Discovering Revelation Part 24
Discovering Revelation Part 24
Share Data from Pew Research! Slides!!!!!!!
First Trumpet: Hail and Fire mixed with Blood!
• 1/3 of the earth was burned up, Trees and Grass!
• This is a direct judgement from God Himself!
• This judgement falls on the vegetation! From grass to trees!
Second Trumpet: something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea;
• A third of the sea became blood!
• A third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died!
• A third of the ships were destroyed!
Third Trumpet: A great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters.
• A third of the waters became wormwood,
• Many men died from the waters, because they were made poison!
Fourth Trumpet: A third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck!
• third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way.
• Jesus indicated that in the Great Tribulation there would be signs and wonders in the heavens!
Matthew 24:29
• “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
The Last Three Trumpets are separated from these other four by the fact that they are three woes!
Revelation 8:13
Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”
• This section of Revelation is probably the wildest of all the other chapters!
• There have been many interpretations into this chapter!
• But, I want to remind you that the things here ought not frighten us!
• If anything here they should scare us enough to tell our families and friends about the redemptive love of our Savior Jesus rescuing them from the flames and loneliness of eternal death or eternal separation from the Lord!
• As a child of God we will not be going through these things!
• It is not the “Blessed Hope” of the church to go through this!
• Only the Christ rejecting world will go through this! Sad!
• These Woes mark the deepest and darkest and most painful intensity of The Great Tribulation period!
• This is why as Bro David Preached last week out of Acts that all of us should ask Jesus for the boldness to share Christ with the world!
• These are generally associated with the last 3 and 1/2 years of the Great Tribulation!
• Or the seventieth week of Daniel!
• These will be the darkest days in human history!
• This section probably the most difficult to interpret as well!
• But it has been our practice and policy to follow the literal line!
• Even when the most vivid and wild are in display!
• John will always furnish us with the key if there is another interpretation or a less literal to see the passages!
• Each of the first 4 Trumpets affected the physical universe in some way!
• But with the sounding of the fifth Trumpet the focus will shift from the physical to the spiritual realm as we will see!
• Ok let’s get started Amen! Verse 1 of Chapter 9!
Revelation 9:1-12
The Fifth Trumpet—the Bottomless Pit
1 Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.
• A star falls from heaven! John had already seen in his visions earlier several heavenly bodies plunge to earth.
• These were literal stars or meteors, asteroids, comets! Rev 6:13, 8:8, 10
• However this star is different this is not matter flung to the earth! But an angelic being!
• We can say this is a reference to Satan! As we will see later! Satan is the leader of all the fallen angels! 1/3 of them!
• Keep in mind this fall of Satan is not the original fall or rebellion!
• Satan has always retained access to God in Heaven. We know this because of Job!
• This particular star is given a key! Which he uses we see it is in fact a being!
• Some think it is Anti-Christ but it’s not! Scripture supports that this is Satan!
Isaiah 14:12
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!
Luke 10:18
And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
• Paul also writes,
2 Corinthians 11:14
No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
• So These scriptures confirm that Satan is in view here!
Question: Since this is Satan what does he do?
Answer: He goes down taking the key to the abyss! God permits him to do so!
• A key always denotes authority and power! So this is given to him from Jesus Christ!
• It is Gods permissive will that he gets the key!
• Satan will then look to organize all his demonic host. Those already on earth, those cast to the earth with him, and those incarcerated in the abyss or bottomless pit!
• The abode of incarcerated demons. Abyss, Abussos or bottomless pit!
• Peter explains it as well he knew about this place!
2 Peter 2:4
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
• There is a story in the gospels you might remember!
Luke 8:26-31
26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs. 28 Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “ What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.” 29 For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times; and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. 30 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. 31 They were imploring Him not to command them to go away into the abyss.
• So here we see a man possessed by not just one demon but many because his name is Legion which could mean up to 6,000 demons in one man!
• Now these demons did not want to go to the abyss! Why? Because all the those demons incarcerated in the bottomless pit bound in chains are the most vilest of all the demons!
• God is in charge, He even restrains the forces of the enemy!
• We are going to see these demons who are locked up will be freed for a time to wreak havoc on earth! It will be horrendous!
• Then Satan will soon be locked up there to for 1000 years with the other demonic prisoners!
• It’s real it is going to happen! Not fantasy but fact!
• Listen, the teaching of the Word of God is that Heaven is as literal as the place where you live today, and that hell is equally as real as the place where you now live!
• During this last part of the Tribulation this key is given to Satan, and he is given freedom like he has never had before.
2 He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.
• Out of the shaft, like an erupting volcano, smoke comes to cover the entire earth!
• Literal interpretation here!
3 Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 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.
• John sees here a new terror emerge! John calls them locusts!
• These are spiritual beings! Not Apache helicopters etc. some would say!
• These are vial demons taking on the form of like locusts!
• They swarm out of the abyss to cover the earth!
• John is using symbolic language here! Describing creatures so frightful that this is the only way he could speak of them!
• These locust eat no vegetable products no plants!
• The locust we know of the earth have no king but these locust have a king!
• There power to inflict pain is compared to a scorpion! In the plaque of Egypt! The Word of God says,
Exodus 10:14
The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled in all the territory of Egypt; they were very numerous. There had never been so many locusts, nor would there be so many again.
• These particular locust are definitely different from the ones in Exodus! Amen?
• Yet, these are literal creatures resembling the literal animals named!
• The Lion, the horse, the scorpion, the man!
• These locust as we will see are after evil unregenerate men!
• There number was so large that they would swarm blocking out the Sun!
• Describing them in the form of locust symbolizes their uncountable numbers and massive destructive capabilities!
• In fact in verses 3, 5, 10 their power to inflict pain is compared to that as scorpions indicates they are not actual locusts! Since locust have no stinging tail! Only scorpions!
• The pain inflicted by these will be much worse than that of real scorpions!
• These demons will come in direct contact with lost humanity! People who don’t repent!
• The fact that these locust and scorpion like creatures come from the pit and that their leader is the “Angel of the abyss” 9:11 indicates that demons must be in view of this scene!
• The sad part is that many still will not repent and turn to the Savior Jesus!
• Let’s read on! Vs. 5
5 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. 6 And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.
• Here we see the sting of these scorpions hurts so much it causes these people to want to kill themselves but they cannot die for at least 5 months!
• But God is rich in mercy! Giving opportunity for repentance!
• The devil would like to kill them so God couldn’t have them.
• God gives them opportunity to respond to the Gospel!
• This five month period will be one of most intense spiritual and physical suffering inflicted on unbelievers by the judgment of God!
• They will have opportunity also to hear from the 144,000 witnesses to be saved!
• The dream of a worldwide utopia under the leadership of the Anti-Christ he Beast (Rev 13:1) will have died!
• There will be no escape from these demons or from Gods divine judgment!
• It is not a laughing matter to reject Jesus Christ!
• It is also not a simple thing to ignore Him!
• People say there are so many important things in this life and I am willing that many things take second, third, and fourth place!
• But the most important thing is your decision concerning Jesus Christ ! Amen????
7 The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. 8 They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. 10 They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.
• This is a frightful sight is it not?
• Such a weird and unnatural description!
• Massive devastation, and rapid judgement from God they bring!
• John could only give a description of what this spiritual army looked like, we see as he repeats the term “like” many times over!
• John uses natural and familiar analogies to describe supernatural and unfamiliar demon posse,
• They looked like ready war horses excited to go into battle!
• John says golden crowns on their heads! Victor crowns! Indicating the demon crowd will be invincible!
• People will have no weapon that can harm them, and no cure for the terror they inflict!
• Rational beings with the faces of rational men?
• The hair for seductive measures no doubt! The glory of a woman is her what folks? Hair!
• There will be no escaping their massive worldwide onslaught!
• These creatures are no doubt designed here to hurt many many people!
11 They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.
12 The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.
• Unlike the real locust these have a king over them!
• John calls him the Angel of the abyss!
• Some identify this Angel as Satan! But his domain is in the heaven-lies!
Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
• Listen he is not associated with the abyss until he is cast into it! Rev 20:1-3
• John notes that his name is Hebrew is Abbadon, and in Greek Apollyon!
• This highlights both groups of the ungodly Jews and Gentiles!
• Both words mean destroyer!
• A fitting name for the one heading up the devastating army of demons that rise up out of the abyss!
• Having run the first Woe the fifth trumpet John cautions that Gods wrath has not run its course!
• Two more Woes still coming plus all the bowl judgments!
• So there will be nothing more than a brief sigh of relief before these more fearful judgements come! Amen?
• Let’s pray together!