, at the end times, is going to be the gravesite of the civilization.

The next thing John sees is that out of the mouth of the unholy trinity, that is the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, comes three unclean spirits or demons who appear as frogs. Frogs in the Bible are symbol of uncleanness. In Persia, frogs were agents of plagues and evil. Among the Jews, frogs are messengers of Satan. These are evil spirit that deceive humanity. Those demons will fight in the final battle of Armageddon.

But right in the middle between bowl number six and bowl number seven, we saw that in the trumpets six and seven there was an intermission. Here between six and seven, the Lord inserts a parenthetic statement. But it's a powerful one, I don't want you to miss it. A parenthetical message, if you like, verse 15 of chapter 16: "Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes on him, so that he may not go naked and shamefully exposed."

Now I know people say this is a warning, but to me this is one of the greatest encouragement. It blessed me. How? Is it saying as the world plunges into moral and spiritual darkness, you keep on trusting God. As the world becomes morally bleak, stay on the light of Christ. As the presence of moral darkness becomes unbearable, you hold on to Christ' righteousness.

He is coming when the world least expecting him. He is coming when the world is in its drunken stupor. He is coming at the time when even those who profess to be Christians are denying his moral absolutes. Take heart. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. In fact, that's exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 24:42 to 44. And that's precisely what Paul said in 1st Thessalonians 5:2.

That's exactly what Peter said. He said the same thing in 2nd Peter 3:10. Let me tell you something, when the Bible said the same thing three times, you can take it to the bank. The Day of the Lord will be like a thief in the night to those who are spiritually asleep. But to those who are always alert and sober, those who are ready, those who are waiting, it's going to be a great day.

Well after this interlude, the seventh bowl, the seventh angel brings the seventh bowl and he pours it in the air. And as soon as he does, a voice from heaven says, "It's done. It's finished. It's complete." There is flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, there is earthquake like never been experienced before.

The Richter scale will never be able to even measure it. Islands is going to sink into the sea, mountains are going to crumble, massive hail storm will fall from the sky, will crush people to the ground. But all of this destruction is only a warmup to Armageddon. Armageddon has many theories and many interpretations, but two main ones among most Bible-believing theologians, two main one.

The first is that Armageddon will be a literal battle and a literal war and is going to be the ultimate of all wars. And is going to be armies from all over the world gathered on the plains of Megiddo in Israel where wars have been fought for many generations and that's why it's symbolic. And that there be the bloodiest battle in all human history.

The second main interpretation is this. This battle of Armageddon is a symbolic battle. That it is a spiritual battle. That demonic forces will war against the believers. But those redeemed resurrected believers will follow their commander, the Lord Jesus Christ into the spiritual battle fought on spiritual plane. Take your pick. You're not going to lose your salvation whichever way you choose, whichever interpretation you take.

The one thing I ask you not to do is don't fight with each other over these interpretations. Christians have done that shamefully through the years. Keep your powder dry for battling the enemy of your soul, not one another. All I know for certainty is this: God's agenda is perfect. God's plan is perfect. God's will is perfect. And no matter what happens, I know that we are on the winning side.

2,000 years ago when our Lord Jesus Christ hung on that cross, he cried out and he said, "It is finished." And here in Revelation 16, the angel of the seventh bowl said, "It is done." Jesus paid the price for our redemption. He does and will triumph over Satan. Even when it appears that Satan has the upper hand and evil seem to be running wild right now, don't be deceived for because Jesus wins, we win.

Because Jesus is triumphed, we triumph. Because Jesus is glorified, we are going to be glorified with him. Revelation is a book about the past, the present and the future.

Host (Female): A reminder about the triumphant Jesus, to hold on to as you walk through the challenges and the feelings of defeat that life often brings. Thank you for making time for Leading The Way audio with Bible teacher and cultural expert, Dr. Michael Youssef.

Now if you're not clear about what it means to know Jesus, won't you consider a faith conversation with the Leading The Way pastor or a counselor? You can start that conversation by filling out a contact form at LTW.org/Jesus.

Dr. Michael Youssef: Michael Youssef here. Do you desire to glorify Jesus, see his name lifted high and want to snatch people out of hell and into heaven? One way is by being a faithful steward of what the Lord has given you, to bless future generations through an eternity-focused legacy.

If this is the cry of your heart, allow me to encourage you to consider joining a community of like-minded ministry partners through a legacy gift to Leading The Way, so God's word can continue to be passionately proclaimed. Become a cornerstone partner and invest in Christ's kingdom for generations to come, even after you've gone to glory.

If you are interested in joining the cornerstone partner community, please contact Leading The Way today, so our team of planned giving experts can assist you. Thank you for your desire to advance God's kingdom and build an eternal legacy for the Lord Jesus Christ, our cornerstone. God bless.

Host (Female): Partner with Dr. Youssef today. 866-626-4356 or go to LTW.org. This program is furnished by Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.