Shalom, shalom; peace, peace in the name of Yeshua. This is Crystal Sharpe and welcome to the Ancient Scrolls program.
Today we are going to continue to examine the curses in Revelation 16, and do a review.
Let’s say the Shema: Shema (hear, understand) O Israel, the Lord God, the Lord is one.
Psalm 24:
The earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.
Father YHVH,
We bless Your mighty name. You are the King of the Universe, King over heaven and King over the earth. We thank You that You are God. We ask You to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Help us to conform to Your likeness and image, to practice Your teachings of righteousness and justice. Help us, and everyone to be more sensitive to Your Holy Spirit. Open the eyes of our hearts to understand Your Word. Thank You for Your Word, the entrance of Your Word brings light to our dark souls. We ask that every broken individual will discern Your presence. We pray for their emotional healing and their physical healing as well. We bless You always. Thank You for being faithful to Your people. In Yeshua’s name.
Alright, so we have been looking at these curses in Revelation 16 and have been making some comparisons to those plagues endured by the Egyptians when the Hebrews were slaves there.
After the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt, they were gathered at Mt Ebal and there the curses and blessings of God were issued before their entrance into the land of Canaan. Canaan would remain their inheritance if they would observe the Law/Teachings of God. If the Israelites would observe His ordinances, they would prosper, and if not, they would be cursed, or plagued with calamities. The produce of the land would decrease, they would experience physical disease, their children would be taken from them; the final stage, the final curse would be for a nation to lay siege against Israel and conquer them. In this process, in this siege, they would cannibalize their children and their spouse, and finally they would be removed from their inheritance, Israel.
Let’s look at some of these curses in Deuteronomy 28. I will read ten of them.
But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
Verse 20. The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me.
22. The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.
27. The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.
28. The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at the noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one will save you.
35. The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
59. Then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—serious and prolonged sicknesses.
60. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed.
In Revelation those that endure these curses are those who worship the beast. The Christians at this time will not have to endure them, unless, they stay in Babylon. He issues a warning for them to come out of Babylon, or the New World Order, lest they receive of her plagues in Revelation 18:4.
The information I had found, concerning the plagues on the Egyptians, was that Moses would prepare or warn them three weeks in advance of a plague and then they would suffer a week with it. In Revelation, it may follow that sort of pattern, or these plagues may overlap and have to be endured for months. A more preferable measure would be to repent of one’s sins and transgressions and thus end the cycle of curses and then remove one’s self from Babylon. I would think that one would be driven by self-preservation and move toward the path of least resistance and prostrate one’s self before YHVH, the King of the universe. I did some 20 years ago. I held my hands up in surrender. The curses wore me out. I was greatly afflicted spiritually, physically and mentally. I needed and received deliverance of all kinds. Praise God.
So, let’s look at Revelation 16:12. It is under the seventh, or last trumpet and the sixth curse. Yeshua has not yet returned according to what He says in verse 15.
Sixth bowl: Euphrates dried up
Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.
13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet (this certainly plays on the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit). 14. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world,to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
In Hebrew the word for frog is tsefarde’a. In Exodus, the second plague upon Egypt is frogs. The Targum Onkelos has the literal meaning in Hebrew to be: “to bring up the frog.” Frog as in singular. The translators apply frogs in the place of frog thinking the scriptures actually mean frogs. Is it a scribal error? I don’t know. It remains a mystery. I am thinking it was a sage, Rashi, who stated that it was a frog, but when the necromancers and magicians sought to duplicate Moses bringing the frog, they unintentionally caused the multiplication of frogs. It had backfired on them. They were able to conjure up these nuisances, but unable to rid the land of them.
I don’t know. The use of the word frog in the singular is still debated among students and scholars of the Word. Also, the sages say the frogs made their way into the stomachs of the Egyptians, as well.
On the Ancient Egypt Online site, they inform us the Egyptians revered the frog goddess Heqa. Heqa means scepter or ruler and represented fertility, and at times resurrection. Women wore amulets of Heqa to ward off evil during their pregnancies. They never thought Heqa would end up leaving a bad taste in their mouths, that’s a pun.
14. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world,to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Revelation 19:19
And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.
This will be the last war to end all wars until after the Messianic Age, at the end of it, when the nations once again come against Jerusalem. Jewish Sages and a few Christians view this as the Gog u’Magog war. Gog is the prince over Magog which are the 70 gentile nations to attack Israel. We would understand Gog to be the beast anti-christ. He is eager for war and is over confident that He will completely destroy Israel and, just perhaps, take out the Messiah as well. Here is a guy who has lied to himself and to others that he is capable of destroying Israel and while he is there, to make war against the Messiah as well and win.
So, we are finally at verse 15.
15. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed (or happy)is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.
Yeshua is saying here at the 6th bowl curse: Behold, I am coming as a thief. By His statement here, He is informing us that He still has not come. Coming is the Greek word erchomai. Erchomai is the impending arrival, the imminent return of Yeshua, it is the Day of the Lord.
Erchomai means to come from one place to another and used both of persons arriving and those returning. To appear, make one’s appearance, come before the public.
In Revelation erchomai is used 32 times. On the onset of Revelation, which means his apokalupsis, it is His unveiling through His coming, and of course, it is progressive. All the events in Revelation are signs of His return. Revelation or apokalupsis is the unveiling of the Day of the Lord, the unveiling of His return, it is His appearance.
His return is the unveiling of the Day of the Lord, the Day of vengeance on His enemies. He is returning to restore Israel, the nations, the earth—true. But the process of restoring is the act of vengeance on His enemies. His arch-nemesis, Satan, has to be arrested and cast into the bottomless pit. Those who preferred to believe Satan over the word of God have to be destroyed. At His coming they are judged.
Revelation 22:12, And behold I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to give to every one according to His work.
Everyone will receive their just rewards. It will be measure for measure. Evil for evil and good for good.
Verse 18 of Revelation chapter 1: I am He who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. What does this mean He has the keys of Hades and Death? It means He has the keys to the resurrection. The resurrection of the righteous at His return, and the general resurrection at the end of the Messianic Age before the Eighth Day, or the Eternal Day in Revelation 21.
The apokalupsis, Revelation 1:7 states: Behold, He is coming with clouds and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced him (gentiles). And all the tribes (Israel) of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so. Amen.
From the beginning (of Revelation) is the preparatory note of His returning to set up His kingdom. To the churches is the warning to repent because He is coming. He has not come yet according to Yeshua.
Revelation 2:5
Church of Ephesus: Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your menorah/lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
Verse 16, to the church of Pergamos: Repent or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
Verse 25, to the church of Thyatira: But hold fast what you have till I come.
Chapter 3:3, to the church of Sardis: Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.
Verse 11, to the church of Philadelphia: Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
In Revelation is the alert to watch for the Day of the Lord, which signifies His return. There are many signals that Yeshua gives in the gospels, Matthew chapters 24 and 25, and Luke 21.
I Thessalonians 5
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves now perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
For when they say, Peace and safety! Then sudden destruction comes upon the, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.
But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should not overtake you as a thief. You are all the sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have taken wrath out of context in this chapter of Thessalonians. This is not referring to the bowls of judgments, but the day of His wrath.
Zephaniah 1:14
The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath. A day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers.
We will continue this next time if it is God’s will. Remember to walk by faith, not by sight. Keep your spiritual garments clean from spots, wrinkles and blemishes. Do two things this week: love and forgive. Love God, love your neighbor.
Rico Cortes will sing the Aaronic priestly blessing.
