Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege that we have to come and study your Word. We pray that you will give us insight, that your Word would truly judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart. Help us, Lord God, to seek you, to know you, and that we may profess our love to you with sincerity of heart.

We ask, Lord God, that you would give us soberness as we study your Word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so we're in Revelations chapter 6. We're getting into the obscure part of Revelation. And I think I mentioned this before, but let me reiterate. I didn't want to give you a box and say, "Hey, we're looking at a pre-tribulation, you know, pre-millennial view, so every passage that we look at, and I'm going to tell you exactly when this is going to happen and how this is going to happen." Because if I did that, you would end up coming out of the Bible with whatever view I give you.

And I don't want you to be studying the book of Revelation like that, so I want you to be questioning and asking yourself the same questions that I'm asking. When is this going to take place? How is this going to take place? Has this already taken place? So I want you guys to be asking those critical questions as we're studying, instead of me telling you, "Hey, this didn't take place," or, "This has already taken place." Obviously, I have my views.

It doesn't mean that I'm not going to mention it at all. I am going to mention it, but I'm not going to have every single passage that we're looking at and give you one particular view, okay? So I can't help but to influence you a certain way because I'm the one teaching, and I'm going to have certain views that I lean toward.

But again, as you're studying it, I want you guys to be asking the same question. Has this taken place? Is this allegorical? Was this meant to be taken literally? And to think critically, right? So that if some part of it doesn't make sense, that you don't just hear what I say and say, "Oh, okay, that's what he said, so that's what it must be." So I don't want you to be studying it that way.

For chapter six all the way to chapter 16, there's three different judgments, three sets of seven judgments, okay? Remember the three? Obviously, you know the first one. We studied. We're just studying it. You have the seal judgments. And what's the next one? The trumpet judgments. Then what's the last one?

The bowl, right? The bowl judgments, okay? So we have 21 separate judgments that are... Every single one of them aren't judgments, but overall, the Archie theme is judgment, right? Now, I'm going to throw this question out there, and we're going to probably deal with it more not next week, but the week after.

The question is, if you read from chapter six through 16, you'll see that by the time they get to the seventh seal, it kind of transitions into the first trumpet, right? And then there's kind of a chapter break between the sixth seal and the seventh seal. And then seventh seal is mentioned, and then the trumpets begin.

You'll notice the same thing. At the end of the sixth seal, there is a break, right? It doesn't immediately go into the seventh trumpet, and there's all these things that take place. And then by the time it gets to the seventh trumpet, it opens up the bowl, okay? So the question that I want you to be wrestling with and just have in your mind, that are these seven, seven, seven judgments, are they consecutively seven, seven, seven, meaning total of 21, or are they seven judgments on the seventh one opens up the seven trumpets, and then on the seventh trumpet, it opens up the seventh bowl.

So collectively, it's only seven. You understand the question? It's just that the seventh one opens up the seventh trumpet, the seventh trumpet opens up the seventh bowl, meaning the last part of the seventh year is very, very intense. Okay, I'm trying to see how many of you are engaging what I'm saying.

Do you understand my question? So I want you guys to ask that question or think through that as you're reading and studying through the next, what, 10 chapters, right? Are these seven, seven, seven, or are they meant to be seven? Seventh one opening up the seven, and then the seventh of that opening up the seven, the totality seven.

All right, I've said enough. So just kind of mull over that as we're studying it. I may mention it, you know, may not mention it, but again, that's one of the debates that they have of the interpretation of this, so just keep that in mind. All right, some preliminary things.

What we see in chapter six is not the opening of the scroll, right? So they are not necessarily a scroll judgment, they're seventh seals. So we're talking about each one of these seals, as it gets broken, it unleashes the four horsemen and then later on the other three, right?

So what we're seeing is not the scroll itself, but the breaking of the seals that would eventually lead to the scroll. Again, so that's our question, is that the seventh seal, when it gets broken, the scroll opens up, it doesn't, and that leads into the trumpet. Do you understand what I'm saying?

And then the last trumpet opens up the bowl. I'm not saying that that's what's taking place, I'm asking you, okay? So what we're looking at now is not the scroll, but the seals that are being broken. As each seal is removed, it triggers preliminary judgment that will eventually lead to the opening of the scroll in chapter eight.

So at the beginning of chapter eight, we'll see that the scroll, the seventh seal is broken and the scroll gets opened, but prior to that, there's all these things that take place and all of God's judgment begins to take place one by one. And then again, ultimately that will lead to the opening of the scroll.

So the first four seals unleashed, it unleashed the first four horsemen and their judgment upon the earth. You probably heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, right? I mean, they've, I think there was a movie. Do you guys remember the movie? Huh? No, no, no, it's older than that.

A Wild Wild West. Nobody remembers. Come on, Lee, help me out. Anyway, there was a movie and they use these four horsemen to describe the four men who come to fight these bad guys. Oh man, it's right here. It won't come out if I remember it. If you remember, can you let me know?

All right. So it unleashes the four horsemen and the judgments. These four horsemen are mentioned in also in Zachariah, but there are slight bit of differences. So we're not going to jump back and forth because it's not, it's not an exact parallel, but they are mentioned in other parts.

One of the things is the colors differ a little bit, right? They don't match exactly. And then even the purpose of these horsemen, these horses were in Zachariah, they are sent out to patrol the earth, but these horses are out and bringing devastation upon the earth. Right? So not to say that they are not the same horse, they're not the same judgment, but again, seems like the purpose of it is very different.

And then the actions of these four horsemen carry out the related to what Jesus says in the various passages, Luke, Mark, Matthew, but particularly Mark chapter 13, seven and eight, it says that these judgments will come, right? When you seize wars and rumors of wars, it says it is the beginning of birth pains, meaning that we're close to the end.

So one of the things that God warns us about, about the coming in times is that there's going to be increase in persecution, increase in hostility, increase in wars and rumors of war, famines. And so all the things that we're seeing, that this is not in and of itself is not the end, that those are only what's going to trigger the end.

Right? Now, again, like I told you, I'm not going to give you like, oh, here's their view and here's the other people's view, but I do want to just broadly speaking, if you read some of your commentaries, they'll tell you that this all took place in the first century.

Remember we talked about that? There's about three or four different approaches to interpretation of revelation. And one of them, one of the broad ones are that it took place in the first century. So we're just looking at history and they'll say, you know, the white horseman is this person or the antichrist is Nero and the destruction is the destruction of the temple and that's how they apply it.

And so therefore the only thing for us to gain in revelation are principles. I don't believe that that's the case. And I think there's, again, in my opinion, there's enough that we'll see in revelation that it's pointing to a future reference, right? Now the idea of, is it going to be before tribulation, after tribulation, is it going to be literal seven years, literal thousand years?

You know, that's something that I'm going to ask you guys to wrestle with as we're studying, but we're not studying as like this all happened. Okay. Just to kind of give you at least some direction. I don't want to like say you need to believe in this, but to give you some direction.

Okay. So all of these things that are taking place are preliminaries. These are events that are going to trigger. So think about what you've already read in these four horsemen, that even if it was just those four things, right? Obviously there's seven of them, even this, just four of these horsemen carried out exactly what he says.

Imagine how devastating the earth would be. But the scripture says that's just the beginning of birth pains. The actual tribulation is about to come when that happens. In other words, it seems to be ready. Each of these seals, with the exception of the fifth seal, seems to be escalating.

So it's not one or like each one is different. So there are some differences, but if you've noticed that each one of these triggers the other one and then it escalates one above the other and it continues to get worse until the very end, right? So it's not a tribulation where it's kind of steady and then boom, all of a sudden something happened.

There's an increase in escalation, right? So if we are to, whether we're in it or we're going to see the beginning of it and it'd be raptured, whatever view you may have, that we're supposed to watch for this, right? So when you see turmoil in the world and some of these things that are happening, that it could be birth pains, right?

That may trigger. In fact, again, I'm sure everybody at some point taught teaching revelations may have looked at what's going on in the world and say, "Hey, this must be it." So I could imagine World War I, right? And people thought, "Well, the world, the whole world, it wasn't just one country or one group against another.

The whole world went into war." And then if that wasn't bad enough, it triggered the Second World War, you know? And then when that stopped and that was finished, it's like, "Man, how can it get any worse than that?" But then at the tail end of the Second World War, they developed a nuclear bomb.

So imagine, again, I'm not saying that that's the case, but imagine when the scripture says a fourth of the earth will be wiped out, you know, that's, that's would have been unimaginable. Right now we can easily imagine that. In fact, that's what we're afraid of, that something's going to trigger a nuclear war and easily a fourth, maybe even more than that could be wiped out in an instant, right?

So a lot of these things that are mentioned here, I'm not saying that that is the case, but the possibility of these things happening has become much more real today than it has ever been. And so you see, every single one of these judgments is an escalation. So before we get into this, now, I mean, there's obviously, there's a lot of it, but in particular in between chapter 6 and 16, right, where we're trying to figure out what is this trumpet, what is this judgment, and what is the white horse, and what is the red horse, before we get into that, I don't think the first generation of Christians who received this letter had any more clarity, at least that we know of, that would have said, "Oh, okay, the red horse must be talking about this guy." Right?

And I don't think the readers of the Revelation in the first century, you know, like immediately they read it and they knew exactly where this application was, right? So the question is, why did God give us something this important? And that's actually one of the discussion questions that I have for you at the end.

Why did God give us something this important when he told us to not to be like the Gentiles or the world, who's caught off guard in his second coming, is like, is not going to be a thief, right? Where you're going to be caught off guard, and it's going to be negative because you weren't prepared at all.

And so he told us to watch and be careful and be ready and recognize the sign of the time. So why did he give something so important, so ambiguous, right? So maybe, you know, maybe later on when we figure it out or when Christ comes, it's like, "Oh, it wasn't ambiguous at all," you know?

But as of now, after 2,000 years, they're still debating, we're still trying to figure out what it means, you know, and everybody has different opinions. But I think before we jump into all of this, because there's going to be a lot of discussion in the next 10 chapters about what does this mean, what does that mean?

And the end conclusion is not going to be crystal clear, right? But I think we need to make sure that we receive it like the first generation people when they read this, what they would have heard, right? If you were the first recipients of this letter, what would have been your response?

Because when we read it, we come out, "Huh? What is that? When is that going to happen?" If you were the first recipients of this letter, what would have been your response? Don't think theologically. Huh? It's going to happen soon, right? It's going to happen soon. So if you knew that that was going to happen soon or you thought it was going to happen soon, how would you have received this letter?

Probably fear, terror. Like, "When is this going to happen? Is this going to happen today, next week?" So if you thought that this was going to happen next week, I mean, forget going to work. You know what I mean? Forget YOLO, you know, because if he comes tomorrow, I mean, all this plan of traveling, all this stuff is going to be nonsense, right?

So the initial recipients of this letter, whether that was going to happen during their lifetime or soon or whenever it was, whether you understood exactly what it was going to be, you heard a devastation and judgment. So basically, God gave them a glimpse of his judgment, what it's going to look like.

And this judgment is going to be more devastating than anything they have probably ever imagined, right? Because if you look at it, like, we're in the beginning birth pains. As we get closer, as we proceed, you'll see it's going to get much more intense than anything you've read this week, right?

So I think it's important for us, as we are wrestling with the meaning and the application of all of this, the intent of this letter is to sober the church, right? The intent of this letter is so that we would not be caught off guard in making sure that this earth is passing away, that God's going to bring judgment upon this earth, and that whatever we invest here is going to be burned up because he's going to come and bring judgment.

So the intent of the letter is to, one, encourage the church. Remember, John himself was probably in physical agony, and he says that judgment, retribution is coming toward the enemies, right? So in one sense, it's a comfort for Christians who are being beaten up and are being persecuted, but it's also a warning to the world, you know, to give a sense of soberness of the time that we have, that whether we live 70 years or 10 years or 20 years, that this is not our home, right?

We're standing in a place where judgment's going to come and go, and there's going to be devastation. So that's the intent of this letter. So as we're getting into and trying to wrestle with what the meaning is, let's not miss the larger point of this letter, which is to keep us sober and give us a paradigm and a view of our life in the world and end times through his perspective.

All right, so the first seal. So the distinctness of the first seal, it obviously says it's the white horse, and what does the white horse carry? It's not up there. What does the white horse carry? Come on, you read it. One like a voice of thunder. Whoa. Okay. All right.

I hope you guys read it. All right, so it has a bow, right? It holds a bow symbolizing conflict and battle. There are some discussion, some opinions as to who the identity of the white horse, the horseman is. Now again, this is not a for sure thing, but there is in Revelation chapter 1911, if you can turn your Bible to Revelation chapter 1911, the white horse is mentioned again, and we're not sure if it is the exact same horse or same person, but in Revelation 1911, "Then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse, the one sitting on it called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war." So kind of sounds like it because the first white horse has a bow.

Yes? Okay. "His eyes are like flame of fire and on the head are many diadems and he has name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in robe, dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword." Again, all of this is a description that we've seen about Christ in chapter 1, verse 16, "On his robe and on his thigh he has the name written, 'King of kings and Lord of lords.'" So clearly, the white horse, horseman, in Revelation chapter 9, that has to be Christ.

That's clearly identification of Jesus. The only question is, is that white horse, horseman, the same white horseman of Revelation chapter 6? Okay. Again, my guess is that it is. That's my guess. Again, so as we continue to study, there are people who don't think it is, but it seems like, at least in the description, the fact that it is declaring war and that the white horse is shooting the bow, and that it is the first one, right?

That him coming out triggers all the other things that take place. So it seems like, again, it doesn't change theology one way or another, but just kind of something to think of, right? And as I mentioned, "On him has the phrase, 'King of kings and Lord of lords.'" White signifies righteousness, and the writer seems to have the task of conquering and to conquer, which is interesting because the phrase conquering and to conquer, right?

It seems like they're saying the same thing, but what is the purpose of saying conquering and conquer? That it's happening now, and it will keep happening. Yes? Right? So what the horse is doing, what the horseman is doing, declaring battle, there's some sort of conflict, and that he is conquering presently, that he didn't just come to conquer, but this act is taking place as of John writing this letter.

He is conquering, and he will continue to conquer, right? So it is an ongoing act. And again, this is another reason why it seems like to me that it may be in reference to Christ himself, that he triggers all of this because maybe that the idea of conquering, and you notice that the white horseman has a bow, but something's missing?

There's no arrows mentioned. Now, we could be reading into it, but the idea of conflict and yet without any kind of arrows, and yet he's out conquering. So it may be an allusion to what Christ says in Matthew 24, right? When the gospel reaches the remotest part of the world, he said he will come, then the end will come.

So possibly if this is Christ, that his work is to conquer, is conquering, and will continue to conquer, meaning that the gospel will continue to be spread, right? Which is what's going on now. So the spreading of the gospel is the very first thing that takes place, and eventually when the full number has come, he said that's going to trigger the second horse, right?

So you and I, he is conquering and will continue to conquer. We may be in that period as of now, okay? So the first horse triggers the second horse, which is the red horse, right? And the red horse, obviously the picture has a sword on him. The red symbolizing slaughter and bloodshed, obviously it's the devastation, like the first one just says he's conquering and is continuing to conquer.

The second one says he's going to come and he's going to remove peace, which is an interesting way of saying that. He doesn't come to bring the disaster itself, it's that which restrains war. He said he's going to remove that. And then as a result of that, he said they're going to be, what?

As a result of that, "Behold a white horse," and "out came another horse, bright red, its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth." So his tack is to take peace, right? He's not declaring war, he's taking peace so that the men should slay one another. So in other words, the restraining power that's restraining the nations and individuals to go to battle and to bring peace, he said he's going to take away that presence, that peace.

And when that happens, he said basically men are free to do whatever they want, right? The restraining power is gone. And that's how it's described, right? In 2 Thessalonians 2, 3 to 8, remember Paul says to this church, he said, "Don't be alarmed that the man of lawlessness has come, the end has come, the crisis has come, that has not happened." He says, "Before the man of lawlessness has come, that which restrains him, right, will no longer restrain, and when he's not restrained, he will come.

And when he comes, he's going to do his job, right, to bring lawlessness." And so that's what it seems like it's describing. The second seal is describing the restraining power that's keeping at least some level of peace, common grace, right, is going to be released. And so man's sinfulness is going to be unleashed upon each other without restraint.

That's the second seal. Third seal is the black horse. And he's holding a, what is he holding in his hand? Okay, so pair of scales. So when you think of scales, what do you think of? Not making money. Judgment, right? Justice. So that's what he brings, right? He's come to dispense justice, and the way that he's going to dispense justice, meaning God's judgment, is that there's going to be a famine, right?

A quart of wheat for Daenerys and three quarts of barley for Daenerys and do not harm the oil and wine. So basically this is a description of the judgment that's coming upon them. And then the fourth seal is the pale horse. And it says that his name is Death and Hades follows.

Somebody remembers this movie? Wyatt Earp? Huh? Yeah, I know, but that's not the name of the movie. Huh? With Wyatt Earp? I don't think we're thinking about the same one. Maybe there was another movie. Wyatt Earp is the star of that movie? He is? Anyway, all right. It's bugging me because I'm on the topic.

And this is the exact phrase that they use, that Wyatt Earp comes to basically get rid of the bad guys and he said, "Tell them I'm coming." Right? Huh? Tombstone, tombstone. There you go. Tombstone. Did you know it all this time and then not tell me? Yeah, okay. So tombstone.

All right. Yeah. And remember the other guys that they described? Anyway, this is the four apocalypse. Okay, now I can go to sleep tonight. All right. So he said, "His name is Death and Hades will follow him." In other words, the judgment that he's going to bring is going to devastate the earth.

Right? He said the fourth of the earth. He was given authority to kill a fourth of the earth with a sword. And then he said it's going to happen through sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beast. So if you think about it like wild beast, you know, they got the sword, you got the famine, you got pestilence and wild beast kind of, if you think about it, it's like if devastation comes, you know, like where mankind doesn't have a border and we're basically living in the jungle, right?

Then wild beast will have its way. Again, you know, if you interpret it literally, but basically, you know, the meaning behind this obviously is that it's going to be devastating when that day comes. So again, I want you to think about this. You're first generation Christian listening to this, hearing this and thinking, "Wow, this is going to happen." Right?

Whether it happens during their lifetime or some other time, basically it's saying the earth is going to disappear. So would you be that excited if you knew this was happening? Would you be that excited about, you know, building a big house or, you know, making plans for retirement? You know what I mean?

I think it would have an effect if you read this and you don't know exactly when it's going to happen, but it's going to happen. It would definitely cause you to have a different paradigm of investment. What are you going to invest in? So not only is Jesus saying invest in things that aren't going to, you know, rot and spoil, he said it's, you know, it's not even going to rot and spoil, it's going to be destroyed.

So why would you put your energy and money into that? Right? The fifth soil, the horsemen that are done are a description of the martyrs. So when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls. So one of the things that I think I asked is why are they under the altar?

The souls of those who had been slain by the word of God. So who are these people? They're martyrs, right? These are missionaries or whoever they were. They were, they weren't just martyred because they were Christian, they were martyred because they were spreading the word of God. So people like Apostle Paul, all the apostles, right?

And so these people were martyred for the purpose of the gospel. And he says the fact that they were under the altar, the altar was a place where they came to worship and sacrifice, signifying that these, each one of these men and women who were martyred was serving a purpose of offering and worship to God.

Paul also, if you remember in Philippians and 2 Timothy, when he's sitting in prison and he's writing this letter, especially in 2 Timothy, where he says, "I am being poured out like a drink offering." He described his martyrdom, his execution as a drink offering. And the reason why he describes it as a drink offering was in the Old Testament, drink offering was the last thing that you did before the end of the sacrifice.

So after you've given the sacrifice, you pour the drink out, meaning that that was kind of like the conclusion. So Paul was saying that his life was a living sacrifice, but now his death is going to be another drink offering that is being poured out. So Paul uses that imagery, and it seems like that's the imagery here to describe these men and women who were martyred for the sake of the gospel.

And they cry out, "How long before the judgment comes? When will they be vindicated for what has happened?" And what was the answer? He said, "Oh, sovereign Lord," verse 10, "holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Then they were each given a white robe, symbolizing righteousness, and told to rest.

Rest a little longer until the number of the fellow servants and their brothers should be complete. So who are the number of their fellow servants and their brothers? There's others who are going to be martyred. In other words, God is allowing it. The set number of people who are going to be numbered, who are going to be martyred for his name.

He says when that number is complete and your brothers and sisters join you, he says then those who will be killed, then he says the end will come. So there's a set number of ordained people who will be martyred for his name. So if you think about it, like all those people who are being martyred in the Middle East and North Korea and various parts, every single one of them, in a sense, is bringing out the closure of the end because they have all been ordained.

When that number gets full, he said this is all going to be triggered and Christ is going to come. So it kind of gives us a different perspective of martyrs when you think of it that way, that God is absolutely sovereignly in control, even of all of this. And then the sixth seal begins with a great earthquake.

So this great earthquake will be accompanied by the sun turning black like sackcloth made of goat hair and the whole moon turning blood to red and again it's a very devastating scene. But again this is not new to Revelation. It's mentioned in the book of Mark and in Matthew 24 where it talks about how the devastation is going to come and that is going to trigger the coming of Christ.

And what's interesting is when this judgment comes and the Lamb of God comes, we typically when we think of the Lamb of God, we think of it from our perspective that this poor lamb that's been slain is going to come and he's going to rescue us and we're going to have a wedding party.

But when the world sees the Lamb of God, what is their response? They run in terror. They don't see a poor helpless lamb. They say that they're going to see the wrath of the Lamb of God. And when they see the wrath of the Lamb of God, it says, "Then the kings of the earth," verse 15, "and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves among the rocks among the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the coming Lamb.'" I think that part got cut off.

Wrath of the Lamb of God. And we see that same scene in Malachi. In Malachi 3, 2-3, "They call to the mountains and rock, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of the wrath has come, and who can stand?'" And this shouldn't really surprise us because we see the same scene in, remember, the book of Genesis when Adam and Eve, what was their first thing that they do when they recognize their sin?

Remember? They hide, right? When they heard his footsteps, this very God that they had fellowship, intimate fellowship with, all of a sudden when sin enters, they hear his footsteps and they hide in terror because of their sin. So everyone whose sin has not been covered by the blood of Christ will see a wrathful God.

The Lamb of God is going to come and it's going to be a terrifying scene. So again, when we think about the end times, and again, the question that we have to keep asking ourselves is, if this is true, and if I truly believe this, how would it affect you?

How would it affect you to know that this is coming? And this is just the beginning of the birth pains. I mean, you talk about devastation, you wait until we get into the trumpet and we get into the bowls, right? This is just the beginning. This is what's going to spark and trigger all of that.

So as we have time to take some time to discuss some of these questions or some of the things that we have, and again, I'm going to finish a little bit early and give you time to take some time to discuss with your small group. You know, we become so desensitized because you grow up in a church, you hear the gospel, and then you kind of assume that because we're in the church and we're doing church things, we're serving, we're giving.

But the most important question that we should be asking, as I mentioned on Sunday, is everything that I'm reading, is this true and do you believe it? That's one thing to say, I know Jesus loves me, that when I die I'm going to go to heaven. It's one thing to say that and I believe that, but other than you receiving that, right?

It doesn't really, other than like, I really want to worship him, which is great, that's what we should do. But when we hear about the judgment coming upon mankind and it doesn't move us at all, it doesn't move us at all, that this devastation is going to come, you know, some of these people that we love and care about, when he comes, they're not going to have the same response that we're going to give, you know, yes, he's coming.

He said they're going to be so terrified by the wrath that's coming that they're going to be going up and trying to run from as far as they can and hoping that the rocks and the mountains would follow, just to hide them from his glory. And again, to think about that and then to just say, yeah, I believe it, and then to have it not affect you, we have to ask ourselves, like, do you really believe that?

So I think that's the most important question that we need to keep asking ourselves. We read about these things, we're not just reading mythology. If we believe this, what does that mean? So the discussion questions. So the discussion question for you, do you think most people who claim to know the gospel know that the judgment is coming upon all men?

How can you convey God's wrath just as clear as God's mercy when sharing the gospel? Because it is biblical, right? If you share the gospel or explain about the love of God without explaining why it's the love of God to save us from his wrath, right, then we haven't given the clear or the whole presentation of the gospel, right?

Because before the gospel gives us invitation of salvation, they have to understand why they need salvation, for what they need salvation. And if they aren't saved, what is coming, right? So this is part of revelation. So how do we do that? How do we balance between sharing about the love of God and yet being clear about the wrath of God at the same time?

Because I think we need to be motivated by both, right? We're not just motivated by love, we're also motivated by the coming judgment too. Number two, if we won't fully know the meaning behind these vision, what is the point of studying them? Why do you think God gave us something so important in seemingly obscure vision?

So I asked them in the very beginning, so if you guys can take some time, right, to discuss that. So in God's wisdom, he gave us these visions in this manner for a reason. So take some time to discuss that as well. Number three, how does the study of the end times affect the way you walk with God?

Do you think it is possible to genuinely believe that God's wrath is coming to mankind and not be compelled to warn others, right? Is it possible to say, "I have genuine faith," and yet be so complacent about the judgment of the non-Christian world? Can we say confidently that I have faith if that's the case?

So again, take some time to discuss that in your group. So let me pray for us and then I'll let you guys go. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, there are so many things around us, Lord, that entangle us and cause us to constantly forget that this is not our home, that we are just sojourners, strangers passing through.

We pray, Father God, that your word would continue to sober us, that our reality, the things that we hope for, things that we invest in, would be directly affected, Father God, by your word that we study, especially this book. I pray that it would have the effect on us that you've intended, that you would not just fulfill and satisfy our curiosity, but you would mold us, that you would shake us, challenge us, rebuke us, that we may live a life truly worthy of the gospel that you've given.

So we pray for your grace. We pray, Lord God, that our discussion time would be fruitful, that we would be open and honest with each other, and that as iron sharpening iron, that we may be sharpened as a result. We thank you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.