Turning Point - David Jeremiah

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to tourney point. Most earthquakes are small and localized,
but even so they can be incredibly devastating. Now imagine
a quake of worldwide proportions. Today, doctor David Jeremiah considers
this unprecedented earthquake and the other mass destruction unleashed in
the sixth seal of the Tribulation. Listen as David introduces

(00:28):
his gripping message, when the whole world trembles.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Friends, I live in California, and I live in the
earthquake center of the United States. We've had a few
quakes since I've been here, nothing really big that would
be totally frightening. But we always live on the edge
of the truth that earthquakes could come at anytime in
the future, and during the period of the Tribulation, there

(00:54):
will be earthquakes, And today we talk about one that
describes the whole earth trembling. This is Revelation six twelve
through seventeen. We will today and tomorrow conclude our discussion
of the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation. By
the way, we have some ancillary materials that will help

(01:15):
you understand Revelation. I've written a book called Escape The
Coming Night that book is available from our website. There
are also four study guides and CDs that take you
through every single teaching session on this book, all of
that you will hear on the radio and some that
we aren't able to conclude because of the time factor.

(01:36):
But these resources are yours, and during this period of
time we're teaching the Book of Revelation, you can go
to David Jeremiah dot org and order all of these
materials for your own personal use, to teach others, to
share with your family, or just to enjoy in your
own personal time with the Lord. These are made available
to you during this series because we know how important

(01:59):
they can can be to understanding the Bible. We also
want to remind you that during the month of May,
if you will send a gift of any size to
Turning Point, we will send you a copy of a
brand new book called Sixty Days of Prophecies The Truth
behind End Time Warnings. This is one hundred and forty
four pages and it is broken down so that every

(02:21):
single day you will study a specific prophecy, you will
learn how that prophecy relates to the world today, and
you will get all the takeaway scriptures that help you
apply what you've learned. This is a wonderful way to
continue to understand and comprehend the prophetic word of God.
This beautiful paperback book is available to you for a

(02:43):
gift of any size during the month of May. It's
our way of saying thank you for your investment in
this ministry, and so let me say thank you, and
please ask for this book when you send your gift.
Here's part one. When the whole world trembles.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
If you ask most Americans about earthquakes, they will tell
you about California, and a few particularly knowledgeable individuals might
mention Alaska. Probably none of them would mention the name
New Madrid. Chances are that you wouldn't either. But the

(03:22):
fact is that there was a quake that leveled that
small town in southwestern Missouri, and it was the most
powerful and most widely felt in the history of the
United States. There were actually three quakes involved, and they
hit from December sixteenth, eighteen eleven, to February seventh, eighteen twelve,

(03:44):
with magnitudes estimated at eight point six, eight point four,
and eight point seven on the Richter scale, stronger than
either the San Francisco earthquake of nineteen oh six, or
the Alaskan Good Friday Quake in nineteen sixty four. These
quakes were felt from Canada to Mexico. They rattled windows

(04:06):
in Washington, d c. Rang church bells in Boston, cracked
walls three feet thick in log homes in Saint Louis,
and damned the Mississippi River up without anybody asking for
it to be done. Fortunately, in eighteen twelve there weren't
many people in the affected areas. That has changed, and

(04:28):
these days a quake on the same fault would effect
over thirteen million people. There would be thousands of fatalities,
and property damage could exceed fifty billion dollars. Believe it
or not, that fault, which most of you have never
heard of before, is still active, and sooner or later,
the stresses now building in it will rupture internally and

(04:50):
the structures of the subterranean rock and the earth will spasm,
and there will be another quake. This is inevitable, and
the scientists say the only questions are when, how powerful,
and what can we do about it. I need to
tell you that I read that story while riding on

(05:12):
an Amtrak train in the Amtrak Express News.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
It was very discomforting to me.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
When we read in the Bible of a global earthquake,
it is difficult for us to comprehend how it could happen.
And yet when we just do a little bit of
study into the kinds of things history has already demonstrated,
it is not difficult for us to comprehend that, given
the direct intervention of God, if he wanted to send
an earthquake, he could send it any place he wanted it,

(05:40):
and at whatever level he determined. Now, the Bible says
that when the sixth Seal is opened that one of
the things that happens is that this old world begins
to shake. That God literally reaches down and takes hold
of this world and shakes it for all of its worth.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
We have looked together at how.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
God's plan of final judgment moves along these lines. When
the first seal was opened, we were introduced to the
first major world dictator.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Of the future, the anti Christ.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
The second seal was opened and we saw the Red
Horse of war and bloodshed.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
The third seal was opened.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
And the famine and death of the Black Horse was seen.
When the fourth seal was opened, the pale Horse brings
about death. We saw that there would be mass murder
of the saints of God, and we looked at the
martyrs and the souls under the altar.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
As the sixth Seal.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Is removed, the title Deed to the Earth reveals enormous
convulsions of nature which devastate the entire earth. Men everywhere,
of both high and low estate, began to cry out
in terror. Hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth on the throne, for the great day of his
wrath is come a cataclysmic earth quake, the sun becoming black,

(07:02):
the moon becoming is blood, the stars falling out of
the sky, the heavens being rolled back as a scroll,
and the mountains and the islands of the sea being
moved around like chess players.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
The first judgments of.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
War and famine and death and martyrdom are largely the
results of evil in the hearts of men, but this
judgment describes a divine punishment inflicted on sinful people by
God himself, as he literally gets directly involved in the
judgment process. It is probable that with the opening of

(07:39):
this sixth seal, we have now moved through the first
half of the tribulation period, and we are at the
end of the first three and a half years. Remember
that the tribulation period is seven years long, and the
first three and a half years is simply the tribulation.
The last three and a half is called the Great Tribulation.
The first three and a half is intense, but the

(08:01):
last three and a half years is unbelievably intense and
culminates with the Battle of Armageddon and ultimately the return
of Christ with his saints. Now, if you will look
down at your bibles, you will see some evidence that
this is the end of the first half of the
tribulation period.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
Look down at verse seventeen.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Notice that the text says that as the earthquake comes
and all of these convulsions take place, that the understanding
of the people who are experiencing these things is like this,
the great day of His wrath is come, and who
shall be able to stand? If you will notice, secondly,
the seventh seal includes the seventh trumpet judgments, and the

(08:42):
seventh trumpet includes all the seventh vials. Remember that when
we looked at this at the beginning, if you see
these seals, which are followed in revelation by the trumpets,
followed by the vials, if you read through the scripture,
the way this is laid out in the scripture is
like this. The first sixth seals are in dependent, but
when you come to the seventh Seal, it includes in

(09:04):
the seventh Seal all of the trumpet judgments and all.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Of the vile judgments.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
So the first sixth seals that are unraveled give to
us the early days of the tribulation period. In essence,
judgment is just getting warmed up. But when we move
now out of the sixth Seal into the seventh, we
are going to see God in all out fury destroying
this world. Turn over in your bibles to the eighth chapter.

(09:30):
Notice what happens when the seventh Seal is open Chapter eight,
verse one. And when he had opened the seventh Seal,
there was silence in heaven about the space of a
half hour.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
So awesome is.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
What is going to happen now that when that seventh
Seal is opened, nobody in heaven speaks for a half hour.
There is awesome quiet because of the knowledge of what
is going to happen from this moment on. If we
put all these things tog together with Matthew twenty four
and Daniel nine, we discover that the sixth seal is

(10:06):
the end of the first half of the Tribulation.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Now, as we read these.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Words that are written for us here verses twelve through seventeen,
about earthquakes and stars falling out of the sky, and
the heavens being rolled back like a scroll, and the
sun going black and the moon turning to blood. There
are many people have a very difficult time dealing with
that in a literal fashion. And the reason is this,
we aren't far enough into the Tribulation for these cataclysmic

(10:34):
things to be taking place. They're very concerned as they
read this in the early part of the tribulation, I mean,
how does life go on when the sun goes black
and the moon is red and the stars fall out
of the sky. And so many interpreters have taken this
passage of scripture and instead of interpreting it literally, they
have used symbolic interpretation to try to understand it. For instance,

(10:55):
they think these events picture the changes in human government,
and the change is on Earth after the upsetting of
tradition takes place. They see in the sun and the
moon a picture of the ultimate rulership in the world
among human beings. And when that's moved, that's sort of
the shaking of the world government. And they see in
the stars falling out of the sky some kind of

(11:16):
human tradition. One of the men who unfortunately believes this
and teaches this as Harry Ironside, usually one of the
best expositors of the Word of God, and.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
This is what he said.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
It is therefore, not a worldwide literal earthquake that the
sixth Seal introduces, but rather the destruction of the present
order political, social, and ecclesiastical reduced to chaos, the breaking
down of all established in apparently permanent institutions. And while
I will not break fellowship with anyone who wishes to
take these events symbolically, I think that there is one

(11:48):
evidence that demands a literal interpretation, and that is changes
in human government could never create such a response from
people whose hearts are failing them from fear, as it
is given to us in this text, when you see
the world coming unglued governmentally, you don't go and hide
in the rocks and say, hide us from the wrath
of the one whose judgment day is come. Evidently, what

(12:12):
is going on at this particular period at the end
of the first three and a half years is so
awesome that it literally takes the hearts of both big
and small, great and small, both influential and uninfluential people,
and it just frightens them to death, until literally they
want to die. I doubt whether governmental or traditional changes

(12:32):
would have produced that effect, So I believe we're talking
here about actual things that transpire in the universe. Notice,
first of all, there are five things that happen. We
were just going to touch on them quickly. There's the
shaking first of all of the earth. And lo, there
was a great earthquake. If you know what the Greek
word for earthquake is in this text, it's the Greek

(12:53):
word seis moss. It's the word from which we get
our word seismographic or sciismology or the study of earthquakes.
It is the word which has to do with a shaking.
In Matthew eight, it is translated by the word tempest. Now,
Jesus prophesied in his prophecy that in the end time

(13:13):
there would be a terrible time of shaking. Let me
just read to you what he said. Don't look at it,
but listen to it. Matthew twenty four to seven says,
for nations shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There
shall be famines and pestilences. And we've covered all of
that so far. And then he says, and earthquakes in
divers places. Jesus said that Mark thirteen eight says it

(13:37):
this way, for nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in divers places,
and there shall be famines and troubles. And these are
the beginnings of sorrows. Luke twenty one eleven says, and
great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines and pestilences,
and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

(14:00):
If you go back to the Old Testament, almost every
Old Testament prophet prophesied that in the day of the Lord,
in the day of judgment, that judgment would be accompanied
by earthquakes. For instance, Ezekiel the prophet says in Ezekiel
thirty eight nineteen, for in my jealousy and in the
fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that
day shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel.

(14:24):
Joel the prophet echoes the words of Ezekiel when he says,
the earth shall quake before them, and the heavens shall tremble,
the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the
stars shall withdraw their shining Amos. The prophet said, shall
not the land tremble for this? And everyone mourned that
dwelleth therein Hagee. The prophet says, for thus saith the

(14:46):
Lord of Host. Yet once it is a little while,
and I will shape the heavens and the earth, and
the sea and the dry land. The prophets and the
prophet both said that when judgment comes on this earth,
that will be accompanied by great earthquakes. It's interesting to
read back through the Bible and discover that there has

(15:08):
been a shaking of.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
The earth at some very important times.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
For instance, at the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai,
the Bible says that the mountain trembled and the earth shook.
When Jesus died on the cross for the judgment of
your sin and for mine, the Bible says, and the
earth did quake, and the rocks were rent Matthew twenty
seven fifty one. When Jesus came out of the grave,

(15:33):
evidencing that he had had victory over death. The scripture says,
and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the Angel
of the Lord descended from heaven Matthew twenty eight, verse two.
The Bible says that earthquakes often accompany judgment. Whenever you
see judgment in the Bible, you should not be surprised

(15:53):
to see earthquakes in the picture. What will it be
like in that day when the earthquake come? What will
people feel? What will they understand? How could an earthquake
be that powerful? Well, most of us remember what happened
in Mexico when an earthquake measuring just seven point six
on the Richter scale brought Mexico City to its knees.

(16:17):
The epicenter of that earthquake was two hundred and fifty
miles from the city.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Did you know that?

Speaker 3 (16:24):
But because the city is built on an alluvial lake
bed instead of solid rock, the diminishing seismic waves were
actually amplified five times when they reached the city. To
make matters worse, the waves of the earthquake set up
resonance in many buildings that increased their force another four times,

(16:46):
and the result was that in some structures there was
an earthquake that subjected those structures to a force four times,
or in other words, the net increase of force was
multiplied by twenty and resulted in some structures being subjected
to a force of thirty two feet per second per second,

(17:09):
or one G for over one minute. I don't understand
all of that. You engineers comprehend that those numbers don't
mean a lot.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
But I do know.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
I understand this. Listen to this in terms of stress.
It was as if these buildings had been turned parallel
to the ground and held there while gravity tore at
their structures. In Mexico City, the result was widespread devastation.
In over ten thousand people lost their lives just in
that one localized earthquake. That's what it'll be like when

(17:41):
God shakes the earth. The earthquake, now that's not all.
That's just one part of the fivefold judgment. In this
particular seal, the Bible says, the next thing that will
happen is not only the shaking of the earth, but
the darkening of the sky. The sun became black as
sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood once again.

(18:03):
It's interesting to review when those things have happened in
the past. When Jesus died on the cross, the whole
earth became dark. At midday when Egypt was judged, there
was a blackness of night. When the Lord came down
at Mount Sinai, the mountain was shrouded in black clouds.

(18:23):
This is once again what the prophet said would happen
at the beginning of the Tribulation period. Joel said it
this way, Joel the prophet wrote, and I will show
wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and
fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned
into darkness and the moon into blood. Before that great
and terrible day of the Lord come. Zephaniah the prophet

(18:47):
wrote that day is a day of wrath, a day
of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation,
a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds
and thick darkness. Isaiah the prophet wrote, the day of
the Lord cometh cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger,
to lay the land desolate, and he shall destroy the
sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven

(19:10):
and the constellations thereof shall not give their light. The
Sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the
moon shall not cause her light to shine. Ezekiel, the
prophet wrote, And when I shall put thee out, I
will cover the heaven and make the stars thereof dark.
I will cover the sun with the cloud, and the
moon shall not give her light. And Mark said, but

(19:32):
in those days the sun shall be darkened and the
moon shall not give her light. Can you imagine what
it will be like when such darkness occurs as the
judgment of God.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Just think for a moment.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Business and pleasure will cease, crime will multiply, a depression
of spirit will settle over the earth. The disk of
the moon, which reflects the Sun's light, will turn to
a ghastly red that will all even the boldest observer.

(20:06):
So the moon turning to red is very easily explained,
as you understand the sun becoming black. I think that
people who aren't saved in California are going to have
a particularly difficult time.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
One of the things I noticed when I moved here
was we have sun almost every day, so that if
on a very unusual day we don't have it, it's
very depressing. But you know, when you live in the Midwest,
you get used to the gray skies once in a while.
When you live in San Diego, you just get accustomed
to the sun. It's there every day winter summer. It's

(20:43):
just always sunny, and every time the sun doesn't shines.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
I just noticed what's wrong with me today? Why am
I like this?

Speaker 3 (20:51):
And I realize that the atmosphere does have a tendency
to dictate what's happening in your spirit. When the moon
is to blood and the sun goes black, not only
will there be crime, but there will be great depression
on this earth, great depression. I was talking to a
pastor friend of mine who pastors in Alaska, and he

(21:15):
was telling me that he had to get his wife
out of there at least once every year during the
dark season so that she could maintain her mental state.
Because it was dark there for such a long time,
she would go into depression, and he had to literally
fly her out of Alaska, let her go and stay
with relatives for four or five weeks so she could
get her spirits back up, because darkness depresses.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Notice.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Thirdly, not only will there be a shaking of the
earth and a darkening of the sky, but there will
be a falling of the stars, and the stars of
heaven fell onto the Earth, even as the fig tree
casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a
mighty wind. Now, the word star here in the text
is the Greek word asteer, and it refers to any

(21:59):
luminous body the sky other than the Sun or the moon. Now, obviously,
the stars here are not the distant stellar objects that
we call stars. One writer has identified these stars like this.
He says, the language of the text seems to denote
more than the meteors commonly called today falling stars, which

(22:21):
were already no doubt as familiar to John as they
are to us.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Listen to this now, the most likely.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Identification of these particular falling stars is that of a
great swarm of asteroids that plummet the Earth. Such an
event has never occurred in historic times, but scientists have
long speculated about the probability of either past or future
Earth catastrophes caused by encountering a swarm of asteroids, a

(22:49):
shower of stars meteors just falling on the Earth all
at once. But do you know, on the night of
November thirteenth, eighteen thirty three, there was such a shower
caused by the passage of the Earth across the orbit
of a body of meteorites. As they encountered the Earth's atmosphere,
they became incandescent and illumined the sky with successive flashes

(23:11):
of light. Many people thought that the prophecy of Revelation
six had come to fulfillment, and they expected to see
the end of the world. So, though it has never
happened in the global way, it has happened locally. Someday
it will happen so that all of the world is affected. Now,
just get the picture. The Earth starts to shake, the
sky goes black, but periodically the blackness of the sky

(23:35):
is punctuated by showers of meteorites flying into the Earth
at such an impact that they even shake the globe
at a greater intensity than before.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
It is hard to comprehend the devastation of the period
of time we know as the tribulation period. I have
said to some of my friends recently, as I've looked
at the pictures that come out of Ukraine, maybe the
devastation of that city is something close to what the

(24:09):
tribulation will look like. It only holds a candle to
what will ultimately happen. The tribulation is a period of
time of judgment upon this earth, and you don't want
to be here when it happens, and you don't have
to be here if you put your trust in Jesus
Christ today. The Bible says that before all of this
takes place, you will be ushered into the presence of

(24:29):
the Lord Jesus and what we call the rapture. I
hope you will take advantage of his invitation to come
and be saved and accept him.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
Today.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
We're here to help you if we can. Let us
know about your decision, and thank you so much for listening.
Be sure to join us tomorrow right here on this
good station for the next edition of Turning Point.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on doctor Jeremiah's series, Escape the Coming Night,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points
magazine and our daily email devotional Sign up today at
David Jeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's Davidjeremiah dot org,
slash Radio, or call us at eight hundred ninety four

(25:18):
seven nineteen ninety three ask for your copy of David's
timely and valuable new book, Sixty Days of Prophecy, The
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any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible
in the English Standard, New International and New King James
versions available in your choice of versatile and attractive cover options.

(25:41):
Get all the details when you visit our website. Davidjeremiah
dot org. Slash Radio, This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join
us tomorrow as we continue the series Escape the Coming
Night on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah