All right, let's pray before we jump in. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for your blessing. We pray, Father, that your Word would truly be living and active and it would judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart. I pray that you would search beyond the superficial and cause us, Lord God, to think deeply, to meditate, to feel all that you have intended, Father, in your Word.

So we entrust this time to you, asking that you would guide and lead us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so after, just kind of give you a heads up, after this week, next week, obviously we're going to be in chapter 11, and then the week after that is going to be our last session for this session, and then we're going to take the month of August off.

And then, I think it's, we have four weeks off, and then the last Wednesday of August we're going to pick back up in chapter 12, okay? But next week we do chapter 11, and chapter 11 is right in the middle of the book, and the last session, instead of going to chapter 12, we want to take that time to review the 11 chapters.

And I know some of you guys, especially the ones who have been coming every other time, it's really hard to keep up, especially in the book of Revelation. So we're going to take at least, you know, one day to help you catch up if you missed a day or you feel like you're kind of lost.

Do your best to try to come to that, if possible, because hopefully that will help you to kind of connect the dots together, so that when we head to the second part, it'll make more sense to you, okay? So and then those of you who've been following along, and if that's not an issue, I'm sure it'll be helpful for you as well, okay?

You know, studying the book of Revelation, I mean, you can see, chapter 10 is one of those chapters that, you know, there's, you can pretty much read it and not get anything out of it. It's pretty ambiguous if you don't sit there and really dig what is the meaning of this, and because it's kind of a setup passage for what's coming.

So everything that's happening in chapter 10 is kind of preparing us for the second half of the judgments that are coming. Remember we talked about there's seven different series? So this is going to lead us into the bold judgments, and you guys remember the bold judgments are where the really intensive stuff is going to be taking place.

My hope and prayer, again, as you guys have been studying through the book of Revelations together, how important is the book of Revelation and about the thought and preparation for the end times? Really important, right? Our sanctification is directly linked to how sober we are about the second coming, how eagerly we're waiting, right?

Because if we're not thinking about the second coming, naturally we're going to end up thinking about this life, like making this place our home, and then we think we're going to be here permanently until we get older, and then we kind of spend our youth chasing after things that don't matter.

Our sanctification is directly linked to end times. Our hope is directly linked to the end times. Even our fellowship, our fellowship, if it is not centered around cause of hope for the coming of Christ and eternity, our fellowship can easily just be friendship, right? In the name of Christ, just happens to be in the church, but it's not real fellowship, not real partnership.

Evangelism, right? Disciple making, all of this is directly linked to how soberly we're thinking about the end times. So, if we don't see the end, if we're not living day to day with the thought of what we were being taught in the book of Revelation, and this is not a reality, this is just something that you know it's in the Bible, some of it is ambiguous and some of it is hard to understand, you just know it in the Bible, but it's not a reality in your life, then probably you're having a hard time staying sober.

Your fellowship is being forced. There's like a, you feel a sense of guilt of not sharing the gospel, but it's not, you're not being compelled to do it, because you want to do it, you just feel this guilt of like, "Oh, I should be doing this, I should be praying, I should be fellowshipping," but there's nothing internally compelling you to do it, because what compels us is all the stuff that we're learning in the book of Revelation.

So, some of it makes sense, some of it we have to dig a little bit harder, but every part of it is directly linked to our spiritual lives, right? How we are able to live sober or not able to live sober. So again, I know that a lot of the stuff that we're going over, it may be going over your head, but I think even if it is going over your head, the impressions that are made on you about the judgment that's coming, about the hope of Christ and how things are working, even if you can't connect the dots, sometimes you don't have to connect the dots to have an impact.

You just need to have the general impression, which basically is that the end is ordained, right? And when the end comes, there's going to be severe judgment, and then after the judgment is going to come restoration. So there, God's history is written. It's written in stone. This is not that what we're studying now is not, "Hopefully this will happen.

If the right things are done, that we're going to lead to this." This is written in the scroll, and it is permanent, and this is what we are eagerly waiting for. So hopefully as we're studying through that, that that kind of, it would cause all of us to be more sober about everything that we're being taught here.

All right. I wanted to do a quick review of what we've been doing. Okay. Yeah, you might have to just do it from there. There you go. Was that me? Or was that you? Oh, yeah, that's me. Okay. All right. Good. All right. So first thing I want to look at is just as a quick review, remember when the seven judgments started, the seal judgments first was opened up.

You remember from chapter six, the seal judgment, chapter eight through nine, the trumpets, and then the bowls, chapter 16. And in between the sixth and seventh seal, there's an interlude consisting of two visions, if you remember. There's kind of like a pause between six. And then before the seventh start, we have the promise of the 144,000 Jews who will be saved.

And then following them was a multitude, myriads upon myriads, and all of them leading to worship. So it's kind of like all the judgments. And then right before the seventh trumpet judgments, the intense judgment opens up. It begins to, again, there's a brief interlude promising that so many number of people are going to be saved.

And then we see a picture of heaven. And then following that, between the sixth and seventh trumpet, there is also an interlude with two visions. The angel with the little book, which is what we're going to be covering today, and then the two witnesses. And then after chapter 11, we're going to, or at the end of chapter 11, we're going to go into the seventh trumpet.

And then it's going to lead us into the bowl judgments. But the bowl judgment is a little bit different than the other two. The bowl judgment is going to get to the sixth, and then there is no interlude. It's going to jump straight into seventh. Meaning that from that moment on, the period is going to speed up, and then the intensity of the judgment is going to be intensified until the end.

So that's kind of like a broad outline, not the whole book of Revelation, but the three different sets of judgments that God had ordained. So if you remember, the first set of judgments of the seals, they were natural disasters upon mankind. It wasn't directly related to men, if you remember.

So people do die, about a fourth of mankind, right? Fourth of the earth, fourth of everything is affected by that. And then the second judgment, the trumpet judgments, are judgments that are directly directed toward men. So again, one is natural disaster, second is disease, very specific judgments coming upon men.

And then the third judgment are the bowls, where the first one was a fourth, the second group was a third, and then the fourth bowls is going to affect all of mankind. So you can kind of see the intensity of the judgments that's increasing until we get to the end, all right?

So that's kind of like a broad outline of what's going on, just to give you a heads up. And then after that, after the bowl judgments, it'll talk about the millennium, and we'll talk about that when we get there, okay? It begins, the chapter 10 begins by three separate times, an angel is introduced to us in the Revelations, either a mighty angel or a strong angel.

The word in the Greek is the same, but for some reason ESV decided to translate five two as strong angel, but it means the same. So we're introduced to this mighty angel, we're not sure if it's the same mighty angel, but again, it signifies that this was not an ordinary angel, this is not one of many angels, this was a very specific angel that was ordained for this purpose, and it is described as being mighty, right?

The description of this angel here seems to parallel Daniel chapter 12, verse five, and I think I have that passage here, okay? Daniel from seven says, "And I heard the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the stream, he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for time, times, and time and a half, or half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be finished.

I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, 'Oh my Lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?' He said, 'Go your way, Daniel, your words are shut up and sealed up until the time of the end.'" So, the scene that we're seeing here with the angel and the interaction between the mighty angel and John is very similar to the scene that we see in Daniel chapter 12.

So remember I told you we're halfway through, right? We're halfway through the judgments, and part of the reason why, again, if you hold to the pre-trib or mid-trib or post-trib, the seven-year tribulation, you see we're right halfway through, and it says for time, times, and a half a time, that's one plus two, the times in plural, they translate that as two, so that's three, and then half a time is three and a half.

So the theologians believe that we're at the halfway mark, right, halfway mark of the seven years of tribulation, and then the second half is where the judgment really picks up. Okay, so if you read ahead, I think you already know what I'm talking about, but if you haven't read ahead, can you imagine the things that we've been reading and studying up to this point that that was the easy part, the real heavy judgment is coming on the second half, right?

And so this brief interlude that we're going to have, at least as given to us, the revealing of the scroll, this mighty angel, and the two witnesses that we're going to be looking at chapter 11, that is kind of an interlude to prepare for the judgment that's coming. The description of the angel that is written down for us basically signifies the magnitude and the size of his glory, right?

In fact, because of the magnitude of how this angel is described, some people have said that maybe this is Christ. But I think there's clear evidence that this is not Christ. Again, this is an angel of the Lord, one, because other angels have been described as being mighty, and secondly, this is an angel that actually comes down from heaven, so this is not his second coming, right?

His second coming of Christ is prophesied at a later time, so this is not like an in-between coming and then he's going to come really later. So this is not Christ, but again, the description of this angel as a mighty angel, that he's so big, he's described two separate times where his feet touches the sea and the land.

Again, so if you remember the initial picture that I put up there, if you may, if you, okay, I have to go all the way back. You see the angel, how he's touching the land and the sea? And if you notice the size of the angel, again, that's how he's described for us in this passage.

Now again, who he is, we don't know. We know that last time we studied that there were, where am I? Did I do this? Okay. Okay, so the last time we studied that there were two particular angels that have been repeated presented to us. One's name is Michael, and who is he?

Archangel, and then who's the other one? Gabriel, right? Gabriel is often seen as the messenger, and he shows up in the book of Daniel too. So maybe this is Gabriel, we don't know. It's just speculation. But again, there's no ordinary angel, meaning that the message that he has to give to John, John the apostle, was not just an ordinary message, that this is at the end.

This is very important. And obviously he's holding in his hand a scroll that's already open. So again, this is a very important angel in God's kingdom, right? He's described as having a rainbow on top of his head, and his leg or his feet with fire, and his face was shining with the sun representing his glory.

But again, typically when we talk about rainbow, in the Bible, it's talking about, reminds us about the covenant relationship that God promised to the world, that he was not going to bring judgment through a flood. So it reminds us of his mercy. And typically fire symbolizes judgment in the scripture.

So this angel, again, there's a promise of mercy, but also promise of judgment, which we're going to be getting to in a little bit. The angel holds in his hands a little scroll. This is not the same scroll that was opened with the seals. This is a mini scroll that was part of the opening of the larger scroll, and he holds it in his hand, right?

And unlike the scroll that is mentioned in chapter five, that was fastened with seven seals, this scroll is already open, right? Again, meaning that what the content of this scroll is already being played out in history. That's the significance. It's not bound. It's already being played out. And again, the significance, other than the fact that this angel is a gigantic angel, is a powerful angel, the fact that he has one leg on the sea, one leg in the land, it signifies the universality of his message, right?

The God's sovereignty over land and earth, and again, it visually shows that God is a sovereign, authoritative, powerful God. So even in the description of this angel, it's described as God being powerful. So John sees him, and then as soon as he sees him, he hears a loud voice, like a lion, and again, God's voice is described as a roaring of a lion in Amos chapter 3, 8.

So this is not God speaking, but it sounds like God, because this is a messenger of God. And then when he speaks, it kind of begins this chain reaction of the thunders. The seven thunders begin to rumble, and they speak. And thunder, again, often in Scripture signifies retribution or judgment.

So again, the angel appears, he sees the scroll, and then the angel begins to speak, and then it kind of begins the – gets the ball rolling on this judgment. So whenever the idea of the thunder, the imagery of the thunder is mentioned, it's always equated with God's judgment coming, at least in the book of Revelation, right?

8.5, it follows with the casting of fire on the earth. Chapter 11.19 is associated with the seven trumpets and the plague. And then chapter 16.18 is connected with the final bowl of God's judgment, right? So in other words, when the angel speaks, the judgment begins to start to come out, right?

So we're not there yet. We're not told exactly what's happening yet, but this angel is sent to begin this final judgment, final phase of the judgment. But in verse 4, when he hears it, and he goes and he hears the rumbling, and we're not told exactly what it is, right?

But it was intense enough where John felt the need to put it down. And he was about to write it down, and then the voice comes and he says, "Do not write it down." He says, "Seal this up." And then it says not to write it down, which is in direct contrast to what we see in 1.19, where the Lord comes to him and specifically tells him to write down what he sees so that he may spread it.

But here, whatever the content is, and now we can speculate what it is, we don't know, but it must be related to the judgment. It must be related to something that's coming that he does not want it to be revealed. And he says to seal it and not to write it down, which is not uncommon because we see in other parts of the scripture where God does tell his disciples not to make it known.

2 Corinthians 12, 3-4, Paul talks about a man who was caught up in the third heaven, and he says, "I know that this man was caught up in the paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows." And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

So again, we don't know if it's the same thing, but we know that in that passage, Paul, again, tells us that there are things that God allowed him to see, but he didn't want to communicate. We see that again in Daniel 12-4, the parallel passage, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." What do you think the reason? We don't know what the content is, but what is the reason behind why God wouldn't reveal something? Think about it for a second. There are things that God would not reveal to us. What are some things that God doesn't reveal to us on purpose?

He said that the time of His coming, He said, "You will not know." But there's a lot of other things that He hides from us. What else do you not know? I know we have Google, but Google doesn't have everything. There's a lot of things you don't know. There's a lot of things you don't know when you're going to die.

You don't know, at least until you do get married, and you don't know who you're going to marry. You don't know what your life is going to be like, like the hardship that may be coming. There's a lot of things that we don't know. And there are certain things that God deliberately shut the door, and He doesn't want us to know.

So we may be curious, but we don't know exactly what it is. But in God's sovereign desire and His sovereign knowledge that He said whatever it was contained in it. And my guess is it had to be something about the – maybe something about the judgment that's coming. Maybe He doesn't want His children to know.

Again, this is just my guess, right? The intensity of the persecution coming upon Christians because of what we see in the second half, that it was pretty hard. But at the second half of the judgment, He says before the final judgment ends, final bowl judgment ends, persecution is going to increase like no other, right, among Christians.

Now some people who believe that pre-trib rapture, that we're going to be safe from all of this, and only people who are going to suffer during this period are Christians who came to Christ late during the tribulation. Some people, if you believe in pre-trib rapture, that's what they believe.

Now I think that Christ is going to – that we're going to make it through the tribulation, meaning that church is going to go through this tribulation. And that this – the judgment that's going to come upon the earth, the final judgment, before it comes, He's going to purify the church.

And only those who have real faith, true faith, are going to survive at the end of that, right? And so maybe my guess is, the reason why this is withheld, is that maybe there is written in there specific knowledge of who will and what specific and who and what churches are going to suffer through all of this.

And I think just like He doesn't reveal to us the hardship that may be coming down the line, if we knew it ahead of time, there's a lot of things we wouldn't do, right? God gives us the strength to do it when we get there, but if we knew it ahead of time, in our mind, we wouldn't do it.

There's a lot of things. There's a lot of things I wouldn't have done, right? If I knew ahead of time how difficult that was going to be. So again, this is just my speculation. Considering the context, considering like what was being said, that it was the thunder that was rumbling and it was saying, and what the thunder said, He said, "Do not reveal yet.

It is not time," right? "Do not write it down." That possibly He's talking about what's going to happen to Christians before the end, right? After He gives that instruction, the angel raises his right hand and swears that there will be no more delay, right? Now we saw, I think in chapter five or chapter six, where remember the martyrs who were martyred underneath the altar?

They were crying out, "How long, O Lord?" Right? That they would be vindicated, and so they're crying out to God, and He says, "God is coming in response to the cry of those who have been martyred." So Daniel 1, we see the same thing where they're crying out, "How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?" And then we see again in Revelation, in that passage that I just quoted, "How long, sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" So it almost seems like when He says there's going to be no more delay, that this is in response to the prayers of the saints, right?

That it will come. That all the Christians who've been longing and waiting for Him to come, He says He's finally going to answer their prayers. And again, in the context, all the Christians who are suffering, who are being persecuted and having hardship, and they want the suffering to end, that God is going to respond to that and say, "Now, God is going to act, and there will be no more delay." So the promise of not delaying is a blessing to those who are crying out for relief, but it is also a warning that the period of patience for the world to repent will also soon come to an end.

Now, again, I'm not sure if this is related to the next part when He says, "Eat of it, and it will be sweet in your mouth like honey, and it will be bitter in your stomach." But it seems to me, it seems to fit when He says there will be no more delay.

It means that His promise of bringing the final judgment is going to come. So for those who are suffering and calling out to God, obviously it would be sweet to them. But it also means the period of patience, of repentance, that that period is also going to end. And remember, up to this point, even in the midst of intense judgment, God is waiting for people to repent and come to Him.

But when He says He will no longer delay, remember we talked about that in Peter's writing? He said that the reason why He's delaying is because He doesn't want people to perish. That we're living in a period of grace where all that God is doing is to bring the full number of the elect to come into the kingdom.

So when He says He's no longer delaying, it means that that period is over. That God is no longer, there's no reason for Him to wait. That now the judgment that's coming upon mankind is strictly for the purpose of judgment. This is not a period of grace anymore. So it is sweet in a sense that if we've been waiting and longing for Him, that He's going to answer our prayers, but it's also going to be bitter because it's going to be full-on judgment.

God is not going to hold back, right? The wrath that He's been holding back, He's going to finally unleash completely. So as intense as judgment was up to this point, it was all restrained judgment. It was all judgment hoping to bring repentance. So it is bittersweet. And He says, the angel says that the mystery of God, that He promises that the mystery of God would finally be fulfilled.

This mystery will not be delayed. So the revelation of the gospel, Colossians 1, 25 and 26, is referred to as the mystery. And again in Colossians 2, 2-4, Christ Himself is referred to as God's mystery. And I put some other verses there. So when He says the mystery of God is going to be unleashed, meaning that God's final purpose of what He's been doing through history, through human history, His promise of the seed coming, the establishment of Israel, Christ, His suffering, His resurrection, the period of the church, evangelism, tribulation, that everything is going to be finalized, right?

Meaning so whenever we, again, typically when we think about the gospel, we think about one side of the gospel, right? Which is His grace, His mercy, because that's where we live. You and I are living during a period where God is being gracious to the world. And as much as people complain, like how can a loving God allow 9/11?

How can a loving God allow this and that to happen? According to God's perspective, He says, because He's loving, He's allowing these things to happen. Because He's loving, because we're living in a period of grace, that we have opportunities to bring people to Christ, that they would, they still have opportunity to repent and to come to Christ.

So God's perspective and the biblical perspective, exactly the opposite of the questions that people ask in the world, right? Because He's loving, He hasn't come yet. Because He's loving, He's withholding Himself. And the little bits and pieces of the wrath that we see is all for the purpose of bringing people to Himself, right?

But when that final day comes, when the mystery is going to be finally fulfilled, He's no longer going to need to withhold, right? Because that period of grace will be done and wrath is going to come before the final consummation of the church. And finally, John is told to take the open scroll and take it from the angel and he is told to eat it.

Oftentimes in Scripture, when a prophet or servant of God is told to eat, it means to digest and meditate on it, study it, right? In other words, he's not telling John to just regurgitate what I said. And that's the difference between a prophet versus somebody who's just memorizing Scripture and just regurgitating.

There's a huge difference, right? And you don't have to be a pastor to know what that means. You can have friends who just memorize Scripture and they just have words that they throw at you, but they themselves don't really believe it. They haven't digested it. There's a huge difference between somebody who's been convicted and changed by it and is conveying to you, right?

They're a witness, right? That's a difference between somebody who is a witness of Christ and somebody who's just regurgitating information, that this is the gospel that I heard, I'm just giving it to you. So the prophet John, the apostle, basically says, "Before you go and spread it, you need to digest this food, right?

To eat of it." But he also says, "You're going to eat of it, but it's going to be bitter in your stomach." And again, we're not exactly sure what he's eating and why it's sweet in his mouth and bitter in his stomach. We can kind of conjecture, right? The sweetness of the word turning bitter in the stomach may be reference to the promise of the revelation of God's mystery not being delayed any longer, which I mentioned already.

Again, this is just my guess that maybe that's what it's referring to. The sweetness will be the promise of vindication and deliverance for God's people, but along with it will come severe persecution and hardship for Christians before the final judgment comes. So possibly, right? I'm not saying that this is what he's talking about, but the scripture does talk about the word of God being sweet, right?

And there are other parts where the word of God can also become bitter. So can you think about a situation where the word of God or something being sweet initially but being bitter later? Temptation, right? Every temptation we face, it's tempting because it's sweet initially, but once you eat it and digest it, it becomes bitter, right?

Every sin, right? Every sin we practice, it's tempting. If it wasn't sweet, we wouldn't be tempted, right? It's sweet initially, but once you've digested it, it becomes bitter in your stomach and it makes you sick, right? The whole world can be described that way, right? The world is tempting.

It's sweet, right? It's pleasing to the eyes, but once you digest it, it becomes bitter. How about false prophets, right? The reason why they're so appealing is because their words are sweet. They twist God's word and they take basically all the frosting on the desserts, right? They don't give you the meat and they just kind of give you whatever the itching ears want to hear and they're just kind of plucking out what's best and giving it to people and everybody eating it up.

They love it. So it's sweet in their mouth, but once it get into your stomach, right, it's unhealthy. It's bitter. And that's typically what the false prophets were known for. They were constantly telling people what they want to hear instead of what they needed to hear, right? But sometimes even the truth can be sweet and bitter, right?

Sometimes even the sweetest truth, right? In what way can the word of God be sweet and bitter other than what I just said? I could think of it's sweet because of salvation to me, but it's also bitter because it means the people that I love weren't saved, that they're going to be under condemnation, right?

I'm sure you guys can think of some. So I'll give you some time in your small group to talk about that, right? But all of this that we're talking about in chapter 11 is to prepare us for what's coming in the bowl judgment. So what I want to do is what I'm going to ask you to do, hopefully you'll do it, okay?

Next week we're going to be studying chapter 11, but we're going to have a whole month off and really take time. If you kind of got lost in the first 11th chapter study, I really want to encourage you to go back and just read it. You don't have to go back and try to figure out what the red horse and the pale horse and what does it mean by that.

You don't have to go read commentaries, but just be familiar with it. In fact, I think we miss the whole point sometimes if we try so hard to figure out when and how and it is a pre-trip, post-trip that you really miss the whole point because, you know, I think the early church when they heard it, I'll bet you a lot of this stuff was mysterious to them too, right?

But I think there's a reason why it was given to us in this way, because it was meant to leave an impression. Remember we talked about that, how God communicates? Like I can communicate with my words and I can paint a picture for you, right? And you can look at that and then you can say, "Oh, that's what it means." You can watch a movie, hear music, and all of this has different effects on you, right?

And some people maybe lean more toward just, "Okay, I'd rather have somebody just explain it to me." And then I know a lot of you learn a lot better visually if you just look at it and maybe the painting or something, you can see the sadness or the joy of the painting right when you see it, right?

And music, music is powerful. If you hear certain songs with certain kind of melody, it could bring back memories, it could bring healing, right? It could bring friends together. So all of these things are forms of communication that makes an impression on us, whether it's through hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, whatever it may be.

Book of Revelation was written to make an impression. And the impression is, right, the judgment that's coming is intense. But we're not at the end. The end conclusion is not the judgment. The end conclusion is the judgment is going to come where he's no longer going to withhold his judgment, right?

Because all this time he's been gracious with the world and then after that is going to come paradise, right? And so it's meant to leave that impression. So even as you're reading it, if you don't understand all the details of it, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think you're missing what God intended just because you don't understand every bit and pieces of it.

I think the goal of it is to make that impression. That impression is that it will cause a sense of urgency, that we would see the magnificence of Christ and what he has done. We could see his mercy, right? Even in the content, even as we're studying last week, right?

Even in the midst of all of that, he says he's waiting for the sinners to repent, right? And all of these things would make an impression. So I want to really encourage you to go and just read, right? Even if you get lost, just read. And then hopefully you'll prepare yourself during the month of August to really come with a, wow, this bold judgment is intense and at least know the bits and pieces and details so that we would be impacted the way that God intended it to, okay?

And again, let me just review the questions, okay, before I let you go. Do you think you are actively engaged in the spiritual battle we are called to today? If yes, how? If not, why not, right? And again, as I mentioned already in the beginning, we can be at Bible study every single week and just mentally check in and check out, right?

I know that, you know that. So I hope that you'll take some time to really think through, not are you coming to church, are you faithful in doing these things, but how sober are you, you know, how aware are you of these spiritual things? And maybe part of the reason why all these spiritual things in Revelation sound so weird is because we don't think about it enough.

We think about angels that we don't, the demonic world, the angelic world just doesn't seem real to us because we just don't think about it, right? And maybe we should be, not maybe, we should be thinking about it, right? Because the Lord tells us that we are engaged in spiritual battle whether we know it or not, right?

Number two, why do you think God keeps certain truths from us? And then I already kind of discussed that with you, take some time to discuss it with your group. If Jesus was to no longer delay and come tomorrow, how would that affect the way you live today? So obviously we studied where he promises that he's no longer going to delay.

We're not there yet, right? We're not there yet. He's making that promise halfway into the tribulation and then he's saying that the time is going to end, right? And let's say if we were, if we heard that and he says he's no longer going to delay, which means it could be tomorrow, it could be the next day, but that period of grace has passed and he's going to fulfill what he started with us in our salvation.

He's going to bring it to completion. If that's the case, how would that affect what you're doing today, right? And how should that affect? Or is that something that's like, oh, we can't live like he's going to come tomorrow, right? So take some time to discuss with your small group.

And again, next week, one more study in chapter 11 and then the week after that we're doing reviews. So if you know people that for whatever reason they feel lost, make sure that they're there for that so that we can review it together. Okay. All right, let me pray for us and then I'll let you guys go.

Merciful and loving Father, I thank you for my brothers and sisters. I thank you, Lord God, that even in the midst of a long day and being physically tired, and I know Father that we are here because we're wrestling and striving and sometimes, Lord God, we feel defeated because it's so hard to stay sober.

But I pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit that you've entrusted and placed in us would help us in our weakness, that even when we can't pray or have a hard time praying, that it would continue to groan on our behalf. We thank you for interceding for us when we are weak.

We thank you for being gracious, Lord God, when we stray. But we pray, Father God, that you would help us as you've given us your spirit, not to wallow in defeat, not to accept mediocrity or lukewarmness, but help us to wrestle and to struggle and to fight and run this race, Lord, as to win.

Help us to be aware of the spiritual battle that we are in, that all that you are teaching us through revelation, Lord God, would have the intended purpose that you've had for all of us. We pray that you would bless our small group time, that through it, Lord, that we may be sober as iron sharpening iron.

We thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.