THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Revelation: God's Revelation To His Servants Today On Events About To Occur

Part IV: "The Things Which Shall Be Hereafter": Events After The Rapture Of The Church

C. The Great Tribulation Period, Revelation 6:1-19:21

5. A Second View Of The Great Tribulation Guiding Us To Avoid Group Idolatry, Revelation 11:1-19:21

g. Heeding Christ In Keeping At His Biblical Work To Avoid Deception Unto Harmful Ecumenism

(Revelation 16:1-16)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

Being deceived into entering harmful ecumenism is a huge problem that affects many in various realms today:

(1) Historian Richard Pipe in his work, "'Property and Freedom'" (2000) claimed: "(C)itizens of democracies are willing heedlessly to surrender their freedoms to purchase social equality (along with economic security), apparently oblivious of the consequences. And the consequences are that their ability to hold on to and use what they earn and own . . . even to speak their mind is steadily being eroded by governments bent on redistributing private assets and subordinating individual rights to group rights," The Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2014, p. A17.

(2) Deception unto harmful ecumenism also greatly affects Christendom: (a) the "1994 . . . 'Evangelicals and Catholics' document . . . called for evangelicals and Catholics to stop evangelizing each other since both groups [allegedly] 'are Christian.'" (Brannon Howse, Religious Trojan Horse, 2012, p. 254) However, the Catholic Church teaches salvation by faith plus the Church's sacraments to where many former Catholics tell me they did not know Christ as their personal Savior while they were in that Church. Regardless, a large evangelical Church in our area has held a joint service with a local Catholic Church in line with this document! (b) Also, Howse added in his work that "(m)any church-growth conferences are sponsored by people and organizations such as the Rockefellers and the Council on Foreign Relations" to "co-opt the Church for their globalist and ecumenical goals," Ibid., p. 210, 215. I was stunned upon reading of this, and many other pastors would be stunned if they knew of it as well!

Need: So we ask, "What does God expect us to do to avoid getting deceived unto entering harmful ecumenism?!"

I. Revelation 16:1-11 presents the first five of God's final, bowl judgments in the Great Tribulation, and He will use them partly to judge and partly in grace to urge men to repent from following the antichrist:

A. God will call for His final judgments of wrath, the 7 bowl judgments, and the 1st bowl will inflict "ugly and painful sores" on those who had received the antichrist's mark and worshipped his image, Rev. 16:1-2 NIV.

B. The 2nd bowl judgment will turn the sea into the blood of a dead man, killing all life in it (Rev. 16:3; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Rev. 16:3) while the 3rd bowl judgment will make man's drinking water sources yield blood, Rev. 16:4. Both judgments will punish men for killing believers, as the angel over the waters and a voice from the altar by martyred souls will testify and affirm God's justice, Rev. 16:5-7; 6:9-11.

C. Another angel will pour the 4th bowl judgment out onto the sun, making it scorch men with great heat, Rev. 16:8-9a. Rev. 16:9b implies that God will also intend that this judgment lead men to repent, but they will not.

D. The 5th bowl judgment will send darkness and great pain on those in antichrist's kingdom, and men will gnaw their tongues, Rev. 16:10. Instead of repenting as God desires, men will only blaspheme Him, Rev. 16:11.

II. In the 6th bowl judgment, God in GRACE will give men a choice EITHER (1) to face a dreadful end at Armageddon in heeding Satanic deception OR (2) to escape it in heeding His Biblical will, Rev. 16:12-16:

A. The 6th bowl judgment will cause the Euphrates River to dry up to make way for the kings of the East, Rev. 16:12, 16b; Daniel 11:44-45. Though antichrist will rule the world, rebellious military armies will advance against him from the north and east, angering him so that he will move "his headquarters" [from Europe, as we will learn in Rev. 17] to "between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean," Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Daniel 11:40-45.

B. To oppose Christ's return, Satan will send out 3 demons to gather men to fight at Armageddon, an effort that will prove disastrous as all who oppose Christ will be defeated, Rev. 16:13-14, 16b; B. K. C., N. T., p. 968.

C. One demon will exit Satan's mouth (dragon), one will exit the antichrist's mouth (beast) and one will exit the false prophet's mouth, each figuratively presented as frogs and working miracles, Rev. 16:13-14. We explain:

1. Scripture elsewhere mentions frogs only at Exodus 8:1-15; Psalm 78:45 and 105:30, and each of these passages refers to the Exodus 8:1-15 frog plague where God critiqued Egypt's false goddess (Num. 33:4) Heqet, who the Egyptians held (a) created human life by breathing out of her nostrils to animate the bodies of men formed from the dust of the ground by her husband Khnum, B. K. C., O. T., p. 121. Heqet was also thought to be (b) "involved in the resurrection of the deceased," ancientegyptonline.co.uk, "Heqet." [Note how God ended the frog plague in Exodus 8:13-14 with having the frogs die on land and be gathered in great, rotting heaps in obvious critique of Heqet's alleged ability to raise the dead!]

2. Also, applied to Rev. 16:13-14, the event of the deceptive "frog" demons that exit the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet additionally recalls God's letting a demon be a lying spirit in the mouths of O. T. Ahab's prophets to entice him to war at Ramoth-Gilead that he be slain, 2 Chron. 18:1-22.

3. Thus, akin to ancient Egypt's Heqet myth, the "frog" demons will pledge to resurrect men if they die in battle, a pledge made plausible to their hearers by (a) the past false animation given by the false prophet to the image of the antichrist formed by men (Rev. 13:15) akin to the Egyptian Heqet myth of her animating her husband Khnum's handiwork, and by (b) the past survival of the antichrist from a lethal sword wound (Rev. 13:14), a survival falsely touted as resurrection akin to the ancient Heqet myth, Revelation 13:3-4.

4. So, in counterfeit of Christ's resurrection and the Triune God's offer of eternal life and resurrection those who trust in Him, this unholy demon trinity will falsely claim that as they "raised" antichrist and gave life to his image, they will raise those who trust their call to war but die, part of the 2 Thess. 2:10-12 delusion!

D. However, Christ will call men to overcome this deception, and He teaches them how to do so in Rev. 16:15:

1. As background to Rev. 16:15, we recall that O. T. Ahab did not heed godly prophet Micaiah's warning that his prophets had given him a false message, but to protect himself just in case Micaiah was right, Ahab changed out of his royal robes into regular attire to make himself less of a target. Yet, when Ahab engaged in battle, he was slain by an arrow God led a man randomly to shoot in his direction, 2 Chron. 18:23-34.

2. Well, Christ in Rev. 16:15 said He would come as a thief, when men did not expect it [at Armageddon, Lk. 12:40], so He promised to bless one who KEPT his garments LEST HE WALK NAKED, a promise going beyond the 2 Chron. 18 account of Ahab who NEVER WALKED NAKED THERE. However, Rev. 19:8 NIV shows believers are figuratively clothed by upright works, so Christ pledged to bless one who stayed with God's Bible truth and work that IN TURN kept him out of ecumenical union and Armageddon, Rev. 16:15-16; 19:21. [In support of this interpretation, we found in Rev. 3:17-18 in this series in critique of Calvinism and Arminianism that the loss of garments there meant failure to persevere in godly works!]

E. Nevertheless, many will trust the "frog" demons' false gospel and ecumenically meet at Armageddon, doomed to a dreadful, shameful end, Rev. 16:16. [Note: God will have the fowls eat the slain bodies at Armageddon, irretrievably obliterating them opposite the frog demons' false Heqet-like pledge to raise them, Rev. 19:21!]

Lesson: When God pours out His severe bowl judgments wrath on antichrist's followers, not only will He judge them for sin, but He will use those judgments in grace to urge them to repent and trust in Christ. In the sixth bowl judgment, God will give men the choice of following Satanic deception unto ecumenical union only to be irreversibly slain by Christ at Armageddon or to heed Biblical truth and so avoid that disastrous end.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ to be saved, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we heed the timeless Revelation 16:15 call of Christ to keep performing our Biblical assignments in life and ministry (Revelation 19:8) that we might avoid falling for the deceptions to join ecumenical unions today that God will judge with a disastrous end.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . .)

Our Church leaders have long applied this lesson, and that with blessing re: the issues in our introduction:

(1) On the issue of democratic societies surrendering personal liberties for social equality or economic security provided by the state only to lose out on both goals by encroaching governments, Isaiah 2:22-3:11 NIV condemns trust in fallen man's societies, calling us instead to trust in God. Then, as 1 Corinthians 7:21-23 calls us to stay as free as we can from serving men, we teach we should never willingly surrender our personal liberties to any human entity!

(2) On the issue of the "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" document, since the Catholic Church teaches a faith plus works gospel that is an excommunicable offense according to Scripture at Galatians 1:8-9 and Ephesians 2:8-9, our Church leaders have long avoided association with that or any other such errant Church entity!

(3) On the issue of church-growth conferences often influenced by powerful secular entities that use them to influence churches for their globalist and ecumenical goals, Acts 2:47b and Matthew 16:18 claim that God builds the Church, not us! Thus, our Church's leaders have long ministered the Word and avoided church-growth conferences.

In many such cases, though I or our Church leaders are often unaware of the deceptively errant movements when they actually arise and affect other groups and churches, God has worked to keep us from their spiritually harmful influence! How? as a BYPRODUCT of our simply heeding the Scriptures we knew!

So, may we stay faithful to what we know Scripture says to avoid deception unto harmful ecumenism!