Study of Revelation and End Times wk 23
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The World has Gone Crazy - part 2
The World has Gone Crazy - part 2
Tonight we are in week 23 and will finish out chapter 9 tonight.
Last week we looked at verse 13 and 14 as we looked at the Prayer factor and the power factor.
Tonight we will continue in part two of The World has Gone Crazy.
Tonight we will see three more factors from this second half of chapter 9 in verse 15-21.
Tonight we will see the Purpose factor, the Perversity factor, and the Pride factor.
First is the:
I. The Purpose Factor.
I. The Purpose Factor.
15 And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.
The words hour, day, month, and year are not talking about actual periods of time.
The Greek says, this very hour and day and month and year.
God has a purpose and a plan for a specific hour when these angels will be loosed.
And not a speck of dust moves in this universe unless God gives permission.
Not a blade of grass moves in the wind without God’s permission.
There was a time when a mission of the space shuttle Columbia was called off because the computer was off by one-twenty-fifth of a second.
Can you imagine the waste of money for an error of only one twenty-fifth of a second?
Timing is important.
God said to Abraham, in Genesis 17:8
8 “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
But God has a condition, one condition for Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14
13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
14 “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
Why is this condition put on the promise, why must the people be oppressed for four hundred years.
16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
God waited as the iniquity of the Amorites went into the reservoir of His wrath drop by drop for four hundred years.
Imagine how long people prayed for the Messiah, who had been prophesied over and over again.
4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
A few verses down and Peter reassured the people.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
God is never ahead of time, and God is never late.
He does not punch a clock when He goes to work.
The day of the Lord will come.
We are told in Galatians 4:3-5
3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.
4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,
5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Just because it has been two thousand years since our Lord stepped into glory, don’t think for one trace of a second that God has forgotten His promise.
One day the trumpet will sound, the sky will roll back, and Jesus will rise from His throne and step down into the clouds to receive His own.
He is coming.
14 that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
If you want to know where God is, He is on time.
With God timing is more important than time.
II. The Perversity Factor
II. The Perversity Factor
When God gives His permission to loose the filthy four from the Euphrates River, an incredible onslaught will be released upon mankind.
17 And this is how I saw in 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 the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone.
18 A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths.
19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.
The deception of the horsemen here may be a symbolic description of modern warfare.
These instruments of war shoot fire, smoke, and brimstone.
They have tails like the tails of serpents.
It sounds much like the kinds of tanks, helicopters, and rockets we see today.
What if God had given John the vision of when man landed on the moon?
John may have described what he saw as a great spider sending forth fire, smoke, and sulfur.
Of course, nobody knew anything about helicopters, airplanes, or tanks in Bible time.
But they knew something about horses prepared for battle.
16 The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.
Some have speculated that the army here is an army of men.
Most likely, this army of 200 million will be wave after wave of demons released from the pit, bringing colossal chaos to this earth and ultimately bringing death to one-third of mankind.
At this time, man, who has wanted to live his own life, his own way, will now be vulnerable to the full reign of terror from Satan.
III. The Pride Factor
III. The Pride Factor
After reading about all of these things, you may think men will fall on their face and cry out for mercy from God.
Yet, look at what we are told in Revelation 9:19-21
19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.
20 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 the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;
21 and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.
In stead of being horrified, men have become hardened.
Men are not changed because of punishment.
You can put a person in a prison, but it won’t change his heart.
10 A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding
Than a hundred blows into a fool.
Do you know what people are doing in hell?
Jesus said they are gnashing their teeth.
42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Do you know what it means to gnash your teeth?
It means to snarl.
They are snarling against God.
They are not asking God for mercy.
They are still participating in their wicked course of demons, astrology, and Satan worship.
21 and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.
We are told that these people, did not repent of four things.
1. Murder
1. Murder
May God have mercy on the murderers of unborn babies in our world today.
May God send His Spirit to bring repentance to every man and woman who has participated in this most heinous act against defenseless little ones.
Due to abortion on demand, the streets run red with carnage in every corner of the world.
2. Sorcery
2. Sorcery
The word sorcery comes from the Greek word pharmakon.
It is the word from which we get the English word pharmacist.
Do you know what a pharmacist does?
He dispenses drugs.
In the Great Tribulation, men will be reduced to rubble through their abuse of drugs.
We are seeing this now, not just through illegal drugs either, but also through prescription drugs, and even over the counter medication.
People are being harmed, wasted, and reduced to rubble because of these chemicals.
3. Fornication
3. Fornication
The word fornication comes from the Greek word porneias, from which we get out word pornography.
It speaks of sexual perversion and immorality.
God left Sodom and Gomorrah with their smoking ruins as a testimony to those who choose to live ungodly lives.
6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;
But mankind will not learn.
And Jesus tells us that the world will experience an even worse judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah.
15 “Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.
4. Thefts
4. Thefts
In the Great Tribulation, people will steal openly from one another.
There will be no restraints or negative consequences from civil authorities for their behavior.
God knows that even in this time, punishment and suffering will not bring these people to Himself.
God says, in Genesis 6:3
3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
There will come a time in the Great Tribulation when man will have crossed God’s deadline, and His hand of mercy will be removed.
What is the application for our lives today?
15 while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”
Someone has written these words:
As the tree falls, so must it lie.
As a man lives, so will he die.
As a man dies, so will he be.
Through all the years of eternity.
God loves you.
Lay aside your pride.
May the mercy of God through His Son bring the saving judgment of eternal life to you today so you will not be lost in the fires of His judgment for all eternity.