It started the day everybody disappeared, well not everybody disappeared but a lot of people did. And from there it went from bad to worse. No one was sure who was simply missing and who had been lost in the tragedies that followed the disappearances. Those who remembered September 11th tried to draw comparisons but that event paled in comparison with what happened this time. To start with over a billion people just disappeared. Which in itself was unsettling until you realized the implications of aircraft suddenly without pilots crashing into buildings, buses whose drivers suddenly disappeared, millions of cars driving at highway speeds now without drivers and tankers and container ships without helmsman?
The devastation was felt world wide, there wasn’t even one country that had been spared. People didn’t know if their loved ones had disappeared or were victims of the devastation that followed the disappearance. Emergency crews were taxed beyond belief, cleanup efforts were stymied globally chaos reigned. To make matters worse many of the organizations and relief agencies that would normally have stepped in to provide help had virtually disappeared themselves. Sure the organizations were there, but there was nobody to man them, and if they had personnel they didn’t have money because most of their donors were gone.
Then came the conflict, countries and nations blaming each other for the devastation, and with no voice of reason to be heard it wasn’t long before words became action and all the various factions were fighting amongst themselves and then it was just a matter of time until the conflict reached around the globe. In the past there had been wars called world wars because they involved so many countries, but never before in history had there been a war that involved every nation on the earth.
When the toll of the combat was added to the devastation that had already rocked our planet it wasn’t long before crops began to fail because the resources were being poured into trying to deal with casualties and fatalities from both combat and catastrophe. Famine spread across the world, the most essential foods became out of reach for all but the wealthiest people. And so it was only a natural consequence that added to the chaos, confusion and hunger was disease. The fatalities were piling up, literally piling up as the resources weren’t there even in the prosperous countries to deal with death on this scale. As decomposition began to set in all kinds of sickness followed, cholera, malaria, aids. And it seemed as if the most compassionate of the health givers had disappeared in the initial event. Before the wars, famine and plagues were over another billion people had died. And so this was the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.
And then it was as if the earth itself turned against humanity. Earthquakes, eclipses, meteorite showers, salt water fish dying and fresh water supplies becoming unfit to drink, and the bugs, ugly bugs. Millions of locusts swarming across the earth eating everything in sight and the stings, the stings hurt like blazes and there was nothing that could be done.
And that was only the beginning. As food and resources became scarce any feeling of generosity began to fade and the countries that had reserves held onto them for their people alone. Well if your people are starving and those with the food won’t give it to you then you have to take it, and so an army of 200 million troops began to move. Before the conflict was finished another billion people had died.
And into this conflict stepped one man, one man who promised to restore peace, one man who promised to feed the hungry and take care of the sick. And he did. Not just in one country or a few countries but all over the world he restored order out of chaos, it had to be a miracle. And it was acknowledged as such. People came to view the man as more then a leader, more even then the deliverer, to people all over the world he became a messiah.
You know the story; it’s recorded in the book of the Revelation at the end of your Bibles. It’s been the subject of books and movies not to mention a gazillion sermons over the past 2000 years. The event is called the great tribulation and it’s part of what has been called the end times, the last days or the end of the world. If you came this morning looking for an in depth look at scrolls and bowls, seals and trumpets you’re out of luck. For a couple of reasons. The first is that we just don’t have the time, there are a multitude of different interpretations that abound in relation to those symbols and events. And if we were going to take the time to even highlight the most credible of those views we would be here for a month. Secondly it really isn’t all that important in the big scheme of things, there’s nothing we can do to stop it, and if you’re around when it’s underway the least of your concerns will be trying to interpret the catastrophic events that are taking place around you. But there are a lot of people out there who not only insist that it is important that we know and understand everything during the tribulation but they also insist that they have all the answers and they are ready to fight about it. And so the best I can do is say "The Tribulation: It’s Not a Good Thing." So this morning we are going to look as best we can at an overview of the tribulation.
Every once in a while I meet some who tells me that the Book of the Revelation is their favourite book in the Bible. I have said before and I’ll say again that the Revelation is the playground of the religiously eccentric. I could understand if someone said that it was the most intriguing book in the Bible, or the most disturbing book in the Bible or the most confusing book in the Bible, but their favourite book in the bible. That would lead me to believe one of three things. 1) They’ve never read the Revelation 2) They’ve never read the rest of the Bible 3) They are a kook.
When somebody tells me that their favourite book is the Revelation I want to say to them: Think about it, in this book we have the Pentateuch which is the name used for the first five books of the bible. And it is the Pentateuch that chronicles the creation of the world and the history of Israel including their miraculous escape from Egypt into the Promised Land. We have the Psalms which are some of the most beautiful poems ever written, we have the Proverbs a collection of wisdom from King Solomon reputed to be the wisest man who ever lived, we have the Song of Solomon a beautiful love song. In the New Testament we have the Gospels where we are introduced to Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. In the Gospels we read about the miracles of Jesus, his love and compassion and the ultimate sacrifice that he made for each one of us. It’s there that we feel the horror of his death and the triumph of his resurrection. In the book of Acts we discover how a handful of ordinary people changed the word. It’s in the Acts that we read the history of the first church and meet the people who were the actual pioneers of Christianity. In the letters of Peter, Paul, John, James and Jude we are giving direction for living a life that is pleasing to God. And your favourite book is the Revelation which chronicles the ultimate destruction of mankind and the horrible deaths of billions of people. People who we might know and love and care about. Your favourite innkeeper is probably Norman Bates.
The Revelation was not placed in the Bible to be anybodies favourite book. Instead it was placed there to spur us on to evangelism, and secondly to let us know that regardless of how bad it gets that in the end we win.
So let’s take a look at some Tribulation questions.
What Will Happen? Read the Revelation and you realize that a question that might be simpler to answer is; what won’t happen. It would appear that catastrophe upon catastrophe are visited on one another. That the world is left reeling like a punch drunk boxer, unable to recover from the previous blow before the next one hits. There’s war and famine, disease and earthquakes. It would appear that whatever can happen will happen. It is Murphy’s Law taken to the nth degree. What can go wrong will go wrong, and wrong and wrong and wrong. And into that chaos steps one who the Bible calls the Anti-Christ, or the Evil one or the Lawless one or the Beast. And he is an agent of Satan seeking to deceive what remains of humanity into rejecting God. And if the saying is true that misery loves company it is this man’s job to make sure Satan has lots of company for eternity.
Who is the Antichrist? We don’t know. Throughout history he has been named numerous times. Nero, Constantine, the Pope, actually the Pope makes the list more then any other person. Not the same Pope mind you but the Pope never the less. Napoleon, Aleister Crowley (who was a male witch in England from 1875 to 1947), Hitler, Stalin, JFK, Henry Kissinger, Saddam Hussein, Bill Gates and most recently George Bush.
The list is limitless, I did a search on the web and found 300,000 references to the antichrist including a website which maintained that David Hasselhoff was the antichrist. Yes I know it was a joke.
We are all familiar with his number which the Bible records as 666. Even people who have never read the Revelation and have never picked up a Bible know about Revelation 13:18 Wisdom is needed to understand this. Let the one who has understanding solve the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.
Larry Norman actually wrote a song called 666 it may be the only song ever written about the Anti-Christ. And throughout history people have played all kinds of Numerical names with 666 trying to discover the identity of the Antichrist. My favourite theory of course has to do with Barney, you know the dinosaur. Check out; Revelation 12:9 This great dragon-the ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world-was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.
Sure you say but Barney isn’t a dragon he’s just a Cute Purple Dinosaur.
But the Romans didn’t have U’s in their alphabet so what if you changed all the U’s to V’s, that’s right then you’d have
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
And then if you extracted all the Roman Numerals you’d have C V V L D I V convert that into real numbers and you’d have: 100 5 5 50 500 1 5
Add them together to get: 666
Get a life people, the Bible tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 For this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way. Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed. We don’t know we won’t know and we shouldn’t know.
If you want some more background on end times there is a great site out there at www.raptureready.com the author Todd Sandberg has this to say "We should take care not to over-focus on the Antichrist. Our hope lies in the true Christ. Any news about the "man of sin" should only act as a warning to prepare us for the Man of Salvation. As a pretribulationist, I personally have no plans for meeting this "son of perdition." Only those who have not repented of their sins and are not walking a pure life should expect to meet him personally or more likely, see him on Larry King."
Why the Tribulation? You have to wonder, if the Tribulation is so nasty then why, why would God allow it? Because by then he will have tried everything else to bring people to repentance. He provided the law through Moses, when people didn’t follow that he sent his prophets, they killed his prophets, he sent his Son, they killed his Son. With the resurrection of his Son was born the Church and even though the church has changed the world and led literally billions of people into a saving relationship with God the majority of people still choose to walk their own way.
My dad tells the story of the old farmer who had the mule for sale and a guy came and looked at the Mule and said "Does he listen good?" "Sure does" said the farmer "Watch this." And he walked over the mule picked up the reins and said "Giddy up" nothing happened, so he repeated it "Giddy up" and still nothing happened. So the old farmer picks up a two by four walks around to the front of the mule and thwack hit’s him right between the eyes, goes on back to the reins and says "Giddy up" and the mule trots off. "I thought you said he listens good?" says the perspective buyer. "He does" says the farmer, "But first you have to get his attention."
Well the tribulation is designed to get peoples attention. Does it work? To a degree, yes. It would appear in reading the Revelation that there are many people who call out to God because of the events that are happening.
But then there are other’s who continue in rebellion. Listen to what John writes in his vision in the passage that Mike read earlier in Revelation 6:16 And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Did you catch that, even staring into the face of God and acknowledging that God is in control, they refuse to cry out to Him and instead they were praying to the rocks and mountains.
Time and time again God offers people the opportunity to repent and turn to Him. And time and time again some do and most don’t. Listen to Revelation 9:20 But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to turn from their evil deeds. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that neither see nor hear nor walk!
The tribulation will rage across this earth for seven years, in one final attempt to bring people to repentance. And there will be those who had heard the message but hadn’t responded and they will have that one last opportunity to respond. But to be frank it’s not going to be any fun. John couldn’t even begin to describe the horrors that will happen during that time, is it something you want to go through? You don’t have to. Once again the gospel is a simple proposition. You turn to God, admit that you are a sinner, ask Him to forgive you and turn your life over to Him. That’s it, if you haven’t done it then I would encourage you to do so right now.
But Denn when will this all happen? Maybe I can wait until just before it happen. Well we don’t know when it’s going to happen. Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 “However, no one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.
So I guess it would be better safe then sorry.
PowerPoint may be available for this message contact me at denn@bccnet.ca
