Divorce Yourself from Your Old Life!

Christians are more distracted than ever before. We need to seriously get back to who God is. It will help keep us focused on how we enter our day and how we work through it if we keep our thoughts and actions focused on Jesus. Let's get divorced from our old life and prepare for battle. Put on the full armor of God, by letting go of our old life. Let's walk in Christ. We won't walk sinless, but if we humble ourselves especially in front of non believers, when we sin, He will establish our witness for Him. You can redeem the moment and get more mileage out of the situation. You communication that there is a God in heaven that forgives sin and it will be the unexpected that people see when you do.

Matthew 22:11-14 ~ "But when the king came to look at the guest, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?" and he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.For many are called, but few are chosen."

We need to keep our garments clean as believers in Christ. We need to have Jesus on. Put off the parts we struggle with every day.

Colossians 3:9-10 ~ "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."

Galatians 3:27 ~ "For as many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ."

This is not speaking of water baptism but of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 1:7-8 ~ "So that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We need a spiritual baptism and be born again! When we dress up or dress down, we move and act differently. What you put on matters. It changes you. When you feel good, you act differently.

What Would Jesus Do or WWJD has been overused and made fun of, but do you really know Jesus biblically or personally?

We need to be aware of how we act and what we say! When was the last time you encouraged someone other than someone in your family? To thank people in church for their faithfulness in coming? We need one another. No man is an island.

Evil has an appointment with God and is why we need to be watching. It is the moment everyone who has ever wished for God's punishment to come upon those who do evil and seem to get away with it.

Revelation 16:16 ~ "And they assemble at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon."

The "they" this is being referred here is the nations of the world, a Christ-rejecting world that even now, still thinks they can take God on in the last and final battle on earth. Armageddon is a real place in the world today, it is the Valley of Megiddo. You can visit it today along with Solomon's stables and the cisterns of water. To the north is Syria and to the south is Jordan.

The affairs of man are before God's eyes.

Revelation 16:16-17 ~ "And they assemble at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, "It is done!"

The events of earth are in God's hands.

Revelation 16:18-21 ~ "And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there has never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain her cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people and they cursed God for the plague of the hail because the plague was so severe."

When you see the phrase "God remembered Babylon the great," doesn't mean God forgot about the city, it simply means that an appointed moment has arrived. The time of Babylon and God's dealing with it had arrived just as He had planned. Remember that Babylon is Iraq in our modern times.

So what does this mean for us today?

Simply that we should be praying and worshiping God because we, as believers in Christ, will not be here when this all happens. That is our blessed hope. We can be encouraged when we see the events being staged. It is a time to be watching.

An earthquake will be coming that the entire world will feel at the same time. It will be a cataclysmic event that the world has never seen or felt before.

Luke 21:34-36 ~ "But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares for this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man."

As believers in Christ, our citizenship is in heaven. You WILL escape the wrath of God.

Remember that the Bible promises that in the last days, people will say, "Where is the promise of His coming?" This will fulfill scripture and bring us one day closer to the coming of Jesus in the Rapture! We watch things happening in the world with our Bible open. Be encouraged by getting into your Bible!

God Does Not Bring Wrath Upon Believers

We begin today an entirely new chapter in the Book of Revelation and before we begin I want you to write down three specific questions you need to look at while we study this chapter.

1. What is being told?
2. Is there an Old Testament reference to this?
3. How does this affect my life?

As we look at things happening in the world today, we need to understand that one day all the things we have been studying in the Book of Revelation will one day come to pass. These are futuristic events but not in the too distant future, I believe. As believers in Christ, we will not be present when the Wrath of God is poured out on the world during the 7 year Tribulation period. We can however be looking for signs and indicators in the news that the stage is being set for this time to come. What are some things we can look for?

1. The Destruction of Damascus, Syria which is found in Isaiah 17.
2. Russia invading Israel which is found in Ezekiel 37 and 38

While the world and every single person I know of wants to know what the future holds, very few even bother to pick up the Bible, when in fact every single prophecy has been fulfilled to perfection or is yet to come. You can't argue with what has already happened. So why shrug off 100% accuracy if you want to know the future of the world. The Bible is clear, it won't be pretty for those in a Christ rejecting world.

We know all about the angels used in God's judgments. They are instruments to administer His wrath upon the world according to His purpose and plan. The hope we have in this chapter is verse 15, which I hope in your Bible is written in red, because it is Jesus! That is wonderful to see at this stage in what has been coming to the world. Yet this is still a future event coming to the world.

We have understood the Book of Revelation to signify the unveiling or revealing of Jesus Christ, which we uncovered from the very first verse in Revelation 1. He is revealed in the positive. He is the Messiah of Israel. He came to the world to be a Redeemer and Savior to every single person in it. He is the only one. The Bible told us about Jesus before He even appeared on the earth. The Bible speaks about Jesus Christ.

In the negative, we have the rejection of Jesus Christ. If we reject him, we are saying we can do this on our own and don't need Him. Jesus is God's greatest gift and when we push that away, we are in danger of becoming like Pharaoh when Moses was sent by God to ask for the release of the Israelites and ten times, Pharaoh said No, and ten times God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Moses proclaimed and Pharaoh rejected. If you reject Jesus long enough, God will one day simply give up on you and your heart will become so hard you will no longer hear that offer of salvation and redemption any longer. Don't fool yourself into thinking you have all the time in the world.

Genesis 6:3 ~ "Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh;"

As we begin to study Revelation 16 and understand the wrath of God we need to gain insight that this doesn't mean hell. It is God's indignation, His judgment, and it has nothing to do with believers in Christ. All of God's wrath is revealed during the Tribulation Period and has to do with 3 sets of 7 judgments from God each getting worse than the one preceding it. The easiest way to remember these are the acronym S.T.P.

The first sets of judgements were the seal judgments and just as the seventh is revealed it opens a new category leading to the next set of judgments. The second set was the trumpet judgments, and again as the seventh trumpet is blown the next category of judgments is opened. The third and final set of judgments is the pan or bowls judgments. I refer to them as pans because we learned that they are not like bowls we use today, but more like pans gold miners used. They are also referred to as the vial judgments and are truly the worst of the worst. The seventh bowl, pan or vial ends the Tribulation period.

We learn that each of the angels getting ready to dispense these pans, bowls or vials is given a specific geographical position in the world by God.

Revelation 16:1 ~ "Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God."

The Bible is clear in many cases that God guarantees believers will not have to go through His judgments. God removes His people from His wrath and has already proven that in numerous ways, from Noah and his family, to Abraham and Lot in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We need to be very careful not to confuse this with discipline from God. He does not judge believers in Christ, but He does discipline them, much like a shepherd does with a wayward sheep. He will break the legs of a lamb and will continue to carry it as it heals. In doing so, the lamb learns more about the shepherd by being closer to him, than he ever would have. It develops a level of trust in the shepherd in that wayward lamb's heart. Much like what happened to Jacob in the Bible when he wrestled with God. He learned to grow in discipline and knowledge of His Creator.  Christians die in cataclysmic natural events all the time and these will only increase as God has promised for the entire world. Just because there is a significant flood or earthquake in an area, this is not God's judgment, merely a natural cataclysmic event.

A day is coming very soon, when God is coming to judge the world in His wrath. We haven't seen anything like it, nor will we ever see it again. The interesting thing is for believers in Christ, while wrath is being dispensed upon the world, we will be celebrating in the marriage feast of the Lamb. Glory in heaven and wrath on earth.

Isaiah 26:19-21 ~ "Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain."

You have a choice today, to be with us in heaven celebrating in glory or reject Jesus Christ and face the wrath of God coming to the world. Those are your only options and the choice is up to you this day. Who will you serve, Jesus or the world?