David Berg
—Part 23 of "The Garden of Eden"
—Revelation Chapters 15-16
DFO 119113/5/81
1. REVELATION 15: "AND I SAW ANOTHER SIGN IN HEAVEN, GREAT & MARVELLOUS, SEVEN ANGELS HAVING THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: & them that had gotten the victory over the Beast, & over his Image‚ & over his Mark, & over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
2. "AND THEY SING THE SONG OF MOSES THE SERVANT OF GOD, & THE SONG OF THE LAMB, saying, Great & marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just & true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints! Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord‚ & glorify Thy Name? For Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come & worship before Thee; for Thy judgements are made manifest.
3. "AND AFTER THAT I LOOKED, AND‚ BEHOLD, THE TEMPLE OF THE TABERNACLE OF THE (ARK OF) TESTIMONY IN HEAVEN WAS OPENED: And the Seven Angels came out of the temple‚ having the Seven Plagues, clothed in pure & white linen‚ & having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the Seven Angels Seven Golden Vials full of the Wrath of God, who liveth for ever & ever! And the Temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, & from His power; & no man was able to enter into the Temple, till the Seven Plagues of the Seven Angels were fulfilled."
4. REVELATION 16: "AND I HEARD A GREAT VOICE OUT OF THE TEMPLE saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, & pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the Earth. And the first went, & poured out his vial upon the Earth; & there fell a noisome & grievous sore upon the men which had the Mark of the Beast, & upon them which worshipped his Image. And the Second Angel poured out his vial upon the sea; & it became as the blood of a dead man; & every living soul died in the sea!
5. "AND THE THIRD ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL UPON THE RIVERS & FOUNTAINS OF WATERS; & THEY BECAME BLOOD! And I heard the Angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art‚ & wast‚ & shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of Saints & Prophets & Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true & righteous are Thy judgements.
6. "AND THE FOURTH ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL UPON THE SUN; & power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, & blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues; & they repented not to give Him glory. And the Fifth Angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the Beast; & his kingdom was full of darkness; & they gnawed their tongues for pain, & blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains & their sores, & repented not of their deeds.
7. "AND THE SIXTH ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL UPON THE GREAT RIVER EUPHRATES; & the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon, & out of the mouth of the Beast, & out of the mouth of the False Prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the Earth & of the whole World, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty (Armageddon).
8. "BEHOLD, I COME AS A THIEF. Blessed is he that watcheth, & keepeth his garments (salvation), lest he walk naked & they see his shame (sins). And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the Seventh Angel poured out his vial into the air; & there came a great voice out of the Temple of Heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, & thunders, & lightnings; & there was a great earthquake‚ such as was not since men were upon the Earth, so mighty an earthquake, & so great!
9. "AND THE GREAT CITY (BABYLON—THE CITY SYSTEM) WAS DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS, & THE CITIES OF THE NATIONS FELL: And great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath! And every island fled away, & the mountains were not found! And there fell upon men a great hail out of Heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: & men blasphemed God because of the great plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great."
10. WE ARE CONTINUING OUR REVELATIONS‚ EDEN'S REVELATIONS, FROM THE GARDEN OF REVELATION TO THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN! From the Garden of Eden in which God gave His first revelation of His great creation, His greatest of all creations, man & woman. And if you were watching earlier in this series tonight you saw the beauty of the creation of God, the embodiment of the Love of God Himself here before you, showing you His handiwork, His great sculptury!
11. HE, THE GREATEST ARTIST OF ALL,CREATED THE GREATEST SCULPTURE OF ALL, the greatest painting of all, the greatest form of all, the most beautiful beauty of all, & you have been privileged tonight to see it in all of its glorious beauty as you saw her here tonight on the screen! If you missed that part, you really missed something!
12. BUT NOW WE'RE LEAPING AGAIN, having passed all the way from the beginning in the Garden of Eden with all that beauty of His creation, that Heaven on Earth‚ the Garden of God!—Man's original‚ beautiful, pure, pristine, natural‚ sinless, absolutely innocent beauty! Naked as it was, sex as they enjoyed it before the Fall—beautiful, innocent, perfect, sinless!
13. THEY COULD HAVE ALL THE SEX THEY WANTED! God had commanded them to have sex & lots of it! He literally said‚ "Thou shalt have sex!" when He said, "Be fruitful & multiply!"—before the Fall, before sin entered in! (Ge.1:28) There was no sin in sex, there was no sin in being naked, it was not wrong, there was nothing wrong with it! Why should there be? It's the beauty of God & His creation!
14. BUT THE DEVIL TAUGHT MAN IT WAS WRONG! The Devil taught men it was wrong to be nude! The Devil told man that sex was a sin, & so he began to believe Satan instead of God. And that's why the System today follows these laws of Satan & these lies of the Devil & bans nudity & condemns sex as sinful & wicked, dirty & vile‚ all the lies of Satan perpetuated by those who believe His lies in the System of man!
15. SO WHAT WAS THE ULTIMATE END RESULT OF ALL THAT HORRIBLE CATASTROPHE, OF PERFECT MAN & BEAUTIFUL WOMAN in the Garden of God & innocence & beauty & nudity & wonderful sex allowing Satan to come in & lie to them? Well, tonight & through the previous nights you've been reading the horrific End of it all, what horrors man brought upon the Earth by believing the Devil instead of God‚ by obeying Satan instead of the Lord & believing Satan's lies instead of the Word of God!
16. HERE WE HAVE THE AWFUL ENDING AS WE BEGIN TO READ THIS FINAL WRATH OF GOD. In the Tribulation period just preceding this in the preceding seven chapters & previewed in the preceding first seven chapters, in this previous Tribulation period we have the wrath of man manifest in the World, in the kingdom of the Antichrist, the Devil-man, Satan incarnate! Now he's being brought to his end & to his doom.
17. AND EVEN IN THE END OF THE LAST CHAPTER, 14, we were told that as this Wrath of God began to be poured out upon the Earth, that blood was going to run as deep as the horses' bridles for the space of 200 miles! Now have you the faintest idea how much blood that would take? Well, with the old system of warfare & fighting with mere swords & staves & spears & even their worst guns & rifles & pistols etc., they couldn't have begun to draw & shed that much blood.
18. ONLY WHEN THEY BEGAN TO DROP THE HORROR-BOMBS, the hell-bombs, on cities like Nagasaki & Hiroshima, slaughtering 100,000 people at a time & maiming 100,000 or more‚ only then could man begin to realize how much blood he could shed with his latest, hellish, most fiendish, horrific, devilish instrument of death & destruction of all, the hell–bomb, the atom-bomb, the H-bomb!—These horrible nuclear bombs that can kill millions at a salvo! How could blood run for 200 miles, as deep as the horses' bridles, four feet deep? How could there be that much bloodshed? Well, it's going to be shed in the days of the Wrath of God!
19. IN THIS 15TH CHAPTER HE INTRODUCES THESE ANGELS OF WRATH & there are seven of them having Seven Last Plagues of the Earth!—Plagues meted out upon sinful, wicked, unrepentant, rebellious man who has refused the Truth of God & chosen to believe the lies of the Devil!—Man who has insisted on going his own way instead of God's way!—Wicked sinful man who was given a choice to do good or evil, to choose the good & eschew the evil, a choice between believing God & believing the Devil in the Garden of Eden & ever since.
20. DON'T BLAME IT ALL ON ADAM & EVE! YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE SAME CHOICE! Wicked, sinful man who has been given the choice between obeying the Words of God or obeying the voice of the Enemy, the Devil Himself!—And it seems that most of the time & most men, most people have believed the enemy of God rather than God Himself‚ have believed Satan instead of God's Word, & have obeyed the word of the Devil instead of the Word of God!
21. WHAT IS THE HORRIFIC END OF IT ALL?—Well, some horrors, Hell on Earth, brought by the Devil himself, incarnate, in the person of the Antichrist, man's wrath upon man! The fulfillment of the worst wrath & horror that man can bring upon this Earth‚ followed by the Wrath of God upon these wicked men who have brought such hell to the Earth & such suffering & such death & such horror & such blasphemy & such rebellion against God, until this Devil-man commands that he be worshipped as God himself & tries to kill everyone who refuses to worship his idol, his Image, & tries to starve everyone who will not take his Mark!
22. THE DEVIL HAS DONE HIS WORST, MAN HAS HAD HIS DAY & he has done his damnedest, & he has made the biggest mess out of God's creation that could possibly be made of anything that began so beautifully & so perfectly in that gorgeous Garden of Eden! Man has literally brought Hell on Earth with the help of the Devil himself! So, you want Hell?—God will give you Hell!—& He can do it even better than you can!
23. SINCE MAN CHOSE SATAN AS HIS KING & EVIL AS HIS WAY OF LIFE & the worship of his idols as his religion, disobedience to God & obedience to Satan‚ then God is going to give him what he has chosen! Man has chosen to bring Hell upon Earth instead of the Heaven which God originally created in the beautiful Garden of Eden, the beautiful sights you've seen tonight. That was the beauty of God's creation! That was the Love of God! That's how it all began‚ so beautifully & wonderfully, almost beyond imagination how beautiful it was!
24. MAN BY THE END OF HIS 6,000 YEARS HERE UPON THE EARTH, FROM ADAM TO ANTICHRIST, HAS TURNED THIS LIVING HEAVEN INTO A DYING HELL! So that's what man wanted & that's what man got. Man chose Satan instead of God, he chose the Devil instead of Christ, & he chose Hell instead of Heaven, & so that's what he got! We find here these Angels of the Wrath of God coming now to give wicked man more Hell than man himself could create! He wanted Hell, so God gives him Hell!—And the worst kind of Hell & suffering & wrath & horror you can possibly imagine! Because that's what man has asked for, that is what man deserves, & that's what final Endtime man gets for worshipping Satan as his god, his Image as his idol, & accepting Satan's word instead of God's, & so bringing Hell on Earth!
25. SO THE ANGELS OF GOD BEGIN TO POUR OUT NOW THE WRATH OF GOD upon the wicked who are left behind upon the Earth, while the Christians, the righteous, the Saved, those who love God, the Children of God, His Family of Love, His Children of Love throughout the World, millions of them have already been resurrected from the dead & raptured from the living, caught up into the sky to meet Jesus to have a wonderful party in the air, a marvellous Wedding-Supper of the Lamb that's going to be going on up yonder!—Heaven above while there's Hell below!
26. YOU'RE GETTING A PICTURE NOW IN THESE TWO CHAPTERS TONIGHT OF THE HELL THAT'S GOING TO BE GOING ON ON THIS EARTH after Jesus Christ has deserted it & taken out all His Own, His Own people, those who love Him & are saved by His blood & His sacrifice on Calvary. There won't be anybody left behind except the living dead, the dying living, & the Hell that both Satan & God are going to bring upon this Earth! Hell has already been brought by Satan, now God's gonna give His judgements upon all of the kingdom of the Antichrist‚ this kingdom of the Devil‚ this kingdom of Hell on Earth brought by this Monster inspired by Satan!
27. AND THE SAVED PRAISE THE LORD! Thank God you see a beautiful picture, it's not all horror! Just before you are given a view & a rundown on this horror that God is going to bring on the Earth by His judgements, you're given a beautiful picture in Heaven of the righteous, the Saved, the Christians who love Jesus standing upon that glassy sea, a sea of glass, so smooth & so beautiful & so polished through which God can see all things that happen—past, present & future!
28. THERE STAND WE WHO LOVE JESUS & WHO HAVE SUFFERED THROUGH ALL OF THIS HELL ON EARTH & the opposition & persecution of our enemies! There we stand with Christ at last, supreme, glorious, radiant, happy, SINGING the songs of Moses & of the Lord! Hallelujah? The songs of Jesus! I don't know whether they'll be singing some of MWM's music or not!—But that Music with Meaning that we have on our radio shows & our television show is some of the most Heavenly music you'll ever wanna hear! It says, they'll sing a new song! Well, maybe there'll be some of OUR new songs, who knows! PTL! And they will praise the Lord! Hallelujah!—And say, "Who in the World could possibly not fear God after all of this?" In the preceding chapter you found the whole World wondering after the Beast, but this Heaven above wonders after Jesus! Praise God!
29. AND YOU NOTICE IN THAT 15TH CHAPTER‚ THE FIFTH VERSE, THAT "HE LOOKED, & BEHOLD‚ THE TEMPLE OF THE TABERNACLE OF THE TESTIMONY IN HEAVEN WAS OPENED!" Where was the Tabernacle of the Testimony, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God which symbolized the presence of God upon Earth & once symbolized the presence of God in the old Jewish Temple? Where was it now? It's been a mystery for ages!
30. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE ARK OF THE COVENANT?—The Ark of the Testimony, the Tabernacle of the Testimony as it was called, that little box which contained those souvenirs of the wilderness wanderings of the Children of Israel & over which hovered two angels & the Shekinah Glory, the Light of God Himself symbolizing the presence of God, but which at the death of Christ on the cross‚ the Temple veil having been rent in twain by the hand of God, was suddenly discovered by its packed worshippers on that great Passover Eve to be empty & gone!
31. THE MOST SACRED RELIC THAT THEY HAD WAS GONE‚ that only the High Priest could even see, only the High Priest could visit only once a year & symbolizing the presence of God with His people! When the veil was rent in twain the Ark was gone, & from then on Judaism was a hollow‚ empty, hard shell of religion with nothing left, even the Ark of the Covenant gone, & soon the Temple smashed & burned to the ground & millions of Jews crucified & the rest cast out of their country, most of them forever!
32. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ARK OF THE COVENANT? What happened to the Tabernacle of the Testimony? Here you find it in Heaven! This is the second time it's been mentioned here, remember? Second time! And there it is‚ standing right there in the Temple of God, in Heaven he sees it! And the Angels of Judgement, these Angels of God's Wrath come out of the Temple with these Seven Vials of Wrath!
33. SOMETIMES THEY'RE PICTURED BY GREAT ARTISTS AS LOOKING LIKE TEST TUBES OF WRATH, ACTUALLY A BETTER WORD MIGHT HAVE BEEN BOWLS OF WRATH. In those old-fashioned days they ate & drank out of beautiful bowls, golden bowls, & these symbolized the cup of God's Wrath. As the cup of man's iniquity was full, God poured out His cup of Wrath, seven cups of Wrath upon the wicked Earth & its wicked vile devilish men, having rescued His Own children out in the Rapture just before this in Chapter 14, as you recall!
34. AND THEY TOOK THESE VIALS OF WRATH FROM ONE OF THESE FOUR BEASTS. We never went into trying to explain to you what the four beasts were. I've heard preachers try to explain the four beasts, & as far as I'm concerned, I don't think any satisfactory explanation has ever been given!—The four beasts which bore the Throne of God clear back in Ezekiel, in that great flying saucer that God rode in back there! Just read Ezekiel, first chapter, & you'll see four beasts there. And there were four beasts around the Throne of God here in Revelation! They appeared several other places, one like a lion, one like an eagle, one like a ox, one like a man & so on. What are they? Well, all kinds of theories have been given.
35. ALL I KNOW IS THEY SEEM TO SYMBOLISE THE GREAT POWERS OF GOD BY WHICH HE RUNS THE UNIVERSE! They seem to symbolize the great power like an ox & like an eagle & like a lion & a man & so on!—All the various symbols of great power! In fact, these very beasts used to be worshipped by the idolaters & the pagans of the Ancient World! Here they're all combined around the throne of God‚ giving glory to God, worshipping God, making great announcements to God, saying "Amen" to God, doing certain duties for God!
36. WHO ARE THEY? Are they the very same gods worshipped by the pagans? Perhaps it was a perverted worship, perhaps they were some kind of great Archangels & great gods next to God Himself as Satan once was, symbolized by these bestial images, we don't know. I can only theorize. The smartest thing I can possibly say‚ as I told you before: I can answer any question you ask me about the Bible or the Book of Revelation, & probably many of my answers will be, "I don't know!"
37. ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED? DID YOU EXPECT ME TO KNOW EVERYTHING? Well, there are many mysteries God has hidden for Himself & given only to Himself & which He has reserved for us only to know sometime in the future or perhaps in Heaven itself! So you can theorize & hear the preachers & the writers & the theologians theorize about these four beasts who are so often pictured surrounding God like four great body-guards, surrounding His throne in Heaven or travelling through time & space, but I doubt if we'll know until we get to Heaven & see them for ourselves! Maybe we won't even understand them then!
38. THE PROPHETS WHO SAW THEM NEVER EVEN EXPLAINED THEM, maybe they didn't understand them either! God's ways are above our ways‚ as high as the Heaven's above the Earth! (Is.55:9) So we're not expected to understand everything God does & has & knows! We're just simple little finite man & we have pretty small minds & we can't possibly comprehend all of the wonders & the creations of God!
39. SO I HOPE YOU'RE NOT TOO DISAPPOINTED that I was not able to tell you what the Seven Thunders uttered, what the Four Beasts are & some of these other mysteries that are in this Book! You don't need to know, do you? All you need to know is about what's gonna happen to you!—And to know about what is not gonna happen to you if you'll be wise & receive Jesus as your Saviour!
40. SO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT, THIS GREAT EVENT OF GOD'S JUDGEMENTS BEING POURED OUT FINALLY UPON THE EARTH & upon the wicked who remain on the Earth after the righteous have been caught up in the Rapture! It's so important the Bible devotes an entire Chapter just introducing these seven Angels of Wrath! Then it plunges on into their plagues which they introduce onto the Earth in Chapter 16! Notice what kind of plagues they are & what parts of the Earth they affect:
41. THE FIRST PLAGUE IS POURED OUT ON THE EARTH & the men who had followed the Beast, the followers of the Antichrist who accepted his Mark & worshipped his Image develop sores, horrible sores! It reminds me of how many people are having cancer today! Maybe that's a forerunner of the sores that will fall upon the followers of the Beast‚ the unsaved, the wicked left behind for the judgements of God!
42. THE SECOND ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL ON THE SEA & IT BECAME BLOOD! Now you notice some of these plagues had already been brought by the judgements of God on the kingdom of the Antichrist during the Tribulation, during his rule & reign, but they were only partial at that time! A third was destroyed, a third of the waters became blood, a third of the trees were burned up & so on, remember? This time it seems to be almost total, horrible! It says the whole sea became blood, apparently all the sea‚ & every living soul died in the sea, everything that lived in the sea died!—What a mess!
43. THE THIRD ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL UPON THE RIVERS & FOUNTAINS & THEY BECAME BLOOD! There's no way to go to get a drink of water, nothing to drink but blood! And the Angel says they're worthy of it because they shed the blood of Your Prophets & Your children & Your people, so they deserve to drink blood! What a vengeance! How the blood of the martyrs is avenged!—Those that cried from under the altar of God in Heaven in Chapter 6‚ "How long‚ O Lord, how long until You avenge our blood upon our enemies?!" Well, here it is! God kinda stretches it out, He doesn't just kill them off the easy way, quick‚ some kind of an annihilation or a sudden end! That would have been too good for them, too easy! First they develop SORES all over them & then they have to drink BLOOD!
44. AND THEN THE FOURTH ANGEL POURED OUT HIS VIAL UPON THE SUN & THEY BECAME SCORCHED WITH FIRE! I think the way some of these sunbathers bathe & get horrible sunburns that nearly kill them & sometimes do, with red blisters all over the bodies, second & third degree burns, is a little sample of what God's going to do in the Last Days of His Judgement when He's going to cause the intense heat of the sun to be multiplied, it says in another place, sevenfold! (Is.30:26)—So that man will be scorched with its fire! Is this vengeance enough?
45. ARE YOU GETTING THIS, WHAT GOD IS DOING TO THEM?—SORES, BLOOD TO DRINK & SCORCHED WITH FIRE! I can hardly imagine hardly any horrible curses any worse, or sufferings any worse than these horrible curses & plagues that God pours out upon the wicked & the sinful & the fierce & the devilish & fiendish who have persecuted His children & killed His prophets—including all the self-righteous hypocrites & leaders of religion who have led them astray!
46. NOW THE FIFTH ANGEL & THERE'S DARKNESS! How horrible! Here you wicked are, left on the Earth, deserted by God & by the righteous Christians who are caught up to Heaven to be with Jesus, deserted to your sufferings & your torments & your tortures & your plagues, licking your sores, drinking blood, scorched with fire & finally in darkness!—Groping your way around in such thick darkness you can't even find your way around! How horrible! So that you'll gnaw your tongue for pain!
47. AND YET, HE SAYS, IF YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND WHO HAVE REJECTED JESUS & have refused the Love of God & His mercy extended down through generations & have refused to believe Him & have refused to receive Him & have insisted on believing the lies of the Devil & obeying Satan, that is what you deserve & this is what you're going to get!—A horrible‚ horrible annal here of the terrors that are going to fall upon you in this final Hell on Earth! Oh, this is just the beginning! This is only Hell you're gonna get on earth! Wait till the Hell hereafter!
48. IT'S GONNA BE HELL HERE & HELL HEREAFTER FOR YOU if you are going to insist on being unrepentant & rebellious against God, as some of you are this very day, this very night!—Covered with sores, drinking blood, scorched with fire, lost in darkness, gnawing your tongue for pain‚ & blaspheming & cursing God rather than repent! You see, even when mercy is shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness! (Is.26:10) And then God tries judgements & punishment & chastisement & he still won't repent because his heart is infinitely wickedly evil, who can know it? (Jer.17:9) If you don't have Jesus, if you don't have the Love of God & the Light of Jesus, His Truth & know His Way, then you have nothing but darkness & horrors of Hell to look forward to!
49. ALMOST FINALLY, THE SIXTH ANGEL DRIES UP THE GREAT RIVER EUPHRATES TO PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE KINGS OF THE EAST, THE ARMIES OF THE EAST. We saw in a previous Chapter that 200 million horsemen are going to come from the East‚ summoned together by the Devil himself for a last great battle on Earth‚ trying, imagine, to still rebel against God & against His angels of Heaven & trying to still conquer the Earth even in their anger & wickedness & their torment & their pain & their torture!—Still reviling God, cursing God & creating even more destruction in a final horrible war called the Battle of that Great Day of God Almighty in the 14th verse.—Armageddon! Summoned together by the evil spirits of Satan himself & the Antichrist & his False Prophet!
50. AND THEN JESUS WARNS YOU, "WATCH OUT, I COME AS A THIEF IN THE NIGHT!" He's speaking to John & to me & you today, "You'd better be ready! You'd better be ready for the Rapture, the Resurrection when it comes, when I first come before this if you wanna escape all this Hell!" And you're to watch & keep your garments—what garments are these? That suit‚ coat & tie you're wearing? That lovely dress you're wearing, ladies? Of course not! He's talking about the robes of righteousness! He's talking about the clothing of Salvation, not natural clothing. He says‚ "lest ye be found naked." That means lest you be found without His Salvation‚ without His robes of righteousness, without being saved!
51. AND SATAN & HIS COHORTS GATHER ALL MANKIND TOGETHER IN ONE GRAND FINAL AWFUL DESTRUCTIVE BATTLE! It's called the Battle of the Great Day of God Almighty in the 14th verse, & then it's called in the 16th verse "a place called Armageddon." This literally means the height of Megiddo. Now there is a valley in which I have been—South of Haifa, Israel—called the Valley of Megiddo or the Valley of Esdralon‚ various names, Valley of the Kishon River.
52. I'LL NEVER FORGET HOW STARTLED I WAS AS I WAS RIDING WITH SOME FRIENDS THERE, going out to see one of the ranches & vineyards of that area which is filled with such vineyards, a beautiful valley today, & there was a sign suddenly that said Megiddo, so many kilometers! And I was startled! And then I went back & checked my Bible & my Bible maps & for sure, there only a few miles South of us in that great valley was Megiddo! And there's a large round mound, not a mountain but like a large hill, very round, very odd, very strange, right in the center of that great valley!—The Height of Megiddo!—Armageddon!
53. WHEN NAPOLEON FIRST SAW IT HE SAID, "WHAT A PLACE FOR A BATTLE!" When one of the great generals of WW2 saw it he said, "What a place to fight a tactical war! What a strategic place for a battle!" Many generals have commented over this spectacular spot! So strategic!—The valley leading from Haifa down almost to Jerusalem. Some Bible students have speculated that this is where that final war, the Battle of Armageddon is going to center & where it's going to concentrate in this final battle between the forces of Hell & the Wicked on Earth & the Devil, & the forces of Heaven, us coming out of Heaven with Jesus to conquer & to slaughter them! (Rev.19)
54. SOME BIBLE STUDENTS HAVE CONJECTURED THAT PERHAPS THIS VALLEY IS THE ONE HE'S TALKING ABOUT! It's not 200 miles long, however‚ but they thought, well, perhaps that's where so much blood is going to be shed as to be four feet deep, surrounding the height of Megiddo, there in the Valley of Megiddo between Haifa & Jerusalem. This is where the battle is going to center. This is where it's going to climax, the Battle of Armageddon!
55. OH, YOU'VE HEARD OF THIS BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON ALL YOUR LIFE‚ HAVEN'T YOU?! You've heard of Armageddon! And every new World War, great war that has come, it's been again called Armageddon! But those have only been bare little previews, little samples of the final horror of this final great worst-of-all wars at the end of the Age of Man! So then when He has gathered them together into this Valley of Megiddo surrounding the height of Megiddo, Armageddon, from all over the Earth, the Seventh Angel will pour out his vial into the AIR!
56. "AND THERE CAME A GREAT VOICE OUT OF THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN‚ FROM THE THRONE‚ SAYING, IT IS DONE!"—Meaning, this is the End! This is the very end, the last scene of this horrible horrific drama of all the damage that man can possibly do on Earth! This is his last horror scene, this last horrific Battle, warfare being man's greatest sport! War being man's most delightful occupation, creating the most possible destruction, man's inhumanity to man!
57. THIS TIME MAN GATHERS TOGETHER UNDER THE DEVIL HIMSELF TO TRY TO FIGHT THE FORCES OF GOD! How foolish! How ridiculous! How presumptuous! You wonder how the Devil could be so dumb as to think he can fight God! Well, he's been doing it for thousands of years, or trying to‚ so he's still just as dumb even to the very End, he's still trying to fight God! He's made himself king of the World, the god of man, & now he's trying to fight the very forces of Heaven coming down! So what does God do as he gathers them all together here in the Valley of Megiddo?
58. REMEMBER‚ THIS NEXT HORRIFIC WAR—WHICH IS GOING TO BE THE OIL WAR TO PUT THE ANTICHRIST IN POWER—THAT'S NOT ARMAGEDDON EITHER! It may occur in the same place, or a lot of it, but that's just a prelude to Armageddon! The coming Atomic War & all the horrors that man can let loose on the World & destroy perhaps a third of the Earth is still not going to be as bad as the Battle of Armageddon! Because this new Atomic War is going to occur before the Tribulation period‚ before the Antichrist sets up his kingdom on Earth‚ picks up the pieces & rules & reigns, having come to power over the entire Earth by means of this soon-coming Atomic War! Don't think you're gonna get out of it, you Church-Christians who think that God's gonna come along & rescue you out before the Tribulation! Well, even if you wanna believe that, you're not gonna get out before the Atomic War, because that's gonna occur before the Tribulation! But this War of Armageddon is even worse!
59. AND WHAT'S THE LAST SIGN OF HORROR OF THIS WAR?—LIGHTNINGS, THUNDERS, A GREAT EARTHQUAKE, the greatest the Earth has ever known & the cities of this Earth divided & the cities of the nations fallen! Not just one little quake in Greece or Italy or North Africa or here or there, a little isolated one-spot earthquake with just one or maybe a few cities to fall, but the cities of the entire Earth are going to fall in this one last horrific shake-up of God!
60. ONE LAST EARTHQUAKE IS GOING TO DESTROY ALL THESE HELL-HOUSES OF SATANIC POWER CALLED CITIES‚ these horrible cancers on the body politic of man!—These cesspools of iniquity man prides himself in & calls his cities! God's gonna throw them all to the ground! I'll never forget when I saw it in vision as the towers fell! Horrible! Terrible!—Almost like slow motion as they fell!
61. AND GOD GIVES THE FIERCENESS OF HIS WRATH TO BABYLON—here again, speaking of the cities, the great World System, the World Commercial System, the World Money System, Banking System, its cities, its buildings, all tied together in the worship of Mammon, the worship of wealth, the worship of things, the worship of materialism, the greatest religion of the World which nearly all men are members of except the followers of Jesus Christ!—Great Babylon!—The Great Confusion!
62. "AND EVERY ISLAND FLED AWAY & THE MOUNTAINS WERE NOT FOUND"—they're all gonna be levelled in that day & the islands are gonna just absolutely disappear! And a hail from Heaven with each stone weighing over 100 pounds, over a talent's weight‚ a horrible hail coming down from Heaven! Some have said, "Well, maybe this is the atom bombs falling!" Ha! No atom bombs were never gonna have such coverage & fall like this, crushing all the resistance of the Devil & his crowd against God & His forces! Great hail from Heaven flattens the cities of the Earth & is going to crush the armies of the Antichrist!
63. SO ENDS THIS HORRIBLE WRATH OF GOD UPON MAN AT THE END OF THE TRIBULATION at the final rebellion of man in this horrible period of Wrath following his great Tribulation period, after the Saints are with the Lord in Heaven! I don't wanna be here then, do you? It's bad enough to have to go through the Tribulation of man & his horror & his anger & his wrath on Earth & the Wrath of God combined against him! Thank God we will escape most of that because that's directed at Satan & his forces even during the Tribulation!
64. MOST OF THE HORRORS OF THE TRIBULATION ARE NOT DIRECTED AT US, they're directed as curses of God upon the forces of our enemies! Of course our enemies' curses & persecution is directed at us & we're having a tough enough time with our enemies without the plagues of God & without these horrors of God! But the Wrath of God will be visited on the Antichrist & his forces even before we're gone, to help protect us from his slaughter! PTL! Hal! TYJ!
65. BUT AFTER WE'RE OUT & GONE, THEN GOD JUST POURS IT OUT IN FULL! Before we're gone He only kills a third here & slaughters a third there & destroys a third here & there & so on. But after we're gone it's nearly all wiped out! It's nearly all destroyed & all the sea's blood, all the water is blood, nearly all those dying & so on! Horrors! You just can hardly even comprehend or grasp the horrors that are going to occur after the Lord takes us who are saved‚ Christians who love Jesus‚ out of this Earth & out of their deadly grasp & their cruel tormenting hands! God's gonna rescue us & take us out in the Rapture before all this!
66. BUT IF YOU'RE NOT ONE OF JESUS' LOVED ONES, one of His children, if you're not a Christian, if you don't have Jesus in your heart, this is the kind of Hell on Earth you're going to go through!—Not only the Tribulation period, but then the period of God's wrath that follows it!—Plus hell hereafter! That's not a very bright picture I'm painting for you unsaved‚ is it? Well‚ I didn't paint it, God did! I just read it! You read it yourself from the Bible! You don't have to take my word for it, take God's Word for it, there it is! There's the picture!
67. WELL, NEXT TIME WE'RE GOING TO STUDY THE 17th CHAPTER, & here's one of the most fascinating‚ interesting chapters! We get a little bit out of all this horror for awhile, & this chapter is literally a flashback just like in a movie. He's going back now to explain to you why all this horror & why these terrible judgements upon the kingdom of the Antichrist & upon Babylon the Whore & so on‚ the Antichrist religion, the worship of idols & material things, wealth & riches!
68. HE GOES INTO THIS NEXT CHAPTER & EXPLAINS WHO SHE IS! If you ask me, her head is the U.S.A., the head of the whole World Commercial System of which the dollar is the standard! But that's just a little flash-forward, I'm not gonna tell you all about that tonight. But we're going to explain just exactly who this Beast is & who this Whore is & why God metes out such horrible judgements upon them, because He explains it here in the coming chapters!
69. CLOSE THE BOOK, WE'RE ABOUT TO RING THE BELL & WE'RE ABOUT TO SNUFF THE CANDLE ON THIS PARTICULAR LESSON TONIGHT. But what about you? God keeps books in Heaven, He has a Book of Life, a Book of the Saved, He has a book of your deeds, everything you ever did‚ right or wrong, He has your history all down pat! It's gonna be shown to you like a movie one of these days when you have to come face-to-face with the Angel of Judgement when you die! What are you gonna see?—Or say?
70. IF YOU HAVE NOT GOT JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOUR & you don't have the Love of God in your heart‚ you can only see death, horror, judgement & Hell! He'll have to read you out of that Book all your sins & then close the Book, ring the bell on the end of your life & put out your candle into a horror of Hell hereafter because of your wickedness & your sins! It's a terrible, awful picture! You say, "How could a God of Love do such horrible things to people?" I'd like to ask you this question in return:
71. HOW COULD SUCH HORRIBLE PEOPLE DO SUCH TERRIBLE THINGS TO A GOD OF LOVE & HIS PEOPLE!—HIS CHILDREN OF LOVE? You who always are accusing God ... ! I never met [an AC] yet who didn't blame all his troubles & problems & all of his sufferings on God! How could such horrible people as you unsaved treat in such a horrible way the God of Love‚ the Saviour Jesus? That's the greatest mystery of all to me!
72. I THINK IT'S EVEN MORE UNDERSTANDABLE THAT GOD COULD SEE THAT YOU DESERVE SUCH HORRIBLE PUNISHMENTS & such horrible fate & such horrible suffering, Hell on Earth & Hell Hereafter‚ that you really deserve it. You earned it, you asked for it in rejecting Jesus Christ & the Love of God & even the beauty of God that you've seen here tonight! You deserve it! You know you deserve it!
73. YOU DESERVE THE WORST THAT GOD HAS TO OFFER YOU FOR REJECTING HIS LOVE & spitting in the face of His Son & "crucifying the Son of God afresh every day" (He.6:6) by your life & actions & refusing to believe His Word & rebelliously disobediently defying Him & fighting against Him to the very End! You have fought against everything God could possibly do to keep you out of Hell! He has done everything He can do, He's tried to stop you every way He can think of!
74. IF YOU FINALLY GET TO THIS HELL ON EARTH & HELL HEREAFTER IT'S BECAUSE YOU FOUGHT YOUR WAY THERE EVERY STEP OF THE WAY over everything God could possibly do to keep you out of Hell! You insisted on going to Hell! You fought your way to Hell! You're determined to go to Hell over everything God could possibly do to try to stop you! You deserve it, you asked for it & you'll get it! That's what I don't understand, how you could treat a God of Love like that, & even yourself like that, & fight your way over every manifestation of God's Love to the Pit of Hell itself! It seems you want Hell, & Hell you'll get!
75. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL & I STILL HOPE THAT YOU'LL REPENT BEFORE YOU DIE! This is your last chance! Well, some say there might be an opportunity if you manage to survive into the Millennium‚ but of course if you don't & you die during the Tribulation or you die during the Wrath of God‚ you're not going to have another chance, from what I can see, at least not for quite awhile! Hell on Earth & Hell Hereafter! May the Lord have mercy on you & wake you up‚ shake you up somehow to get you to repent now before it's too late!
76. (SINGS: )
"FOR WHEN JESUS COMES, THE EARTH WILL SHAKE
AND HEARTS WILL QUAKE,
BE READY!
When Jesus comes,
His face we'll see
Eternally,
Be ready!
Has your soul been filled with the fire of His Holy Ghost?
Are you saved & ready to meet the Lord of hosts?
When Jesus comes,
Don't hesitate,
Don't be too late,
Be ready!"
And the only way you can be ready is to have Jesus in your heart, simply believe He's the Son of God, ask Him to come in—believe Him, receive Him & confess Him! That's all there is to it, it's just that simple! Just take Jesus!
77. BELIEVE HIM, RECEIVE HIM & CONFESS HIM BEFORE OTHERS! Of course, you must confess first of all that you're a sinner & confess your sins, or you won't even know you need a Saviour‚ if you don't feel like a sinner & if you don't confess your sins. But once you've recognized you're a sinner & confessed your sins honestly‚ that you just can't be good, you can't make it by yourself, then you can believe on Him & receive Him & confess Him as your Saviour & be saved! That's all you have to do! Have you done it?
78. JUST REMEMBER THAT, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO BE SAVED IS CONFESS YOUR SINS, BELIEVE JESUS, RECEIVE JESUS & CONFESS JESUS TO OTHERS, tell them about Jesus! I'm sure once you have believed & received Him, you'll wanna tell everybody about His Love & how wonderful He is, how He changed your life & gave you happiness here—Heaven here, Heaven now & Heaven hereafter!
79. WOULD YOU LIKE THAT? WELL, DO IT NOW! Take Jesus into your heart right now! In Jesus' name, Lord, help them to receive You even right now! Just say this little prayer with me: "Dear Jesus, I believe in You! Please come into my heart & help me to confess You to others, in Jesus' name‚ amen!" That's all you have to do. If you did that, right now, even in your heart, He came in, because He promised if you'd open the door, He would come in, & so He has come in!
80. SO NOW GO TELL OTHERS ABOUT HIM! Tell them how much He loves them too & try to persuade them to take Jesus too, amen? You'll be happy if you do‚ because no matter what happens here, you'll meet them over there—your children, your mother, your father, your aunts‚ your uncles‚ your friends, your relatives, your neighbours—all your saved relatives!
81. IF YOU TELL THEM ABOUT JESUS & THEY'RE SAVED, YOU'LL HAVE THEM FOREVER OVER THERE! But if you don't tell them about Jesus you'll be parted from them forever! If you're saved & they're not, you'll never see them again, at least not for a long long time, & they'll suffer so! Don't let that happen to your loved ones! Tell them about Jesus now so you'll have them for Eternity together with Him in Heavenly places, Heaven on Earth first of all! We'll tell you more about that later! Come back again to our Eden's Revelation Bible Studies, in Jesus' name, amen! X! I love you! X! Bye-Bye!