Study of End Times - Week 23
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The World has Gone Crazy - Part III
The World has Gone Crazy - Part III
Last week we only got through Power factor, and verse 14 of Chapter 9.
There we seen the release of the four angels from the Euphrates river, with that we talked a lot about the river and the importance of this river from the beginning and the role it will play at the end.
We also talked about the four angels and the power that these four angels posses.
Tonight we pick of with part 3 of the world has gone crazy and will try to make it through the end.
I. The Purpose Factor
I. The Purpose Factor
15 So the four angels who were prepared for the hour, day, month, and year were released to kill a third of the human race.
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.
God is strategically moving in His world in His own timing.
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 wast 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 And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.”
But God had a condition, one condition for Abraham Genesis 15:13-14
13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. 14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.
Why? Genesis 15:16
16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
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 saying, “Where is his ‘coming’ that he promised? Ever since our ancestors fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”
A few verses down Peter reassured them, 2 Peter 3:8
8 Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: 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 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive 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 to receive His own. He is coming,
Paul exhorts Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:14-15
14 to keep this command without fault or failure until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 God will bring this about in his own time. He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and the 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 This is how I saw the horses and their riders in the vision: They had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur. 18 A third of the human race was killed by these three plagues—by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came from their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads that inflict injury.
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 back then. But they knew something about horses prepared for battle.
Some have speculated that the army of 200 million mention in Revelation 9:16 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.
When will this happen? it seems it is going to happen after God removes His church.
Then He will remove His hand of mercy and announce that the four angels can be let loose.
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 faces and cry out for mercy to God. Yet, look at Revelation 9:19-21
19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads that inflict injury.
20 The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands to stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. 21 And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.
Instead 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 cuts into a perceptive person
more than a hundred lashes into a fool.
Do you know what people are doing in hell? Jesus said they are gnashing their teeth.
42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace where 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, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.
A. Murder
A. 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.
B. Sorcery
B. Sorcery
The word sorcery come 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.
C. Fornication
C. Fornication
This word comes from the Greek word porneias, from which we get our 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 reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;
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 tell you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
D. Thefts
D. 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 And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 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 As it is said:
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
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.
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