Hope When You Are Distressed – Part 1

Judges the judges with mercy and that mercy is evidenced with this patient.

This is living a life with Andrea months under introduction from today's message titled God taking charge and continues in her series from the book of Revelation in chapter 6 when God's wrath is poured out on the world in response to man's evil action, difficult passage to hear but want to motivate us to bring others to Christ. Here's an this is their passage and it's not something I enjoy sharing and I don't enjoy thinking about something. I was sitting there thinking we need to be filled with the holy fear and we need to actually have a chill run down our spine to think of what's coming and I don't know what my name is which is my aim is to get through this message but I was thinking. I pray that one aim or one take away would be to mount the share the gospel because when people step into eternity. If they're not right with God. If they haven't been to the cross receive Christ as Savior. They're going to come under God's judgment is not just at the return of Christ.

And so it just behooves you and me if we care about others to share the gospel with as many people as we can before time runs out.

So we talked about having hope is we look forward to prophecy and praise since patient endurance and prostration talked about having hope is we look inward. As we repent of our sin. We swallow that camera and claim the promises live by the principles hope is we look upward, and we see Jesus absolutely supreme as the Lord in his land and now were going to look earthward, and by that I mean just look around and we see what's taking place in this world and if you're like me, I can read the paper. See the news on TV at night and be very angry at the injustice the cruelty the obscenity the things people seem to get by with an so this message is something that I believe we need to be aware of and we need to know these passages and use it to motivate us to do something while it's still day that we might save people from the judgment that is coming, even when they step into eternity, unsaved, or if there alive on earth ends are judgment falls after the rapture.

Some let's just take a moment and pray father. We just ask. Now please dear Holy Spirit's that you would come down that you would move in our midst that you would give me recall and give me words and Lord stir our spirits and I pray all the seals and trumpets and Bowls and all the verses in all the passages of Scripture and the flipping back and forth that somehow you bring order out of this chaos and that we would grass the truth.

The words that are trustworthy and truth. That's one day you're going to take charge of this planets and you're coming back this set wrong rights and the stamp out evil and overturn hate and establish your reign and rule on this planet. It belongs to you and one day you're going to seize control and we need to share the gospel with his many people as we can before that moment arrives. So Lord's with prayer blessing now in Jesus name and for his glory. Amen is a story that my brother Franklin told me years ago and I put it in my book vision of his glory, and I was reminded of that as I was reading at this week's I just want to share with you.

It's when there was that massacre that Took Pl. in Rwanda. Do remember when the Hutus rose up again the tooth season, there was just a bloodbath and Samaritan's purse was the first relief organization that got into Rwanda after that massacre took place and so Franklin was there with her crew that was going at the very beginning and he was crossing the border from Uganda to Rwanda and he was at the gate and they had the little hut. Therefore, the French soldiers were checking people in and out clearing and the ghost go across the border and he said the soldiers were just slouching around and that the machine guns over their shoulder and cigarettes dangling out of their malls and he was waiting for them to processing so you go in and it was a flatbed truck out in the courtyard of this hut that was the border security and in the back of the flatbed truck was a little Ugandan girl and she was rocking back and forth and she was sort of singing to herself. So I asked one of the soldiers who she was a subtle you know she's just a little girl and all her family was slain, and we don't know.

She belongs doing on where she's most ago and she just has no body and she's just sitting in Franklin listen for a minute and he said that she singing something in the soldiers didn't care as if what she singing in the soldiers. I don't know she singing in French, something like Jesus loves her and he said she singing Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so in the soldiers and that's it. In this little Rwandan girl who had nothing and all of her family taken and nobody somebody had told her about Jesus, and she was clinging with hope to the one thing she knew that Jesus left her because the Bible said so and so thinking about that little Rwandan girl and then thinking about the other atrocities now want me to start this out so ugly but there's so many ugly things happening in the world and Afghanistan or Pakistan where they stone women to death for just driving a car, you know, our walking down the street and there burqa slips up and show an ankle or something ends then we think of people in this country involved in the sex trade ends selling children, not just think, you know, I read about it secondhand.

Maybe your rumor about something. Get it on the web and you see it when it happens behind the closed doors all the murky back alleys all the ugly things, obscenities, and all the things God is going to do something about it is like Sodom and Gomorrah when God went down and he told a branch from and what I'm about to do anything but go to Solomon Clark see the outcries as great as I think it is and who was crying out. Maybe the rocks in the trees. Maybe it was angels neighbors a few righteous maybe lot himself. But I know in this world there people like me crying out, you need to do something and we look earthward at the increasing evil in the wickedness and the blasphemy and the profanity and we think it's time to do something in his coming a day when he's going to do something about it and he does individually. Now box worldwide's one day Jesus is going to take charge and we saw that didn't really up in heaven. Chapters 4 and five when he sees is that scroll the title deed to planet Earth. Kenny asserts his right to rule and reign on this earth, and now chapter 6 begins him taking charge and so we end up somewhere in between. There is a rapture of the church. I do not believe the church is on earth at this stage, but I could be wrong. I believe the rapture of the church begins a seven year period of tribulation, which is God's judgment on earth.

The seven-year period is divided into two, three and half year periods and there's a case to be made that possibly the rapture the church takes place in the middle point of it seven-year. So maybe after the first three and half years and no one is going to be in the last because that's when God's wrath is poured out unmixed with mercy on the earth and you and are not appointed to wrath, so I don't believe I know were not going to be in a lesser half years. Maybe the first three have. I don't think were going to be here in the first three and half. I think were going to be rapture before the tribulation. One reason for that of courses.

The antichrist is going to be revealed. But he's not revealed until after were taken, but we do know who he is not first half year. When he rules the world coming to lots of other reasons. So I believe will be rapture before then and when the rapture of the Church Takes Pl. in Bob that I mean when believers who are alive on earth and those of God in Christ are gone before that trumpet blows, whatever that is. And God gives a signal and suddenly were all of a sudden pulses in the twinkling of an our bodies are change in our bodies become like our Lord's, and you suited to live in eternity and we take off through the air and I'm assuming the world can't see that all of a sudden we just disappear and rejoin with our loved ones are gone before us on going to see my mother and my grandmother in the going to be in the air coming back to receive me with Jesus and I'm going to go to heaven were going at this marriage feast is going to be a celebration and but that begins on earth, a seven year period of tribulation all right when Jesus takes charge and as he takes charge. He takes charge and there three principles that he takes charge. He takes charge of justice and with mercy and with power and as we see them take charge with justice he judges with patients now give the subpoints with patients, progression, precision, revision, and will go to go through it but first of all with patients and I get that from the seven-year period of tribulation because he could do it just like you know is that you now send a worldwide flood, except he promised he wouldn't about what you just destroy the world all at once or he could just send the far end we could burn to a crisp all at once, but instead he stretches it out over seven years because he's very patient and at first three and half years. He's judging with patient is one thing after one thing I thought at any point the world to her parents. People could turn to him and he would spare them the judgments. So when he judges he judges with mercy and that mercy is evidenced with his patients and we get this give the verse right now. There's so many verses to give it but it's if the world doesn't repent. He just precedes with the judgment, because he's not willing for any to perish but all the come to repentance.

And I want you to get that as we go through this because he so patient and you feel his reluctance to pour out his judgment on planet Earth.

He judges with patients. He judges with progression and you see this, there are seven seals and then there are seven trumpets and their seven bowls. One.

At a time and so there's a progression to his judgment there steps to it and if you notice, get progressively worse. So if the world doesn't repent then something worse happens if they don't repent something worse happens. They don't repent something worth until the end, the bowls of wrath are just God's judgment is poured out and and it's like hell on earth. So you see him judging with justice with patients and progression, and let's just look at the seals because remember when he took that title deed to planet Earth and member when John said no one was found could open the scroll unlock the seals. But Jesus came over and he took the scroll from the hand of the one who sat on the throne and he was asserting his right to rule the world and fulfill God's purpose for the human race.

And now the Lamb of God begins to break the seals, arteries, opening the scroll and read chapter 6 verse one. I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. And then I heard the voice of one of the four living creatures like thunder, saying, come, and I'll look this is the first seal there before me was a white horse.

He heard of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

This is the first one is rather held a bow and he was given a crown and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest and nobody knows exactly who that is all give you two guesses. Jesus comes back in chapter 19 riding on a white horse. So some people suggest possibly this is the Lamb himself, signifying that he's coming back to take charge and he's in the Prince of peace, but is has a bow in his hand because he's going to take charge with justice is going to judge the world. Maybe another one says that it's the world itself that all of a sudden is peace, prosperity, the stock market going up things look good. People making treaties with each other deals are being made with Iran and Iraq and all the rest of it but there's a bow underneath there's a hidden agenda of destruction and evil that's underlying that façade of peace. So either one possibly the first seal is the white horse the second seal in verse four.

Then another horse came out a fiery red barn. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth to make men slay each other to him was given a large sore. Those are wars and rumors of wars, maybe world wars. At that point where nations begin to go to war against nation, the third seal is in verse five, and there before me was a black horse and its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand and heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying a quart of wheat for a day's wages. 3 quarts of barley for a day's wages don't damage the old one other words, is an economic collapse. There is worldwide famine that follows more rights but it's interesting that it doesn't hurt the luxuries of the poor devastated and the rich don't seem to be touched by this because the oil and the wine are damaged but things like water and bread you can't find and it cost you a day's wages just for a glass of water so economic collapse and I hear those hoofbeats don't you mean and verse seven when the Lamb opened the fourth seal, the fourth living creature said, look, and there was a pale horse. Its rider was named death and Hades was following close behind them that were given power over 1/4 of the earth, to kill by sword, famine plagued by the wild beasts of the just notice the fourth because God is very reluctance he could slay everybody but just the it's a force he's restrained as he's judging the world at this point, and then the world because of all of these things happening in these four Horsemen in the disasters that are taking place.

They look for somebody to blame and they spot the Christians and so in verse seven, the fifth seal, I saw on the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained in this persecution is poured out on Christians anything but where are the Christians. It would be enraptured and interesting thing is that when we enraptured and suddenly everybody who's left behind is unsaved, but if you have family members on saving you share the gospel.

All of a sudden you disappear and everybody disappears who they know is a Christian and there are some of them that are going to get in at that point I believe is a worldwide revival that breaks out in and they many people come to faith in Jesus as soon as they do their put to death in their blame for all these things are happening verse 12 he opened the sixth seal, and there was a maybe this is God's response to the persecution. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of. Go here the whole moon turned blood red. The stars in the sky filled the worth is late figs drop from the fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll move the ozone layer just rolling back and every mountain and island was removed from its place it ozone layer is rolled back in planet Earth is exposed all the elements of space the radiation in the ultraviolet rays in the meters that fly around and so it's getting bad and God is just judging the world in a progressive cycle of disasters.

Let me just give an application if I can because the disasters having one after another after another, trying to get the world's attention trust and the purpose of the tribulation. By the way, is to purge the world of rebellion against God. And so he's allowing these sending these disasters one at a time trying to get the world to repent and cleanse the world of of rebellion but will see how the world reacts but I think in my own life. If there cycles of disasters you ever go through that always having financial trouble could be God be trying to get your attention that you not handling your finances right and be more generous with the funds that God is giving you with other people and it's amazing how God blesses you when you do that.

Maybe it's that you always have trouble with your neighbors the matter where you live.

You're always having trouble with your neighbors and could it be because trying to get your attention. You not handling your relationships right or maybe at your church.

No matter what church you go when you're always having a problem. Maybe it's because we have a critical spirit so so that's just one applicant cycles of disasters God's trying to get our attention. He was trying to get the world's attention and in the ends the seventh seal is so interesting and this is something I don't. Anyway, I just like the Lord showed me he judges not only with patience and progression but with a pause, and he stops everything at this point and so in chapter 7 verse one after this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or the sea or any tree.

So there are no waves on the shore there no leaves scurrying across the path. There is no breeze that's blowing everything is absolutely still. And then at silent chapter 8 verse one when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour and there's just this tremendous pause in the judgment and I wonder if God is giving opportunity to the world to think about what's been happening to just reconsider their rebellion in all of these disasters I mean one after another, wars and the plagues in the famines and then offends the destruction and the earthquake in the ozone layer rolling back and you know and so he's just putting everything on pause to give them time to think when you think there was a, you know I'm I'm tired of the pleasure of sin for a season.

I'm tired of being rebellious. You know God save us from this, please were sorry returned to you. We embrace you, we want to be right with you and instead they don't respond and so another angel, who had a golden sensor came stood at the altar. He was given much incense and then down in verse five. Then the angel took the censer he filled it with fire from the altar, hurled it on the earth working peals of thunder rumbling's flashes of lightning and earthquake. No rain or just a gigantic storm that broke that silence and stillness during that pause to remember when God sent Jonah to Nineveh and Nineveh was a serial and they were so wicked ends in time he would use them to judge the northern kingdom of Israel in a very dreadful way and Jonah got sidetracked and didn't go because he didn't want to save Nineveh because he knew in the future. What Nineveh was going to do to his nation.

But God had a way of getting in the Nineveh and Jonah preach repentance and from the King on down.

Nineveh repented and God state his judgment for hundred and 20 years and I was thinking during this pause. The silence in the stillness, had they repented. We know judgment is coming God's word is trustworthy and true. But he could delay his judgment. He could postponements if the world would repentance but they just use the pause to reorganize their rebellion in the harden their hearts and so that Angel threw down the fiery sensor and there is this huge storm and earthquake in so the 7 Seals Give Way to seven trumpets and the trumpets the seven seals are disasters, but the seven trumpets are supernatural disasters.

The first four environmental the last three deal with man, but the interesting thing about them lately reveal that God judges not only with patients, progression, and a pause, but with precision.

These trumpets are like smart bombs there like drones that just you know you have it looks like a videogame, almost a pinpoint to the going to destroy their very precise, very controlled judgments of God that come from the throne so in verse chapter 8 verse seven the first angel sounded the trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth and see this.

1/3 of the earth was burned up, 1/3 of the trees and all the green grass so the earth was defoliate about one third member maybe don't Vietnam War him old enough to remember the Vietnam War and agent orange when they sprayed the jungles of agent orange, and they just defoliate it. Everything, and one third of the earth is the foliated but just one third. He could've done everything second angel sounded his trumpet, something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea, and 1/3 of the sea turned into blood, 1/3 of the living creatures of the sea, dad, and 1/3 of the ships were destroyed to destroy the saltwater of the sea like planes. The fish by one third the third angel sounded his trumpet, a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky, and 1/3 of the freshwater was destroyed in the fourth angel in verse 12 sounded his trumpet, and 1/3 of the sun was struck in 1/3 of the moon the third of the stars, the third of the lights in the sky went out and you see the precision one third one third one third one third and you see God's reluctance to bring judgment on this planet and he's doing it so precisely and in measure and holding back, not wanting to judge the world, but wanted to warn them and purge them of the rebellion and bring them to repentance. But they don't repentance. And so the fifth trumpet blows this one is getting very weary, but in chapter 9 verse one, the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the scout of the earth, and this is Satan himself. The star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss, and when he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it like smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke and out of the smoke locusts came those are demon, and they were given power over the earth, and they brought in depression ends despondency ends demons bringing in despair, distress so people became miserable.

The six trumpets in verse 13, I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God, and it said to the sixth angel release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates.

These are not angelic angels.

These are demonic angels that been kept ready for this very hour, day and month and year and they were released to kill 1/3 of mankind or the number of the mounted troops to hundred million records and and so the demons are release third of the population of planet Earth is destroyed. Wouldn't you think they would say I've had enough.

Wouldn't you think they would say, please save now. Here's a man with this final word. Wouldn't you think this is a message I did look forward to giving what the truth is, the World Series will be deaf and the world. As will be blonde in the world's heart will be hard what evil actions against you, or get someone you love or even now tormenting your spirit what's causing you to cry bitterly between clenched teeth. It just isn't fair. It's not right.

How can they get by with that. Would you place the evil actions and evil people before the throne of God before the one who is keeping the record books. Ask him to take responsibility for setting things right. And remember, God doesn't settle all of his accounts right this moment, but he does settle all of his accounts then release your attitude of hate and bitterness, replacing it with an attitude of love and forgiveness.

Why, because to this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. When they hurled their insults at him. He did not retaliate when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly place your home in the one who alone is the judge of all you can hear living in the light with and Graham wants weekly and for ways to experience the God filled life as you pursue your personal Bible study go to and Graham lots.org to help you get started with free resources you can use and share with others join us here each week for living in the life