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Home , Revelation 9

Revelation 9:1-12 Study #11ID1306

Let’s open our this evening to Revelation Chapter 9 verse 1. We continue through our in-depth study looking at this final book that shows exalted and His word all coming to pass and His promises all fulfilled and the future, the glorious future that the church has, the people of God can look forward to. We’ve gone too far now in the book to summarize everything so if you haven’t been with us all of the studies are available, I hope you’ll sit down and listen to them in order, they’ll help you get a better perspective. But back in chapter 6, 7 and 8 the seals began to be opened by the Lord to bring these final 7 years of judgment upon a world that has for generations rejected the Lord and now has organized to be a final world power if you will, man’s attempt at ruling himself. The rapture of the church has taken place, the first seal Jesus opens in our presence as He takes the scroll, the title deed of the earth and of the hearts of men from the Father. And the antichrist is sent out in the first 3½ years and then at the midway point he reveals himself at the temple for who he really is. Demands worship, stops the sacrifices and really people finally see who they’re dealing with and the second half of the tribulation which follows is really the result of those things. The famines that followed, the war, the disease, the death are all in the second, third and fourth seals and the fifth seal as we read the Lord shows us some of those who have given their lives to follow , unwilling to take the mark of and they cried out to the Lord from under the altar “how long before you get even for us, take vengeance” and the Lord says “you have to wait, here wear these white robes and wait, there’s more coming.” “How long Lord.”

In the sixth seal there were these divine disturbances and experiences for man, a great world-wide earthquake, the sun black and the moon turned to blood, stars falling from the heavens and men realized they were dealing with God and one of the important things for you to know about the tribulation is today you face the world, the flesh and the devil. In the tribulation you face almighty God sitting upon the throne which is why the church will be raptured first, you’ve been delivered from God’s wrath. Now folks in terror but they don’t necessarily repent, in fact they cry out to the mountains “hide us from the one who sits upon the throne the day of his great wrath has come.” In Chapter 8, sorry in Chapter 7, we saw the 144,000 Jewish witnesses sealed by the Lord who were going to be an instrumental force during these days and their ministry for sharing the gospel with the world. When we see them in Chapter 14 here in several weeks down the road we will find that all of them survive, none of them walked away, none of them was lost in the process and there will be fruit gathered about them without number.

At the end of chapter 7 the Lord again, and we’ve mentioned a couple of times, stops in this judgment phase to point out to us the mercy of God and the salvation that follows and the fruitfulness of these that have been sealed, so God is willing and wanting to show us that even though it’s a time of great judgment, with it there will come great mercy. In Chapter 8 the 7th seal is opened by Jesus in heaven and the 7th all of them introduce the next 7 and so the 7 trumpet judgments come forward. In chapter 8 we looked at the first 4 last week, they are called one third judgments because they destroy or debilitate or deplete one third of something. The first 4 specifically those things that support life and so a third of the trees and all of the grasses were taken, but the 1st trumpet, the 2nd trumpet a third of the sea and the ships that were in them and a third turned to blood and all of the fish, of course, and the food sources were lost. A third of the fresh water supplies were poisoned, a third of the heavens were darkened, it’s just not a good time—man trying to live without God and God in each of these steps so merciful, convinces those still alive that they should listen and turn and believe.

We mentioned last week also that both these judgments, the trumpet judgment and the bowl judgment that will follow equate with the similar judgments, but just with greater intensity and the bowl judgments last will pass in a relatively short amount of time we gather, so as we get towards the end things pick up speed, pick up in intensity, even to where the Lord is able to say to John “it’s almost over.” Just a couple of Chapters, “John it’s almost over, hang in there buddy.” Poor John, 90 writing this down “oh man, this is horrible the people need to know.” I mentioned to you last week or maybe a couple of weeks ago as well that there’s a tendency to supply natural explanations for these judgments and we looked last week a little bit at these first 4 and said there are plagues in Egypt way back in Exodus that equate almost to the T all that you see here, so when you’re in Exodus people will say “well that was a divine act of God” when you get to Revelation they want to tell you about nuclear fallout and helicopters and great, whatever. We need to not lose sight of the fact that this is the judgment of God and whether we can explain away how He’s going to do it—know this, He’s going to do it.

I thought about, I remember last time going through Revelation thinking about and saying to the Lord a couple of times, why do we need to know all this, why are you showing us because we’re going to be gone, so there must be an application for the church, and I think that if we realize that God in His mercy just waits and waits and waits but He has to judge and that we are convinced that the word of God is true, these things ought to encourage us to knock on people’s doors “hey you’ve got to get saved.” You won’t put off a day, a week, a month, a year. Because you don’t know you have a day or a week or a month or a year. And I think that God’s greatest desire in showing the body of Christ this is when we are delivered the world is having to stay to be facing really the judgments of God and so I’m hoping as we look at these things that God might indeed convince us of the seriousness of the matter. God is gracious, but He’s also a just God and at some point at some time He has to say “enough is enough.”

In verse 13 of Chapter 8 we ended with a pause in heaven and the angel flew through the midst of the sky and he declared these 3 woes to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining 3 trumpets that were to blast, 2 of them would constitute the 5th and the 6th trumpet, the 7th one would unleash those last 7 bowls. So I suspect as in all of these pauses that God in His graciousness continues to put the brakes on His judgment so people might find His mercy. But tonight it gets worse; in fact it is much worse than we studied last week. It is as close to hell on earth as you’re going to find in the . It is literally people wishing they were dead they suffer so much and unable to die, that’s pretty much what hell will be like, eternal suffering. So we get a picture of how Satan would like to run things if you let him and if you thought it was alright to mess with the devil by tonight I hope you’re convinced he’s nobody to mess with. He’s not for you he’s against you, so tonight we’ll look at this 5th trumpet down through verse 12 and the introduction of these demonic hordes upon the earth that are released out of the bottomless pit and hopefully we’ll get a better grasp of them as well.

Verse 1 “then the 5th angel sounded and I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.” As I was reading this the other day I thought John has certainly seen a lot of stuff falling from the sky. In Chapter 6 verse 13 at the opening of the 6th seal there were stars falling hard upon the earth like untimely figs to the ground. Last week if you’ll look back to verse 5 and 7 and 8 and 10, 4 different verses out of 10 stuffs hitting the ground from heaven, poured out, thrown down the earth is being shaken. This time the star refers to a person, notice in verse 2 “and he” and verse 1 “to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.” The term stars is used by the Lord often to refer to angels, both fallen angels, rebellious ones, ones headed for judgment as well as those who are not fallen, as in Job Chapter 38 where the Lord said “the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy” a clear reference to the angels who were there when God began to do His work. In Chapter 12 verse 4 which we won’t get to tonight but in a little while down the road we will talk about a third of the stars of heaven appeared to have joined in Lucifer’s rebellion when he fell so that I don’t know how many angels there were but clearly 33% of them decided that this rebellion was a good idea and they seemed to have fallen in, in fact that’s a reference there to angels who once weren’t fallen but now are. The word fallen here, a star fallen from heaven to the earth is a perfect tense Greek verb, which means when there’s a perfect tense that there was a past action that has ongoing present results. Perfect tense, it happened in the past and continues to show itself in the present, or literally still falling and it is almost without doubt that John is now shown the fall of Satan from heaven, the star that fell from heaven.

In the Old Testament God gives us lots of insight into Satan’s fall, you can read Isaiah Chapter 14 and there’s about 5 or 6 verses in there beginning in verse 12 where Lucifer in heaven, the chief worship leader, the chief cherub that covered, the guy with great responsibility and great privilege has to decide like all of you, are you going to follow the Lord or not and he decided he wanted to be like God and he began to write out his “I wills” “I will be like the most high, I will sit on the sides of the north, I want to be worshipped.” And the Lord wasn’t putting up with that, His position had been filled, He was God and so Satan was cast out of heaven you can read more about him in Ezekiel Chapter 28 beginning in verse 11 where the description of his ministry, his nearness to the throne of God his calling and yet his horrible decision as Lucifer by pride and by ambition falls. And like I said :4 tells us that a third of the angels that were in heaven that day also made their choice to go with him in rebellion against God and Lucifer’s name was changed, it was changed to Satan, deceiver, liar, he’s called a murderer in John Chapter 8 and the prince of this world in John Chapter 14.

Paul writes to the Ephesians in Chapter 6 that our warfare now as Christians is not with men, but is with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places and that we face the rulers of darkness, that’s where our battle is. In Luke Chapter 10 when the 70 returned to Jesus so excited that He had anointed them by His Spirit and people were getting healed and folks were getting delivered from possession and all and they came back to the Lord with an immense amount of joy and they said “Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name” and Jesus said “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over the power of the enemy, nothing shall by any means hurt you, but don’t rejoice in this, but the spirits are subject to you, rejoice rather in this, your name is written in heaven.” Not that you have authority, that goes without saying almost, that’s a consequence of the important thing, that is your relationship with God and so Jesus had spoken and He mentioned it of that fall implying He was through once and for all and their joy should be motivated, not by the defeat of the enemy which was sure, but by the victory that they had found in Christ. When Jesus came the judgment of Satan was sure, “now is the judgment of this world” Jesus said in Chapter 12, “the ruler of this world is cast out and if I be lifted to heaven I will draw, or if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw people to myself.” That was the enemy’s defeat, Jesus came to overthrow Satan and his power hold and his grip because of sin.

When John in John 16 talked about the work of the Holy Spirit and what He would do in the lives of the people, he said He would convince them of judgment because the prince of this world has been judged. So Satan’s attempt at being God and being in charge and hanging on is overthrown at the cross certainly, but here in Revelation we see the fulfillment of those things as Satan will now be put away forever and it won’t be long before he will have no more access to heaven. You might remember from Job Chapter 1 and also from Revelation 12 that even after Satan’s fall, he always had to come and give report before the throne of God. In fact Revelation tells us that he’s there almost night and day accusing the brethren before the Lord. Why God allows that, I have no idea, except that I know that as he accuses me Jesus covers me and so every time he goes “hey that Jack’s a sinner” Jesus goes “I got it – died for him.” Every accusation brings glory to Christ, saves me, so maybe Satan doesn’t realize he’s honoring the Lord. But here his days are numbered and his access to God’s throne is about over, this is the final course, in fact by the time we get to Chapter 12, verse 7, just a few chapters down the road, the door of heaven will be closed and Satan will no more get access and then he’ll go crazy for a little while but then that’ll be it. His days are then numbered. He realizes that he is running out of time.

For now though notice in verse 1 “the star that falls from heaven to the earth” certainly Satan’s fall, “to him” to Satan “was given the key to the bottomless pit.” And before we look at the pit I want you to notice the words “is given” because this is God’s doing, Satan didn’t take it, he has no authority except what is allowed by him, he is limited in his authority only as God allows like back in Chapter 6 verse 2 where the antichrist had a crown given to him, here it is given to him as well. “Who holds the key of life and death?” John wrote in Chapter 1 verse 18 that Jesus did right? He has the keys of heaven and hell so where did he get it “here Satan you can go do the worst but I will have the last word.” And for a time Satan is allowed a limited scope of activity as he and his hordes, and I think this is the key to this chapter, reveal what they are truly like if given half a chance. People can lie to you to your face, but never lose sight of who is on the throne and who is out to get you. The Lord wants to save you and if He lives in your life then greater is He that’s in you than he who’s in the world. But if not here is the God you serve tonight. This is the one who wants you completely. And his heart for you and his will for you is extreme wickedness and hatred. He doesn’t wait a minute to go “boy that seems pretty cruel.” No no no he enjoys every moment. He lashes out he hates God he hates God’s people. And these without Jesus would now meet the Lord that they had chosen to serve and soon they will see more evil than they had ever wanted to see and he is still being allowed, at least now, to make war with the saints and prevail against them. That’s what Chapter 13 verse 17 tells us.

Now this “bottomless pit” and notice there in verse 1, the Greek word is abuso and it means or a deep pit or a well without a bottom. It is used 7 different times in the and we are given some insight into this place that you should consider that we will just touch on for a few minutes tonight. In Luke Chapter 16 we are told by Jesus of a place where the dead waited prior to the death of Jesus—it was called hades in Greek, sheol in Hebrew. We learn in Matthew Chapter 12 verse 40 that it had 2 compartments, that it was located in the center of the earth. Jesus you remember saying to those who wanted a sign “as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the great fish the son of man will be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth.” We are told there in Luke 16 that there’s an Abraham’s bosom side where the faithful who had died in faith in the Old Testament or waiting for the Lord to come and then there is that other side, the side of judgment, the place of torment and you remember how the Lord told the story of Lazarus and how he was comforted in Abraham’s bosom, but there was that rich young ruler, that rich man I should say, who said “well, could you send me some water” and Abraham said “no no there’s a gulf between us, we can’t pass back and forth.” “Well then could you send someone back and warn of this place?” and Abraham said “they have the scriptures, let them read them.” “No no no but they should know of the suffering” and Abraham said “they won’t believe even if one would raise from the dead.”

So there was this compartment, there is this compartment – two sides, hades—sheol it is Abraham’s bosom, the faithful side and then you remember when Jesus died he descended, “He who ascended first descended into the lowest part of the earth, He led captivity captive, He brought deliverance and He I’m sure burst into that faithful Abraham’s bosom side and “alright I’ve got the keys, let’s go”. I’ve died the door is open and they were delivered so that you read in the “absent from the body present with the Lord.” Why? Because that door’s been open, Jesus died, the first fruit and now everyone who knows the Lord and dies believing in Him goes to heaven, but there’s that other side still, that place of captivity where the dead will one day as we will read later on the Book of Revelation, the dead will give up their dead, the place of death, hell will give up their dead and then there’ll be a final judgment. So we learn a little bit about that place if you will, the one side that still remains awaiting judgment. But you only see men there and in the discussion that you find in scripture about that place you only find men.

There is another place mentioned in the bible where God has chained up fallen angels who are not allowed freedom to roam as Satan and some of the other angels are, they will one day end up in Gahenna, it is the final place of judgment, the lake of fire, the second death, call it what you will, the place where you end up, the place that God had prepared for the devil and for his angels, not for man, but if man chooses to refuse him, then that’s where they end up with their God if you will. But it is a place that may be associated with hades that place we just talked about. Paul when he wrote in Romans Chapter 10 verse 7 said “who will descend into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead” and he uses that word abuso. So hades and this place might be attached, it is hard to say, but it is a horrible place, this abuso, this bottomless pit that is like I said mentioned in the scriptures, it’s a penitentiary for evil, fallen angels so vile they are chained and given no freedom of movement. We know that from 2 Peter Chapter 2 verse 4 where the Lord said where Peter said “God did not spare the angels who sin but he cast them down to hell, delivered them in chains of darkness, and reserved them for judgment,” and the word hell there is a word that you only find in Peter, the word is tartaros. Now tartaros is a word that is used in secular terms and you find it like in the Iliad by Homer, for example, that speaks of a place lower than hades. So the conceptual idea, the historical view was there is a place even worse than hell and interestingly enough Peter uses that word tartaros and it is only used there.

Jude when he writes in Chapter 1 verse 6, well there is only one chapter, so verse 6 wrote in verse 6 that “the angels who did not keep their proper domain” and he is referring to Genesis 6 with the cohabitations of angels spirits with men producing giants in the days of Noah “but left their own abode he has reserved an everlasting chains onto darkness for the judgment of that great day.” It is out of this pit that Satan will come forth in Chapter 11 verse 7, again in Chapter 17 verse 8, where we read that “the beast will ascend out of the bottomless pit to make war against them and kill them” if you will.

In the angel comes down from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain and he took hold of the dragon and the serpent, the devil Satan, and binds him for a thousand years. Throws him into this bottomless pit, shuts the gate sets the seal on him so he couldn’t deceive anyone for a thousand years. Same place, so we’re going to see this place a lot and after that Satan will be released for a short time and offer man an alternative and I can’t imagine some men will still foolishly follow him, but they will, and they’ll be tossed into Gahenna the permanent, eternal place of doom. So Peter mentions tartaros a place like I said mentioned in secular history. Knowing that place exists I wanted to read to you just a couple of verses out of Luke that I know you’re aware of the story of the Gadarenes, but you remember that Jesus when he stepped out on the land was met with a man from the city who had demons for a long time and he was naked and he lived in the tombs and when he saw Jesus he began to cry out “what do I have to do with you Jesus, son of the most high God. Do not torment me.” And Jesus commanded that the unclean spirit come out of this man, he seized him, he kept him under guard they had to chain him down and he’d break the bonds and this demon would drive him into the wilderness and Jesus said “look what is your name?” and the demon says “we are legion.” Now legion was a Roman division of 6000 men, we are legion because many demons had entered him and they begged him that he would not command them to go out into the abuso. Its Luke Chapter 8, I think verse 31, “into the abuso, into the abyss.” Don’t lock us up and then they found some swine that were up on a hill and begged that the Lord might send them into the swine and He permitted them and the minute the swine were possessed they ran off a cliff and were all drowned in the Sea of Galilee. And we visit that place, there’s only one place in all of Israel around the Sea of Galilee that has a cliff and it’s been there for generations it’s there from pictures from 200 years ago, it’s always been there, well it was there in Jesus’ day and if it was Jewish community they shouldn’t have been raising pigs that’s where the term “deviled ham” came from right here. In any event, the point is they worried about being sent to the abuso, it’s not a word you find that often used but it’s found there. “Don’t send us there” and the Lord goes “alright you can go into the pigs.” And the destructiveness of the demon hordes, if you will, is laid out very clear, the bottomless pit.

So Satan here in verse 1 is given a key to this shaft that leads to this pit and the lock is opened and imagine opening the doors to every maximum security facility and letting out only the most heinous of criminals and then multiply it by a thousand. Because out of this place comes these foul, demon spirits to join their master having been locked up for centuries in the hopes of doing only one thing – destroying. And their desire is a reflection of their character and I guess that’s what I want to have you look at, the destruction and the hatred of man is seen as the true nature of Satan is unmasked by God and like I said this will be as close to hell on earth as we’re going to find.

“So to him was given the key to the bottomless pit,” verse 2 “and he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. The sun and the air were dark and because of the smoke of the pit.” So notice the word “like” John is giving us a word of comparison, it looked like a smokestack filled with soot so thick the output, if you will, into the atmosphere of whatever was coming out of there. It’s by the way the same word that Abraham used to describe the plains after the destruction of . It is the same concept that we read there in Luke 16 where that fella cries out “father Abraham have mercy on me, send Lazarus to dip his finger into the water so he might cool my tongue, I am tormented in this flame, and then you get this lid taken off and out comes this outpouring of smoke so much so that John said “man it’s like a smokestack.” That’s how he saw it because of the smoke.

Verse 3 “out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. To them was given power as scorpions of the earth have power and they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth,” which apparently had grown at least back in part, “or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads,” these 144,000 and they were not given authority to kill them but to torment them for 5 months, their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. Now it is obvious as you begin to read that these were not simple locusts. They were demons dwelling in the bottomless pit, yet John saw in their appearance their numbers looked like locusts, they were so thick and so many of them and locusts travel by the millions, but then we get this added word “they were like scorpions” in their ability upon the earth to sting and to harm and to hurt, like locusts they swarmed with unbelievable number, like scorpions they had the ability to inflict pain.

I don’t like this picture. Flying scorpions with the strength of a horse, I don’t like this picture, but I’m going to be in heaven, which is where you should be, you don’t want to be here. Locusts just on a human level are absolutely destructive, they travel in millions, they have insatiable appetites, they can disseminate vegetations to the roots. You might look online some time – the worst locusts infestation in man’s history was only 55-60 years ago in 1952 and it was in Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia – 100,000 square miles of vegetation was absolutely taken away. 100,000 square miles! Amazing and now these were just these little locusts, real locusts. God uses locusts sometimes for judgment. You might remember when the Lord walked the children of Israel into the land and He put the blessings and the cursings on the 2 mountains, right? And as the people walked through into the promised land they were to yell “and if you’ll do this the Lord will bless” and then other guys would “and if you don’t you’re going to get locusts.” That kind of stuff, right. You’re going to get judgment and trouble and you’re going to face the Lord for your rebelliousness, but you’ll read there in Deuteronomy about “you can carry much seed into the land but you’ll gain little for the locusts will consume them if your heart isn’t right with God.” In other words depend upon the Lord and so we’ve seen it before. In the 8th plague you might remember with Pharaoh there in Exodus Chapter 10 the locusts came into the land and it was so horrifying that Pharaoh for a while said “alright alright I give.” Now he didn’t give for long, the minute the locust left so did his impetus to give like a lot of folks “God help me I’ll do anything if you’ll help me.” Then He helped you “I was just kidding you I didn’t mean anything.” You get the idea. So the plague was for a moment, but this is a world-wide plague. This is far more damaging, this is far longer in length and these aren’t ordinary locusts, this is not your run-of-the-mill locust. This is a demon from hell and the people are the crops that they’ve come to destroy.

Notice in verse 4 and in verse 5 that unlike locusts who only feed on vegetation, these were forbidden to feed on any vegetation, but they were allowed to inflict anyone upon the earth who was not sealed by God upon their foreheads or these Chapter 7 144,000. Now like real locusts who have a 5-month average lifespan, locust infestation only happens between May and September, that’s as long as they live and then they die. These are for 5 months allowed to run the gamut to torment man with a kind of pain that a scorpion bite might inflict. So notice again in verse 4 and 5 that God tells them what to do and what they can’t do and in verse 5 they were not given authority to kill, but they were given authority to hurt. Who’s in charge here – the Lord is in charge, right? He’s the Lord this is judgment from almighty God. This is not the world, the flesh or the devil, oh it’s the devil, but it is God’s authority that leaves these things be. God is in charge at every turn so verse 3 “given power”, in verse 5 “not given to kill” and I’m sure in the 5 months that went on that God again as no one dies waits for the repentance of the people so He might give them mercy. I don’t know if you’ve ever been bit by a scorpion, I actually talked to a guy one time who had been bit by a scorpion, and there is a couple of different kinds, there’s a hemotoxin that’s not, it’s extremely painful but it just kind of gives you like a severe edema and discoloration, but a neurotoxin can kill you, it can stop your heart and it can be systemic, it can bring you into convulsions and paralysis. It’s nothing to mess with, except these, as much as this hurts, nobody’s dying. Now you think about that for 5 months those who live on the earth, you’ve seen these mosquitoes these are locusts. Demons. Bzzzz. Aahhh. For 5 months at the behest of the demon, nothing restraining them, Holy Spirit not any longer holding evil back, this is as bad as it gets for months so that everyone might see “hey is this the way you want to live for eternity?” “No I want to repent”. That’s the first thing I would think of “I’m repenting if this ever ends I’m repenting now” right? And there’s no way to hide from them and people go “I wish I were dead” – not going to happen. And they give the maximum hurt allowed.

Verse 6 says “in those days men will seek death, will not find it, they will desire to die, death will flee from them.” So much anguish men desire to die. Now here’s the character of Satan. No words to describe the suffering, death preferable to living, and yet he continues to afflict. To me death has always been an interesting medical problem because you can’t really fully understand it, we can keep you alive breathing, we can keep you alive feeding you, yet we still monitor brain activity as a function of life and when brain activity disappears we just determine that the person is dead, we’re not sure how, we’re not sure why, we’re not sure when he decides to leave he just goes and the reason that’s going to stay that way, God decides when you die. We really can’t be given that much control over that. We know as Christians that we are spirits living in a body possessing a soul or a consciousness by which we can communicate with God and we also know that as we express ourselves that we live in a body but it’s not us, it is a vessel right? And one day God’s going to improve on the vessel, it’s going to have some kind of resemblance it’s not really going to be the same but it’s going to be somehow attached. God often in his mercy allows death to deliver us from these worn out temples that are slowly being worn out or diseased or injured, but a releasing of a spirit, someone’s spirit, only the Lord can do that, right? You find Jesus on the cross dismissing His own spirit, everyone’s surprised “is he dead already that’s impossible.” “Is it? He’s God, He’s leaving, He’s done, this is why He came,” but they would go “let’s go check, stab Him in the side be sure,” “OK we’re not sure, how did he die so fast?” “well he left”. “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.”

For 5 months people are going to cry “please let me die” and no one dies. No one dies, no funerals, no funeral home activity, clinics and hospitals overflowing with suffering. People laying out in the parking lot – no one’s dying. No way out, nowhere to turn, no deliverance. Just like hell. This is hell isn’t it? Or as close as you can get. But God does what – he puts men in the situation where he might say “I can’t do this anymore.” Today, I tell you what, today you get saved you don’t ever see this, you just read about it, praise the Lord you get out of this. If this is how man wants to live “we’d like to serve the devil please.” “OK there you go—that’s him?” zzz “yep that’s him” and he wants to destroy you.

Verse 7 “the shape of the locusts were like horses prepared for battle.” Not good. “On their heads were crowns of something like gold, their faces looked like the faces of men but they had hair like women and their teeth were like lions.” Not pretty either, huh? “And they had breastplates that were like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, they were able to sting, there were stings in their tails and their power was to hurt men for 5 months.” Now John uses first century dialogue and language and we’ve gone over this I think last time to illustrate what he is seeing using by now the very familiar “as” or “like” – the metaphors, the comparative language because what John sees he doesn’t recognize, and I must tell you I wouldn’t recognize this. “what is that” “I don’t know it’s not in the National Geographic book anywhere. It’s not on the Discovery Channel, I’ve never seen anything like this.” It should convince us though that his description, 90 year old guy assigned by the Lord to write down everything he saw had to be told not to write when things were not to be written down. It is as diligent of a guy as you can find, is faithful to the Lord “I want to get it all right.” You have to believe his description is pretty close to accurate, right? Regardless of what he saw or how it may come to be and I don’t have any problem just seeing this as an allowance by God of a wicked demon doing exactly what it wants to do. But John is very clear and so what does it mean, what is he describing and I’ll tell you buy 10 books on Revelation you’ll get 10 opinions but you won’t get one from me, because God doesn’t say. I’m going with John. Locusts with lion’s teeth and women’s hair and men’s faces and horses bodies and stingers in their tail and not very happy and hateful. That’s enough to put me in my place.

Now notice in verse 7 “horses prepared for battle” – large horses equipped with weapons, straining at the leash, pawing at the ground, John saw these demons as armed and restless and eager to fling themselves onto this mission of torture. Here’s what Joel wrote about this day I want to read to you the first 11 verses of Chapter 2. The prophet Joel “blow the trumpet in Zion and sound the alarm in the holy mountain and let the inhabitants of the land tremble. The day of the Lord is coming and it is at hand. It is a day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness like the morning cloud spreading over the mountains. A people are coming great and strong, the like of whom has not been seen nor will there ever be such after them even for many successive generations, a fire devours before them a flame burns, the land is like the Garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate wilderness – nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearances of horses, swift steeds and so they run with a noise like chariots over the mountaintops they leap like the noise of a flaming fire that devours stubble like a strong people set in battle array and before them the people writhe in pain, faces are drained of color, they run like mighty men, they climb the walls like men of war, everyone marches in formation they don’t break ranks they don’t push one another, they march in one column though they lunge between the weapons they are not cut down, they run to and fro in the city, run up on the wall, climb into the houses and into the windows like a thief, the earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, the stars diminish in brightness, the Lord gives voice before this army, His camp is very great. The day of the Lord is great and terrible, who can endure.” Seems like an accurate description of this time. Joel wouldn’t have known that, Joel is just “whatever the Lord wants me to write.”

And then you get to this seal. “On their heads” we read “a crown of gold” as gold invincible for a time winning the battle for 5 months, nothing and no one able to stay their hand. “Face like a man, hair like a woman, teeth like a lion.” It’s just pretty scary looking isn’t it. His bite may not kill you but the infection will never heal. “Breastplates of iron” may very well speak of the heartlessness or the mercilessness of their onslaught but also the fact that nothing can stop them. I’m sure people are going “hey we’re going to spray get that DDT back out we’ll get to that. And then they have wings – this isn’t good. Now they’re flying - right? They’re flying – mobile and speedy and they have tails like a scorpion. And verse 10 notice explains pretty much what verse 5 does.

Then we read in verse 11 “and they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit”, in Hebrew his name is , in Greek he is given the name apollyon. Regular locusts don’t have a leader – Solomon when he was writing there in Proverbs Chapter 30 verse 27 talked about the glory of the locusts that they could march in rows and work together but do so without a leader, but notice these demonic hordes have as their leader Satan himself and then how many are there, well we don’t know. A third of the created angels fell in the rebellion. In the story of Luke 8 in the demoniac at Gaderra legion like I said was 6000 men, so we don’t really know how many there are, there could be millions upon millions. It was so thick with locusts that John just went “it was like smoke coming out of a smokestack.” Who is Satan? Both of his names here in both languages Hebrew and Greek mean the same thing he’s the destroyer. He’s the destroyer. Now if you read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians at least the 2nd one you know that Paul describes Satan during this time as someone who wants to transform himself into an angel of light – he wants to look good doesn’t he. He wants to look the part, he wants you to believe in him and believe his lies, and join his program, and follow after his counsel and it even says there are ministers who also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, but in the end they’re going to get a reward for their lives for their works. Satan is a deceiver today but look he’s out of the closet here isn’t he? “Hi I’m the devil I’m going to destroy everything.” And he comes out for who he truly is. God kind of takes the mask off of him and the façade is removed and look what Satan will do if you give him half a chance, he’s bent on destroying you, doesn’t matter what it takes he is not your friend. Know that, and the next time you’re tempted to sin against God and Satan lies to you and says “look this is pretty good” just go back and read this chapter – this is that guy who’s whispering in your ear, the one sitting on your left or right shoulder depending on if you’re left or right shouldered. Right? You don’t want to follow him – you read anything about Jesus all he wants to do is bless you and to bring good things to bear and he’s got your best interest in mind and he has thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a hope, he has great plans for the future he has eternal glory for you and joy and then there’s this guy the god of this world who like a lion chameleon covers his face “I’m an angel, of light follow me.” “Really?” and then I get to the end and I say oh is this the same guy – yeah and he destroys. There’s even a further interest in Satan in Isaiah we read that when all is said and done and the judgment of God comes the people of God will look at Satan and go “is this the one who frightened the world and moved kingdoms” and we’ll see him for who he is in relationship to God – he’s a nothing, he’s a nobody. But in relationship to you and I, he’s much more powerful he’s much stronger. Look what he can do to man at God’s allowance God gave to him. So you remember that, that he hates you, he wants to kill you “the thief does not come except to steal to kill and to destroy.” Remember that.

And then Jesus turns right around and says “I’ve come that you might have life you can have that much more abundantly”. That’s the difference in God’s right, there’s only 2 camps, there’s no third camp – there’s those people of God then there’s people of the world. There’s not the “I haven’t decided yet” group. Right? There’s no light and darkness and twilight or something. Dimness, shadows, no, you’re in one or you’re in the other. The choice is ours, the consequences are eternal that your destiny though is decided as you decide about Jesus. But for 5 months this is going to be horrendous and verse 12 says “one woe has passed” woe and I’ve said to you before is never good. “Behold still 2 more woes are coming after these things.”

Next week we would like to just take the rest of Chapter 9 before we get to Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and just as you’re reading ahead let me give you something to think about – chapters 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 do not move the discussion of what is coming in those 7 years forward. John stops in chapter 10 and the Lord grabs John and goes like this with him – he turns him this way, he turns him that way, turns him around look over here look over there, see what’s going on over there and you get descriptions of all of the things that are going on during this time that are not exposed during the chronological report. So here’s the things we know, but what’s going on around here so the Lord will show us over here and turn us over there and we’ll get a look at all kinds of interesting things – the building of the temple, and how the enemy, the antichrist, was able to seduce and how it’s going to work in our society and in our culture, how is that going to be sold, how is the mid-east and all of the problems going to buy into this, we get looks at the 2 witnesses that are just phenomenally empowered by the Lord and upon whose death all hell will break loose. We get to look at a lot of different directions right? All of it John stops after the 6th trumpet and before that 7th trumpet and those 7 bowls which go very quickly and John gets put on a stand and just gets spun around “write that John see that and that and that.” You’re not really moving anywhere you just get to kind of see the landscape of that time so we have one more week of moving chronology forward and then until Chapter 14 we’re really just going to “urrppp” and do spins and then we’re going to move forward again.

OK so read ahead the rest of Chapter 9 for next week.