Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Fire and darkness. Usually, when you hear those terms, it’s referring to hell. But in this study, we’ll learn of a time when fire and darkness will create hell on earth. Thanks for joining Thru the Bible as we continue our journey through the whole word of God. I’m Steve Schwetz, your host.

As you might have guessed, the Bible bus is traveling through the book of Revelation, and it’s a solemn scene for the future when the wrath of God will be experienced in the Great Tribulation. Even Jesus referred to this period in Mark 13:24 when he said, "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light."

You’d think that as the earth is scorched with heat and plunged into darkness, people would turn to God for mercy. Yet, we’ll learn in our study that they’ll curse God’s name instead. Our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, begins in Revelation 16:9, so turn there now if you can. This study is a powerful motivator to pray that God’s word will be shared in every way possible, compelling people to turn to God while there’s still time.

As a ministry, we feel that we really have a great opportunity to get into the world today in over 250 languages, literally covering the earth. We’re so grateful for your partnership in prayer and finances to help get the good news of Jesus Christ to people who have no other way to hear. This is our time to get God’s word out—a sober and compelling reason to continue working hard until Jesus comes for us.

To encourage us, here’s a short letter from Lovens, who listens to Thru the Bible in Swahili. She shares this: "I have received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and he’s healed me. My request is that you continue teaching us more of God’s word so that even those who do not yet believe in Christ may be saved." Well, with that confidence, let’s pray that now.

Heavenly Father, thank you for planting seeds of faith in the hearts of all who hear your word. We ask, Lord, that it would produce much fruit in them as well as in us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now as we come here to the pouring out of this fourth bowl, I'm going to read now verses eight and nine again. "And the fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun; it was given it to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God, who hath the power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory."

Now, the Lord Jesus predicted that there would be signs in the sun in the Great Tribulation. He said, "There shall be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." That's Luke 21:25. Now the Old Testament had a great deal to say about judgment in the Great Tribulation due to the excessive heat of the sun.

In Deuteronomy 32:24, "They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust." Then Isaiah in 24:6: "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left."

You'll recall back in Malachi we saw, "Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Now all the Lord would have to do today is to remove one or two blankets of atmosphere and it would heat us up, I'll tell you that.

In fact, I feel like that in some of the summers we've been having in Southern California, that he took off a blanket or two. And then all he'd have to do would be to pull the earth a little closer to the sun. Not much, but we wouldn't be able to survive. But this is a frightful period in which Isaiah states that the earth will be decimated at that time.

That bears out what our Lord said, "Except those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved." And his own are preserved. He said concerning them, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." This promise is quite meaningless to us today, but it’s going to be a great comfort to the believer in the Great Tribulation.

Yet, we’re told here that in spite of all of that, men blaspheme the name of God. Now, friends, that shows that the human heart is incurable, and no amount of punishment will purify and change it. By the same token, the Great Tribulation is not for the purification of the church. Nowhere is it stated that. Nowhere is it stated that the saints are being purified by the Great Tribulation. It's a judgment upon the earth.

We now turn to the fifth bowl of wrath and I'm reading verses 10 and 11. "And the fifth poured out his bowl upon the throne of the wild beast; and his kingdom was darkened; and they chewed their tongues from their pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they repented not of their works."

Now the throne of the wild beast, I think here makes it clear that the wild beast back in Revelation 13 is a man. I'm sure that, at least I hope you came to that conclusion when we were looking at Revelation 13, that first beast. And it's also a kingdom, but you have to have the king first. Now his kingdom, we're told, was darkened.

Now that’s a strange darkness, which might be called black light. We have that today. You can't see anything, but it's light nevertheless. It's a frightening thing as the sun's wattage is increased during this period, why it gets darker instead of lighter. The heat will be greater, but the light will be less. And there’s a remarkable similarity to the darkness of Egypt during the ninth plague, by the way.

And the Old Testament's prophets had a great deal to say about it. I can't quote all of them, but in Isaiah 60:2: "For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." And there are any number of scriptures that we could give you.

In Joel, we saw that, by the way. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness." And this is a picture. Nahum mentioned it. Amos mentioned it. Zephaniah mentioned it.

And this now, John is merely saying, "This is where it fits into the program of God in the Great Tribulation period." Now our Lord confirmed it. He said, "In those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light." And they chewed their tongues from their pain. Just think of the intensity of the suffering that’s caused by all the bowls of wrath.

And what does it do? Well, it doesn't affect man. Man in his wickedness and his deep depravity does not turn to God. Now, there are two self-evident facts at this point. God is righteous in pouring out the bowls of wrath. And let's remember that. And Jesus is the judge here. He is in charge. He is handing out the punishment.

Now men are not led to repentance by suffering. Paul spoke of that: "Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." And here it is. And it doesn't change man.

Now we have the pouring out of the sixth bowl here, and will you notice it? "And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates; and the water was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sunrising." Now the Euphrates is called the great river, just as the Mediterranean Sea in the Bible is called the Great Sea.

And the prominence of the Euphrates River in the word of God should not be overlooked. It was first mentioned in Genesis 2. It’s designated over 25 times in the Bible. And in this verse that we have just read, it is seen in connection with the sixth plague. It was prominent in the first state of man on the earth, so it's featured in his last state, that of the Great Tribulation.

It was the cradle of man's civilization, and obviously, it's going to be the grave of man's civilization. It was a border between East and West, flowing 1800 miles, over half of it navigable. Its wide and deep, which makes it difficult for an army to pass over it. Abraham was called a Hebrew, and some interpret that as meaning he came from the other side of the Euphrates.

It was the eastern border of the land that God promised to Abraham. That's the border. He says in Joshua 1:4, "From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Now it became the eastern border of the Roman Empire, and the Euphrates will be miraculously dried up, thus erasing the border of East and West.

And the kings of the sunrising might come to the Battle of Armageddon. You remember in the past, Tamerlane came out of the East and swept across those plains with a tremendous horde. And Genghis Khan did the same thing. Those are just little tokens of what's going to happen in the last days when the border, or whatever it is that is there that separates East and West, and we've seen this before.

Why these great hordes that have never moved west, they now come on a great crusade to Palestine. And that's where the bulk of the population of the world is today. And having a smattering of the gospel, they choose Antichrist and they move out of the East across the Euphrates. The picture's frightful.

I wonder if anyone could doubt with hundreds of millions pouring into Palestine that the blood will be up to the horse bridles. Now, verses 13 and 14, we have an interlude. The kings of the inhabited earth proceed to Armageddon. Between the sixth and seventh of all of the sevens, we've had a break, a hiatus, and a filling in of detail.

And we have that here and I'm reading now verses 13 and 14 in my translation, which I do not recommend. "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the wild beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, as it were, frogs: for they are spirits of demons, working signs, which go forth upon the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war—not the battle—to the war of the great day of God the Almighty."

Now this is, if you please, this is Armageddon. And so-called because when we get over to verse 15 and 16, and I just well read that now. "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together in a place which is called in Hebrew, Armageddon."

All right, between the sixth and seventh bowl of wrath here is this interlude. And that’s been the program that John has followed. My, the book of Revelation divides itself, you see, if you pay attention to the divisions. Now the seven performers being the one exception, of course, and they had to bring in the interlude; it was there at the end.

Now this brings us to Armageddon, which is not a single battle but a war called Armageddon. It’s triggered, I believe, by the coming of Russia down from the north sometime around the middle of the Tribulation period. The campaign extends the length of Palestine to the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the mountains of Edom.

It will continue for approximately three and a half years. It will be concluded by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven to establish his kingdom. The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings then. Now, we're introduced here to the trinity of hell: Satan, Antichrist, and the False Prophet.

They act in unison in forcing the nations of the world to march against Israel in an attempt to destroy God's purposes on this earth. You see that God had promised Abraham and those after him; he gave certain promises. He made certain covenants with these people. And those covenants are going to stand just like John 3:16 stands for us today.

Now, I want to say this, and I want to say it carefully and kindly. And it’s this: that there is a system of theology today that passes as conservative, and it takes the position that God is through with the nation Israel. All of those covenants, they are negated. All of those covenants are canceled out. God doesn't intend to make good on them at all.

God is through with Israel and all of those promises are taken, and there are literally hundreds of them in the Old Testament, and they are spiritualized. And arbitrarily they do this, with no scriptural grounds for it whatsoever. Now, Origen in the early church, one of the few that was way out in left field of the church fathers—he was one of the very few—came from North Africa, and he started this method of spiritualizing instead of literalizing scripture.

And we need to remember that we’re dealing with that which is literal. And this is the purpose of Satan, friends: to destroy God's covenants with Israel and not make them good. And that's the reason he moves in here bringing the whole world against this little nation. And that will happen in the Great Tribulation period.

And may I say this now very carefully. I believe that this viewpoint, although right now accepted by a great many, will, as eschatology, the study of prophecy, develops, will become a heresy in the church. You mark my words on that. I may not be around to see it, but just remember McGee said that way ahead of time. And I believe that.

Now we've come here to Armageddon. This is a tremendous scene as we have seen. And I want to just say a word about several things here. It speaks of the frogs. Well, are they literal or not? Well, they were literal in Egypt, and they could be here, but I'm willing to accept them as a symbol. And they say, "Wait a minute, I thought you didn't accept anything as a symbol unless it is said it is, or you have reason to believe."

Well, it says "as it were" frogs. Doesn't say they're frogs, "as it were." And I think John's always very careful to give us an accurate picture of it, you see. And I think a very definite and dramatic picture has been given to us in a very vivid manner by Dr. Seiss. He says, "They are spirits, they are unclean spirits, they are demon spirits, they are sent forth into activity by the dragon trinity."

"They are the elect angels to awaken the world to the attempt to abolish God from the earth. They are frog-like in that they come forth out of the pestiferous quagmires of the universe, do their work amid the nations with their noisy demonstrations till they set all the kings and armies of the whole earth in enthusiastic commotion for the final crushing out of the Lamb and all his powers."

May I say to you that we've seen today that the news media can become a propaganda agent to carry out the purpose of men that are in the background. They can just brainwash us, brainwash the public. And that's exactly what this trinity of evil are going to do. They'll have the nations of the world marching against Israel.

Now, the Lord Jesus is the only one who can stop this. Their help does not come from the north or the south or the east or west; that's where their trouble is coming from. Their Lord comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And listen to him now. He says, verse 15, "Behold, I come as a thief."

Now he never comes as a thief to the church. He says to the church in 1 Thessalonians 5:4, "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." He doesn't come as a thief to the church. Thief is not somebody you welcome, "looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior."

Ah, my friend, the church welcomes him. You don't put a sign on your door when you go off on a visit and say, "Mr. Thief, I've left the back door open, go around, silver's in the third shelf, just help yourself." You never welcome a thief. You lock him out. He comes as a thief, and we saw at the beginning of Revelation the whole earth will mourn because of him.

They don't want him to come. They would like to shut him out from coming to this earth. And he speaks here of those that keep their garments. And what garment is that? Well, Edersheim sheds light on this phrase by explaining that the captain of the temple made his rounds during the night to see if the guards were awake and alert.

If any was found asleep, he was either beaten or his garments set on fire. And you talk about the first streaker, it was at the temple that got his shirt caught on fire. He took off, I want to tell you, friends, and he was a streaker. He says here, "Be sure you don't lose your shirt in that day." Be sure that you're clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

And Armageddon is a war, and I do want to emphasize that. And in verse 16 here we see the only occurrence of the word Armageddon actually in scripture. And I would like to give you a description of it. I've been there, been there several times to the little mound in the Valley of Esdraelon, actually one of the most fertile valleys I've ever seen. I guess it is the most fertile valley in the world today.

And in that has come Nebuchadnezzar, and Assyria, and Napoleon Bonaparte came there. Gentiles have been there, Saracens have been there, Christian crusaders, anti-Christian Frenchmen, Egyptians, Persians, Druzes, Turks, and Arabs, and what have you. They've all been there. That's the picture given to us here.

We have here the pouring out now of the seventh bowl of the wrath of God. And I'm glad to get them all poured out. We may not have time before we go off the air, but we're going to start pouring it out and we'll finish it up next time. Verses 17 and 18. And it says, "And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and a great voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, 'It is done.' And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty."

Now this is the last series of seven judgments before the coming of Christ, and this is the seventh and last of the last seven. In other words, we're right at the end of the Great Tribulation here, and the only one at this point that could deliver these people and set up a righteous kingdom on this earth and bring peace to the world is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so they do not look to the northeast, south, or west, but my help cometh from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Now that is the picture here. And we find out that he pours out upon the air, it says. In other words, this is space, and no geographical location is given. The Lord Jesus controls space also.

And the temple has been mentioned again and again and again, and it's mentioned here. We're identified with the people now, and that's Israel. Whether we like it or not, that nation will go through the Great Tribulation period. 144,000 of them are going to make it. I do not know how many more. I think there'll be another saved company.

A great company of Gentiles are sealed. They're going to make it through the Great Tribulation period. And it’d be unfortunate if the church did get in it because they're not sealed here. These are the only two groups sealed. But the church, you see, is not going to be here. Enoch was taken, he was translated, because he didn't enter the time of the judgment of the flood.

Now Noah did, and Noah was preserved in the flood. God had two ways of saving people in the Great Tribulation period. First, saving them out of it by taking them out of the world as he did Enoch. And saving them in it as he did Noah. And God will save people in the Great Tribulation period. But not the church, they leave the earth.

Now will you notice, "a great voice came out of the temple from the throne." Now that voice is not identified. I personally believe that it’s the voice of none other than the Son of God. His message is recorded: "It is done." That's the second time we've heard him say it. When he's hanging on the cross, he said, "It is finished. It’s done." Tetelestai.

And now again he says it. When he had wrought out redemption, it's finished, and you can have a finished redemption if you want it. But now judgment is going to be finished also. There'll be a judgment, my friend, but it'll be brought to an end. The writer to the Hebrews, therefore, was right in asking the question, "How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" I'll leave off right there today, but we will finish this and go into chapter 17 next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? You know, there’s only one answer to that sober question: you can’t. Not if you reject the great salvation that God has already provided in Jesus Christ. Then what is there to do? Well, the way is really simple. God’s given his word to give us a clear understanding of how to accept his offer of salvation.

And you know, Dr. McGee condensed those scriptures into a single leaflet that he called "The Inside Story." You can find it by clicking "How Can I Know God" in our app or at ttb.org. Or we’d be happy to send you a copy, along with some other free resources from Dr. McGee that describe God’s greatest gift.

To request them, it’s easy. Just email biblebus@ttb.org. You can write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. And when you’re in touch, tell us how you listen to Thru the Bible. Is it by app, online, YouTube, or if it’s a radio station, what’s your favorite radio station for riding the Bible bus?

However you hop aboard, we really do want to know. As we’ve said before, this bit of information is really a huge help as we follow God’s leading in taking his whole word to the whole world. And as we go, I’m Steve Schwetz, thanking God for your company on the Bible bus and for his grace in all our lives.

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.

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