Revelation 18:1 - 19:15

There is a Day coming when the Lord will overthrow every false religion and idolatrous belief system, including the false religion created by the Antichrist. In the meantime, we should praise God for what He is doing in making the truth about Himself known and follow Jesus faithfully.

Revelation 15-16 describes the last of God's judgments on the wicked during the Last Days. After these judgments are over, God's Kingdom will be ushered in. They are also necessary and just judgments - necessary because the evil that fills the world permits no other solution and just because they are the righteous retribution for the evil committed against the God's people, whom He loves.

Revelation 14:14-20 gives us two contrasting images of two different harvests taking place at the end of the age. The first harvest contains those whom God has saved by grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. He will wait until this harvest is "fully ripe," until the last of His elect come to faith, to bring the End Times to an end. But when this harvest is completed, then God will initiate His second harvest, the harvest of His wrath, which will include all those who refused to trust in Christ and thereby turn from their sin and evil. We all have a choice about which harvest we are included in, and if we are believers in Christ, we also have the blessing and responsibility of participating in the 1st harvest too, helping to bring others to faith in Jesus and escape from God's judgment.

In the last days, God will send 3 angels throughout the whole world, with three messages offering salvation and announcing impending judgment before the last judgments fall. God desires all people to repent rather than face HIs judgment. At the same time, God calls His people to stand firm in the faith, because rest and reward is coming for all God's people. In our days, we Christians have likewise been sent forth like these angels, as God's Gospel heralds, offering salvation and warning of judgment to come, and calling all peoples to believe in Christ and be saved from death. And like God's people in the last days, we Christians are also called to persevere in the faith all the way to end of our journey when we see Jesus.

In the last days, Jesus will make His saints victorious, redeeming them to live a blameless life. That is the same thing he is doing in every time and place, saving people from every nation and people group now, making them victorious over sin, death, and Satan, and redeeming them to live a blameless life as His witnesses.

During the last 3 1/2 years of the Tribulation period, Satan will create a counterfeit kingdom, led by a counterfeit Messiah (Antichrist) and a counterfeit prophet (a false Elijah-like figure). Together, they will persecute and martyr God's people, who are called to endure through these trials. Believers today, facing nowhere near the same kind of persecution, are called to likewise endure in the faith, remembering that their names have been written in the "book of life of the Lamb who was slain" since before the creation was formed.

In his first coming, Jesus fulfilled the 3 Spring feasts God commanded Israel to keep. He was crucified on the Passover, because He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and takes us from slavery to sin to freedom in relationship with God. Jesus was raised on the Feast of Firstfruits, because He is the firstfruits of the resurrection. And He sent the Spirit to dwell in believers at Pentecost, so that the Law would no longer be written on stone tablets but on human hearts. In the same way, Jesus will fulfill the feasts of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles in the Last Days.

The Lord Jesus will finally defeat Satan and banish him and his angels from heaven forever. He will also protect His chosen people of Israel and fulfill all His promises to them as part of His great covenant-keeping plan for the salvation of all races, tribes, languages, and nations.

God's Kingdom WILL come and when it does, God will bring judgment for sinners and reward for all His people. His people will be welcomed home into HIs presence while those who have rejected Christ will be shut out of His presence forever. Since these things are true, we should live now in such a way that we might receive abundant reward from God, out of love for Christ.