Spiritual War

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:11

You're listening to the podcast of the Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week,

00:16

Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation.

00:22

Let's listen in. Well, good morning, Recast Church. Welcome. I'm Don Filsak.

00:28

I'm the lead pastor here. Just want to say how glad I am to gather together with God's people on this lovely holiday weekend.

00:37

And I'm just very grateful that you're here. And really, with the purpose of gathering together as God's people, hearing from his word, getting an opportunity to sing praises to him.

00:46

I love coming to church. And I want to confess, it wasn't always that way. I think that probably in my youth, it was kind of like, what is all of this about?

00:54

And trying to figure out why in the world this guy talks so much, and things like that. And so I think probably a lot of us can relate to that.

01:01

Maybe even in our adulthood, I don't know. But the more that I came to understand that the calling of God is to community, it is to relationship with others, it is not an isolated go it alone kind of faith, where we're just out there trying to chug and churn out the

01:16

Christian life on our own, but that we've got others to do life together with. That's his intention for us.

01:22

The more that I came to understand that, really, the more that I valued

01:27

Sunday mornings in the gathering together of God's people. Also, I just would identify that the gathering of the church is the gathering of the people of God.

01:40

There's something that's beautiful about that. And then also, I've noticed that in this place, we have a common faith.

01:46

We have a common Lord, a common king, a common purpose to worship him. And then also, equally, out in the world,

01:52

I don't know if you've identified this, but there's an increasing hostility toward that faith. Have any of you identified that or feel that maybe increasing, like the temperature's turning up?

02:00

And man, the more that we feel that, the more that we experience that, the more precious it is to gather together as God's people, the more we just recognize and are driven to that need for one another in relationship and in growing.

02:13

So I love gathering together. This morning, we're going to be continuing on in the book of Revelation, taking on Revelation chapter 9.

02:19

And this week is what I would say is potentially one of the most confusing passages in all of Scripture, maybe even the most confusing passage in all of Scripture, when

02:28

I would suggest to you that when I read it here in just a moment, many of you are just going to be confused, and that's just reality.

02:33

When I first read it, I've read it many times, but even just in my preparation, the first time

02:39

I read it this week for the preparation of this, I had to read it several times just to even kind of get the flow and the feel for what's going on in this.

02:48

And we're going to see just some bizarre and strange pictures here of things that we just don't relate to on a daily basis at all.

02:56

And so that's just the reality in the book of Revelation, that we encounter chapters like this occasionally.

03:02

And when I read it, again, it's going to be confusing, it's going to be bewildering, and then we're just going to go into worship. And I think that my goal this morning is that we walk away with more clarity on what

03:12

God desires for us to understand as a result of coming in contact with His Word. Just because it's confusing does not mean that it is less

03:21

God's Word, does not mean that it has any less power to transform and change us when we rightly understand it, when we dig in, and when we study.

03:28

And a lot of times I would suggest to you, I can see it in my life, at times where I've been lazy, I brush over it, and it's a lot of work sometimes to understand this stuff.

03:36

Would you agree with me on that? And sometimes it's easier to skip on to the next passage, or to get back in the comfort zone of the

03:42

Psalms, or get back to whatever your favorite thing is, or the Gospel of John, or someplace that things kind of make a little bit more sense to you.

03:49

Or the epistles is a favorite one, right? Like to get to the letters that give us instructions for daily life and things like that.

03:57

But in our text this morning, the symbolism is extremely deep. The image that we're given, that John was given, that he passes on to us is stark.

04:05

It's very otherworldly, and it's something that doesn't cross over the eons of time to where we live very well.

04:14

John has a vision, and remember, visions are much like a dream. The way that this is given to him is impressions.

04:20

He's seeing stuff and recording what he's seeing for us. Occasionally we'll see that he's actually told some things, like he's given a number.

04:27

He didn't come up with that number. He didn't count the things that he was seeing, but something occasionally is told to him.

04:34

But in our text this morning, he sees beings inflicting suffering on humanity.

04:40

He sees pain, he sees death, and he sees devastation. What we're seeing in our text this morning is just two of the trumpets, the fifth and the sixth trumpets of judgment are going to blow.

04:51

Remember, we've already seen the seven seals, Jesus Christ opening those seals, and with them came devastation and destruction, and now we're into the trumpets, and there's seven trumpets that seven angels are given to blow, and we saw last week four of those.

05:09

But what we're going to catch is a glimpse here in this fifth and sixth seal. We get a glimpse of what the demonic realm would do to humanity if they were released to accomplish their will, if they were released to do what they would desire.

05:23

I have some strong reasons to believe that what we're seeing here in this text as we read it, and I'm setting the stage for you just because we're going to read this text here in a moment, what we're seeing is a descriptive, picturesque imagery of demonic hosts that have every desire to take down the image of God wherever it is found.

05:40

And where on this planet do you find the image of God in humanity, in us?

05:47

We are created in the image of God from the vilest of sinners, from the most evil among us, they still bear the image of God, and the demons would desire to completely mar, completely misshape, completely destroy, annihilate, or corrupt the image of God.

06:03

And therefore, humanity. Well, let me remind you of the words of John, John who wrote the book of Revelation.

06:10

Remember that we've got some context to the author here, we've got some knowledge about him, because you can go back to his gospel, or you can read what he had to say about the apocalypse, or you can read what he said in his letters.

06:21

The very same author that wrote Revelation chapter 9, also wrote this in the fourth verse of his fourth chapter of 1

06:30

John, in his letter to the church. And he said this, Greater is he who is in you, than he who is in the world.

06:41

Greater is he that lives inside of believers, to the church, Greater is he who is in you, than he who is in the world.

06:50

And who is he talking about in that context? Who is he saying is in the world? Satan, the evil one.

06:57

And the one who resides in us, the spirit that is alive in believers, is greater, is stronger, is more powerful.

07:04

And that's something that I think we need to remember as we dig into a passage like this. There are indeed real spiritual forces, real evil spiritual forces, but they are not in control.

07:16

They cannot do whatever they want, but they do have a destructive desire to entangle you and me.

07:25

So let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 9. If you don't have a Bible on your lap, so you can't follow along, just raise your hand, and Mark's got some

07:33

Bibles back here. He would love to get one in your hands. But we do desire for everybody to have a copy of the Word of God.

07:38

You can take that one with you, by the way. If you don't have a Bible, take one with you. We desire for everybody to have a copy of God's Word that they can read at home or hear.

07:47

But follow along, Revelation chapter 9. Please remember that this is God's Word for us. If it's confusing, we're going to try to make it clear throughout the morning here.

07:58

But this is what God desires for you and I to hear this morning. Revelation 9.

08:04

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.

08:11

He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

08:20

Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth.

08:26

They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

08:35

They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.

08:43

And in those days, people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

08:49

In appearance, the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold.

08:54

Their faces were like human faces, their hair like women's hair, their teeth like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses running into battle.

09:05

They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails.

09:11

They have a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called

09:17

Apollyon. The first woe is past. Behold, two woes are still to come.

09:24

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet,

09:32

Release the four angels who are bound at the river Euphrates. So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year were released to kill a third of mankind.

09:45

The number of mounted troops was twice 10 ,000 times 10 ,000. I heard their number, and this is how

09:51

I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them. They wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of their horses were like lion's heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.

10:03

By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.

10:10

For the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.

10:17

The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood which cannot see or hear, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

10:44

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, it's hard to read those last two verses, to endure the difficulties of that end day and then to see people unwilling to repent and unwilling to turn from their wickedness and their evil.

11:06

And Father, I'm reminded of how often it is that I need to repent, how often it is that I need to turn from the wickedness that's in my own heart, how often

11:14

I need to turn to you moment by moment and day by day. I rejoice and I thank you for repentance. I thank you for repentance that many in this room have experienced where they have turned away from their sin and run to you for protection, protection from themselves, protection from the world, protection from the evil one and the effects of sin.

11:31

And Father, our only hope that we will not face this judgment and this justice upon this earth and these final calls to repentance that we already have, we've already repented before you, we have come to you and we have accepted the blood of Christ as the covering for our sins.

11:48

So Father, from that place I pray that we would rejoice and exalt all the more as we see these devastating cycles of judgment coming in that great tribulation that is coming for this world.

11:59

Father, we rejoice that we are not under that wrath but we are those whose wrath has been paid for by your

12:07

Son. So Father, let our rejoicing be all the more even as in anguish we consider the pain and the suffering of those around us who are image bearers that Father, that you would light us on fire for your kingdom, that we would be ignited by this study through the book of Revelations to sharing the gospel that we might see some saved as a result of encountering this judgment that is to come.

12:30

Father, that some would be rescued by the words of truth brought to them through our mouths.

12:35

We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Are you gonna be seated, yeah?

12:41

And thanks to Dave and the team for leading us this morning. I just love it how often the words just really match the message and he works at that and I just am really grateful for that this morning.

12:51

Keep your Bibles open to Revelation chapter 9. Get as comfortable as possible as we walk through this text.

12:56

Remember there's more coffee, juice, donuts, wild supplies last there.

13:01

Remember restrooms, we ask that you use the ones out the door to the right. Men's upstairs, women's downstairs. Save these for the kids' ministry down here.

13:09

And let's jump in to this crazy and wild text that has had so many multiple different avenues of interpretation.

13:18

So you're gonna get to hear one of them this morning. We saw the first four trumpets last week.

13:24

Just to reiterate where we're coming from, they had the devastation of the plant life. One -third of the plant life destroyed.

13:30

One -third of the aquatic life of the earth destroyed. One -third of all ocean -going or sea -going vessels destroyed.

13:36

The darkening of the celestial objects. And one -third of the fresh water being made deadly and bitter.

13:41

So that's where we start from. So we start from a really rough spot in history to begin with and then it's just going to progressively spiral out of control from there.

13:52

These last three of the trumpets are referred to as the three woes. You heard the angel at the end of the text last week say, woe, woe, woe to those who remain on the earth after those first trumpets had blown.

14:05

But chapter nine takes a turn. Interestingly, the guy who divided up the chapters back in the

14:11

Middle Ages found this content to be different enough from the other trumpets that he gave it its own chapter.

14:16

He could have lumped it all together because, hey, we're just going right on with the trumpets, right? But I find it funny because we head right off the bat in verse one, the fifth trumpet is blown and another star falls from the sky.

14:27

So why not include this with the previous ones, right? Because if you remember correctly, if you were to look back and just scan over the previous chapter, the second and the third trumpet were blown and it started the same way.

14:38

Something fell out of the sky. With one of them, there was a huge object that fell on the oceans out of the sky and in the other one, a star fell on the rivers and springs of fresh water, causing it to become bitter.

14:51

So we might expect, you know, when you hear another star falling from the sky here at the start of our chapter, is this one the lakes and the ponds?

14:59

You know, the first star fell in the sky and landed on the ocean. The second fell on the rivers and the fresh water.

15:05

So where's this one falling, right? Is this one on kind of the not so good water or whatever? But instead, right off the bat, we see at the start of this chapter that instead, this star is shown to be a being.

15:18

We suddenly recognize that we might be looking at something figurative. And I want to clarify that in ancient Hebrew and ancient

15:25

Greek culture, they had this in common. They considered symbolically the stars to be angels.

15:30

And so they would often use the stars and metaphor for angelic beings.

15:36

And that's exactly what I believe we're looking at here. And this one is a fallen star.

15:43

He has fallen and he has granted a key to the bottomless pit. Now you guys are all well versed in the bottomless pit, right?

15:49

Like you know exactly what that means. I mean, you've studied that and probably not.

15:54

And we're going to get there in a second. But some have speculated that this fallen star might be Satan himself.

15:59

And that's quite possible. He's not given a name in this text, but he is indeed a fallen angel who's granted significant authority.

16:07

He's given a key to this place known as the bottomless pit. But I'm quite sure that this fallen star is indeed a fallen angel who in the end is going to be released to bring pain and torture to those who have followed

16:20

Satan and his rebellion against their creator. Against humans who have followed

16:25

Satan in their rebellion against our creator. And I just want to point out that when it talks about, when you think in terms of who we follow and who we don't follow, in his book,

16:36

The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, not Martin Luther King Jr.,

16:42

but Martin Luther, the father of the modern reformation, he made an interesting statement. He said, the human will is like a donkey.

16:49

Okay, are we stubborn? Where's he going to go with this? The human will is like a donkey. It is either ridden by God or it is ridden by Satan.

17:00

And things really are just, it makes us uncomfortable to draw black and white conclusions like that.

17:05

Does that make anybody uncomfortable to think that everybody that you ever encounter is being driven by one of two forces?

17:12

Everybody you encounter is being ridden, so to speak, by either God or ridden by the devil.

17:19

And at the same time, that I believe is a very accurate picture of the world according to Scripture, according to Scripture, not according to my thoughts or the way that I feel about it, because man, if you go with the way

17:29

I feel or the way that you feel, how many of you know you've met some pretty nice non -Christians? Some pretty nice people who you would say, man, they don't look like they're driven by Satan at all.

17:37

They look like they're driven by really good motives. I mean, sure, they're not in the kingdom yet, but I mean, Don, give us a break.

17:43

Martin Luther, give us a break, right? Are you sure of this? But I believe that that is the case, and that's why we see these stark contrasts between those who are sealed and those who are not in passages like this, where we might be very uncomfortable with the judgment going down the way that it does.

18:00

It goes down along lines of those who follow Satan and those who follow God, those who have run to God for protection and those who are literally running after Satan.

18:09

The bottomless pit isn't something I remember discussing a lot in Sunday school class. Any of you have a Sunday school class about the bottomless pit?

18:15

Probably not, and so we don't have a whole lot of reference for that. And even if you've not been around the church very often and you're kind of curious about this, if you've been around the church for a while, you still probably don't know much about it because you haven't heard it talked about that much.

18:28

But it's actually mentioned in multiple passages, and I'll give you a couple of them. In 2 Peter 2, verse four,

18:35

Peter speaks of God locking away fallen angels in this place, and he says, hell, it's translated hell, to await their final judgment.

18:43

But that word is the same Greek word that's used here in our text for bottomless pit. The word hell translated there in 2

18:50

Peter probably is not super great. It probably should just translate it straight up bottomless pit.

18:56

And the indication in 2 Peter is that there are some angels, some fallen angels, who already currently are locked away.

19:04

And not all of them are locked away, but there are some who are. Well further, we actually recognize that Jesus had the power to lock them away.

19:10

It's very abundantly clear in another passage where this place is mentioned. Luke 8, 31 says this, or I'm not gonna quote it, but Jesus was having a chat.

19:18

He's having a little talk with a legion of demons, just kind of chatting with them while they resided in an individual, occupying a man on the eastern side of the

19:28

Sea of Galilee. And they began to beg him to not cast them into the abyss.

19:36

Abyss and bottomless pit, the word in Greek is tartarus for bottomless pit. Abyss, they're synonyms in Greek.

19:42

They both mean a place with no bottom. The word abyss, by the way, that we have in English, is just straight transliteration, straight over into Greek.

19:51

It's the Greek word, almost exactly as you would pronounce it in Greek, abyss. And that's a synonym for the bottomless pit.

19:57

So you have an encounter between Jesus and demons, and they're saying, please, please don't cast us into the abyss.

20:04

They recognize it as a place of punishment, a place where he could indeed send them there, right then and there.

20:10

And they probably even recognize that some of their compatriots, some of their cohorts are already there, suffering even now, awaiting a final judgment.

20:19

But the reason I'm saying any of this is to help you understand that I'm not leaping to the conclusion that what would likely come out of this bottomless pit is demonic.

20:26

Scripture throughout from beginning to end indicates that this is a place of demonic bondage, demonic punishment or discipline.

20:35

And that's why when the bottomless pit is open, what do we expect to come out of it? Well, we'd expect demons to come out of it.

20:41

Now, the reason I'm bringing all that up is some of us have interpreted these critters we're gonna see here in a moment as a literal locust horde or horse scorpion woman things, okay?

20:52

I mean, what are these things that women's hair and the face of men and the stinger and all that stuff, like what is all of that about and we're gonna get there?

21:00

But some have interpreted it as literal and I am just not gonna go there because what I believe we're actually seeing from evidence throughout the flow and scope of Scripture is demonic.

21:11

This fallen star has an interest in releasing mayhem on the earth and he opens the shaft to the bottomless pit and smoke like a huge furnace darkens the sky.

21:21

Again, a picture of the doom and the destruction that is in that place. And from the smoke, he sees the locust.

21:30

Now, locust, locust is even, have you ever seen a locust? I mean, it's not a grasshopper. It's a different kind.

21:36

It's relative to a grasshopper. So you've seen, raise your hand if you've seen a grasshopper. Let me just get you engaged here for a second.

21:41

Now raise your hand if you've seen a locust. Okay, a handful of us have actually seen a locust. Okay, so this is different and you look at it, oh, it's just kind of cute and oh, it's just not that bad, right?

21:52

I mean, if you're into bugs, some of you are freaked out just by looking at that picture alone but you know, it's just a bug, right?

21:58

So you don't have any response to this picture like they would have in ancient times.

22:04

It's hard for me to draw you into the word locust in ancient times because this right here, this critter right here could destroy your family line.

22:16

Like it could destroy everyone you know's family line quickly because of the sheer numbers of them, the hordes of them that would ravage throughout the

22:26

Middle East and still do sometimes to this day. We have pesticides, we have ways of controlling their population and doing things like that in modern times but I'm telling you what, there are records of estimates of these guys, these critters coming into a location a hundred feet wide and four miles long.

22:45

The type of the scope of a cloud of these things coming in to a location and just devastating, just mowing down every piece of vegetation available and you think, okay, what could we liken this to?

22:57

What could we draw down into our current experience? You know, maybe have you ever been afraid of a tornado? Any of you ever seen a tornado?

23:05

A handful of us have seen a tornado. I've seen one when I was a little kid. A terrifying thought, you know, that a tornado might strike our community or something and maybe, you know,

23:13

I mean when you hear about it, it's devastating, you know, 20, 30 people dead from a tornado. It's terrible, it's devastating to a community and what do they do?

23:20

They wake up the next morning, they cut down all the branches, they begin the process of rebuilding. What do you do when a horde of locusts comes into a community in ancient times?

23:31

You die, everybody. If it devastates the crops to such a degree that you have nothing to plant next year.

23:40

Think about how your dependence is on the things that grow in the ground and you have to have enough grain to plant next year in order to survive and this is devastating.

23:50

So I'm saying any of all of this to point to just the word locust brought fear to the mind of the ancient listener and of course we know that in Egypt, one of the 10 plagues was a plague of locusts, right?

24:04

So you can kind of understand the plague feel to it and again, I don't even think a tornado has the impact of, it quite brings us to that place where they would have feared this thing.

24:15

The prophet Joel spoke significantly about locusts as an end time judgment on the world, end times judgment and I believe that this vision that we encounter here in John in part is a fulfillment, a prediction of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.

24:31

Even though these are not normal locusts, it still ties that point of future reference to locusts in the end times coming together.

24:40

These locusts though are given power like the power of scorpions. What's the power of a scorpion? Pain, pain is the power of the scorpion.

24:50

These locusts are not permitted to have any further impact on the vegetation. We would expect, okay, locust hoard, there's gonna be famine, there's gonna be starvation but that's not the point of this hoard.

25:00

They are not to harm any of the vegetation. They are not permitted to but instead they are permitted to harm people but not all people.

25:11

Look at verse four, not all people. Verse four, they were not told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

25:25

Those who have been sealed by God on their foreheads are immune to this attack. Remember who was sealed on their forehead?

25:31

You're gonna go and who is this? Is this all believers? I believe that the church has been raptured to this point but there has been 144, a figurative number of a perfect spiritual number of Jews, a large number of Jews have come to faith in Christ during this time and they were spoken of as having been sealed on their forehead.

25:49

An imagery of the Holy Spirit resting in them much like the Holy Spirit is said to seal us today and so these are believers who are testifying and they are protected from the attack of these scorpion locust horse things.

26:07

These demonic locusts have no power to harm God's chosen people. So ironically, the demon locusts only have the power to harm those who have followed their ways and have actually given them control.

26:22

Think about that. Satan would love to win you and I over, would love to win our world over with promises of good things only to destroy us in the darkness.

26:32

That's the way of Satan. The ones who will worship him will suffer the most. The ones who he can win over to his team will be the ones that he would love to perpetually cause pain to and destruction and isn't that the way we see sin work today?

26:47

Isn't it the allure of sin that ultimately leads to the most devastating impact in our lives?

26:54

The things that Satan would promise us as good, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be fine.

26:59

Just a little bit of this on the side and eventually it owns us and would indeed destroy us. Are you getting what

27:04

I'm saying in that? That's the way that Satan works. The torment of these locusts, by the way, and I think it's,

27:11

I can do nothing but just figure it's a literal time. It's limited to five months.

27:17

We're talking about a seven year span of tribulation here at the end. About five months, they are able to inflict severe pain like a scorpion sting.

27:26

This pain is real even though in a moment I'm gonna explain I don't believe the stingers are real. So there's significant pain involved in this but I don't think we're talking about literal creatures that you see with your eyes.

27:35

You can see these little bugs running around and they look like scorpions with faces and hair and crowns on there.

27:42

That would be, anybody like, everybody would probably just be a believer at the end of that scenario, right?

27:47

It's just kind of like, I mean, who's not gonna go, okay, either we got an alien invasion of insects or something is gonna have to be explained to the world around us if this is a literal thing that happens and I don't believe that it is.

28:01

Understand the way that a demonic horde could bring about death and destruction without physically showing up. We can look at a couple of stories from the

28:08

Old Testament. I think it's important for us to grab hold of some of these concepts of what does it look like when things are going on in the spiritual realm, in the physical realm?

28:17

How do those things interplay? There's a reality throughout the Old Testament where there's stories where we're given a glimpse, we're told what the angels are doing, and then we see something kind of subtly different in the world around us, what's actually happening in the real world.

28:32

Think about when the angel of death came through Egypt and took the firstborn. Something spiritually happened.

28:38

The angel of death came through and looked at the doorpost and saw the blood over the people of Israel, the

28:44

Jews, and passed over those houses. A beautiful picture of salvation because of the blood of the lamb passed over them and didn't harm them, but then harmed the firstborn of the

28:56

Egyptians. Do you think that the Egyptians heard a knock at the door, opened it, and there was the grim reaper standing there?

29:01

Do you think they saw something physically manifested? I don't believe that they did, but they woke up in the morning and the firstborn died physically of supernatural causes.

29:11

How does somebody die physically of supernatural causes? Well, God just takes their life. But we have another illustration, another picture here that I think hones that down a little bit.

29:22

The firstborn died physically of supernatural causes, but then there's the story of this little -known account of 1

29:28

Chronicles 21, which I'm sure you were just, you know, probably camping in 1 Chronicles this morning.

29:33

You were just studying that, studying that, and studying that. Probably not, and this doesn't, again, occur in much

29:40

Sunday school curriculum. I haven't seen this one. But the angel of the Lord is dispatched to judge the

29:46

Israelites because David took a census of the people. He counted them so that he could know his wealth and his status and how awesome he was, despite God saying, don't count the people.

29:56

I want you to trust in me. And instead he's like, well, you know, maybe it'd be a good idea to know how awesome

30:01

I am. And so he began to count them, and in the process of counting them, God judged the people.

30:08

And in that passage, the spiritual realm is peeled back for just a moment, and David is able to see what's going on and what he pictures, what he sees in his spiritual eyes is an angel with a sword stretched out over the city.

30:20

Okay, so that's what's going on in the spiritual realm, an angel with a sword stretched out across the city.

30:26

But what's the impact on the city? And we actually see that in the text of 1 Chronicles. The impact on the city is 70 ,000 people die.

30:35

How? By disease, by pestilence. They're not slain by a sword.

30:41

There's no cuts on their body. There's no physical damage that occurs to them other than disease. So when an angel is going to war or carrying out the judgment of God in the spiritual realm, what it most often looks like throughout the

30:54

Old Testament is disease and plague. So what would the Israelites have seen on the outside of that judgment?

31:02

People getting sick and dying. What's going on in the spiritual realm? And then what's gonna be going on in our text?

31:09

A horde unleashed amongst humanity, and how are they gonna die? What are these stings? What is this pain that they're gonna experience?

31:15

I believe we're talking about quite straightforward pestilence and plague, but it's got a demonic origin to it.

31:21

And that's where I stand on this passage is that we're seeing a nasty, terrible plague that's gonna happen in the end of time.

31:32

So what will the terrible work of this demonic horde look like in everyday life on the earth during the end of time?

31:40

I don't believe people will see locust horses with scorpion tails wearing golden crowns with the faces of humans, long flowing hair, lion's teeth, breastplates of iron.

31:50

They won't necessarily hear the rush of their wings like chariots rushing into battle. Now the

31:55

Left Behind series gets very literal at this point. There's Kirk Cameron making his showing again.

32:01

Welcome, glad you're here. And at this point, they literally in the book, those of you have read it, you read it, do you remember this part?

32:09

Any of you remember this part? They literally had the locust, the little critters crawling all over people. I commend them for being committed and married to the concept of just taking this to the nth degree as literal.

32:24

But to be clear, what I take out of this is I believe that the pain is real. Real people suffering real devastation and real pain.

32:34

But I think that the detailed description in verses seven to nine, it's very detailed what the creatures look like. And I believe it's with intention of evoking fear.

32:43

It is intended to draw down the ghastliness and the gruesomeness of the demonic realm.

32:49

Who is this written to? Who is Revelation being read by? Christians, the churches.

32:58

And it's kind of painting, have any of you seen the cigarette commercials? Where there's the gross creature that like crawls out of the cigarette?

33:06

Can any of you know what I'm talking about? Where it's attempting to show you how gross it really is and then it kind of pulls back in and there's a guy smoking.

33:14

And it's just like, okay, I mean, how gross and how deadly is this thing really is kind of the picture.

33:20

And how, for us to recognize as Christians how ghastly and grotesque is indeed the realm of evil.

33:28

And I think that that's the intended picture. That's one of the reasons why verses seven through nine give us such detailed, strong language for that.

33:38

And the strong language also emphasizes the torment that people suffer under these locusts.

33:45

And it's said to be so bad that people will wanna die from whatever the plague actually is. It's terrible. I don't believe that verse six is saying that people will not be able to die during this period.

33:57

But instead, it's figuratively and drawing by analogy that it will hurt so bad that they want to die.

34:04

But as you and I know, many who would say, man, this hurts so bad that I wanna die would not take their own lives.

34:10

And so I think that the point of this is that the disease, whatever this illness, whatever this affliction actually is, will not be a deadly disease, but it'll be very painful, a very, very painful disease.

34:22

The disease or plague will not result in death, according to verse six. The duration of five months is kind of open for debate and people go back and forth about why, and I'm not sure it's that important, but maybe a cure will be found.

34:33

Maybe, I think ultimately you have to identify that that's the extent, the limit that God has drawn on it. Maybe these demons will be given a limited run and God will bind the demons and restrain them back in the bottomless pit after five months of release.

34:46

I really can't say, but I do know that I would not sign up for this five -month stint. Anybody with me on that?

34:52

Not signing up for that gig, okay? So getting some disorder, some disease that afflicts the people of the earth to such a degree that they are, they want to die from the amount of pain.

35:05

But as if it's almost an aside, John lets us in on a key indication that I believe indicates that I'm right about the locust horde.

35:12

He says, who leads them? Now, locusts don't need a leader. Insects don't need a leader. But these, this horde has a leader and their leader is an angel, clearly identified as an angel in the text.

35:23

He's known as Abaddon or Apollyon. A fallen angel known simply by the name in two different languages is destroyer.

35:32

Both of those words translate the same way, Abaddon in Hebrew, Apollyon in Greek, both mean destroyer.

35:39

And he's the leader of this demonic horde that brings about devastating torment to the people of the earth during this time.

35:46

But remember, he does not bring torment to those who have been sealed by God.

35:54

God protects his children from this plague and we know that some of the plagues in Egypt worked that way as well. There was devastation among the

36:00

Egyptians but the Israelites were fine. And I imagine to myself, if you put yourself in a context where that is the case, where the world suffers and the

36:08

Christians don't, I imagine that that might produce some conversations.

36:15

Would any of you agree with me that you would expect there to be some conversations, like how are you immune?

36:20

How are you not suffering this intensity of pain? How have you avoided that? And in my nice black and white, simple and sometimes naive thoughts,

36:32

I imagine people coming to the end of themselves in this pain, repenting and turning to God.

36:40

That's what I imagine. By the time we get to the end of the text, we'll see that it's other than that. The five months of torment ends and then comes the sixth trumpet.

36:50

And when the sixth angel picks up his trumpet and blasts it, a voice announces the release of four more angels that have been bound.

36:58

And again, the fact that they're bound indicates that they're fallen angels, just the nature that they've been bound. But they've not been bound in the bottomless pit.

37:05

Instead, we get to kind of try to figure out why they're bound at the Euphrates River. I don't really know why and I cannot clarify that.

37:11

And some people have identified this as maybe some military battle that's gonna take place in the Euphrates.

37:17

But I believe otherwise. I believe once again that these four fallen angels are gonna lead a host again of demons with a very specific purpose.

37:25

Those fallen angels, they are bound but will be released according to verse 15. You can look down at it with your own eyes.

37:31

According to verse 15, on a specific hour, on a specific day, in a specific month, in a specific year, these demons have been prepared for release.

37:40

These guys are waiting for their moment to shine and they will command another demonic horde. The first was given the power to inflict pain only but not to take life.

37:50

But this horde is given the power to slay, murder, and kill. They're 200 million strong.

37:58

That's two thirds of the population of the whole United States that is the word that's used here.

38:03

200 million. Again, just an exorbitant number by any stretch of the imagination.

38:09

And again, the words have to be, to get to a number that big in Greek, they had to multiply things together because again, the largest number that they spoke of was 10 ,000 in the

38:19

Greek language. So he says 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 times two is what he says in the text to clarify such a large number.

38:27

And they're described again in fearful detail just like the first horde was. They ride on horses with lion's heads. They have breastplates of red, blue, and yellow.

38:35

And the red, blue, and yellow correspond with what they breathe out, fire, smoke, and sulfur. And they will kill one third of the earth's population.

38:43

But it's the horses, not the riders that kill. And their tails, according to the text, are like serpents.

38:50

This is the passage where a lot of people get kind of crazy. Okay, people, any of you ever heard somewhat of a kind of out there kind of interpretation on this?

39:01

You get these texts that'll talk about the locusts as the air force and the horses as a ground force.

39:08

Some have named these particular vehicles of modern warfare. The interesting thing is that as technology increases, we suddenly skip to new technology or new weaponry.

39:18

So at one point in history, it was the Cobra helicopter. Now it's the Apache helicopter. And if you've got something with a tail gun on it, then that's the key because it kills with its tail.

39:30

You can get, anybody ever hear those kind of creative interpretations of this? Nobody?

39:36

All right, good. A couple of us have those kinds of things to kind of work through and kind of try to either forget or try to work past or work our way around.

39:44

And I say forget or work around because a lot of times they get in the way of what we're trying to accomplish here in understanding this text.

39:51

Because to be honest, considering the symbolic nature of this vision, it sounds to me more like disease than anything when you contemplate and consider the way that the angels affect the real world around us.

40:04

But anybody who tells you emphatically that these are Abrams tanks and the locusts are helicopters and they say it with a straight face is pretending to know something that they do not know.

40:14

Let me be clear about that. They're telling you something that they do not know. And so you have to be very careful to take those kinds of things with a grain of salt.

40:22

I've been kind of hard on the left behind series. But in this text, hey, there he is again. He keeps showing up.

40:29

I've been kind of hard on them. But in this text, I admire their dedication. Again, further to be literal, they have invisible horse riders breathing out sulfur, fire, and smoke that kill people.

40:39

Okay, so that's what they do with this in their books, in their literature, in their fiction. That's what they do.

40:45

And at least they don't make it into some kind of modern warfare or some kind of modern weaponry, which is, again, it's very clearly demonic through the text.

40:54

But ask yourself this question. And this is a bit of a setup. And I recognize occasionally I try to catch you a little bit in a trick.

41:01

And it's a little unfair, but I've had to wrestle through this with myself this week. And so I bring it to you to wrestle with as well.

41:08

But ask yourself this question. According to this text, what will the actual death of one third of the population look like?

41:19

How will that come down in this trumpet? Will it be plague? Will it be disease?

41:25

Will it be a military conquest? Is it gonna be nuclear holocaust? What do you see in the imagery?

41:33

And then ask yourself this question. How in the world could we be so cold and calculating to read about the death of 2 .3

41:44

billion people on the planet? And go, huh, speculate, how's that gonna happen?

41:51

I wonder what that's gonna look like. I wonder how that's gonna, is it this or is it this? Does it matter if it's this or this?

42:00

Do you get what I'm saying? Do you know what 2 .3 billion people is? It's the population of North America, South America, Europe, and two thirds of Africa.

42:14

2 .3 billion people dead when this trumpet blows. 2 .3

42:26

billion people who are rebelling against their creator. Some knowingly and some not knowingly.

42:38

Some who just if the church said it would follow

42:43

Christ. 2 .3 billion people. Is that stark to you?

42:51

Does that change? Is that a world -changing event? We read a third of the population, what is that?

42:56

You know, maybe 300 ,000, 400 ,000? I mean, what do you think? And then you go 2 .3 billion, well, that's a lot. But what is that, like half of Africa?

43:03

The entire Western Hemisphere, gone. All of Europe, gone. Two thirds, more than two thirds of Africa, gone.

43:13

Just basically Asia is left. Or you could just say all of India and all of China, gone.

43:27

I mean, you're so easily caught up in the details that we miss the impression that this text is meant to convey to us.

43:36

We should be weak when we read this. We read one third of the population destroyed and move on to trying to figure out which modern weapon is best described by a tail like a serpent and a mouth that breathes out fire, sulfur, and smoke.

43:51

But I want to be just as humble as I'm suggesting everyone else should be when they approach this text.

43:57

Maybe this is a picture of some kind of modern human army. I could get it wrong. I don't believe that. I really believe that this is demonic in nature.

44:05

However, the Six Trumpet Plague looks on the outside. There's a, there are fallen angels leading it.

44:13

And the result will be the death of 2 .3 billion people. That's if, that's if it happened today.

44:19

It could be more than that. And I believe that we're seeing two spiritually led devastations that will take place at the end.

44:28

One will be demonically driven disease that results in great pain. The other will be demonically driven pestilence that will result in widespread death.

44:36

But no matter how these demonic hordes manifest their destruction on this planet in the physical world, the results are even more devastating when we get to the last two verses.

44:47

Those who survive these plagues will not repent.

44:53

Will not repent of their idolatry. They will not give up their idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, or wood.

45:01

Whatever mankind is worshiping. Throughout scripture, idolatry is pictured as the worship of demons.

45:07

And here in the text it's declared openly that those who would indeed worship idols, worship the stuff and the material of this world, are indeed worshiping demons.

45:15

And those who are afflicted by the demons in the end will not stop worshiping those demons that afflict them.

45:21

Do you see an irony in that? They don't know what they're worshiping.

45:28

But the very things that they worship are the things that will afflict them in the end. We don't deal a lot with idol worship in a literal way these days.

45:36

How many of you identify that we've got a lot of things to worship? A lot of things that our hearts are prone to give themselves over to and that our hearts are prone to get drawn into instead of God.

45:50

Twice in verses 20 through 21, it's emphasized that those who survive the fifth and sixth trumpet blast will not run to God for protection, will not turn from their sins.

45:59

They want to keep worshiping other things and stuff. They will not turn away from killing one another.

46:05

They will not, they will instead keep turning to demonic realm and demonic forces for power, which is the meaning of the word sorcery there.

46:14

They will keep engaging in sexual immorality and they will keep on taking the stuff that is not theirs.

46:21

Reference is theft. So the book of Revelation is, you identify it's a bit tricky when we get into some of these texts.

46:30

It can be a bit confusing. But as long as we keep our thoughts about it in the realm of impressions and pictures, then

46:37

I think we'll stay closer to the intended meaning of the author. These detailed images of demonic hordes tormenting and eventually killing one third of mankind are meant to be devastating to us.

46:48

They are not primarily in the text to pique our curiosity. They are not meant to elicit speculation.

46:54

They are meant to bring us to our knees in gratitude for God's saving grace toward us.

47:03

These images also ought to motivate us to call others to repentance while we still can.

47:10

Many are lost in darkness and will suffer, not merely the sting of the scorpion, but many will suffer from eternal flames.

47:21

So let me close by four brief applications to this text. Number one, if you're taking notes, here's where I'm going.

47:30

Number one, pain is a tool that God does use to get our attention.

47:36

Pain is a tool that God uses to get our attention. The pain that is inflicted on the earth during those last days is not strictly a form of punishment.

47:45

But I believe that in all of these devastations, there is a wake -up call to let go of the things of this world and seek the things that are above.

47:52

Some believe that God only ever wants you healthy, wealthy.

47:58

He only ever wants you to experience good feelings. But God has used pain in my life. And raise your hand if you could say

48:04

God has used pain in your life at times to sharpen you. I think a lot of us can testify that that's the case.

48:12

I'm thankful that you were willing to raise your hand and testify to that. He makes us stronger and he leads us deeper into faith in him through pain.

48:20

So the next time you experience pain in your life, consider that God is not above using it to get your attention. Now I am not at all suggesting that every hangnail or every blister or even every positive cancer diagnosis has theological significance.

48:36

But I'm suggesting that turning our attention to God in pain is a good posture. I'm not saying that you've got to figure out what's

48:42

God trying to teach you right away when you've got pain, right away when you're suffering. But I am saying, man, a posture towards God and towards openness to him is key in moments like that.

48:53

The second application is that demonic forces are indeed real. We need to face that. As I mentioned in the introduction, the one who is in us is greater than the one who prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

49:05

Satan is real and so are his fallen angels who follow him. Some of those demons are already bound and are bound awaiting the release to bring about these plagues in the end.

49:15

But some are here already working to thwart those who follow Jesus. In a practical sense,

49:20

I don't find it helpful to try to identify a demon behind every circumstance. Pastorally, I would discourage you from doing that.

49:27

Every sin, every bad situation, every temptation. I don't know if you can relate to this statement, but I can certainly tempt myself just fine.

49:34

I don't need to blame some external force for the sin and the temptation. Often I'm just enough to corrupt myself.

49:41

But I think that we in the Western church are too often forgotten that we're in the midst of a spiritual battle.

49:47

The outcome has been determined by the cross of Christ, by his empty tomb. But evil still has it out for us.

49:53

We should not allow even the smallest foothold for the devil in our lives. Believe me, if you allow a foothold of Satan in your life, he is eager and willing to go ahead and take you up on that offer and turn it into a mile.

50:06

The idea of a foothold is just like a just a handhold. Just think of your mountain climbed or climbed up, scrambled up a rock.

50:12

Just enough to get your fingers on, and he's looking for that in your life. And he will blow it up.

50:19

He'll turn it into huge real estate for him. Third, God is driving the world toward repentance.

50:26

See that in the text. The new kingdom of God will not have pacts, will not have those handholds, will not have those places for covenants with sin.

50:34

There is no room for idolatry. There is no room for evil deeds done with our hands.

50:39

No room for murder. No room for sorcery, for sexual immorality or theft. I love it.

50:45

There's not gonna be locks in heaven. No need for locks in heaven. If you're a locksmith here while you're out of a job, there's not theft there.

50:55

Those who are now under this new kingdom, those of us in this room who are now under this new kingdom of God and Christ should no longer practice the evil of this world.

51:05

Consider the laundry list that God is calling people out of at the end of our text through the suffering and travail and tragedy of the end times.

51:12

And he wants all of us to turn away from those things to him. Lastly, doomsday preppers are missing the point, okay?

51:24

Any of you ever watch those shows? You know what I'm talking about when I say doomsday preppers? There are shows dedicated to those who hope to survive the coming devastation on this planet.

51:32

And many people think that devastation looks like a zombie apocalypse or attack of vampires or who knows what, or the aliens are coming or, you know, global nuclear holocaust or whatever it might be.

51:44

And so they're stockpiling ammo. They try to utilize self -sustainability or shelters or build something under the ground to try to stock up all of their supplies.

51:53

But survival is not the hope during a time when many are longing to die.

52:00

But salvation provided through Jesus is the only hope.

52:06

You might say to me, but Don, wouldn't it be wise to be ready for whatever comes down? I say, yeah, get ready.

52:13

As a matter of fact, the only way to be ready for the blast of these trumpets is to run to Jesus for shelter.

52:19

Battle sin in your life, war against it. Struggle and strive and run the good, fight the good fight of faith, run the race.

52:31

The upward calling of Christ Jesus. The hope is a spiritual hope, not a physical hope.

52:40

As we come to communion, we need this reminder that Jesus paid the price for us. That all who are in Christ are sealed by his

52:47

Holy Spirit. And so when we celebrate and are joyful, we need routine and regular reminders that it is all about the sacrifice of Christ.

52:54

When there's joy in our hearts, when there's parties and there's celebration, and Monday we're getting together with family and we're having cookouts and we're remembering those who have sacrificed for us.

53:05

But we need a reminder that Christ is the one that gives us hope. And then we come to texts like this where it can be a bit of a downer and there's this future torment and death and we need to remember a past torment and a past death that has been paid for us.

53:20

He took the punishment that we deserved on that cross and all we need to do is put our faith and trust in his sacrifice.

53:26

So if you acknowledge that Jesus is king and have asked him to save you, then feel free to come to one of the four tables at the corner of the room, take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for you.

53:36

Take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for you. The purpose of this time each week is to remember, remember and rejoice that he is the protector of his people and that nothing evil has power over any of his children.