Rylee Meek and other Christian speakers work through Revelation 19 verse by verse, focusing on Christ's return as the rider on the white horse. They examine the imagery of crowns, a blood-dipped robe, and a sword from his mouth, then discuss judgment and why believers can trust God's promises.
Chapters
Are.
Have a testimony I have a story to sing this is my story this is my song have a testimony see my testimony Rain came wind blue My house was built on you.
I.
Say with you I feel somebody's faith rising Blue this is the reason you.
Made it.
Have a testimony Rain came when blue My house was built on.
You.
I say with you.
I feel.
Somebody'S faith rising Rain came with blue My house was built for you.
I.
Stay with you, you I feel somebody's faith rising this is the reason you made it this is the reason I'm standing.
Good morning. Good morning. What's happening, everybody? Happy Wednesday to you. I'm excited to be with you guys this morning. Is that V. Riley Meek that's on here? He said it would be on. I know, Rog, you log on under Riley. I'm on. I'm on. Just trying to figure out my camera. Nice. Not me. Nice. There we go. Good morning. Awesome. Oh, sorry. I should have given you time to put sleeves on. I just woke up and they just tear off, man. Awesome. Awesome. Good to be with you. Hey, that was funny. I just said. So excited to be with you this morning. And I. I just had a little, like, irk of my spirit the other day. Sorry, my papers are blown. Thank God for a little breeze down here, but blew my papers over. There's like, a little irk of my spirit just seeing, like, whenever, like, a pastor's on stage, especially when they do, like, do the offering, they just talk about how excited they are and, you know, how blessed they are that that somebody else is in the building. And I'm like, man, I don't ever want to say that word, excited. I'm so excited. But I say it because it's true. It's true. I'm excited to be on here Wednesday mornings. Good to see you, Gerard.
Hey, what's up, brother? How's it going? Good to be able to chance to hop on. Glad to be able to hop on.
Good, man. Hopefully you could add some. We're going to be talking about Jews today a little bit, not juice Jews.
Okay. All right.
Yeah. So hopefully he could contribute a bit. Always good to have you looking forward to your input. Unless you gotta race off to work or get the kids to school.
No, no, no, Everything's good. I think I'm good for it. So we're good.
Okay. Okay. I was talking to Leslie there at the end, but YouTube, Gerard.
Good.
I. I want for this to be as interactive as possible. Today. I'm gonna do my best not to speak for 57 minutes and open it up for you guys. So we'll get right into it. Last week, for those of you who joined us, we were In Revelation, chapter 19, one of the most encouraging and inspiring and thrilling chapters in all of Scripture. But we stopped short just before the good stuff, if you will, when Jesus cracks the sky and really wins, right? Jesus is the one who was and is and is to come, and he has already won. He's currently winning. And this right here is really where he. He. He flexes in his victory. Not that Jesus would flex for any, you know, superficial or ego or prideful reason, but it's remarkable, this chapter, what he does, just the power of Jesus, the power of his Word, and ultimately, spoiler alert. If you guys don't know, we're in the last couple chapters of all of Scripture, and Jesus wins for all of eternity, and we win. So I like to say the good guys win. Although I don't like to kid myself and ever thinking that my heart is better than it is. I know it's still wicked. I thought, I know I still need Jesus every single day. But ultimately the good guys win. So with that all said, we'll jump into these first few verses in Revelation 19 and we'll open it up pretty quickly. So Revelation 19, chapter 11 says, Now I saw heaven opened. Now the first half of chapter 19, we. We heard some things, right? Well, John heard some things in heaven. He heard a loud voice. He heard things going on. Now he's going to see some things. And he saw heaven open, and behold a white horse. And he who sat on him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and make. Makes war again every time you. You hear judgment in the book of Revelations, always mentioned. And even heaven rejoices because it's the righteousness of God being played out. So it's not judgment because God's just angry or mad at those who reject him. I can never be God, because sometimes I get angry and mad at just other unbelievers who just seem so. So deceived and so ignorant to truth. But it's not out of anger. It's in righteousness. He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven. The armies in heaven, that includes you and me. Us believers were included in this armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule with them, rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So pause right there. Jump into that a bit. Now, the revelation of Jesus Christ started back in January, mentioning the. The revelation simply means the unveiling of Jesus Christ. So everything that we've read thus far in. In Revelation really points to this moment right here. This is the. The ultimate unveiling of Jesus Christ when he cracks this guy on a white horse. The white horse, we know, signifies power oftentimes. Well, not oftentimes. In biblical times, if you were fighting a battle and you were on a horse, you had the upper hand, right? Think of it almost today as we could kick butt with B2BO bombers, right? We just have an advantage in war. That's how it was in biblical days. You're either on a horse or on foot. So that white horse indicates victory, white in the cure indicates holiness, righteousness. But he cracks guy on that white horse. Gerard, fire it off already, man.
Yo. Yeah, you know, I have a question. I want to see where you're at on this. I want to. I don't know if anybody else caught this, but in 12, it says he has a name written on him, which no one knows except himself. And then now in 16, he says, and on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What do you take from a third?
From.
From 12, no one knows except for himself.
I take that to mean that we. The name that. That when he cracks the sky, right on earth that see him, it's a name that. That nobody knows. It's just that they can't possibly know the depth and the fullness of his.
Name and who he is or that at this time no one on earth will know the name of Christ because who he's written is Lord of Lord and King of Kings. So are the people on earth that are seeing this do not know. They've never heard of that. Lord of Lord, King of Kings.
Well, remember the first three and a half years of the tribulation, you're going to have the two witnesses that are ministering the gospel. You're going to have the 144,000 Jews that are sealed, not just. They're not just saved during the tribulation but they're. They're also sealed with protection, so they make it through the tribulation. And then you have the. The angel that's zipping around the earth preaching the everlasting gospel. So I don't think that.
And.
And we see throughout the tribulation God's heart of mercy, where time after time, with all these judgments, He. He's it. You know, the. The. The seven seal judgments, then the trumpet judgments and the bowl judgments, and they just get more and more intense. He could have just, with any one of those judgments, done this Right. But all through tribulation, that his heart is still for those to repent for sure that those on earth will know the name Jesus Christ. They're just choosing to reject him so that.
No. Is that they don't really know him. They might have heard the name, but they don't know him.
Yes, that. That's the way I take it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Hey, Christian. Just to go back to Revelation 2:17 kind of reinforces that. It says, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name is written, which no one knows except him who receives it.
Oh, good.
I was.
I was also going to add to this because if you think about the description of him is how the description of Daniel.
Right.
I'm recently diving back through that with the fire and flames of eyes, so it kind of matches that description. And then in Daniel, you know, the hand wrote on that wall that no one could decipher except for Daniel. So is it, like, in a language. Right. That nobody has the ability to decipher what that is? Because it. I just found that tie. That's why I raised the question.
Yeah, it. I don't know if it's a. You know, I don't know if it'll be, you know, written in a language nobody understands. Yeah. Interesting point to make out about that. That that man's hand that Daniel saw. If you guys don't know, it's pretty cool when you, like, hear about things and just the world uses a particular term or a word. And then, you know, when you hear somebody say the handwriting's on the wall, oftentimes you'll hear it for, like, a football coach who is sucking it up and he's about to get fired. And like, oh, the writing's on the wall for that coach. Well, that comes from. From Daniel, where he saw a man, and then it actually. The. The hand wrote out mane, manet parson.
Yep.
It essentially means that, like, you've been weighed and you were Light, you've been measured, and you came up short. And that was the night that the Babylonian empire fell to the Medo Persian empire. So, yeah, I don't know if it's something like that. It. We could, you know, we could kind of theorize on that, but I. I take it more as like what Roger said. Nobody could really know what that name is until you receive it like Jesus Christ before you come to Christ. I mean, for me, he was at times just a fairy tale at times. All right, this old guy who's in the Bible, which to me at the time was like an old history book, but to actually know the name of Jesus and, And to know king of kings, Lord and lords, and what that actually means. You don't know what that means. Yeah, we receive him.
So for sure.
Good job, Roger, pointing that out. Zechariah 14 declares that Jesus, in this moment, when he does crack the sky on the white horse, he's gonna first return to the Mount of Olives, right? The Mount of Olives is going to crack in two. And this is fulfillment of Isaiah 64, where he says, oh, that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might shake at your presence, as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence. So even there, the name of Jesus, now he's making the name known, a name not only Jesus knows, but now after he cracks the sky and whip some tail, maybe they do understand what that name means a little bit more. Jesus said, now this is. This is going to be the day that, you know, if you just read the book of Romans on its own, without the whole context of Scripture, and you'll. You'll see that all of Israel will be saved. It's like, okay, wait a second. What do you mean they'll all be saved? They just get the free pass to heaven. But no, it's going to come in this moment. Jesus said in Matthew 23, I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So the. Those that the nation of Israel will come to repentance in this moment. And when we talk about the. This battle of Armageddon, we talked about it with, with the. The last bowl judgment, right? It's the last bowl judgment is okay. Jesus is coming, and he's winning, and evil and wickedness will be done with. It's not really a battle as we see here, you know, it's not a battle, it's Jesus speaks a word and his enemies are defeated. So the battle of Armageddon isn't so much a battle, it's really a, you know, it's a, it's a one sided, not even a fight. It's not a struggle. God speaks and evil's done with. But he is faithful and true, right? He's called faithful and true and he's a keeper of his promises. And we, we need to remember that especially when we, you know, we just got out of time of prayer and you know, when we have that time of prayer, we have a handful of people have praise reports and God stories and awesome things going on. And we have people who are in times of need, they are in desert seasons, they feel alone, they feel like they're under attack. But he's called faithful and true. We must remember that his word never returns void and it may take some time, right? We don't know when every promises is going to come to pass. But the ultimate promise for us is that this will happen, right? There's going to be a time where, you know, we talked about in Revelation 17 and 18, where Babylon will fall, the world will fall, worldliness will, will go away. Everything that's not eternal will be burned up. So that, that's all reality. And oftentimes in our, especially in the year 2025, you know, it's beyond, I used to call it like a microwave culture, right? We want everything fast. It's beyond microwave. Even microwaves aren't fast enough for the way we live in 2025. So we are in such an instant gratification culture right now, such an instant gratification world right now that we, we have to remain steadfast and you know, had a conversation, Zach was a part of the conversation, Riley was as well, where we were reminded of Daniel's prayer, right? When Daniel prayed and an angel was dispatched immediately when he prayed. But he had to contend in the spiritual realm. He was caught up in the spiritual realm. And it wasn't until he called good old angel Michael over to, to help win in the spirit realm that that angel actually came and gave the message to Daniel that he had been praying for, for 21 days. So when we're praying oftentimes, you know, a day, one day could feel like three weeks when, when God's not answering, when we're in the thick of it. But also something I learned about chickens is when they lay an egg, they sit on it for 21 days before that chicken cracks the egg and sees life. Now those chickens, if I, I did not fact check this at all. I, I know nothing about chickens or farm life at all. But it sounds, sounds true.
I fact checked it. It's true.
Okay, good.
I fact checked it. Not all birds do that time, but chickens do. 21 days. I fact checked it.
Okay, so those little dumb pea brain chickens know, okay? This is the process. I gotta trust the process. If I sit on this egg, I'm gonna have a little baby chick and there may be no progress, no growth. I don't know if there's discouragement, you know, a day 20. I don't know if a chicken could count the days in its head to see how many times the sun comes up. Go. If that Chicken knows it's 21 days and is full of confidence that, hey, I know this baby's going to be born, but there's no, no growth, no progress, there's no fruit to be shown until the actual baby's born at the end of those 21 days. And we have to be mindful of that, that when we pray, when God promises us something, right? He may have spoken to you with a specific promise for your life. God promised Lucy and I a baby. We knew it. We heard it. We got married in 2012. He wasn't born till 2020 and we had two miscarriages along the way. But we knew, we trusted. Were there, were there times of doubt? Heck, yeah. Were there times where you start to question yourself, where you're like, it's like, baby, did you, did you hear right? I'm questioning myself. Did you hear it too? Are you sure you heard it? Because maybe I was wrong. But we, we need to trust in his promises. And not just the specific promises. He speaks to us in our own prayer time with him, but these promises that are written in the word of God. And one thing we know for certain is there's, there's nothing in scripture compared to how history has played out that should give us any reason to doubt any, any promise that is yet to be fulfilled. We know the Rapture is going to happen. We know Jesus is going to come back. Next week, we'll read about the thousand year millennial reign of Jesus on Earth. We know there's going to be a new heaven, a new earth. And we know no matter what life throws at you today, if you've been born again by the spirit, if you're a child of God, you're going to spend all of eternity in heaven. All of eternity in heaven. And that's enough to Rejoice. Even when you feel distant from God, even if you feel like you're far from him, even if you start to have doubts, even if you, if unbelief starts to creep in, you need to trust and rely upon those promises of God because they're going to come to pass. And if, if, for whatever reason, you know, we live this life for 80 years and it's nothing but trial and hardship and mourning and grieving for those entire 80 years. But we have the spirit of the living God within us. When we have the Holy Spirit in us, there's always a peace that can still be found. There's always a joy that can still be found, right? But even if life just is tough, we know that at the end of this all, we're to look forward to it. Because we know it's going to be forever. It's going to be great. We've read a few times in scripture about what heaven's gonna look like, the rejoicing, the praising. But ultimately we know it's going to come. It's gonna come. But don't, you know, look forward to it, but don't be like, hey, I, I just want this life to end right now so I could get there now. If you're here on this earth, if God woke you up this morning, you have purpose for today. Any one of us. God may call us home at any moment, but if we're here right now, in this moment, there's purpose. There is absolute purpose. So we're on mission. Somebody had their hand up for a second and took it down.
I think I did, but then you made me cry, so, so thinking of going through hard things, this week's been really hard. And I was. When we found out the diagnosis for my papa, I was crying in the car and Jed was with me and he, he's like, can I see your phone really quick? And I gave him my phone and he looked up the bible verse Joshua 1:9 and he goes, here mom, this is, this is for you. And he's like, be strong and courageous. And I'm like, so even in that, like I was crying but I smiled because I'm still like, I even I can be strong, courageous, but I'm praying for like my family to be strong because like, it's just so, it's so hard, man. And my son, my 10 year old son is encouraging us and it's been a blessing.
I was just going to ask you to share how old he is for everybody. That's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. Yeah, God. God will. Will see us through absolutely everything He. He's going to see us through. We know that, Gerard.
Yeah, that was awesome that she shared that and that I would say to her as a mother, that her son at 10 years old is bringing her that scripture that speaks to the type of mother that she is. And I would say that, like, oftentimes we all remember that Joshua 1:9, but 1:6 through 1:8, he said, be strong and courageous two more times. So just like trusting that season. Sometimes we have to be in a season where we're hearing God's word and it has to, like, settle or ignite in us for that time to go, you know, and that's okay too, because obviously it did for Joshua. He had to hear it three times before he actually went. And we don't know how much time frame was between 16 and 1 9. Right. So how long did he marinate? Have to hear God's word before that he ignited and went.
Yeah, that's good.
I love it when Gerard jumps on, man.
Thanks, Roger.
Missed you too, brother.
Been spending Wednesdays with Wednesdays with my wife. So we're just mixing up schedules here, trying to get it dialed in.
Priorities, man. You got the whole rest of the day after this. Okay. As you said that, Gerard, I was thinking, you know, think about athletes, like football players, like, you know, they, they hype themselves up to get on that field, right? Even if the, you know, if you're a little running back and you got Ray Lewis staring you down, you got hype yourself up to be strong and courageous. And they, they may do some smelling salts, they may have a teammate slap them in the face a couple times, get hyped up to actually believe that they're strong and courageous as they, they. They want to be. Well, for us, for me, I should say. But I think this applies to all believers. When I read the Word of God, that's when I feel strong and courageous. When I, When I go through scripture, when I see his promises, I. I get inspired. When I, When I read through the Book of Acts, when I, When I read the writings of Paul, when I see Stephen in the Book of Acts when he was martyred and how he was so Christ, like as he. He looked into heaven and he actually saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father? Can you imagine being surrounded by a bunch of jokers about to stone you just simply because you love Jesus Christ and it, like, what, what he shares. You almost can envision it in your head and there's like, there's not a, a tread of anxiety, of fear. It's like, no, not only am I brave, I'm courageous. I, it's like I, I could shrug this off, whatever faces me, but, but God, he did the same thing as Jesus. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. It's like, whoa. Really? It's like, that's your perspective. That's your outlook on this thing called life. I, it's like I could get glimpses of that perspective. I could walk in that, that perspective at like short periods of time. But for you to live that life like that, with that heavenly perspective, that, that, that's what we're all called to do. Donald. What's up, man?
What's going on? I, I got, I finally got in. My webcam is not working again, but on like the Steven Point on Angel Studios, like their show Testament, like how it's modern day, like, reenactment of the Book of Acts, bro. Like when it gets to when Stephen's murdered in the show, I was blown. It like, broke me. It's so good.
So awesome. Angel Studios is awesome. I didn't even know they had that. It's called Testament.
Yes.
Okay. I was always, always curious if like the chosen after, you know, there's only so much you could, it's only so much content you could do for the chosen until you get like, beyond Jesus being crucified and obviously the 40 days he was on earth. But yeah, good stuff. So, so all, all these passages point to the sad conclusion, like, this is it. If you don't know the Lord by this point in time in history, that's it. The, the hourglass, it is, is ticking. And there's going to be a time in human history where there's no more opportunity to repent. And we talked about it a bit last week where, you know, Scripture says today is the acceptable time. Today is the day of salvation. The, you know, I believe that the rapture will happen in the seven year tribulation, then Jesus will come back on the white horse. And we'll talk about that a little bit more next week when we talk about the millennial reign of Jesus. But the, the clock is ticking. Period. The clock is ticking and there's going to be a time in human history where there's no more opportunity to repent. But again, God's merciful heart is revealed in this unveiling of Jesus Christ throughout the pages of these first 18 and a half chapters of revelation, where his heart is that we all believe in Him. His heart is to repent. And if we don't, it's righteous judgment that he exudes upon us. So his eyes were like a flame of fire, as Gerard mentioned the description of the ancient of days in, in the book of Daniel. And that he's got eyes of fire because he could discern everything that's in our hearts, right? There's nothing. He doesn't see. There's nothing. And think about even fire. Fire lights up, right? There's nothing that we could hide from, from Jesus. Many times we're thinking about like, okay, I know one day I'm gonna have to give an account for this, right? Well, it's like, no, right now you will have to give an account for, for every word spoken, for every action. But right now he sees it right now it's not like on our day of judgment, which for us, for us as believers, it's the, the bema seat judgment where we're being judged not whether we're in or out or heaven, but just what our rewards will be. And it's not like all the things that we've done wrong that aren't pleasing to God are just going to be revealed to him. Then there he knows them now. Every, that, that's his omniscience. That's his omnipresence. He knows absolutely everything everywhere. I was reading a little bedtime story with Ezzy, a bedtime devotional and it talked about God knowing how many hairs are on each one of his our heads. And he just like couldn't get over that. Couldn't get over the fact that God knows how many hairs are in his head. And then like he actually I could see in his five year old brain coming to somewhat of an understanding that wait, not just me but you too, and Mommy too. And it's like the whole world, it's just like his mind was just like blown by that fact. But it's truth. He knows everything. His eyes are a flame of fire. On his head were many crowns. We talked about this a little bit earlier in Revelation as well. There's two words in scripture in the Greek for, for crowns. One is Diadema. The other is Stephanos. Stephano is crown of achievement. And this is Diadema. It's the, the crown of royal authority. And I love that it says on his head were many crowns because he cracks the sky to, to overtake every earthly king. And it's like, okay, you may have a king on, on your crown, on your head you may have a crown on your head. You may be the ruler oh, you're the Antichrist, who the whole world is worshiping at this point. Wait a second, I'm the one who's cracking the sky with the, the not just one crown of royal authority, but many crowns to show. I am the King of kings. His, his robe was dipped in blood. And there's, I don't want to say dispute because it's not really dispute, but debated whether that's the, the blood of all the enemies that are, whose blood will be shed at this time, or blood like a blood stain from the cross. I, I tend to think just, you know, we know that a glorified Jesus still has the scars in his hands, right, from, from being pierced. So I, I tend to think that this, this robe that he wears still has a little blood stain from the cross 2,000 years ago. And out of his mouth goes a sharp word, goes a sharp word. He, Jesus is the word of God, right? He is the Word. The, the word is Lagos. And at that time if, if you received a word, right, it was just known at the time that this is divine revelation. It's not just like, oh, you know, some people might hear Jordan Peterson and be like, oh, that's a profound word, right? No, if you, if the word back then this Lagos, it was divine revelation. So for him, he. And this kind of puts a bow tie on. Even what John wrote in the first verse of the Gospel of John in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is the word and Hebrews 4:12. For the word of God is living and powerful, right? So the Word of God Jesus is the Word, Scripture is the Word, it's living and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword. John 1:1 actually predates Genesis 1:1, right? Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. But John 1:1 says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So John 1:1 what was actually predates Genesis 1:1:1 honesty. Name was written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And again, like Gerard mentioned, no one knew his name except for himself. We talked about that a bit. But moving on next couple verses here. Then I saw an angel standing again. He saw, right? He saw heaven open. Now he sees an angel standing in the sun. And he cried with a loud voice saying to all the birds that can fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings. Now notice how many times he mentions flesh. You may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great. We know that God is no respecter of persons when it comes to salvation, right? Doesn't matter what you look like, where you're raised, black, white, any color in between, what your dialect is, he's no respecter of persons. If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you will be saved. He's also no respecter of persons when it comes to judgment. Doesn't matter how you're raised, what your earthly status or title is, if you reject Jesus, you will be judged. Now, the fact that flesh is written five times here can't help me. But think of what we talked about with the fall of Babylon, the fall of the world, the, the, the fall of pretty much what man has been battling since the beginning of time. And that's the, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. So the lust of the flesh, it's a real thing. Our flesh lusts after things. But I, I think it's quite intentional. I mean, John could have easily just written that the flesh of all whom were on earth, right? But he mentions five times the flesh of kings, flesh of captains, flesh of mighty men. So I, I think he's saying, listen, you've been dealing with your flesh, and even now we, we're at war with our flesh. We have the spirit of God living within us, but we are still in these earthly tents, right? So there's still a constant battle between our spirit and our flesh. And we know whichever one we feed more is going to simply devour the other. If we start to entertain and give in to the desires of our flesh, if we start to fulfill the desires of our flesh, it's like that, that thing gets bigger and it's like the spirit of God within you, it doesn't necessarily get smaller, but it shrivels up as far as its potency and its relevance, quite frankly. So I just, I have in my Bible, flesh underlined all five times. John said in First John to where that first comes from about the lust of the flesh. Do not love the world, right? Do not love the world. And in this, this microwave, I saw some comments before of what to call this culture that we live in, this microwave culture that we live in. It's so easy to, to fulfill, to. We're being tempted not just with the lust of our flesh, but with the instant gratification that comes along with it. No, when we're fulfilling the desires of our flesh, it's not like we're, we're sowing seeds for, for a period of time, and then we, we receive that, that quick hit, you know, that, that, that quick rush, that quick high. No, it's. It's instant, right? Me, as a former drug addict, I'm well aware of what instant gratification feels like, right? And when you want that, that quick hit, that quick fix, nothing else matters. You just, you. You feel like you need to fulfill it or else you're simply going to die. Now, I want you to take note here of they gather together for the supper of the great God. Now, there's four different suppers described in the Bible. The first one is the supper of salvation, which is alluded to in Jesus's parable in Luke 14. Remember the parable where the, the king invites people to this great supper, and it's really an invitation to, to salvation. And people were too busy. They were busy buying land. They were busy with their oxen. They were busy. One guy, because he's married, right? And, and then what is, what is the. The master of the king say in that parable? He sends his servants out. He's like, well, go. Go hit the highways. He bring as many people in here as possible. Which I love reading that because that is God's heart. It's like, okay, if, if you reject him, I'm. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pursue you. But if you reject me, I'm not going to pursue that person down the street any less. I'm going to pursue all of humanity. So we have that supper of salvation, then the Lord's Supper, which is commemoration of Jesus sacrifice on the cross. Then we read last week in the first half of chapter 19, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and we talked about the, the parallel to the traditional Jewish wedding, right? And that marriage supper of the lamb and ultimately the supper of the great God. We're. We're going to be involved in at least one of these, right? For most of us, hopefully we're involved in the first three. That, that supper of salvation, the Lord's Supper, where we, you know, take communion to in remembrance of Jesus and the work on the cross, this marriage supper of the Lamb, which is yet to come, that's coming for all of us soon. And then the supper of the great God where we're ultimately going to be. We're going to be. Not we. I take that back. It's not we unbelievers. That they're going to be part of a supper where they are the supper, the. The carcasses of all the. The dead bodies of those who reject Christ when he returns. They're going to be bird food. And you know, it's hard for us to think about now, but 2,000 years ago, when somebody died in war or in battle, they. They were just left on the battlefield until the. The birds came and ate them up. And that's essentially what he's talking about here. And there was one commentary I read. It says if you reject the first supper, again referring to the supper of salvation in Luke 14, parable, the second supper, the Lord's Supper will mean nothing to you. Then you will not be present at the third supper, which is the marriage supper of the lamb, but will be present at the fourth supper. Everybody gets to attend at least one of these suppers, but some will eat and others are eaten at the suppers. So the suppertime is coming for, for all of humanity. I'd much rather be a part of that marriage supper of the lamb rather than be supper for the birds when my corpse is rotting and my spirit's now in torment. All right, last couple verses. And I. And I saw again, John sees again the beast. The beast, we remember, is the Antichrist. The kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. So this Antichrist, again, I've made mention of this throughout the book of Revelation. The. The devil, who's the. The red dragon behind the. The evil of the Antichrist. He's not our friend by any means. He. He's not. He's against us, those who worship the devil. Right? Now, guess what? He's against those people too.
He.
He's not for anybody. So this beast and the. The rulers of the earth and their armies, and this ultimately is the battle of Armageddon. They'll. They'll gather to make war against Jesus and all of us on the white horses behind Jesus. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who works signs in his presence. Keep that in mind that the false prophet, the. The one that points everybody to believe in the Antichrist. It's a great deception that it's not out of the realm of the spiritual realm for somebody to. To do something that looks godly because it looks spiritual. Not everything spiritual is of God. That's why God gives us the, the gift of discernment to the. It's the discerning of spirits because there are times where something looks super spiritual. And it's like this, this has to be God. No. Well, this is how the world's deceived. It's not just because of head knowledge of, you know, I've come to the completely objective conclusion that Jesus can't be real based on xyz, which is nonsense anyway. It's. They're spiritually deceived. And it says by which the. The Antichrist he deceived or the, the. I'm sorry, the false prophet deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone and the rest were killed with the sword. So this is the rest of the folks on the earth, they were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on the horse and all the birds were filled with their flesh. So you guys remember in John 18 when Judas betrayed Jesus and he comes with the, the officer and the troops and you know, Jesus says he knew full well who they were looking for. Who are you looking for? And said Jesus of Nazareth. What did Jesus say? He said I am right. Most of our Bible translations will say I am he just for, for emphasis. But he simply said I am right. Which ties a bow on from Exodus 3 where Moses sees I am in the burning bush, right Yahweh, to the seven I ams in the Gospel of John. And even when not included in those seven I ams. But also Jesus stated before Abraham was I am. And then they're coming to arrest him. He, he's met his fate. The, the time for the cross is near. And they say, are you Jesus of Nazareth? I am. What happened? They were blown back. They, they, they fell to the ground simply at his word, saying I am. So that power of the Word, that sword that comes out of Jesus mouth is simply that his word. And what do we call the Bible? The, the word. Right? So when we talk about the armor of God, this is the only offensive weapon. It's the word of God. And think about how strong it is that Jesus could simply say I am. And those around him. Now Jesus wanted to, if he didn't want to be in the will of God and fulfill what God had for him. Imagine him just as I am. I am. I am. And he just like blows back everybody who, who's approaching him. You can just say I am. And that they're. They're gone, they're done. Well no, he knew the will of the Father and he. He took the punishment in our place, Roger.
Yeah, so I'm super. I've always really nerded out about this fun fact. So the Greek word for sword used in this context is ramphia, and that is different than it is used any other time in the Bible. And it's only used. That ramphia word is only used when it's pertaining to Christ. The other sword is micara, and this is more of a utilitarian sword. Think about a sword that a Roman soldier carried. It was very short, short and it was, it was, it was utilitarian. It was used for, for work and those kind of things. Like, so as we're using the word, it's, it's, it's work. It's, it's work. It's, it's utilitarian. We're sharing it. It's our, it's our life lessons. It's our, it's, you know, the, the instruction book. Right. But when Christ uses is. It is ramphia. It is a deadly sword. It is a sword used for battle and for vanquishing enemies. If you look at the two types of swords, they're completely different. A rampia sword is almost, it's curved, it's really, really wicked looking. So the way that Christ uses the word is very, very different. And I'm just, I just, like, I've always geeked out on that. The fact that the, that there's two separate words that are used and the rampia is only reserved for Christ.
Amen. That's good, Roger. That's good. Thanks for sharing, Pastor. Roger.
Great. That's great. I love that. Roger. That's good.
Yeah, you can, you can look it up just, just like Google and look up the two different, just the difference between the two swords used in the New Testament and you'll find it. And it's really, really super cool.
That's cool.
We don't need to look it up. We trust you.
Yeah. And Raj, you take credit for that. As if you're like, you take credit. Don't tell people to look at other sources. Commentary of Roger Sullivan.
Yeah, I just like every time I get to this chapter, I just, I always think about that, like just how, how, how awesome that is. You know, we're not the. We can only use. We're limited in our humanness to be able to use the word of God only to a certain extent. Like, that's. We're only trusted with the short little kid sword.
Right?
Like, this is all we can do. But like, Christ uses it and like enemies are vanquished, you know, they they're laid to waste for the birds to feast on. So super cool.
Amen.
That kind of speaks to how when Christ came, right? And he. How he used the Word to combat everything the Pharisees came at him with when they tried to trap him. He used the word of God as a tool, as a weapon that they couldn't stand up against because they know it was true. Where they were manipulating and working the Word to work to their benefit. He rightly divided it.
Yeah. When he was tempted by the devil as well.
Yes, exactly.
What do you say it is written. Yeah. We. We have such a weapon here. Such a weapon. And yet we live in. In 2025 in this microwave culture. We. We live in a church age that. That's biblically illiterate for the most part. Not you guys, of course. You guys are here. Sorry.
You're moving as the sun is shining upon your face. He said he's gonna let his sun shine upon you, and you're moving out of this, out of the way, and there it is.
I don't know if you guys can see me. I could barely see you guys. Yeah, we can see you a couple. Couple more weeks that. It'll still be dark at this time. It'll be fine. So that's the conclusion of chapter 19. And like I said, next week we're going to get into the millennial reign. And I don't know, just reading some of these comments. Sorry, guys, not keeping.
Hey, Christian, I got one more question.
Go ahead.
We kind of. We kind of. You kind of breezed past and something that I, in my flesh, I kind of struggle with, but I get God's grace. And like, I'm always reminded of the. Of the. The parable of the. Of the vineyard where God sent. Where the master sent the workers and, you know, he paid them all the same wage and everything. Like, so I have to. I have to wrestle with this and know that God's heart is for. Is for grace. But, like, how does it happen? How does.
How does.
How does God just give Israel a free pass? Like, where. Like, what.
What.
What. What is that? I mean, so, like, everybody. That's. Everybody that's ever lived, the Jewish people, like, the people, like, they. They killed his son.
And.
But he. I know that he's got a special. That's something I've always struggled with. And I'm like, how does.
How does.
How does that work? Are we. Is it. Is it talked about? Is it shown? Or is it just like, oh, yeah, I forgive you?
Well, one thing that, that's not mentioned is, you know, it doesn't say, it says that everybody takes the mark of the beast, they're going to be defeated in this moment. We know that there's 144000 Jews that are going to be sealed at this time that make their way out of it now. It's going to be very hard to live on the earth. We, we've talked about once you, if you don't take the mark of the beast, it's going to be because you place your faith in Jesus Christ. It's not going to be because like, I don't know if I really agree with that guy. It's going to be no, you're going to take it unless you're standing up for Jesus. So I don't know how many remember Jesus said in Matthew 24, like when you see the, these signs of the end times, like flee for the mountains, like run. So I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of Jews on earth that are alive and just hiding and fearing for their lives. You know, those who are, it's not just going to be they get the free pass. It's still going to be that their own, it's like to them, you know, for, for Messianic Jews now they've had that aha moment that Jesus is the Messiah, right. For Jews who've missed that, this will be the time where everything that they, they've known will, will. They'll have that aha moment. So it's not a free pass. It'll still be their own volition. It's going to be their own free will still. But this is going to be what it takes for them to finally come to faith in Jesus Christ. But yeah, it's, that's why I say if you just read Romans and it says all of Israel will be saved, it's like, well, yeah, why do they get the free pass and not everybody else but one? I don't think there's going to be a ton of like Jews on the earth at the time who haven't taken the mark of the beast. If they are, they're probably going to be in a cave somewhere hiding. But when they see Christ crack the sky, that's going to be like, okay, now, now I get it now. It's like that's when the, the fog will lift and they'll, they'll actually get revelation that this is Jesus. Jonathan, then Roy.
Yeah, just a quick question. I, I made a comment a bit earlier. I. When it talks about the birds of the sky coming. Have you ever heard. This is me nerding out. I've been thinking about this the last couple months and I actually didn't know this reference was in Revelation until right now. And I'm like, oh shoot. But like the bird, a lot of times in the Bible, throughout, like Ezekiel and Genesis and all that, a lot of times when it talks about birds, it refers to human spirits. Like, have you heard anything about that before? Because Even like Psalms 91 talks about the snare of the follower, which is, you know, a bird Hunter. And Ezekiel 31 talks about the birds of the air. And even the parable of the mustard seed has a whole new revelation to it. If you where it, it doesn't just end about this tree becoming big, but it talks about the birds coming to find refuge in that mustard seed tree. And so just, I don't know, throughout the Bible it seemed like, oh man, there's a whole new revelation here. If that is true.
Well, at this moment, when the Antichrist and false prophet, they're throwing us in a lake of fire, so will the spirit of every evil person on earth. So if it's demonic spirits, I, I mean I would say every demonic spirit aside from Satan himself, who will read next week, he's going to be bound. So he essentially think of a, he's captured by Jesus and he's put in the abyss for the thousand year millennial reign. And we'll talk about why he does that rather than just destroy all of evil, including the devil. But everything evil is cast into the lake of fire at this point. So I think it would be, you know, obviously Revelation. It's a book of signs and symbols and interpretation. But I think this simply, literally means that the dead carcasses of all those who reject Jesus are, are going to be eaten by birds. I, I could be wrong, but I, I think it's just literal in that way, but it's, it's something to think about for sure. It is cool. And if anybody else has thoughts, certainly my opinion isn't the only one valid here. But before I call on you, Roy, I want to make mention of the last second to last verse in that parable of the Great supper in Luke 14, which is the, like the parable of the supper of salvation, when the, the master tells the servants to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled, right? So we're all compelled, Jesus. And that's it. That's God's grace. He compels us to drop to our knees. He does. And we all have our own testimony stories of what he did to compel us to finally fall into his arms. But God, he doesn't just say, hey, here's this, this free gift of salvation, take it or leave it. He compels us in his providential way to, to actually drop to our knees to, to confess. He's Jesus. Right? So I think that compelling for the Jews, Raj, I think that that's that moment that they're compelled. It's still their own free will, but that's the moment for them where everybody, like we may talk to Jews, you know the Old Testament better than we know it. And it's like, if you know the Old Testament that much, how in the world can you not believe that Jesus is the Messiah? How in the, how in the world. But it'll be that moment that they are actually compelled. Right, Roy?
I forgot what I was gonna say. I'm kidding. Okay, you gotta excuse. I took melatonin at like 2am and I'm still like out of it. 1. I gotta say God, God spares the devil because he's a forgiving God and he'll always allow people to have a chance to come. To come to him is my assumption is where that's going. Raj, I don't think Israel ever got a free pass. I don't think if you read the Bible, God is forever parted. My friends, dropping a deuce on Israel, it feels had the hardest times ever. But I also am reminded of recently Tucker Carlson had a debate with. He really was an interview that turned into a debate with, I think it was Marco Robio about the definition of Israel.
Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz, yes. And Ted Cruz was saying Israel is the nation. And then Tucker Carlson was like, no, Israel are all, all faithful believers. Right? And so I believe that when the, when the verbiage is about sparing Israel, they're talking about the, the true believers. Because if you even look at the statistic of like Jews, there are more Jews in New York City than there are in the entire country of Israel. And so it's not a geographic, I mean of course obvious in Revelations there's a geographic correlation, but I'm talking about the people who huddle. There will be faithful people. It won't. It's not like some dude who's totally unfaithful shows up and he's like, well I'm here, so I'm going to get spared.
Like that's not going to happen, you know, So I. Are you saying, Roy? So those who are like devout in their Judaism.
Well, so if we're, if we're talking about revelation, if we're just, if we're just going on revelation, God's church has already been raptor after and they're already, they're already in Jesus's army. Right. And so I'm assuming that the faithful people left will be the 144, 000 Jews that come to Christ. And I am assuming that when they're talking about Israel and sparing Israel, they, they are Israel at that point on earth.
I mean, I could be wrong. Yeah, but that verse in Romans 11 says that all Israel will be saved.
So all of Israel being a metaphor for the believers, not, not a geographic location in it is my argument.
I, I would. By believers meaning gentile believers or you mean.
No, no, I'm saying the Jews that converted back to Jesus, who, who turned to Jesus.
Jews who converted to Jesus.
But here's what I was saying. During, during revelation, isn't there going to be 144, 000?
Yes.
Jews that finally accept Jesus in their heart?
Yes.
So during tribal tribulation, they will be like the new Christians. And I believe they're the Israel that's being experienced.
Okay. So perhaps all of Israel at that point will be just 144 000.
Yeah, that's, that's what I think it is. That's my interpretation of that. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, could be. Because as I said, if you don't take that mark of the beast, because it doesn't say like there's some Jews who didn't take the mark of the beast and that, you know, they're part of Israel that saved at the end. That's why I said it. If there, there's any Jews left on earth that aren't part of that 144, 000, it ain't going to be a lot of them because anybody who doesn't take the mark of the beast is going to be killed rather quickly.
Yeah. And like I said, they're, they're part of the unfaithful. They are probably not even living in Israel at that point, if you know what I'm saying. Like I, I believe that during the end times, Israel will probably be a place where the faithful will head. Right?
Yeah, well that's going to be the, the hub of the, the thousand year millennial reign.
Right. And like I'm saying, like it's probably, it's, you know, during tribulation, it's probably going to be hard to stay a Christian or stay with Christ, you know, living in say a whole, a gutter like New York City or something, Right?
Yeah, for sure. And what you may mention of before as to why God allows the devil to not to be destroyed at this point, we'll, we'll get into it more next week, but just to kind of give a, a prelude to it. So there will be folks here who when Jesus comes back that there are going to be some that have turned to Christ, whether they are the Jews that at this moment have that aha moment or just, you know, it could be what, how many days? Let's say 1295. That, that second three and a half years. Right. So it could be day 1294 where somehow, some way a believer's still alive. They didn't take the mark of the beast at the three and a half year mark. They've been on the run. And when Jesus comes back and all the evil is defeated, like that person is still a mortal body, that now when the millennial reign starts, you have Jesus. All of us in our glorified bodies coexisting with mortal bodies that are believer living to be a hundred will be still young. So could be that once you're alive during the millennial reign being that sin, it's not completely done with, but it'll be kind of like the days back in the the Garden of Eden. So you're going to have mortal bodies that are having babies right throughout the millennium. And but to Roger's point or what he said about like a free pass, if you're a baby that's born in the millennial reign and you're essentially born into this Garden of Eden like earth at the time, there's still not a free pass. At the end of the millennium, Jesus will unbound Satan and there'll be one last great deception. And even at that time those it would be kind of like the fall of Adam again. Like there's no reason to to not love and trust God and the profession he's put you in, but he's gonna deceive some at the very end. And then from there, new heaven, new earth. Leslie.
