The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom.
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The fear of the
Lord, that is wisdom.
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The fear of the
Lord is to hate evil.
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In those three angels'
messages of Revelation 14,
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we hear this very
fascinating statement
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by that first angel,
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and it says there,
"Saying with a loud voice..."
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Let me go back, of
course, to verse 6.
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"Then I saw another angle flying
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in the midst of heaven,
having the everlasting gospel
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to preach unto those
who dwell on the earth."
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Now notice the next
verse, this is where I started.
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"Saying with a loud voice,
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'Fear God and give glory to Him,
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for the hour of
His judgment has come."
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Fear God.
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Now you'll hear a
lot of people tell you
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that fear God
means to reverence God,
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and it's not talking
about being afraid of God,
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well, certainly,
it includes reverence.
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But the word there
is to be afraid, afraid.
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Why?
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I struggle in my
mind, how do you help people
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understand the fear of God
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when the Bible says as
you noticed in my opening
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that the fear of God is
the beginning of wisdom.
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That sounds like
something very good to me.
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The fear of God,
that is wisdom, says Job.
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In other place, I
think in Proverbs,
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it says, "And the fear
of God is to hate evil."
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Is it a good thing to hate evil?
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Of course, it is.
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So here in the gospel
that goes to the entire world
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before Jesus comes,
included in that gospel,
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is this sense of fear God.
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What does this mean?
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Do we go around just being
afraid of God all the time?
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Thank the Lord we
have the Lord Jesus,
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who covers us.
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But God is of course
not only our Creator,
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He's not only our
Redeemer in the sense of sending
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His only begotten Son.
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But He's also the
judge of the universe.
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In fact, the Apostle Paul says
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in the Book of
Hebrews Chapter 10,
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the fearful thing he says,
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"To fall into the
hands of the living God."
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Fearful in the sense,
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the hands of
living God in judgment.
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But if you're
covered with Christ,
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as the Apostle John would
say, "Love casts out fear,
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but if you're not
covered with Christ."
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So the fear of
God is simply this,
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means to take God seriously.
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When you take God seriously,
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you will take
advantage of the Savior,
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and you will hate sin,
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and that's the
beginning of wisdom.
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What it really means is this
that God means what He says.
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Now we're going to
talk about the destruction
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of the wicked
in the lake of fire
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and all of
those kinds of things.
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And we'll talk about that more,
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but I want to back to
those seven last plagues.
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Again, we can't get
into them in detail,
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but I want to give
that quick overview
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just as I did a
little bit the last time.
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You have the seven churches,
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the seven trumpets, the seven...
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I mean, the seven
seals, and the seven trumpets,
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and the seven trumpets
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cover 2,000 years
of Christian history,
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from the time of John
to Jesus, coming again.
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And they are the
judgments of God,
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and the seven last plagues,
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15:1 says, in the
seven last plagues,
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the judgments of
God were complete.
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Meaning, they're the finish.
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So these seven terrible trumpets
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if you please are to
protect God's people.
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If God had not already
put judgments in history,
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then the Christian church
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would have been
wiped out long, long ago.
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So God often allows
evil to correct evil.
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In other words,
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evil is its own worst
enemy many, many times.
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Now that doesn't mean
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that God doesn't
step in at times,
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but evil will correct evil
often because it's selfish.
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Pagan Rome was destroyed
in 66 years by the barbarians,
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and I think that's represented
in those first four trumpets
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destroying pagan
Rome, and then papal Rome,
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as I mentioned last time,
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was checked by the
rise of the Muslims.
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And then, of course,
as Protestantism came
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and the Reformation came,
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the power of the
Muslims went down.
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But now as the United States,
this great Protestant nation
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is now turning back
to the papal Dark Ages
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embracing the
principles of the papacy,
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we've now find once
again the Muslims on the rise,
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and I shared some of
that last time with us.
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But the seven last
plagues as I mentioned
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are part of the seventh trumpet.
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So there are seven
trumpets and the seven plagues
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I believe are tied
to the last trumpet,
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the seven trumpets.
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And I think that we are living
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in that seventh
trumpet right now.
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So we're going to take a
look at this seventh trumpet
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in Revelation 11:17-19.
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And we're reading
here, "We give You thanks,
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O Lord God Almighty,
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the One who is and who
was and who is to come,
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because You have taken
Your great power and reigned."
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In other words,
the Dark Ages are over.
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Jesus is in the last
part of the heavenly sanctuary
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in the holy of holies.
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And the issues
on the planet earth
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are wrapping up,
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we're headed to
our one Final Crisis,
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stupendous crisis.
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And that's brought on
by the mark of the beast,
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the rise of Babylon,
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which we'll get
into another program.
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Then he goes on to
say, "Because you have taken
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your great power and reigned..."
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In other words,
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God is taking
control in His final times.
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"The nations were angry."
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What a description of our day.
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"And Your wrath has
come, and the time of the dead,
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that they should be judged."
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When Jesus is in
that most holy place,
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that's the time of judgment.
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Jesus is sorting out
the sheep from the goats,
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the wheat from the tares.
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There's lots of people
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that claim to be
Christian but the question is,
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are we really a Christian?
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Do we really trust
Jesus with all our heart?
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Do we really love the
Lord with all our heart?
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Are we willing and
obedient by faith to do
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what He asks us to do?
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Do we keep His Ten Commandments,
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not on our power
but because we love Him?
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And the Holy Spirit
is in us enabling us
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to carry of His
commandments of God,
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and based on the faith of Jesus.
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So there is a judgment going on,
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"That you should
reward Your servants
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the prophets and the saints."
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So Jesus brings
us reward with Him
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because there's a
judgment going on now,
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an investigative
judgment into the churches,
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all the churches,
they have my church,
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your church,
whoever church you have,
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there's a
judgment going on in heaven
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on those churches
and on the Christians
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who sit in the
pews of those churches,
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and on the ministers,
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and priests who
lead those churches.
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"And those who fear
Your name, small and great,
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and should destroy
those who destroy the earth.
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And then the
temple of God was opened,
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and the ark of His covenant
was seen in the temple."
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That's where the Ten
Commandments are housed.
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"And there were lightnings,
noises, thunders, earthquake,
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and a great hail."
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So there is a reaction
on earth to the picture
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that we see in heaven.
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That's very
interesting that it says
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that the nations are angry.
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What a description
of our world today,
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seems like
everybody is angry nowadays.
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Politicians are angry,
both sides of the aisle,
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nations are angry.
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The weak are
saying, "I'm strong."
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Nations are angry.
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They're filled with selfishness.
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Many of them
grinding down the poor,
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sacrificing babies on
the altars of the lust
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of this world.
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I've been shocked to how
far people will go with this.
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I mean, abortion is bad enough
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the way it was and
now people are embracing.
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Can you imagine?
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Embracing?
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Killing babies up to the
time that they're getting ready
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to be born just because
somebody doesn't want them?
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What kind of madness is that?
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It reminds me of
the ancient Phoenicians.
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They sacrificed...
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They had these
priest and priestess,
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and they were into immorality,
and the practice of immorality
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in their worship, and the babies
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were then sacrificed
to their heathen gods.
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People are doing
the same thing today.
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They may not say,
"Well, it's molad."
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But it's the
gods of their lust...
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And perversion.
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So we have a world
that's been filled,
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it's filled with murder today.
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We've seen the
Nazis and what they did.
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Seventy million people
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lost their
lives in World War II.
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And then you
have, Miao Hai in China,
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he killed 70, plus or minus,
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millions of his
own people starving
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and kill over 20
million of his own people.
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Then we have, of
course, ISIS today,
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and we can see
the horrors of that.
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And you have, of course,
these religious extremists.
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You hear foul mouth everywhere,
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you can hardly even go anywhere
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without somebody taking
the Lord's name in vain,
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or depreciating human intimacy
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and people are
just foul-mouthed.
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And then you have
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all the massacres
that are going on.
00:10:11.67\00:10:13.21
I tell you, people,
they're possessed with demons,
00:10:13.24\00:10:16.51
and then the human trafficking
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where they take these
young girls from poor villages
00:10:18.18\00:10:21.58
and trick them
into sexual slavery.
00:10:21.62\00:10:24.99
It's horrible.
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Constant wars
and rumors of wars.
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Evil is not going to escape.
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All of these
things, the inquisition,
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and all these perpetrators
of these kinds of things,
00:10:35.46\00:10:38.93
judgment is coming,
00:10:38.97\00:10:41.77
and God is also
on the other hand
00:10:41.80\00:10:44.37
going to reward His
saints, and those who fear God,
00:10:44.41\00:10:49.28
who take Him seriously.
00:10:49.31\00:10:53.18
"So the temple of
God is opened in heaven,
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the ark of the
covenant is open."
00:10:55.38\00:10:57.59
In Revelation 15:5, it says,
00:10:57.62\00:10:59.95
"After these things I looked..."
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So it tied together
the seventh plagues,
00:11:02.46\00:11:04.36
as the temple of God is open
00:11:04.39\00:11:06.93
and the seven last
plagues opens with this.
00:11:06.96\00:11:10.83
"And after these
things, I looked, and behold,
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the temple of the
tabernacle of the testimony,"
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that's the same thing
as the Ark of the Covenant,
00:11:15.50\00:11:18.01
"is opened in heaven."
00:11:18.04\00:11:20.04
So the Ten
Commandments, once again,
00:11:20.08\00:11:21.91
is a standard
of right and wrong.
00:11:21.94\00:11:23.45
The seven last
plagues are poured out
00:11:23.48\00:11:26.41
because people are in rebellion
against God's Ten Commandments.
00:11:26.45\00:11:31.52
They're rebellion and these...
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And they've made life miserable
for the God's faithful people.
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And so these seven last
plagues are God's judgments.
00:11:37.86\00:11:42.30
"So out of that
temple came seven angels
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having seven plagues,
clothed in bright linen,
00:11:47.67\00:11:51.44
and having their chests
girded with golden bands.
00:11:51.47\00:11:54.88
Then one of the
four living creatures
00:11:54.91\00:11:56.75
gave the seven
angels seven golden bowls."
00:11:56.78\00:12:00.78
Now earlier in Chapter 5,
00:12:00.82\00:12:03.35
you'll find
these living creatures
00:12:03.39\00:12:05.65
with golden bowls.
00:12:05.69\00:12:07.62
But those bowls
were filled with incense,
00:12:07.66\00:12:10.49
which the Bible says, is
the prayer of the saints.
00:12:10.53\00:12:14.70
But now...
00:12:14.73\00:12:16.16
But now these bowls are
filled with the judgments of God
00:12:16.20\00:12:20.80
because God's people
have prayed, they plead.
00:12:20.84\00:12:24.11
And now people
have made up their mind,
00:12:24.14\00:12:26.57
just like old ancient
Pharaoh, so utterly stubborn.
00:12:26.61\00:12:30.38
People have become
stubborn against God.
00:12:30.41\00:12:32.91
They've made up their mind,
not because God doesn't have
00:12:32.95\00:12:35.68
great forgiveness in His heart
00:12:35.72\00:12:37.92
but because people
really don't want to forgive.
00:12:37.95\00:12:40.16
They want their
own way, they want God,
00:12:40.19\00:12:42.82
Ten Commandments done their way.
00:12:42.86\00:12:46.09
And they are not
going to obey God.
00:12:46.13\00:12:48.56
And so now, probation is closed
00:12:48.60\00:12:51.37
and these seven terrible plagues
00:12:51.40\00:12:53.47
are going to be poured out.
00:12:53.50\00:12:55.20
Plagues of God's judgment.
00:12:55.24\00:12:57.51
Bowls that once were
filled with incense and prayers
00:12:57.54\00:13:00.84
of the saints, now filled
with the judgments of God.
00:13:00.88\00:13:03.78
Listen, we shouldn't play around
00:13:03.81\00:13:05.98
with human probation,
00:13:06.01\00:13:07.35
all of us only have so
much time in this world,
00:13:07.38\00:13:10.09
and this time
that you have to live,
00:13:10.12\00:13:11.92
I don't care if
you're young, or you're old,
00:13:11.95\00:13:13.99
or you're in
between, you should be using
00:13:14.02\00:13:17.46
this time to get
ready for Jesus to come.
00:13:17.49\00:13:21.86
Let me tell you,
00:13:21.90\00:13:23.23
you don't want to
squander that away.
00:13:23.26\00:13:26.94
So the Bible says that,
00:13:26.97\00:13:31.14
"The temple of God was
filled with His power."
00:13:31.17\00:13:35.24
And then these
angels get ready to pour out
00:13:35.28\00:13:38.81
these terrible plagues on
people who are blaming God,
00:13:38.85\00:13:43.69
blaming God for
everything for their troubles.
00:13:43.72\00:13:47.12
But these seven last plagues
00:13:47.16\00:13:49.52
are going to
deliver God's people.
00:13:49.56\00:13:52.39