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1:30We are in the midst of this ministry of the seven bowl angels, the angels that have come out to pour out God's wrath upon the earth. And this is the seventh, the last. Before we jump into this, I want to ask you a question. I want you to imagine yourself, and I'm talking to Christians, those of you who have really come into a saving union with Christ, that you know that you're saved. You can point to that work of that clean spirit in your life that turned you to God, brought you to Him, and you entered into a union with Him. I want to talk to you and ask you a question. I want you to look inside yourself for a moment.

2:18And I want you to look at the impact that Christ has had on the direction of your life. Think about it. Do you think that your life without Him was promoting the highest standards of morality and virtue and righteousness in the earth? Think about the impact that Christ has had on your own personal morals or on your disposition and the way you relate to each other, friends and foes. What impact has Christ had? Were you on your own independent? Of Christ, bringing about a thorough righteousness in the earth, or were you on a different trajectory? Well, the true Christian deep down understands that Christ has made a significant, huge, revolutionary impact on our lives, has changed us, made us to think very differently about our lives, its trajectory, and how we relate.

3:27Now, I want you to look for a moment around you. Do you notice? Look at the nations around you. Did you notice that there isn't a single righteous nation on planet earth? Oh, yeah, there are some that are more righteous than others, but there's not one that we would say is thoroughly righteous, that is bringing about righteousness upon the earth in large scale, and that it is spreading. And say that there's not one nation after all the years that man has been upon the earth, we can't seem to get over the basics of getting along, of submitting to God, submitting to our Creator, giving Him what He is due.

4:25You know, by this point in history, if you're just looking around, I think it's evident that God or that. Man is not going to bring about righteousness in the earth on its own. He's had plenty of time to do so. So, just as Christ's impact was necessary in your life to change a trajectory, so we need Christ's good impact on a national level, on a global level, to change the trajectory of earth. You know why there is not a single righteous nation?

5:04It's because there is not one single righteous person in his own right, let alone a righteous nation. Listen to what Psalm 53:2 says: God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is any who understands, who seeks after God. Every one of them has turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. So, no wonder we don't have any righteous nation. There's not even a righteous person outside of Christ, and certainly the nations have not embraced Christ. And so, apart from Christ, we're not going to expect there to be righteous trajectory or a righteousness trajectory in the nation or in any nation. So, by this point in history, Man's had plenty of time to figure it out, and we haven't gotten there. But also, by this time in Revelation, as we've been working our way verse by verse, it's evident, it's become very evident that man is not going to bring about righteousness on the earth on his own. It's just not happening. What's worse, as we get to this point in Revelation, when push comes to shove, when man sees his absolute dependency upon his creator and need, he still opposes righteousness.

6:34And so it is for this reason God sends forth his salvation. He's going to bring about righteousness in the earth, and he's going to do that by first sending forth his salvation so that willing souls can come out of the dominion of this world and enter into his glorious dominion. But for this reason, he also sends judgment because there are going to be those who will not have it. Those unwilling souls who refuse to submit to their creator and be subject to him.

7:17So there's a reason for salvation to bring about righteousness in the earth, and there's a reason for judgment to bring about righteousness of the earth. But think about this. Think about prior to God. God's salvation, the human quest was to oppose righteousness. Think about your life. Think about your quest. Think about having to go through your entire life as one who is opposed to God and has to fight him. That was the quest of humanity. Talk about slavery, having to take on your creator. Talk about futility, having to take on your creator. What a horrible team to be on. What a horrible condition to man to be enslaved to the hopeless battle of overcoming and overpowering and taking on your creator. What a prison that is.

8:17But you don't have to live that way. That's the good news of the gospel: you can come out of that. Because of his salvation, because of his provision, he invites you today to come into a right relationship with him and give up this futility and this slavery of fighting your creator. Well, the day of the Lord is a day that began in our text when we were looking upon the first trumpet. If you remember the book of Revelation, we have seven seals. And when the seventh seal is opened, you have seven trumpets, which really depict the day of the Lord. And the seventh trumpet, then when you look at it under a microscope, it produces seven bowls. And if you'll remember, the day of the Lord is really the contents of the scroll, the day of the Lord, that period. And it, if you remember, we started in 6-1 with the opening of that first seal, and then all the way in 1621, where we finish today, we finally get that seventh bowl emptied. The judgment. But that's the bulk of Revelation is working through these seals and trumpets and bowls. And interspersed in that is background information, introductory information, information that will help you get your mind around what's happening in the seals, the bowls. I mean, the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls.

10:04And then, so just to you remember, as we're working our way, we're just finishing up the bowls. Remember the fifth bowl? By the time the fifth bowl comes around, God is pouring his wrath out upon Babylon the Great, the seat of the beast's dominion, capital city, capital place, orchestrating establishment. And so in the fifth bowl, you see darkness that comes upon the beast's throne. And then in the sixth bowl, the way, the Euphrates, is dried up to prepare a way for the beast's allies to come into the land of Israel in attack mode, in destruction mode. And so the allies come, gather, and so they are gathered together, number one, by the convenience of God to open up the way, and then by the deception of the beast and his false prophet, bringing the nations together. And so it's during the middle of this assembly that they are coming together in the sixth bowl that Jesus interrupts the narrative, and we read these words: Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame. It's like right in the middle of this, Jesus is saying, Look, be righteous. I mean, be ready, be watching. Do not ally with the world's forces. It is a trap.

11:51Satan is leading the nations through getting them to ally with his worldly system. He is bringing about destruction. Destruction of the nation. This is how he kills people. He gets you to take on your creator so that your creator will judge you. He's going down. He knows he's going down. He hates God. He hates you. And he gets the nations to oppose God, to lead them into this slaughter. And so, right in the middle of the sixth bowl, you get this interruption: be watching, be ready, do not form an alliance with the world system.

12:42And so, sixth bowl, as you get there in verse 16, and they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Harmageddon, hill country, or the hills around Megiddo, that great plain, and then probably for a couple of hundred miles, the biggest military, what's left of all the nations to come together and to push Israel to attack Israel, but really there to overthrow, for Satan to set up his place in Jerusalem as the seat of worship, as he already has. And it's In this context, then, that we read the seventh bowl. The seventh bowl. Look back at verse 17.

13:41Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl on the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying, It is done. The air, the bowl is poured out upon the air, atmosphere, the sky, that area, the upper regions, the space between heaven and earth. So this is the most comprehensive yet. And then there's a voice. Clearly, this is God from the throne, from the temple and the throne. This is God. Whether it's the one sitting upon the throne or the lamb, it is in unison. This is God speaking. It is done.

14:18It is done. The last bowl, it's complete. The last expression of God's wrath upon this generation. It is done. The good news is, wrath has a completion point. Just like the cross. At some point, it was finished. And just like it is done. And what these verses do is they give us a preliminary overview of the bowl judgment. But more details. As you put the microscope on it, chapter 7. 17, 18, and 19 are going to give us more details into Babylon the Great and its overthrow and its fall. But right here, it gives us that big picture, that ending point. It is done.

15:16We'll get more details later. But in a big picture, look at what happens. Verse 18. And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. You know, just in chapter 8 and verse 5, just before the trumpet begins, guess what shows up? Peals of thunder, flashings of lightning. We've seen this happen a couple of times. They signaled the beginning, these thunders and lightning. They signaled the beginning of the day of the Lord, and they also appropriately conclude it.

15:55And it's in the next few verses that we'll look at this morning that describe this end of the end. If you think about it like this, the first seal is the beginning of the end. The first trumpet is the end of the beginning. The first bowl is the end. And the seventh bowl is the end of the end. And that's what we're looking at this morning. It describes God's final judgment. And I want you to see, and he wants you to see, how this kingdom, how the kingdom of this world comes to an end, so that you will repent and not be allied with it. That's what Jesus' interruption was about in verse 15.

16:49The kingdom of this world comes to an end. Wrath will be poured out upon it and all who are part of it. So don't ally yourself with it. Come out of this kingdom into his glorious kingdom. Do so now. So, very simple understanding of what happens here. There's two major developments, two major aspects of this final bowl. First is the greatest of earthquakes. Look back at verse 18, the greatest of earthquakes in human history occurs. Verse 18, second part. And there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth. So great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The language is there was a shaking.

17:51It's a seismus. A great shaking, a great seismus. But keep in mind that it's poured on the air. But there's an earthquake. But the shaking of seems to be more expansive than just earth, but it certainly is the earth, the greatest of earthquakes. It says it is the mighty, the language is, it's so great, so large, magnitude of such greatness. And it says it again: nothing like this has ever happened on the earth. This is the greatest of shakings in all of human experience, not since man came upon the earth. And this is quite remarkable when you think about some of the earthquakes that have come upon the earth. Let me give you just a few as of late.

18:49There is in 2010 an earthquake in Chile. It was an 8.8 on the scale. It lasted three minutes, just three minutes of shaking. 525 people dead. But you can see just this image of just how an earthquake, even this is a large earthquake, but nothing compared to what's being described here. How just three minutes of shaking can just take a large building and take it down to rubble. You remember just in 2011, there was an earthquake in Japan. It was A 9.1 on the scale. 127 people, 27,000-plus people died, and over 2,500 still missing. Many injuries.

19:45I'm sorry. That was buildings collapsed. Yeah. There were 15,000 deaths. 127,000 buildings totally collapsed. Over a million were partially collapsed. There was a 133-foot tidal wave that was a result of the earthquake. 15,000, over 15,000 dead, 2,500 still missing. That's pretty large, what we've experienced. There's another one I can point you to. In 2004, the Sumatra earthquake. This one is known as the Christmas earthquake. It was a 9.1. Shit for over eight minutes. It's not really in the scan of things. That's really not all that long, but eight minutes.

20:49It produced a hundred-foot tidal wave. Over 250,000 deaths. But this is what's fascinating about this one. The total energy released was 550 million times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 550 million times. Now, much of that was underground. There was what was experienced on the earth was about 1,500 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. But the point is, this is just some. And by the way, the whole earth vibrated. The whole earth felt this shaking.

21:39These are minor compared to what's described in the Bible here. And you think about that, and then you think about for a moment the tectonic activity that certainly seems to have taken place during the Noahic flood. Now that was massive, probably broke up continents. Tectonic movement that is described here is clear that it is surpassing the movement of anything we've ever seen and anything that would have been experienced in the Noahic flood. That's a shaking that has never occurred before.

22:32In verses 19 and 20, it goes on to describe the results of this earthquake. First, well, let me just read verse 19. There's results that it impacts the cities of the earth, and then in verse 20, it affects the geography of earth. Let's look at the cities first. Look at verse 19. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the Great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath. So you have three geographic locations mentioned here: the great city, the cities of the nations, and Babylon the Great. Three distinct cities.

23:26Three descriptions of these population centers. First, the great city. This is best to take as Jerusalem. The great city was split. It's in distinction to these other nations, the distinction of the Gentile nations, the distinction of Babylon the Great. Jerusalem's already been referred to as the Great City. This is Jerusalem. The Great City is being split into three parts. In fact, this may be the same earthquake. That is described in Zechariah 14. Let me listen, let me read to you, Zechariah 14:4. In that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in the front of Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half the mountain will move to the north and the other half will move to the south. That's a major geophysical change there in Jerusalem, brought on by an earthquake.

24:36Certainly would split things and fit well. Timing and description. There's a second impact, effect of this great earthquake, and that is mentioned upon the cities of the nations. Look back. And the cities of the nations fell. They fell. Literally, they collapsed. You know, it's not difficult to understand a shaking of this. We can see what happens when what we've already observed, when a shaking in a geographic area goes on for even just a few minutes, how it can just reduce a city to rubble.

25:20And so that's being described here. Across the globe, a massive global proportioned shaking for a lengthy period. Think what that would do to the major population centers of the nations. That's when it's good to live out in the country. Country boy, big country. But then there's a third city upon Babylon the Great. Babylon the Great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath. And Babylon the Great is in that place of emphasis. And so you think about what's happening.

26:04The darkness is poured out upon Babylon the Great. The allies of Babylon the Great have come and assembled there for war to ally themselves with the beast. And now you have this statement: Babylon the Great was remembered to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath. And chapter 17, 18, and 19 are going to describe that in much more detail. But this gives you the sketch of what's going to take place. So the results of this great shaking is going to impact the cities of the earth. But look, it's also going to impact the geography of the earth. Look back at verse 20. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not. Found the islands, you could say, disappeared, and every island disappeared, and the mountains they could not be found.

27:17This is describing a very intense change to the geography of the earth. We can understand the tsunamis, the tidal waves often associated with earthquakes, and so the disappearance of islands, it's not that difficult to understand. And certainly, with this greatest earthquake that's taken place, tidal activity would certainly see a change. But it also says the mountains were not found. This is hard to get your mind around. But you think about this, even what we've observed, ground subsidence occurs for a whole number of reasons. You think about when if you pump water too much out of the ground, you can have ground subsidence. Or if you have a mass buildup of ice, it can cause soil to compress.

28:21So the subsidence of ground is not something new, something we observe all the time. But this is describing a Tectonic subsidence on a massive scale. Those of you who are geologists, you understand what a subduction zone is. It's the place where one tectonic plate moves beneath another. It's at these junction points, is where the greatest earthquakes occur. And mountains, we understand geologically, mountains and mountain ranges come about where two tectonic plates collide and there's an upheaval.

29:13That's how mountains, mountain ranges formed. It's not inconceivable to think that such a great shaking, that these tectonic plates move apart, that there's a great subsidence. That isn't too difficult to understand. Or when these tectonic plates, ranges, move in a subduction zone. So the sinking of a mountain isn't a difficult task for God. In fact, this great shaking, this earthquake, has been described in scripture before. You remember in Haggai, the book of Haggai, you remember the Babylonians came. In destroyed Solomon's temple, and then by God's grace, this remnant was able to come back and build, rebuild the temple. And Zerubbabel starts it, and he gets it started and gets there to an ending point, a brief ending point, and people look at it and they're going, oh, this isn't at all like the former glory. And so God sends Haggai to encourage Zerubbabel to work on this and to get to work on it and to keep the people working. And this is what he says in Haggai 2.6, he says, This, for thus says the Lord of hosts, once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. I will shake all the nations. And this is going to be the result of that shaking. And they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. So the way he encouraged Zerubbabel is saying, keep with it, keep doing. What you're called to do. You're part of an enterprise that is noble. And at the end, when all is said and done, I'm going to shake the nations again, and this is going to be, the glory of this is going to surpass that of Solomon, that of anything that it's ever enjoyed.

31:49Listen to what Hebrews 12:26 says. And his voice shook the earth then, but now he is promised, saying, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. This expression, yet once more, denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we have a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and with awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

32:36And then he goes on to say this: Let love of the brethren continue. That isn't ever going to be shaken. The planets will be shaken. Earth will. So, what you have here, they just found a recent planet. This, I don't want to give them these fancy names. Names, number names, but it's an Earth-sized planet that has a star. And they're thinking that maybe someday they're investigating, thinking that there may be water or think that potential for water and life and all that kind of stuff. But here's an image put out by NASA. And one thing they've noticed about this planet, it's just rife with seismic activity. Tectonic plate movement, volcanoes going off everywhere. And you just see the crust of it just moving and shifting and changing and shaking. Well, that's what is being described in this great seventh bowl judgment.

33:53The point of this language is that radical geophysical changes on Earth will take place in conjunction with this bowl judgment. This is not a depiction of political turmoil. This is not the language of political turmoil. This is not the internal strife that Jerusalem is experiencing because the Romans are coming against them. It's not the internal turmoil of Rome because the Visigoths are coming down and attacking Rome and destroying it in the fifth century. Now, this is not political turmoil. This is language of radical geophysical changes.

34:42So, when that bowl is poured out, the greatest of earthquakes will be experienced. But also, the greatest of hailstorms. The greatest of hailstorms. Look at verse 21. And huge hailstones, about 100 pounds each, came down from heaven upon men. This is a literal hailstorm, by the way, just as the one was in Egypt. God said in Egypt, or in Exodus 9, 22, listen to this. Now the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward the sky, that hail may fall on the land of Egypt, on man and on beast, and on every plant of the field throughout the land of Egypt. Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the Lord sent thunder and hail and fire ran down to the earth, and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such has not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail stretched. Struck all that was in the field through all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. The hail struck every plant of the field and shattered every tree of the field, only in the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel were. There was no hail.

36:16A literal hailstorm in Egypt. A literal hailstorm in the future, paralleling what's happened to Egypt, all the nations are experiencing allied with the beast. But look at how he describes this hailstorm. Look back at verse 21. And huge hailstorms, about 100 pounds each, came from heaven upon men. John, could you? I've got a little demonstration here. I want you to get this around, get this in your mind and some of these images here. I want to show you the size of what these hailstones would look like. Because, you know, what happens is oftentimes people come to this and say, well, this just couldn't happen. This is poetic hyperbole. That's what this is. This is just this couldn't happen. This is hyperbole. So we must think of this as spiritually saying something else. No, I think the literal interpretation has something to commend it. Thank you. So if you think about this for just a moment, I just want to get your mind around. Around what's being said. 100 pounds, the actual word is a talent. A talent of hail, a weight per each hailstone. So you have a translation here of about 100 pounds, probably somewhere around 108 to 130 pounds, somewhere in there. But you could round it to 100. Now, if you think about the weight of ice, it's just a little bit less heavy than water. It's 59.8 pounds per cubic feet. You know, I'm a water guy, right? So you know I can't resist talking about water and ice and these types of things.

38:14But the weight of water is 62 pounds per cubic feet. And so what that means is our oceans don't fill up with ice because ice floats. It's very unusual like that. God had a very brilliant plan for water and ice and all that kind of stuff. But think about it like this. You all can picture a gallon of milk or a gallon of water. That weighs about eight pounds. Five gallons. You've seen those big five gallon jugs. That weighs about 42 pounds. So think about the weight of these hailstones. They're about three of those five gallon Jugs of water, two and a half to three times. Now, let me give you, so and if you take this weight, 100 pounds, and you just you'd be looking at a block of ice about this big. This is small, this is be about more, be a couple inches on each side, but you get an idea of how big, just a solid block of ice we're talking about. Now, let me show you the, you can take to the world record, okay? Let's talk about the world record hail that's ever been found is in Bangladesh.

39:39It was 1986. It weighed about 200, I mean, about 2.2 pounds. It was about the size of this bowl. You can see that. That's the world record. Okay? Put that right here. The biggest in the States is about this big, maybe just a hair bigger. I didn't have any, but just a little bit bigger than this. But just this is about the size, the largest that has hit the states. And when they measured, they were able to figure out when this one hit the states that the hailstones hit about 105 miles an hour. So think about something this size hitting at 105 miles an hour. That's what's being described here.

40:31And it killed 92 people. This one did in Bangladesh. Now, there was another one, the largest, there's actually one stone that was just found a little bit bigger than this, but it only weighed 1.6 pounds. So think about that for a moment. What ice does is it goes through the atmosphere. It can get larger, but it doesn't have to be, it's not like you're just like an ice machine up there, and it's just got all this dense water. That as it goes through the atmosphere, it may pick up, no telling what kind of debris may be there, but it's picking up, but sometimes it freezes differently. And so it can be bigger than just a solid cube. And so when you think about what it's going to be like this, this is about, this gets you in the ballpark of what a hailstone is. So this is, you can kind of see what we're talking about falling. It's in that realm. And that's, it'll give you a good picture. But think about this for just a second. That's going to cause some damage. That's what's being described here.

41:51Look at what it says. Look at man's response here, verse 21. And huge hailstones, about 100 pounds each. Came down from heaven upon men, and men blasphemed God because the plague of the hail, because its plague was so extremely severe. That's the greatest of hailstorms. You know, it's interesting that at the end, men are still blaspheming God. They go down cursing God. This persona of the dragon, the loyalty of the beast, is clearly seen in their blasphemy. They're slandering God. You know, for years I heard, and you guys have heard this, what kind of a God would let evil exist? You've heard that, right?

42:47Especially here. Well, let me tell you something. We've got a real problem with evil, and what kind of a God will allow evil to exist? Well, the God who is righteous and has a good purpose for letting evil exist, but a God who wants to save sinners, that's why he lets you live longer than you deserve. But then, at the end of the age, think about how this slander, what kind of a God would destroy us like this? Kind of get it. Try both worlds. Like, this is too harsh. Oh, it's the God who's getting rid of evil. He's not going to tolerate evil in the earth. He is going to remove evil through sin. Salvation or through judgment.

43:35He is good and righteous. Man is not going to bring about righteousness in the earth on his own. He looked around, there wasn't anyone. And so he said, I will come and bring my salvation. I will bring about righteousness. Let me think. Look at chapter 14. We've already kind of seen a thumbnail sketch of this. Verse 18, 20. Let me read that to you again. Remember, this is that depiction of the angel also giving us a thumbnail sketch of this event. Then, in verse 18 of 14, then another angel, the one who has the power over fire, came out from the altar, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth because her grapes are ripe. So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press up to the horses' bridles for a distance of 200 miles.

45:00Now, as I read through that, you may remember, there are many who would look at that and say, this is just hyperbole. This physically can't happen. And it typically goes like this: the ones who see a literal interpretation in Genesis will also hold to a literal interpretation in Revelation. I see that the language was given so that we could understand in both Genesis and Revelation, so that you can understand the beginning of history, so that you can understand the end of history. And I think that the literal interpretation certainly has its case, has a good case.

45:43Doesn't mean he's not using symbolic language. But think about this for just a moment. Think about Kyle Field. You guys, Aggie's a lot around here. You can get that picture. Kyle Field, filled in the stadium, every seat taken, the infield completely filled with the teams, the rivaling teams, the bands, and anybody else. And you just have this massive amount of people right there in this great bowl. Now, picture hailstones, something on this magnitude, falling down from heaven up on the stadium.

46:28What do you think is going to happen to? The people. There's going to be a splattering of blood. Not only that, you're going to have a buildup of water, a buildup of ice as it melts, and certainly with the warm blood, the ice, what's going to start happening? You're going to see a flow of a blood-water mixture. Go down into the infield, it's probably not, and you take a horse, try to walk through it. That blood-water melting mixture could easily be the horse at the horse's bridle. It's not hard to conceive. That's what's being described. Now, picture the whole valley, the Jezreel Valley, the Armageddon, the Megiddo, filled with the troops and the personnel and the people from all over the world, extending out a couple of hundred miles in all directions, gathering to make war. Now, picture, here comes the hail. Here comes the one from Basra with glorious garments stained with blood, treading out the winepress of God's fury.

47:54Yeah, I think you will get a level of a blood. That has never been seen before. But that's the kind of scale that Revelation is picturing. That's the kind of gathering. That's Earth's final stand against their Creator. Don't be a part of the world system because this is where it ends up. And that's why Jesus interjects himself right into the middle of this narrative. He says, Be dressed in readiness, be watching. This is where it goes. And this is how he encourages those seven churches that he writes this initial recipients of this book: stand firm, don't ally yourself with the wicked ways of the culture that you live.

48:52The same is true for us today. Well, it's the greatest of earthquakes, the greatest of hailstones, but it gives us a window to see how the kingdom of this world comes to an end. And he gives it to us so that you and I will break off every alliance, that we will not be tempted to compromise the faith, but to stand. You know, he told Israel when they were going into the land, he said, Be careful that you don't make any alliances with the idolatrous minds and hearts of Canaan, or else they're going to bring you down. Down. The same with us.

49:34Are you going to align with Christ or the system of this world? Know what happens to this world, to the rebellion. I mean, why in the world would you want to spend your life in the slavery and futility of fighting God? This message is an invitation to you to come into the freedom of the children of God. You're not going to bring righteousness into this world on your own. You're not even going to bring righteousness in your own life on your own.

50:10And it's for this reason that God has sent forth his salvation so that you will come out of this world and into the kingdom of his Son. And for this same reason, he sends judgment is because he is going to establish righteousness upon the earth. And this is why God Himself comes to do it through salvation and through judgment. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at this exhortation, it's very clear. You want us to live for you because you are good. You are the shepherd of our soul. You are the one who calls us into a right relationship with you. Forgive us. Help us to have that kind of godly remorse over.

51:00The things we have done wrong. Help us, Father, to surrender our stubborn wills to you. Father, it is futile to fight against you, it is futile and slavery to fight against you. Ah, but you give us a glorious freedom in Christ. And so it's in that knowledge that we ask you to be at work in our hearts today. In Jesus' name, amen.