Revelation 9 Continued

Calendar.

Yeah, very good. Yep.

I'll see you'll see you'll see us up. I appreciate it. You'll see us up. Close the door for us. Oh, yes.

What, Andy, will you pray for us? Now that you have a beard, it might be holier.

Looks good.

Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so much for who you are and for who we are in Christ. We pray Lord this morning that you would help us that you would aid us that you most fear would come and teach us.

Brother Mike, thank you for his faithfulness. And Lord open our hearts open our minds and change our lives so that we become more like the one who so loved us that he gave himself for us. We ask in his name.

The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets in Revelation 9

Revelation chapter nine. I want to read the whole chapter because there is a connection between the fifth trumpet and the sixth trumpet. Get started. Verse one, then the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth.

And the key of the bottom was pit was given to him he opened the bottom was pit and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun in the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit then out of the smoke came locust upon the earth.

Power was given them as the scorpions of the earth have power, they were told not to hurt the grass of the earth nor any green thing nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and they will not find it they will long to die and death flees from them.

The appearance of the locust was like horses prepared for battle and on their heads appear to be crowns like gold their faces were like faces of men. They had hair like women and their teeth were like the teeth of lions and they had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings were like the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to battle and they have tails like scorpions and stings and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.

They have as a king over them the angel of the abyss his name in Hebrew is a bad and in the Greek his name is Apollyon. The first woe was passed and behold two woes are still to come after these things.

The Golden Altar and the Four Angels Bound at the Euphrates

Then the six angels sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. One saying to the six angel who had the trumpet release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates and the four angels who had been prepared for the hour the day the month the year were released so that they would kill a third of mankind.

The number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them and this is how I saw the vision the horses and those who sat on them the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone and on the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions and out of their mouths proceeded fire and smoke and brimstone.

A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues by the fire the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouth for the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails for their tails are like serpents and their and have heads and with them they do harm.

The Refusal to Repent Under Judgment

The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands. So as not to worship demons and to idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immoralities nor of their thefts.

Well those are a yummy sight of horses in the sixth trumpet. So we actually did not get into verse 12. So let me handle that really quick. We got to who I see the part of the angel with the key that released the demons out of the abyss.

His Greek name is Apollyon Hebrew name is Abaddon. I believe that to be the adversary Satan. If you disagree with me we can still be friends. And then it says the first woe is past. Remember this section the fifth sixth and seventh trumpets are the three woes.

One woe is going to be worse than the next. And the reason being why these are woes is these not only have it just to do with physical destruction but it has to do with a spiritual torment and a spiritual destruction as well.

So what did we see with the what did the locusts do. Well they weren't real locusts but these these demon possessed men which were a picture as I see is the locusts that come up out of the out of the pit.

What were they doing. They were tormenting the people in Jerusalem for it says figuratively five months. Okay. The next one that's fixing to be blown trumpet will also be of a demonic force. So we'll start in and this woe will be worse than the second.

So if you have this was if the first woe was a three on the woe Richter scale this is going to be in the six range. He says and when the six angels sounded I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.

You remember back in chapter eight we had the golden altar where the prayers had been offered up with the sensor. Do you all remember that part. I know it's been a few weeks. It began with them offering up with the golden sensors offering up prayers to God at the throne.

Now when we get to the spot that this trumpet he is actually going to answer that prayer. And how do we know that. Because it says here a voice came from the altar. Well what was the golden altar. We're obviously we're seeing again imagery that comes from the tabernacle.

What was the golden altar with the four horns. Does anybody remember. You had two major altars when you came in to the tabernacle or the tabernacle tabernacle or the temple when you came through if you were at the tabernacle and you came through the would be the opening screens.

The first thing you would have seen would have been what the altar. What was the major piece of worship in Judaism. It was the altar. That's where everybody came to give their sacrifices. That's where you care about.

Oblations were offered up to God for their sins and it was where they were supposed to offer up evening and morning sacrifice. But as you got closer to the most holy place or the holy of holies you then get closer to God which then narrowed down who can get there.

Well as you closer you got to the to the holy place then only who could only go in the holy place. Only only the Levites. OK. So only some of the Levites. Then you had the call of fights that could go into the holy place not most holy place would make you go in there and they could trim the lanterns and light the and keep the bowls burning.

You remember. Remember who's remember Samuel. That's what Samuel was doing. Samuel was going. He was a call of fight and he could go into that the first section that you would come in where you have the show table and you would have the menorah.

But then right before you went through the veil into the most holy place what was sitting right in front of the veil. The golden altar of incense with four horns. So you had basically a small a smaller altar that burned incense right before you go into the presence of God replicating the larger altar of burnt sacrifice which was outside.

Specifically it was made for burning incense sweet aroma to God right before they would enter the the one time a year they would enter the holy of holies. What did the what did the priest have to do. He had to go in there with incense.

So even at that the shakhan of glory of God was still veiled through some of the incense smoke. Well this is the golden altar imagery and it says it's before God. Exactly where the golden altar of incense would have been if you would have been in the holy of holies and then the holy right outside in the holy place.

It says in one saying to the six angel angel who had the trumpet release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. Now release means these angels have been bound. Okay. If if Andy says release my that means somebody has me bound up.

So if these are angels are being released and we're going down it says they are bound as we continue to read. I see these angels as not good angels. These are bad. These are evil wicked fallen however you want to you want to coin that.

And as we go through this this will help understand why I believe that not just because of their being they're being released which has the connotation of being bound but they're also been prepared for a certain type of destruction and they're releasing a certain type of destruction and then it goes on to say that these four angels are bound at the great river Euphrates.

Don't laugh at my map because it's terrible. But you had the river Euphrates that would come up this way. Babylon would have been somewhere down here and you would have the Tigris and you would have Nineveh here.

Or we'll just put here the Assyrian Empire was here. Everything this way would have been like Syria. And you keep going on. This is not to exact measurement. And then you would have the river and all of this would have been Israel.

And then you would have some of the tribes that would have landed over here like Manasseh and Gad. But during the Roman conquest of the Roman Empire, Tigris, this is the Euphrates. Anything beyond the Euphrates was scary.

Even for Rome, we often think that Rome was invincible, don't we? Let's just be honest. That's how it's often made that a Rome was absolutely undefeatable. That's not so much the case. Now, Alexander the Great went all the way to the Indus, which would have been somewhere over here, okay, to the borders of India.

And his guys actually, he did cry there and say, there's no more worlds to conquer. But there is a little caveat with that. His men were so war-torn and beaten down, he didn't want to let them go any further.

There was more land to conquer, but his guys just said, hey, we can't do it anymore. And what did he do? He says, hey, get in your boats. I want you to go down the bottom. I want you to go back home, go back to Macedonia.

But I want you to take the ocean beneath, and I want you to go all the way around and see all the lands that you conquered on your way home. And then Alexander the Great began to make his conquest back set up in Babylon.

But once you come after the Greeks, the splintering of the empire, and Rome takes over as the world empire, their border was the Euphrates. It did not go past the Euphrates because they constantly had someone on this.

Anybody ever heard of the Parthians? These were some bad dudes. These would have been basically your Persians. They were bad to the bone, and they constantly fought. So they made a, Rome made a, basically made a treaty with them saying, hey, we'll stop our border here.

You stay over there. You mind your business, we'll mind ours, because it was a constant conflict. And once you cross that side, nobody knows what happens to you. But for the people of God, there was also something crazy about the Euphrates.

Everybody that came that would wreak havoc on the people of God would come from beyond the Euphrates. When Jerusalem fell, and when the first deportation, depending on your things, 603 or 605, where did it come from?

It came from this side of the Euphrates. When the next deportation came in 597, where did it come from? It came from this side, Babylon. When the final destruction came in 586, where did it come from?

It came from Nebuchadnezzar and his people from this side of the Euphrates. Before that happened in 722, where did the Assyrian Empire come and wipe out Samaria? With Tiglath Pileser, he actually did the first siege.

Sargon actually picked up where he left off and wiped them out in 722. Where did it come from? Beyond the Euphrates. So just remember, anything on the other side of the Euphrates, north of Jerusalem, north of the Euphrates is scary.

Whatever comes from there ain't good. And that leads to the context of, hey, you have four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. And these four angels have been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year.

This is God actually now bringing about His decree that this particular type of invasion and destruction was ordained before time. He's saying, look, this is God's decree. He has prepared them for this very year, month, day, hour in which this would happen.

And what is their purpose? Why are they being released? What does it say? To kill a third of mankind. Not all. To kill a third. You remember what it was in the seals? Remember I said you have this progressive parallelism?

What happened when the armies came in with the seals? What happened? They killed a quarter. Now, this next revelation of what's going to take place with the destruction of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas is now He's saying, when I release these, they're going to kill a third of mankind.

Question? Okay. The number of these armies of the horsemen was 200 million. The actual rendering is double myriad of myriad. Andy's yours? New King James? What does yours say? 200 million? Anybody got the King James?

10 ,000? Double 10 ,000? 200 ,000. Okay. What would ESV say? Okay. So there's been a lot of shenanigans with the 200 million. We'll just be honest. Hal Lindsey and Mao, when he, the China actually claimed a army of 200 million, and if you were a Hal Lindsey supporter, well, Hal Lindsey jumped all over that and said, this is it.

This is these are the guys. Well, the actual rendering is not 200 million. It's myriad of myriads. Double myriad. And it just means it would be almost like saying an innumerable amount. Let's just be honest in historical data.

There was no army. Okay, there was no army that manned or horsemen with 200 million in that time. Let's just be honest. There wasn't even that much population. Might have been that much population could have been because I even believe at the time of the flood, maybe more than that were drowned.

But I believe certainly not footmen and horsemen and who I believe this, this, this group of people are certainly wrong did. Okay, I believe who these are, or God is. Well, I don't want to get too far ahead.

But at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, part of the 10th Legion was stationed here, guarding the border. Well, when Titus got the the okay from his daddy, Vespasian, some of the 10th Legion were brought from here to help with the siege, because they had the engines.

They remember what engine was? What's the engine? Catapults? Yeah, they had the catapults that could launch a boulder of one talent. How big one talent? 100 pounds. So if this if my understanding is correct, then the 200 million is just representative of an innumerable amount of forces and overwhelming amount of forces that would come from the Euphrates.

And it is remember anything that comes from the Euphrates ain't coming for good purposes. Now, let's even take for instance, when when Babylon fell, Babylon fell from another force coming from over here, right?

What came from over here and destroyed and wiped Babylon out in one day, but with very little, very, very little bloodshed. The Persians. Yeah, the Persians. And this also when we get to chapter 16. It talks about the drying up of the Euphrates so that they could make way for destruction, which leads to also remember how Babylon fell.

He dried up the river Euphrates. That's how Cyrus was able to get into Babylon. He he dug him he dug a way around so that the Euphrates went around so that he could go up under the wall come right into the city and remember handwriting on the wall with Daniel?

Yeah, that's how it happened. That's how it fell. That's, that's how that fell with little to no bloodshed with the exception of probably who was in the room with bell chatter. So the 200 million is not a statistical number.

And a lot of times most of the time in Revelation statistical numbers are not to look to be a statistical they're looked as to be impressionistic. So if it says, hey, there's a there's a horseman army of 200 million, in your mind, you should be thinking that's overwhelming.

That's overwhelming amount. And it says that I heard that number of them. And once again, he heard the number of them. You remember what he went in the 144 ,000 he heard the number somebody's telling him these things.

He heard the number. And this is how I saw the vision. The horses and those who were sitting on them. So now we're fixing to get a description of these wild crazy look like he took a bunch of zoo animals and put them in a bucket shook them up and threw them out and they all push together.

It says I saw in the vision, the horses and those who were on them. The riders had breastplates, the color of fire, and hyacinth and brimstone. Look, if you if anything has the color of fire, fire is a representation of what in so far in in Revelation, and actually all through Scripture, what's fire, judgment, purification, what's that?

Yeah, judgment, purification. What are your works as a believer going to be tested with on that day, they're going to be tested with fire and that which is pure will remain that which doesn't will burn up like wood, stubble and hay.

And then it says of hyacinth. Now, this that some may say staff, they may say sapphire. Anybody else say Jason King James say Jason. Okay, hyacinth. This is where this can lead to different shades of color.

Hyacinth is actually what's used in the in the Greek language here and it is actually the color of a blooming flower that is a deep purple. It's purplish and color, purplish blue, purplish red. And then the French latinized translation is the Jason, which is gives a more reddish blackish reddish tone.

And sapphire is says blue. Does everybody's does anybody's translation just give the color? I think one translation I looked at maybe it was the NLT or NIB said like, red, blue and yellow. And that is the idea of trying to give us a picture of what these colors were.

Because in mind, you actually have the color is actually in italics, meaning it ain't there in the original language, they put it there for us to understand. So if yours says the color of fire, or the color of hyacinths color should be in italics, because it's not part of the original language.

And it says brimstone. Well, what's brimstone? I know some say sulfur. What was brimstone a picture of judgment? Judgment? What came down on Sodom and Gomorrah? Byron brimstone, sulfur, what does sulfur do?

Sulfur will suck the oxygen out of your lung, it will deflate you is what it will do. And it says, these things that had on the horses that had these breastplates of fire, hyacinth and brimstone, they had heads like horses.

Okay, so these are battle tested ready. Look, what does horses represent in Scripture? Armies of war. Let's even go back to the seals. What did the what were the first four seals? The four horsemen? What did the four horsemen represent?

The coming army of Rome, the very first one, the conquering armies of Rome, and what would they bring with them that comes with conquering, it would bring civil war, it would bring famine, and it would bring pestilence and the sword.

That's what comes with war. In this case, here, we're seeing it again, these horses are bringing with them destruction. And it says they have heads like lions. So this is like some crazy minotaur looking thing with a lion's head.

But what do lions do? They're ferocious, they're vicious. And what is a lion with the exception of the lion of the tribe of Judah? What does a lion represent who has teeth who's wanting to devour you?

That is Satan. That is him. He is the one that has teeth brawling around seeking whom he may devour. Well, in this case, this is going to be the unleashing of the demonic cavalry that will come and wreak havoc and destruction.

And it says, and out of their mouth proceeds fire, smoke, and brimstone. And it'll go on to say that that is where their power's at. So what's coming out of their mouth is judgment. What's coming out of their mouth is going to prove to be destruction.

And as we look at not only the physical part of the destruction that comes with these armies, which I believe to be Rome, there is a spiritual death connected to it. They are coming to destroy apostate Jerusalem, if my understanding is correct.

Okay. What happens to apostates when they die? Where do they go? That's it. So not only do these are these coming with a physical destruction, they're coming with a judgment on the apostate soul. In the first woe, what were they told not to do?

They were told not to kill, not to kill, you torment them. And what did we see in Deuteronomy 28, which would be an actual fulfillment of the covenant breaking of the first covenant? And what was it? We're going to drive these people insane.

That's what God said he was going to do. He said, I'm going to send these things upon you. It's going to make you blind. It's going to make you crazy. I'm going to drive you insane. And then I'm going to turn you over to pestilence, sword, and famine.

That's funny that, not funny, but ironic that those three come up with the destruction of Jerusalem. You know, we're going to read about in Jeremiah this morning when we read chapter 14, those very things for breaking the covenant which God gave them.

And apostate Jerusalem was told, you break my covenant. This is what will happen. Jesus comes in. He fulfills all of the old covenant. He was the fulfillment of the old, the embodiment of the new. And apostate Jerusalem and Israel says, we don't want him.

We want our system. And God says, I'm going to give you what you want. Here it comes. He's going to give them what they want. You want your stuff. You don't want the full revelation of which I have sent to come and redeem you.

You don't want the Messiah from which I sent to bear the sins for you. Okay. I'll do the same thing I did to you in 586 and I'll do it through the Romans. And it says here that a third of mankind was killed by these three plagues.

Well, the three plagues would have been the fire, the smoke and the brimstone. It says it proceeds out of their mouth. A third of mankind. So when that, when Rome comes through here, don't, we shouldn't think of it as, hey, they've wiped out the Jewish race.

Now, was it a Holocaust? Yeah, they did. But not only when Titus comes in with his armies surrounds the city, they actually breached the walls. You know what they, they did enslave some of them. They did enslave a, a good bit of them.

Now they did tatter the roads all the way out from the Damascus gate and leading the others where they were picking up wood that had not been burned. And they were crucifying an insurrectionist in such a rate that they were putting two on one stipe.

They said there was up to 30 ,000 on the roadways crucified as you would leave Jerusalem after the fall. But they did enslave some of them. So it wasn't all of them were wiped out. They enslaved some of them so that those zealots and those that were part of the insurgents were heading to Masada.

Everybody heard of Masada? Masada? Okay. Masada was built by Herod, along with Herodias. And it was a place of fortress that if war ever broke out, they could go, it was, it was carved out of mountains.

It is, I've been there, it is absolutely gorgeous. It's up on a way up, it's like 1100 feet in the air. And it is way high. If you, we went up the little snake trail up to get to the top of it. And you can still walk up there today, but they have it marked out to where Titus, once he got there in 71, I think it's he took two years there.

After the fall of Jerusalem in 70, they skedaddled trying to save the, save the nation and set up at Masada because it was fortified. Hard to get to. Well, he, the people that Titus enslaved then set up camps to do make a siege ramp.

And they made a siege ramp with slave labor from captured Jews to kill their own people. That's what they did. And in Masada fell in 73. And that was the end of Jewish culture for a good a long time. So he, they didn't wipe out the whole Jewish race, they enslaved some of them.

And there was obviously there were some that were still up in Asia Minor that weren't part of the insurrection. But this specifically dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem and the aftermath after.

The Call to Repentance and the Meaning of the Trumpets

Then it says for the power of the horses is in their mouths and their tails. And their tails are like serpents and have heads and with them they do harm. So once again, we're seeing their serpent like when you see a serpent, is that good or bad normally?

Bad. Yeah, I think there's only one time we could say that a serpent actually did something good. And that would have been when they made the brazen serpent in the in the time of the Exodus. And he said, Look at it.

But what was the reason for them to look at it because it was the various things that were biting them that was killing them. Okay. When we see serpents and scorpions, what are those representative of evil, Satan, we can even go back to Luke chapter 10, verses 17 through 19.

And he talks about giving them the ability to tread over serpents and scorpions. So this is not good. And they have heads and they'll do they and they do harm. No kidding. Yeah, I mean, you have things that are breathing out fire and smoke and brimstone out of their nostrils.

This is not to for your benefit. It says here in verse 20. And the rest of mankind who were not killed by these flags did not repent. They didn't repent of the work to their hands. So as not to worship demons, we'll stop right there.

For a second. It seems that the purpose for these trumpets being blown was to produce a certain response. And what is it? It tells us they didn't repent. When horns were blown, and we are trumpets were blown in the Old Testament, it was to alarm people one, it was either to come remember when they were in the exodus and they were walking around the mountain for 40 years, they would blow the horn, it was time for people to get their jump together, it's time to move, it's time to be alert, it's time to pay attention.

Well, when these trumpets are blown, there, you should pay attention, you should pay attention what God is doing to these people, then in the sixth trumpets blown, and a third of mankind is wiped out, and it had a purpose to point them to repentance, and it didn't.

It didn't. The sheer wrath of God will not convert the soul. Should we proclaim the Word of God in such a way that we should persuade men of the terror of the Lord? We should. Yeah. But just sheer terror is not going to turn a man to God.

It's going to take God with the regenerating power of the Spirit, with the preaching of judgment that will do it. What's not being done when this judgment is being poured out? There's no preaching of the Word.

Matter of fact, the Jewish Christians are gone. The Jewish Christians are gone from Jerusalem. They heeded His words. You head to the hills. When you see the abomination of desolation, you see the surrounding armies.

What did He tell them to do? You better get out of Dodge. It says, they did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons. We often don't think of the religiosity of the city of Jerusalem, even in Judaism, as being demonic.

You know anything, when we think of Antichrist, and we'll get into that when we get to chapter 13. When we think of Antichrist, it's not so much this oppose, okay, it's like face to face against, it's in place of.

So when the Antichrist, which I do believe at the end of the age, there will be one that will raise himself up, there will be a figure that will be, we'll get to all that more of like the false prophet, and he will point himself to the beast, which will be the religious political system.

And he will set himself up wanting to be worshiped as God in place of Christ. What every religion that has idols, and they all do. Paul says those idols are what? They're, what they're done. I agree with you.

Yes. They're done. Meaning what? Can't talk. They can't hear. They can't.

Speak. They can't do anything. And even the prophets in the Old.

Testament, when he say, Hey, man, y 'all are you go out there, you chop a tree down, you whittle it up, or you take a piece of stone, and you chip it and you fashion it, you make it into what you want, then you take the little pieces left over, you sweep it up in a dustpan, you go over, you throw it in the trash can, then you take change and you prop it up, then you take a little bit of wood that you had left over and then you go cook your food over it.

As you bow down and talk to the very thing that you just made. They have no power. But don't be deceived that behind every idol is a demon. Now, you know who I'm talking about most likely when I say this, I knew a man.

I knew a man. He's actually he might even still be alive today. He's an older man. His name. Well, let's say his last name, but his name is Bob. Okay. And he was a, he was a pastor of a church here in town.

And he had a ministry of deliverance. And he, he preached the gospel. But buddy, he had some wackadoodle stuff about demons. There was a demon behind.

Every doorpost. I mean, everywhere. I mean, he was he.

Talked about casting out demons wherever he went. Okay. I don't believe it quite like that. Now, I do believe we are in a spiritual war. And I do believe if God was to open up our eyes, we would probably see some of the unseen and probably be somewhat terrified of what we would see.

But hey, I don't believe when I walk out that door, that there's a cohort of demons waiting to attack me. That's how this man saw. Okay. This is how this particular individual I know, he just saw it. Has anybody ever read the book, A World Unseen by Michael Heiser?

Okay, it deals with demonic, demonic oppression, demonology. There are some things in that book that are good. But there's some things in there that are pretty wacky. What we do know about demons is their desire is one to destroy the image bearer of God.

Okay, their desire is to wreak havoc on the human being as an image bearer. What do we see in the time of Christ when he's going around casting out demons? What were some of the people doing to themselves when they were possessed by demons?

One was throwing himself into the fire. I remember that and he kept throwing himself into the fire and he wanted Jesus to cast a demon out and he did. What was the crazy two demoniacs doing to themselves in Gadara?

They were cutting themselves running around naked, they were uncontrollable. Everything was always connected with crushing the image bearer. Okay, destroying that which God put his impression on. But now they've gotten a little I think demons learn.

They get a little smarter. They learn how well we're not gonna quite do it that way. We'll do it in other ways. We'll do it by choice. Her body. We'll do it by abortion. Or we'll do it by gender dysmorphia.

Understand? So those are demonic forces behind that destroying the image bearer of God. This case here, these people were worshiping Judaism. Why? Hey, on on Stephen's proclamation, we got about five minutes.

Stephen's proclamation in Acts 7, which got him stoned to death. First martyr in Christian church. He proclaimed that what they were doing was wrong. Your holy place ain't holy. He has come and sent the true revelation in Jesus Christ.

And in short, the CliffNotes version of that long chapter you can go in, God's gonna destroy that because of it. That's they gnashed their teeth, they drug him out of the city and stoned him because of it.

They want they didn't want Christ. They wanted their system. They didn't want Yahweh in the Old Testament. They wanted their system. We even see that the last book of the English is the English Bible in the New in the Old Testament is Malachi.

What do we see the rebuke to those people in Malachi? They weren't doing what God wanted them to do. They weren't doing what God told them to do with their worship. They wanted to worship God on their terms on their way how they wanted to do it.

And their sacrifices were lame, unclean, no leg, no eye spots on their body. Okay, all those things that God said don't do they were doing because they said we're gonna worship God our way, not the way that he said.

They worship their system. Even when you come to the time, after the time of the Maccabees, you get into where you have the hurricane us in the era, Aristobulus is of that time, then you get to the time of the Herod's.

What did those Pharisees and Sadducees want? They wanted their system. They did not want God. That's idolatry. And behind every aisle, there's a demon, because that demon says he wants to be in the place of Christ, meaning substitute, substitute, and the idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which could neither see nor hear nor walk.

And then he goes on to say, we already discussed that. And verse 21, it says, and they did not repent of their murders, nor their sorceries, nor of their immoralities, nor their thefts. They were murdering one another said it probably 100 times they were killing one another within the city.

God give them over to a debased mind. And it says here they didn't, they did not repent of their sorceries. And that word in the Greek is pharmakon. And it can mean a number of things. Sorceries wasn't like they were playing with a Ouija board.