Now if you'll turn with me to Revelation
15.
I want to try tonight if I can
to come through to the end of chapter
18, leaving us the remainder of the book
next week.
And remember that in that 14th chapter we
have seen the Lamb standing in Mount Zion
and the declaration of the fall of Babylon
and finished with the harvest of the world,
separating those on the right and on the
left that were to be his and those
that were not his were to be put
into that wine press where the wrath of
the Lamb would be poured out, justifiably so,
on those that rejected him.
And of course by the time we finish
tonight you will see again very very clearly
that men are without excuse that go into
a lost eternity and also that God never
sends a sinner to a lost eternity.
They choose to go there.
So never feel in a way sort of
sad or even swallow any of the theologies
that try to state that surely a loving
God could never send anyone to hell, because
he doesn't.
He shows everyone the open door into his
presence with ample warning and only they can
make the choice to ignore the open door
into his presence and choose to go to
a lost eternity.
He won't send them but he cannot stop
them from going.
And the message that will come through tonight
afresh is that unrepentant attitude of the people.
Now we have seen seven seals open with
some of the first plagues upon the people.
We have seen seven trumpets and the woes.
And now we're about to move into the
seven last plagues on the planet and its
peoples.
And for all that they are unrepentant.
Now remember that in scripture repentance is something
that only can be practiced by those who
have a revelation of truth.
Nowhere in your scripture do you find an
ignorant heathen completely outside of the knowledge of
the truth of God being told to repent.
Repentance is always directly associated with people who
have received light and illumination and truth.
And now no better.
The spirit has reached into the darkness and
has chased the darkness away and illumined their
hearts with the truth of the knowledge of
God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And for all that they still choose not
to repent.
And that is what will be very evident
again tonight.
And remember that the first word John the
Baptist ever preached to Israel, who were God's
people with the great claim that we know
the truth, was repent.
The very first message of Christ was repent.
You find that the church throughout Acts used
the word to believers repent.
And you find even in Acts when Paul
went to Athens, the only occasion in scripture
where you find repentance being preached to people
outside of Judaism that were Gentiles.
But there again, if you go back into
the Greek history, you discover that they had
a knowledge of God.
They knew that there was an agnostotheo, the
God we don't know.
And they honored the God they did not
know because they did not know what to
call him.
But they knew he was there because it
was made plain to them that he was
there in a very unusual way.
And so for centuries they'd known that a
great plague on the nation had been stopped
because they had learned to acknowledge the God
they do not know.
And when Paul turned up on Mars Hill
and saw the altar to the agnostotheo, he
says, the God you don't know, I've come
to tell you at last who he is
specifically.
And he presented to them the Lord Jesus
Christ and then commanded that they repent because
they did have that knowledge he was there.
But now he said, I've told you who
he is specifically, repent.
And if they didn't, then they faced the
consequences.
And in your book of Revelation, in those
letters to the churches, we saw a fresh
in Christ's last testimony to the Christians, repent
or else, repent or else, repent or else.
And so by this time, the text that
came up in scripture in the Old Testament
and was repeated in the new, that men
will not need to teach people to know
the Lord for they shall all know the
Lord.
But that does not mean to say they
will not grab him and make him their
personal savior.
No, they'll know the Lord, but in the
majority of cases reject him.
And you'll see why tonight.
Now in chapter 15, I saw another sign
in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having
the seven last plagues.
Now this is him looking again at a
parenthesis, a scene up in heaven for in
them is filled up the wrath of God.
This is going to be his last fullest
measure of his wrath on those that have
rejected him.
Not only in the past, when he visited
the earth in the person of Christ, but
after all that we've gone through in their
history at that time to show them that
God is God and that every knee shall
bow and acknowledge him.
And they're still rejecting him.
Now he's justified and pouring out the fullest
measure of his wrath upon the people at
that time also.
And I saw as it were, you see,
John is keeping to the true declaration of
his commandment from the Lord at the commencement.
Just write what you've seen and heard.
It's not a dictation.
He's writing what is seen.
He's trying to put it into verbiage, this
vision.
And I saw as it were a sea
of glass mingled with fire.
Now don't get too caught up in his
imagery for we've no idea really what it
is that he's describing in detail in many
cases, but we are getting the elephant.
Remember what is happening is more important to
watch for than how it's being described in
vision to John some nearly 2000 years ago.
And then that had gotten the victory over
the beast and over his image and over
his mark and over the number of his
name stand on the sea of glass having
the hearts of God.
They have resisted.
These are the people during that time.
The church is watching this from above.
And during that time, this despot, this great
power, this person motivated by Satan, this antichrist
had become a person with a political control
on the world.
And he had deceived them by giving boost
and power that will be verified tonight to
a false universally accepted religious leader and profit
to dupe the nations and then showed his
true colors and made a mark in their
bodies.
And if they didn't have the mark of
the beast or worship his image, they were
put to death.
And now you're seeing those that were martyred
for that put to death for that are
now in the presence of the almighty in
heaven.
And they are now rejoicing.
And they sing the song of Moses, the
servant of God and the song of the
lamb.
Now, back in the Old Testament in Exodus
15 one, the whole of that chapter to
about the 22nd verse is a song of
Moses that you can examine, which was the
song of their redemption and salvation from Egypt,
from out from under the bondage of everything
that smacked of the world and the imprisonment
and slavery to the world.
But Moses also wrote another song in Deuteronomy
31, where in that one, it is a
song praising God for his greatness, but also
a song declaring the severity of his vengeance
and all those that would not obey him.
And so you're now finding these people who
have come out of this tribulation period.
They are now in the presence of God.
And isn't it interesting they're singing the song
of Moses and the only recorded two songs,
one about thanks for salvation.
My God, my savior, my Lord, he has
overthrown his enemies and one about his greatness
and his right to judge.
And this is their song.
Now that they've come through this, they are
having the right to sing.
Thank you for my salvation.
Thank you.
You are and who you are and said,
you do what you do.
And now we are singing that other part
of that song of Moses.
Vengeance is yours.
You have the right to exercise it.
And even in Romans, if you remember, the
Lord said at that time to Christians within
the body of Christ, avenge not yourselves.
Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.
I will repay, love your enemies, the hardest
challenge to believers.
But now he's going to sum up that
vengeance.
He's going to keep it because he's been
reluctant to judge because as we read in
the epistle, Peter, he wants all men.
He would, all men would repent and come
to him.
And that's why he's appears to be slack
concerning his return because he's not willing that
any should perish, but wants everybody to repent.
But they are now singing this great song
and the song of the lamb saying great
and marvelous that I works, Lord God almighty,
just and true are thy ways.
You are justified in what you're doing.
You are the truth in all that you're
doing.
Thou King of saints or nations or ages.
That word can be used in those three
fashions there.
So don't read saints there always to mean
church members and then get yourself confused again.
He's not the King of the church members.
He's the King of the whole earth.
And if you read as far back as
the prophet Zechariah, I think some nine or
10 times in that little prophecy, he's declared
to be the Lord of hosts of the
whole earth.
He is King.
He always has been, but they have not
acknowledged him.
Even his own people in the old Testament
rejected him from being King and wanted an
earthly King, and he gave them their own
desire, which was the biggest disaster.
And now they are looking towards a theocracy
again.
I watched some newscast or some clip about
Israel.
It was during those elections last week in
Israel, and they were interviewing some of the
Hasidic Jews that are the severest of religionists
there in Jerusalem and showing how that they
were teaching their little children to go through
their chanting and their prayers and in school
learning all about God in the severest orthodox
fashion.
And they asked one teacher, what is your
aim?
And he says to get them ready for
the reinstatement of a theocracy in Israel, which
means that they know that they are again
coming to the place where they want no
earthly King, but to reinstitute God as their
King, because he was the one that they
had rejected.
And that is why in all of your
gospels, it may have puzzled you, but it's
the one question the disciples never did ask
Jesus that the theologians, even in the body
of Christ, have been asking ever since.
You'll notice that no disciple ever said to
Jesus, what is the kingdom of heaven?
What is the kingdom of God?
They knew perfectly well what the kingdom was—a
kingdom where God was their King, ruling over
his people.
And that they had rejected, now they want
it back.
And here God is showing beyond that.
He's the King of the ages.
He's the King of all nations.
And in your Matthew's gospel, in the genealogy
in the first chapter, he's declared to be
the son of David, the son of Abraham.
And that genealogy takes you through David, yes,
King of Israel and Judah, but it takes
you back to being King of Abraham.
And Abraham wasn't a Jew.
He was a Syrian from Ur of the
Chaldees.
He was a Gentile.
And it was through him that both all
your Arabic peoples today and Jacob, the patriarchs
in Israel and Judah, emerged.
And so he jumps in that genealogy from
David, which Israel would all say, yes, he's
our king, to saying, but I'm also King
of Abraham, King of Adam.
I'm the King of the whole earth.
And at last, what Paul wrote in Philippians
is going to come true.
Everyone is going to confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God, the
Father.
Verse four, who shall not fear thee?
Oh Lord, and glorify thy name for thou
alone are holy.
It would do well for the church to
remember that today.
It's interesting.
The church age started with Peter saying after
people marveled at him healing the 38-year
-old man of a crippling disease, that not
by our holiness or our power do you
see this man walk and leap and dance.
But his holiness, his power, this is done
through the holy child, Jesus.
And now the Old Testament's coming to an
end by a confirmation of that declaration that
thou only art holy.
So if you have any sense of your
own personal holiness, stick it in the bucket.
And there's nothing worse than Christians running around
with a holier than thou attitude.
If there is any measure of a God
likeness or holiness in your character, that is
God living in and through your life and
manifesting himself in and through your behavior.
It is nothing to do with you producing
a holiness that God is going to look
down onto the earth over his rose-tinted
spectacles as a wooly-haired white old gentleman
say, my, my, look what I've gotten flixting.
Not at all.
There's only one that's holy, that is the
God of the whole universe.
For all nations, every one of them, shall
come and worship before thee, for thy judgments
are made manifest.
And after that, I looked, and behold, the
temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in
heaven was open.
That tent tabernacle in the wilderness that we
have the tapes for tonight, and you may
remember I had the model a couple of
years ago here.
And I told you at the outset of
that instruction that Moses was instructed in very,
very carefully to simply build it and construct
it according to the antitupos of the thing
that is already in heaven.
And that Greek word antitupos meant over, against,
and corresponding to.
In other words, it was an exact replica
of that which was already raised and existent
in the very heavens itself.
And here at the end of revelation, we're
being told, yes, it is there.
They'll now discover not only through the song
of Moses being declared to the whole world,
but they will also discover at last, hey,
most of the book of Exodus was true
after all, especially the part that we wanted
to throw away and think was of no
consequence and was the figments of a man's
imagination to create a sort of legalistic religious
system around a little mobile temple to keep
the nation from wandering off.
At last they'll agree, Moses, everything you said
was true.
And Jesus said, not one jot or tittle
of the law, anything that Moses ever wrote
shall pass away as long as this earth
is standing.
And here you're having it verified.
Everything is verified, verified, verified.
We've seen that for week after week that
great truths declared in the old Testament and
in the new are now being underlined before
the judgments are poured out so that men
are without excuse.
And the seven angels came out to the
temple having the seven plagues clothed in pure
and white linen and 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 forever and
ever.
And the temple was filled with smoke from
the glory of God and from his power.
Yes, the temple of Solomon was filled with
smoke with the glory of God.
The temple of Zerubbabel was filled with the
glory of God.
And the priest couldn't even stand to minister
for the extent of the presence of God.
But of course, down the years, theologians have
argued about the validity of the writings regarding
this phenomenon of a smoke in an earthly
temple.
And now every one of those so-called
lovely theologians are going to discover it's time
to throw our thesis in the basket.
Well, they don't need to rush.
It will be burned with them.
And the temple was filled with smoke from
the glory of God and from his power.
And no man was able to enter into
the temple till the seven plagues of the
seven angels were fulfilled.
And I heard a great voice out of
the temple saying to the seven angels, go
your ways and pour out the vials of
the wrath of God upon the earth.
Now it's the planet's turn to suffer.
That whole creation has got to be redeemed.
And that's well in keeping with Romans, that
there has to be the redemption of fallen
man, but the redemption of the planet.
And the planet itself almost falls and follows
in pattern the planet, the plan for the
believer.
And the believer is one who's not only
redeemed and baptized and indwelt by the power
of the Holy Spirit, but you find the
planet itself has already been through his baptism
at the Noahic flood.
But now comes the purging by fire and
the purifying of a planet and the creation
of a new for God and his people
to live on forever.
And the first went and poured out his
vial upon the earth and there fell a
noisome and grievous sore upon men.
Whatever it is, they just are in a
perpetual moan.
They are groaning, they are moaning.
It's noisome.
Whatever the sore is, there is just no
release of the agony of that type of
pain.
Now, I've had a taste of pain in
my time.
And when my back was damaged and I
found that I just could not move, the
slightest move.
And it was just a pain that does
not go away.
And for hours you had to sit in
a chair, having been to the masseur.
And it was just like meat skewers through
your ankles, your knees, your thighs, your elbows,
your neck.
And, you know, I don't think people fully
understand back pain.
They look at you and think you're putting
it on.
They think, oh, for goodness sake, get up,
wash your dishes.
You're not that bad.
You know, and sometimes you did wish you
had pneumonia.
At least they know how to fix that.
Two pills and you're all right.
Then you can get up and wash the
dishes.
But the pain, I can always remember a
staff member always treat me with tongue in
cheek when I was walking down to the
conference hall with walking sticks.
And then one day he suddenly developed a
rather unusual type of an attack of arthritis.
There's the arthritis that grows on throughout life
that stays and ends up being crippling and
creating defects in your limbs and joints.
But there's another type of arthritis that will
come all of a sudden and almost paralyze
and cripple you.
But it will go away and it will
stay away.
And he developed that type.
And you could see him in the office
standing and he was constantly moving his feet.
And I said to him, you're the man
that taught St Vitus how to dance.
And he says, oh, Strachan, I'm just trying
to find a position to stand in where
it will just go away.
But it wouldn't go away until after he
was cured of it.
Well, back pain and arthritic pain like that
can just be like a gnawing toothache that
just will not go.
But here is a grievous sore upon all
men all over the world.
Whatever it is, we don't know.
But this is one of the judgments of
God.
And it's just not going to go away.
Aspirin, Tylenol, paracetamol.
You can eat them like Smarties beans.
It's not going to help.
And they had the mark of the beast
and upon them which worshiped his image.
And the second angel poured out his vial
upon the sea and it became as the
blood of a dead man.
In other words, the sea became coagulated, thick
and stagnant.
Coagulated, thick and stagnant.
In the past, people laughed at that and
said, you couldn't make the sea stagnant.
A pool in your backyard.
Yes, I can understand that.
A fish tank in your house that you
don't keep clean.
I can understand.
But the ocean, now with all that we're
dumping in it, any movement of the earth's
surface and any of those things rupturing, man,
you're in trouble.
In fact, when they took Ra 2, that
replica of the straw raft from Egypt, that
papyrus raft and ship, and sailed it right
across the Atlantic to the Americas to prove
that the Egyptians had already gone to America
before Columbus and they actually made it.
They wrote about the time when they were
in the middle of the ocean going through
the doldrums where there just is no wind.
And the thing was, it was like a
mill pond.
But you know that they wrote in that
book of that expedition that the flotsam and
the junk from all the civilizations around the
world meeting in the doldrums was such that
we could not jump off the raft to
even have a swim in the ocean.
It was so filthy.
And that was years ago.
What's it like now?
But you see, there's going to be something
there that's not only going to be on
the earth, but now you're going to get
the sea and the sea is going to
become so polluted that every living soul died
in the sea.
And remember that we're told in Genesis that
animal life has a living soul, not spirit,
soul consisting of minds, wills, emotions.
And we know that animals have these.
Dogs can come around a corner and see
pigtails, freckles and a miniskirt and a lollipop.
And you'll find that their soul comes into
play.
You'll find that they remember the last time
they saw that shape.
They don't have a vocabulary and a chick,
a good-looking doll.
No, they just know that that shape, the
last time they saw it, came up, patted
them on the head and gave them a
suck of the lollipop.
And they're once again physically and emotionally disturbed
to the extent that they exercise their will
by wagging the tail and running up for
another pat on the head and another suck
of the lollipop.
But the same dog can come around the
next corner and see one of the gentlemen
from the church at Flixton with big boots
on.
And it gets equally soulishly disturbed because it
remembers the last time it met that shape,
the boot kicked it and it didn't feel
nice.
And so this time it signals to its
will, run for Manchester city centre.
Get out of the way.
Oh yes, they have souls.
And that's why we find everything dying there.
It's talking about the fish life, the marine
life dying.
So imagine the further stink and stagnation of
all of this flotsam on this coagulated mess.
And the third angel poured out his vial
upon the rivers and the fountains of waters,
and they became like blood.
They were red.
And I heard the angel of the water
say, thou art righteous, O Lord, which art
and was, and shall be because you have
judged us.
For they have shed the blood of saints
and prophets, and thou has given them blood
to drink for they are worthy.
And I heard another out of the altar
saying, even so Lord God almighty, true and
righteous are thy judgments.
And the fourth angel poured out his vial
upon the sun and power was given unto
him to scorch men with fire.
And you say in the Manchester area, well,
we could do with a bit of sunshine.
Save has gone to Spain and Portugal, they're
more economical.
Hey, be thankful for your cool rain.
We are already scientifically declaring that we're destroying
our ozone layer and that some of these
deadly rays that the ozone layer is meant
to keep out of the surface are breaking
through.
Well, at that time that is going to
be so ruptured that the deadly rays that
were never meant to hit men are going
to come through and we are going to
see men on the earth scorched with fire.
And men were scorched with great heat and
blasphemed the name of God, which had the
power over these plagues.
And notice they repented not to give him
glory.
And the fifth angel poured out his vial
upon the seat of the beast and his
kingdom was full of darkness and they nod
their tongues for pain, biting and gnawing and
scratching their tongue for whatever it is that's
paining them.
And they blasphemed.
You see, he's attacking the tongue that blasphemes
and every tongue shall be stopped.
Yes, you've used it and abused it and
misused it to decry me, to declare me
nonexistent, to shout your blasphemies of God.
Well, now I'm going to attack that tongue
and shut it up and you'll know it
for pain.
And they nod their tongues for pain and
blaspheme the God of heaven because of their
pains and their sores.
And they repented not of their deeds.
And the sixth angel poured out his vial
upon the great river Euphrates and the water
thereof was dried up that the way of
the kings of the east might be prepared.
Now, remember that after your antichrist, who is
the false peacemaker, goes into the Middle East
under the guise of wanting to give them
peace and religious freedom, but underneath it, he
subtly wants control of the energy that is
available in the east to help the economy
of the whole world.
Because if that energy out there collapses, so
does the economy of the world.
We've seen that threat with the oil problem
in the Iranian Gulf.
If the Japanese couldn't get their oil, their
industry was collapsing.
The yen altered its value.
The American dollar altered its value.
Your money in the post office altered its
value just by a cessation of the oil
flow and energy requirements from that area.
And we know that at that time, if
you read Ezekiel, Isaiah, that the Soviets, those
in the Caucasus mountains to the north of
Israel, are going to come down not to
kill the Jews.
That just happens to be a by-product,
a little trick in the bag as well.
They're coming down to attack the false peacemaker,
to knock him out of the Middle East
and bag the Jews at the same time.
But he loses that war.
Now, whether that's by local nuclear holocaust, we're
not sure.
All we know is that in the prophets
were told that those that are not destroyed
in the mountains by this huge holocaust, as
they turn to go back into their own
land, back to the plains of Russia, beyond
the Urals and the Caucasus mountains, they find
their land on fire.
And it's never heard of again in history.
But at that time, your kings of the
East, your China, your Far East, your Sinai,
Sinai Peninsula, your Asians, your Koreans, all of
that group there that will be unified, they,
plus your African nations, the kings of the
South, they both decide to move in and
finish the job off that had not been
finished by the Soviets from the north.
And it's at that moment that they see
a common enemy coming that stops the entire
conflagration, and that is Christ coming back to
the earth to deal with all nations.
Now, that's just after this particular thing that's
being announced here, preparing the way of the
kings of the East, making that road.
And we already know that the Chinese, for
instance, they are financing that great road that
goes along the top of China, along through
Tibet, right across to India.
They're on their way.
They're making their motor road towards the Middle
East right now.
And you have your unified Africa coming into
being.
And so don't begrudge certain nations in those
areas, still hanging on and fighting on, to
break up the unity of the kings of
the South, because in God's good time, suddenly
that unity will come.
But once those African nations are totally unified
and your eastern block is totally unified, they
are the last two threats to the people
of God in the Middle East.
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs
come out of the mouth of the dragon,
Satan, out of the mouth of the beast,
your false antichrist and peacemaker, and out of
the false prophet, that religious leader that the
beast empowered politically and economically and financially, who
was backed up by Satan.
And now you're being introduced really to the
forces behind these great personages at that time.
Yes, the whole world will be governed and
controlled.
We're not there.
We're in heaven.
But the peoples here at that time, they're
under the domination of a great political personage
who's controlling economy, commerce, industry, and energy.
And he's empowering under a guise of being
a religious person.
He's empowering a unified religion under the leadership
of a false prophet.
But all three of them have an evil
spirit within them.
You're now seeing that behind those forces, they
were being controlled by Satan and his minions.
For they are the spirits of devils, working
miracles.
Be careful of all the modern day thrush.
An emphasis on, oh, come on, Strachan, for
goodness sake, be a little bit more charismatic
and say, yes, it's an essential today that
miracles are a sign of the fullness of
the Spirit of God in a man's life.
Watch it.
For they are the spirits of demons, working
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of
the earth and of the whole world to
gather them to the battle of that great
day of God Almighty.
They are marching towards their Armageddon.
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 into a place
called in their Hebrew tongue, Armageddon.
And the seventh angel poured out his violin
to the air and there came out a
great voice out of the temple of heaven
from the throne saying, it is done.
And there were voices and thunders and lightnings.
And there was a great earthquake such as
was not since men were upon the earth,
so mighty an earthquake and so great.
And the great city was divided into three
parts and the cities of the nations fell
and great Babylon came into remembrance before God
to give her the cup of wine of
the fierceness of his wrath.
And every island fled away and the mountains
were not found.
And there fell upon men a great hail
out of heaven, every stone about the weight
of a talent and men blasphemed God because
of the plague of the hail for the
plague thereof was exceeding great.
Now you'll remember that in Genesis and verified
again in Chronicles, there is in the genealogies
of the early forefathers of the world, that
declaration that in the time of a certain
gentleman, the earth was divided.
The earth was divided.
Let me see if I can just quickly
find, I think it's Perry's.
Yes, in Genesis 10 and 25, and unto
Eber were born two sons.
The name of the one was Peleg for
in his days was the earth divided and
his name was Joktan.
And that is verified through in the book
of Chronicles.
And nobody ever seems to mention what they
think that meant, the earth was divided.
But now the scientists are beginning to understand
that your continents are like plates and they
have even shown how that it's possible to
move Britain around and tuck it into Spain,
how you can move South America around and
Africa around and make the whole thing joined
together.
And that some great catechism, classic cataclysms that
happened in the past that moved these continents
away from each other.
Science is saying that now.
Well, here we're finding that not only did
it happen in the beginning of the Bible,
it's going to happen again where the islands
are going to flee.
He suddenly saw continents all moving around in
the ocean, mountain ranges falling down.
It's going to be global catastrophe.
And there fell on men, a great hail
out of heaven, every stone about the weight
of a talent men blasphemed God because of
the plague of the hail for the plague
thereof was exceeding great, but they're still not
repenting.
And there came out of the seven angels,
which had the seven vials and talked with
me saying unto me, come hither.
I will show unto thee the judgment of
the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.
Now, throughout this entire description, the thing you
have to notice is the surprise that comes
to John seeing the vision as to what
the city is.
We're not told specifically.
There's lots of speculation.
London, New York, various others come up for
being who it could be.
But whichever one it is, it's a surprise.
It's also a center of commerce.
It's a center of entertainment.
It's a center of all the delicacies of
the earth.
It is something that everybody aims to paying
a visit to sometime in their life because
there's such good, nice times there.
And they're going to be surprised as to
which one it is because they're going to
say, well, I never thought it would be
there, but it will be one.
Come and see the judgment of the great
whore with whom the kings of the earth
have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the
earth have been made drunk with the wine
of our fornication.
So he carried me away in the spirit
into the wilderness.
And I saw a woman sit upon the
scarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and 10 horns.
And the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet color and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls and having a golden cup
in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness
of our fornication.
And upon her forehead was a name written
mystery, Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots
and abomination of the earth.
And I saw the woman drunken with the
blood of the saints and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I wondered with great
admiration.
I was staggered when I saw her and
she's picturing a city, a last thing that
one would suspect.
And the angel said unto me, did you
marvel?
Why were you staggered?
I will tell thee the mystery of the
woman and of the beast that carried her,
which had the seven heads and 10 horns,
the beast that thou sawest was and is
not and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit and go into perdition.
And they that dwell in the earth shall
wonder whose names were not written in the
book of life from the foundation of the
world when they behold the beast that was
and is not and yet is.
Now remember, your Satan is the great one
locked in the depth to be loosed for
a while on the earth.
And he's the inspiration behind all of this
politics, commerce, entertainment, the spirit of the age,
that everything men thought was nice, nice to
have, he's behind all of it.
And here is the mind which hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains on which
the woman sitted.
And there are seven kings, five are fallen,
one is, and the other is not yet
come.
And so that's back in his day, he
would understand specifically who they were.
You can speculate if you like.
I'm not interested.
I'm watching for the one that is to
come.
Past is past.
We have seen the future.
And when he cometh, his reign will be
short-lived.
He will rise to power swiftly, but it
won't be a long reign.
And Jesus said, if it wasn't that the
son of man shortened the days, life would
be unlivable.
And the beast that was and is not,
even he is the eighth and is of
the seven and goeth into perdition.
And the 10 horns which thou sawest are
10 kings, which have received no kingdom as
yet, but received power as kings one hour
with the beast.
In other words, it's a short-lived reign,
political power, a unity of nations, a unity
of nations, a united nations.
Could it be New York?
Speculation.
They have one mind.
They're unified in what they want to do
and shall give their power and strength to
the beast.
They're going to yield and come under the
domination and control of this beast.
These shall make war with the lamb and
the lamb shall overcome them for he is
the Lord of Lords and the King of
Kings.
And they that are with him are called
and chosen and faithful.
And he said unto me, the waters, which
thou sawest, whereon the whore sitteth are the
peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.
And the 10 horns, which thou sawest upon
the beast, these shall hate the whore and
shall make her desolate and naked and shall
eat her flesh and burn her with fire.
For God has put in their hearts to
fulfill his will and to agree and give
their kingdom unto the beast until the words
of God shall be fulfilled.
And the woman, which thou sawest in that
great city, which reigneth over the kings of
the earth.
And after these things, I saw another angel
come down from heaven, having great power, and
the earth was lightened with his glory.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice
saying, Babylon, the greatest fallen is fallen and
has become the habitation of demons and the
hold of every foul spirit in a cage
of every unclean and hateful bird.
For all nations have drunk of the wine
of the wrath of fornication, and the kings
of the earth have committed fornication with her.
And the merchants of the earth are waxed
rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
And I heard another voice from heaven saying,
come out of her, my people, that you
be not partakers of her sins and that
you receive not of her plagues.
For her sins have reached unto heaven and
God hath remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you and
double unto her, double according to her works
in the cup which she hath filled, fill
to her double, how much she hath glorified
herself and lived deliciously.
So much torment and sorrow give her, for
she saith in her heart, I sit a
queen, am no widow, and shall see no
sorrow.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day,
death and mourning and famine, and she shall
be utterly burned with fire, for strong is
the God who judgeth her.
And the kings of the earth who have
committed fornication and lived deliciously with her shall
bewail her and lament for her when they
shall see the smoke of her burning, standing
afar off for the fear of her torment,
saying, alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that
mighty city, for in one hour is thy
judgment come, gone so speedily.
And the merchants of the earth shall weep
and mourn over her, for no man buyeth
their merchandise any more.
Yes, the economy's collapsed.
When that city's gone, a center of commerce
and control of commerce, the merchants of gold
and silver and precious stones of pearls and
fine linen, purple silk, scarlet, thinning wood, all
manner of vessels of ivory, vessels of the
most precious wood, brass, iron, marble and cinnamon
and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine
and oil and fine flour and wheat and
beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and
slaves and even the souls of men, a
place where you could buy anything, even a
person.
And the fruits that thy soul lusted after
are departed from thee, and all things which
were dainty and goodly are departed from thee,
and thou shalt find them no more at
all.
The merchants of these things, which were made
rich by her, shall stand afar off for
the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing
and saying, alas, alas, that great city that
was clothed in fine linen and purple and
scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones
and pearls, for in one hour so great
riches has come to nothing.
Yes, they do, put not thy strength in
riches and thy confidence in riches.
And every shipmaster, so obviously it's a city
that can be seen from the sea, and
all the company and ships and sailors and
as many as trade by sea stood afar
off.
They'll see it and not be able to
pull their vessels in any more.
She's gone.
The cargos they were bringing will not be
acceptable.
So it's somewhere where there's a center of
commerce surrounded with great cargo terminals.
Could it be London?
Could it be New York?
Could it be somewhere else?
And he cried when they saw the smoke
of her burning, saying, what city is like
unto this great city?
And they cast dust in their heads and
cried, weeping and wailing, saying, alas, alas, that
great city wherein were made rich all that
had ships in the sea by reason of
her costliness, for in one hour she's made
desolate.
Rejoice over her thou heaven and ye holy
apostles and the prophets, for God hath avenged
you on her.
And a mighty angel took up a stone
like a great millstone and cast it into
the sea, saying, thus with violence shall that
great city Babylon be thrown down and shall
be found no more at all.
And the voice of harpers and musicians and
the pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no
more at all in thee.
It's a great center for music as well.
New York proms.
Royal Albert Hall proms.
A nation whose great musical song is Rule
Britannia.
Britannia rules the waves.
Britain never, never, never shall be slaves.
A center of commerce.
A center of religion.
We can only as Christians say, let's take
the warnings.
Let's see to it that we make sure
that in case it is our very own
land, we reach everybody with the news and
leave them with responsibility to repent or face
the consequences should it be this land.
The hub and center of world commerce where
finance is controlled at the touch of a
button.
The city.
The stock exchange.
Yes, it only takes a wrong button in
London and markets all around the world plummet.
The two great central banking places, New York,
London, the FT index, the Dow Jones index
on television nightly.
Which one will it be?
It is of no consequence.
Whichever one it is, it is announcing a
complete collapse of the economy.
A complete destruction of merchandise and of all
that commerce all over the world.
And even the music will cease.
And the sound of a millstone shall be
heard no more at all in thee.
You'll never be a factory or center of
food production, of flour, of bread making anymore.
And the light of a candle shall shine
no more at all in thee.
And the voice of the bridegroom and of
the bride shall be heard no more at
all in thee.
For thy merchants were the great men of
the earth.
For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
And sorceries there would be better rendered by
thy narcotics.
Another center of drugs were all nations deceived.
And in her was found the blood of
the prophets and of the saints and of
all that were slain upon the earth.
I'm glad I'm not going to be there.
But there's certainly one thing we can be
certain of tonight.
And that is anyone that's still around at
that time when all of that system collapses
and having gone through all of those disasters
that's going to come upon the planet, it's
because they've repented not.
They had the choice not to go through
it.
They could choose to obey God and find
themselves with those singing the right songs, the
song of Moses, salvation, and of a great
God and his vengeance, and not be in
it.
Yes, make sure that if you're going to
settle for a top of the pops, that
you pick the song of Moses as number
one.
Don't go for the music and the instrumentation
of the world that one day will never
be heard any more when all of that
music world collapses.
Our God is a consuming fire, a holy
God, and a great God.
Well, we'll stop there for tonight.
And we'll ask if there's any questions.
And remember, we are aware of the fact
that to cram it into six weeks, we
are galloping through breakneck speed.
And there's much that we're not really able
to cover, but it may have done enough
to get you excited to do your own
explorations and your own study in your own
time.
But any questions on tonight?
Ma'am?
No.
It is to people on the earth, and
remember that it's Peter that said it, and
he said that in the last days of
this world's history, there will be mockers, and
this they are willingly ignorant of.
They're living in not just ignorance, but it's
a choice of ignorance.
And they will be saying arguments like this,
why this business of Christ coming back again,
it's not true.
They've been talking about the second coming for
generations, and he's not coming back.
So those people are not already dead.
They're very much alive on the earth.
And also they believe in the doctrine of
evolutionary uniformity.
In other words, they state why everything that
we can see in the planet now has
always been like this since the dawn of
creation.
And Peter says this they are willingly ignorant
of, that the previous world that was destroyed
before the flood and by a flood is
not like the one that we have now.
That the one that they see now is
what has been in existence since the Noahic
flood ceased.
And that the first world and this present
system are not at all the same.
And there isn't such a thing as the
philosophy, scientific philosophy of uniformity, that the planet's
always been as it is since the dawn
of creation and is evolving.
Not at all.
The first system was completely obliterated, and out
of it has emerged the present system being
reserved for a fire.
And the reason that God is not coming
back in a hurry is because he's giving
time for men on the earth to repent
and to change their attitude.
But it's not a second chance to those
who are already dead.
Because in the Gospels, Jesus always preceded his
parables with the statement, and he speak a
parable unto them.
But when you come to the story of
the rich man and Lazarus, he did not
say it was a parable.
He just states quite categorically, there was a
rich man who fared sumptuously every day, and
he died and went to a place of
torment.
And he saw Abraham, he saw the beggar
in Abraham's bosom, and that was the Jewish
term for paradise or heaven.
He saw him afar off in heaven, and
he cried, come and just dip the tip
of your finger in water and cool my
tongue, for I'm tormented in this flame.
And the reply he got from father Abraham
was this, now that you're a convinced evangelical,
I'm sorry, but we can't help you because
there's a great gulf fixed.
So that even though you would now like
to come here, and even if we wanted
to come to you and help you, we
cannot, because there's a great gulf fixed.
It was in time that you got the
chance to repent.
Now at that time, the man cries out
to Abraham, then at least send somebody to
my father's house, for I have five brothers
there, that you can tell them so that
they will repent and not come here.
And he used the term repent in that
section, that they will repent and not end
up here, which meant that he believed himself,
but that he's confessing, I did not repent.
And that is the reason that he ends
up there, because he chose not to repent.
And now in that place of torment, he's
saying, well, if I haven't got a second
chance, send somebody to my brother's house, because
if they saw somebody that rose from the
dead, then they would repent.
And Abraham said, listen, they have Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the prophets, the Psalms, the
scriptures.
If they will not hear those, the song
of Moses, they will not believe though somebody
came into the room, risen from the dead.
And so it is not a second chance
theory.
It is quite plain that it was stated
he's delaying his return to the earth to
give people on earth a first chance to
make their mind up before he has no
alternative, but to let those vials of his
judgment pour out on the earth.
Yes.
Well, I know lots of ministers that have
all sorts of lovely ideas, but in going
through the scriptures, I've never come across any
presentation of a purgatory yet in scripture.
It is not there.
My scripture tells me that absent from the
body present with the Lord.
And I think that in one of the
only funerals that I have attended where I
came out feeling desperate for the people, because
instead of standing up, giving the people a
message of hope and a great opportunity of
declaring Christ and how that this is not
the end, but could be the very beginning
of you will repent and change your hearts.
The gentleman stood up and dared to turn
around in the face of loved ones, absolutely
in agony of soul for the loss of
a loved one and said, well, we all
know where he is today.
He's starting his eternity in purgatory and hell.
And you're all going to have your turn
in hell too and go through all your
torments.
And just like he's being tormented.
Now imagine being as soul-less as to
say a thing like that when people need
comfort, instead of giving them a message of
hope, it was a big stick with a
terrifying sense of their, as soon as he's
through the curtain and off into the crematorium,
that's him beginning in the flames of hell
for centuries till he's been punished for every
sin he's ever committed.
And I'm sorry, my gospel is not like
that.
My gospel is a message of hope and
I've conducted funerals.
And just last year I had the telephone
message from the late Charles Oxley's family that
he laid it down that I had to
conduct his funeral.
And I went to the funeral of that
gentleman.
And my instructions were to invite the people
at the graveside, not to look down in
the grave, but to look to heaven, to
Jesus and receive Jesus as their personal savior
and Lord.
And I've even gone to funerals of a
19-year-old boy who fell in the
mountains of Austria and they came into that
Welsh chapel and it just looked like death
warmed up.
And I said, Tim, because his name was
Timothy.
And I talked to Timothy in heaven.
I said, Tim, I hope you don't mind,
but it's necessary for us to put your
body where you used to live away today.
But it's wonderful to know that as a
mountaineer in your usual attitude, you're first to
the top again.
You've made it into heaven.
And you know, people afterwards said, oh, how
uplifting to find somebody at a funeral talking
to the departed one that we cannot see
and giving a deep impression he's still very
much alive and in the presence of God
Almighty and giving us hope that one day
we shall see him too.
And when we went to the grave, that
undertaker come forward with a box of dirt
and says, do you want to go through
the ceremony of throwing dirt in the box?
I said, we'll leave the undertaker to cover
up the body, Tim.
You and us, we're singing our way out
of here in praises to our God.
And we started singing praises to God and
left the grave digger to cover up the
body where he used to live.
But I had to make it very plain,
he's not there.
He's in the presence of the Almighty, and
he's going to get a new body and
live forever.
Yes, well, I wouldn't tell that lie either.
And the thing is that no man knows
the spirit of a man save the man
himself.
And so I think I would be loath
to judge a person in the last moments
of his life to say whether he was
or was not a Christian.
But I would certainly say that whether or
not we know this person is with the
Lord, there's one thing that's necessary, and that
is for you lot to be sure that
you are with him.
And that there's no doubt when we come
to bury you that you do know where
you are and you do know where you're
going.
And I would again turn the tables to
make a great opportunity of evangelism, to turn
people to Christ, to receive them and be
forgiven and be certain.
But I wouldn't make it a hopeless situation.
And I'm sorry, but in all of my
reading of scripture, I have never come across
a purgatory.
None at all.
We are a people of hope.
Yes, ma'am.
If you make a decision to reject him,
yes, you leave no alternative, but you're choosing
to be judged.
Well, you have to understand the question is
that if people cannot make the choice or
if people make a wrong choice, then it's
clear they're choosing not to repent and go
to a departed judgment.
But what about a child born who has
not had the opportunity of choice?
Well, that's quite plain in scripture.
That in scripture, there is an age of
accountability, which would appear to be around about
12, when children in Israel were then declared
to be men and women.
And up until that time, they are covered
and under a precious care of God the
Father.
When David had the illegitimate child through Bathsheba,
and the child was ill at birth, he
cried and wept and pleaded for the child
to be allowed to live.
But it died.
Now, his courtiers didn't know how to break
the news to him, because he was bereft
of his senses while the child lived and
was praying to God that if the kid
could live, to say, well, how can we
tell him he's now gone?
He saw them whispering at the back of
the temple, and he said, has the child
died?
And they said, yes.
And he got up, washed his face, and
went back to work.
And they came to him and said, just
a minute, how come when he was alive,
you were praying and groaning and rolling and
moaning and pleading and tearing for God, wouldn't
eat, wouldn't wash, wouldn't do anything that he
would let him live.
And now he's dead.
You've washed and gone back to work.
And he says, because I cannot get him
back to me, but one day I shall
go to him.
And there was a child who was the
child of a king who was so godless
that when he took ill, he suddenly became
religious and sent his wife in disguise to
the prophet to ask God to heal the
child.
And when she entered the presence of the
prophet, he says, I have bad news for
you.
You just go straight back home, dear.
And as soon as you put your feet
over the doorstep, the boy's going to die.
And your entire family, for their absolute godlessness,
is going to be judged by God.
But know this, for all that, the only
good found in your family is in this
child that God is giving a severe mercy
to by taking him out of the earth
so that he doesn't grow up to be
part of that judgment.
The reason God did not judge Nineveh was
because there were 20,000 in it that
didn't know the difference between their left and
right hands, babies.
And so it's, it's playing even in the
gospel.
Jesus said that angels do always behold the
face of the father in heaven.
We have guardian angels down here looking after
us adults, but they don't need to be
guarded because they are as good as they
are already.
They're going to be given direct access to
the father.
And Jesus said of children, I've come to
save that which is lost.
But he says of adults, I've had to
come and seek and save that which is
lost.
The children don't hide.
They're out in the open.
They're honest.
I know where they are and my love
protects them.
But it's our duty as parents, as speedily
as possible, with all open honesty, to bring
the child to an understanding of the promises
made in the book and of the need
for them to choose to follow God and
to make that deliberate choice as soon as
possible.
But the thing is that if a child
was to die, then God is not going
to send the child to hell because it
could not decide because in many cases the
parents kept it from the knowledge to use
for a decision.
I was brought up in a godless home
where I was not taught, even though my
parents, for the sake of keeping a job,
marched in and obeyed the boss and had
me done as a child.
And yet I never knew a thing about
Christ until I found Christ in the Royal
Air Force because it was just a religious
ceremony to keep a job.
There was nothing of faith in it.
And when a bishop suffraging in Lancaster asked
me, quite personally, had I ever been baptized
twice, I said, yes.
And he said, would you explain that?
I said, well, my father worked for a
lord in Scotland.
And it was one of the rules of
the family that you either get the child
baptized and christened in front of me in
the Presbyterian church next Sunday, or you're out
of work.
And in those days he was a hired
servant.
If he was out of work, he'd no
house for the family, no food for the
family that were out.
So he had the ceremony done, made promises
to bring me up to know God that
he couldn't keep because he didn't know God
himself.
And to my amazement, the bishop suffraging said,
I would heartily agree that if there was
nothing of faith in it, we see the
value in having such a thing done within
the context of a Christian believing church family.
And I think that those that don't know
are not going to be punished because we
didn't get them the information when we had
it and didn't give it.
All right?
Yes.
There is no necessity to die thinking you're
a Christian because the spirit of God witnesses
with your spirit that you are a child
of God and you have an absolute and
total confidence that God is my loving heavenly
father.
He gives us the spirit within our hearts
to cry Abba, Father, and we do acknowledge
him.
Yes, but that's on the basis of their
ignorance.
I haven't a clue because you have to
wait and find out if at the last
minute he cried out to God.
Nobody knows.
Nobody can tell whether or not they're in
the very deathbed.
Suddenly the mind is illumined by the communications
of the spirit that have been going on
all down the years while they've been sitting
in the religious context, hearing it and thinking
they were to suddenly realize, hey, I never
did make this personal and suddenly cry out
to God.
And in that last moment find themselves a
saved soul, but maybe a wasted life.
We don't know.
I have no confidence or proof that either
of my parents ever became Christian.
None at all.
As far as I'm concerned, Father, right to
the day he died was adamant in his
belief that your old man doesn't need God,
neither do you.
But I may get to heaven and be
suddenly pleasantly surprised to find that that was
because he still in his proud way did
not want to lose face after all these
years of stubbornness and give me the satisfaction
on earth of knowing that he believed with
his heart that you were right, son, and
I was wrong, and you told your father
something that your father should have told you,
and I was just too stubborn to give
in, but in my heart of hearts I
had already settled the matter between me and
God, but human nature being as it is,
I wasn't going to let you see you'd
won.
So don't worry about it, dear.
I wouldn't be surprised if I got to
heaven and found that we're both okay.
It's still my hope.
I'm entitled to hope right to the grave.
I think I'm entitled to sit up in
the casket just before they cover it and
say, I still hope, and then go back
down and let them cover me up.
Back to the chairman.