Turn in your Bibles with me to
Revelation chapter nine. Revelation chapter nine. You
may have noticed last week and today I've decided to read my
own scripture and to make it part of the message that's recorded. And the reason, I'm not mad at
anybody, believe me. Not that I can't get mad, but
I'm not mad. Hopefully next week we'll go
back to the way and have one of the men read and pray. But
anyway, the reason I'm doing this is because I noticed in
these passages that we're dealing with, and they're very difficult,
don't get me wrong, and not just for me, but for anybody who reads
them, they can be confusing, trying to keep up with the symbolism
in it and all of that. And I wanna just, as I read through
here, just make some comments that I think are helpful. As
you notice, the title of the message is Judgment and Wars. I preached on this years ago,
and I called it God's Judgment and Wars on Earth. And that's
what it's talking about. This is, if you'll look at verse
12, for example. One woe is past, and behold,
there come two woes more hereafter. Remember what we're doing here.
Back in Revelation 5, we've seen a seven-sealed book,
the book of God. It's the book of His purposes,
His works on earth and this earth that He created for His glory
in Revelation 5. And then in Revelation 6, we
see the Lamb of God who began to open these seals. He's the only one worthy. Remember,
worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And that's Christ. The image of the Lamb is Christ. And it's interesting how Christ,
His person and work is spread all over the the Bible from Genesis
to Revelation, and you'll see many types, pictures, symbols
that all mean the same thing. For example, not only is he the
lamb, but he's the shepherd. And what that does, it causes
us to appreciate the power and the glory and the majesty of
our Savior. And that's what we're doing when
we worship. So he's opening these seven sealed books and he comes
to the seventh seal. We read the six seals and the
seventh seal. And this seventh seal contains
seven trumpet judgments. And they began back in Revelation
8 where we read the first four trumpet judgments. These are
the judgments, these are manifestations of God's judgment against sin
on this earth. And it comes in several ways.
It comes in sicknesses, in pestilence, in conflict. Today we're going
to talk about wars, conflicts and wars, conflicts between people,
conflicts between nations, wars, very significant. And here in
Revelation 8, 13, remember he presented us with three woes
to the inhabitants of the earth. And the last three contained
in this seventh seal, the first woe was the fifth trumpet. We
dealt with that last week. And you know what a woe is. It's
a term of distress. It's a term of trouble. Woe unto
me. Remember Isaiah said that. Woe
is me for I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and
I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. God brings us to be woeful
creatures when he saves us because he shows us our sin and our depravity
and our inability. But he doesn't leave us there.
He doesn't leave us in that despondency. He drives us to Christ for salvation. So there's the last three woes
here. We read about the first of those
three, the fifth trumpet. revealed in the first 11 verses
of this chapter. And the next woe is the sixth
trumpet. Well, this goes from Revelation
9 and verse 13 all the way over to Revelation 11 and verse 13. That's this sixth trumpet, the
second woe. And listen to what he says in
verse 13. And the sixth angel sounded,
sounded that trumpet, that trumpet that was Announcing something
important. Something that we need to listen
to. Give heed to. God's got a message here. And
the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of
the golden altar which is before God. Now that golden altar, what
is it? That's the altar of incense.
You remember in the tabernacle? You had the outer court and in
that outer court you had the altar of sacrifice, that brazen
altar. And that's where the lambs and
the bullocks were brought and they were killed by the high
priest and their blood was caught in a basin and their body was
burned and that blood was, that altar had four horns. A horn
in the scripture means power. Like you've heard the expression
grabbing hold of the horns of the bull. You got a task before
you. And that's what a horn is, four
horns representing the whole earth, God's power, north, south,
east, west, all over the four corners of the world. God owns
this world and he is in charge. And I know you see, you people
all the time say God's in control, but they don't believe it. They
look at God in a different way. I often use the two ways that
people normally look at God. Even those who claim he's in
control, I call him what they believe is God is a cosmic chess
player. You make your move, he makes
his counter move, that kind of thing. Well, that's not the God
of the Bible. And then I call him the cosmic
janitor. We mess things up and he comes
behind us and sets them right. That's not the God of the Bible.
God is in control, I mean that. He is right now, this very second,
working all things after the counsel of his will. And his counsel is his well thought
out plan and purpose, especially in the salvation of his people.
This is a plan and a purpose that has always been in God's
mind. It's never changed. These guys,
these dispensationalists who talk about, well, God saved people
in the Old Testament this way, but he saves people in the New
Testament. That's a lie. God's way of salvation
has always been and always will be by grace through the blood
and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's never
going to change. Because God doesn't change. So
think about that. That blood was put upon the horns
of the brazen altar, and the priest took it in to the holy
place. That was the second chamber,
and then there was the Holy of Holies, that's where the Ark
of the Covenant was, divided by that curtain. But right before
that curtain, there was that golden altar of incense. and it had four horns, and the
blood was put on the four horns, and that altar of incense, you
know, it had the smoke going up, and that represented the
prayers of the saints and the intercessory work of the Lord
Jesus Christ making intercession for us, going before the Father
on our behalf, presenting to the Father the glory of His person
and work, His merits, And that's why our persons are accepted
with God, our prayers are received and accepted with God, our worship,
our praise, everything. I thought, listen, we are accepted
in the beloved and nowhere else. And we have no merit before God.
Our merit is Christ. And that's what this golden altar.
And what this is going to show us is that Christ is working
these things out as the intercessor of His people and as the judge
of all the earth. The judge of all the earth. Symbolizing
Christ our surety. Christ our substitute, our Redeemer.
And what it's gonna tell us is this, that as we see these manifestations
of God's judgment on earth, whether it be the death of a loved one,
whether it be COVID-19 or whatever the heck it is, whether it be
a war in Israel, the people of God are safe in the arms of their
Savior. Now that doesn't mean that we
won't be affected by these manifestations of God's judgment. There may
be a war and some of you young men may be drafted and you may
be killed in that war. But if you're in Christ, if you're
washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, you're
safe spiritually and eternally and the judgment of God will
not come down upon you. You've already been judged at
the cross in the person and work of Christ. Do you understand
that? So understand that, that golden altar of incense, symbolizing
Christ our advocate. Remember what 1 John 2, 1 says,
when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. And look what he says in verse
14. God, now this is God speaking through Christ. And he says to
the sixth angel which had the trumpet, the trumpet of judgment,
loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. What's that all about? Well,
you remember back in Revelation 7, those four angels, those four
messengers of God were told to hold back the four winds. symbolic
of God's forbearance and restraint of his wrath so that the people
of God might be sealed with the name of Christ. You see, God's people are gonna
be sealed. They're gonna be saved. The wars, the conflicts, the
pestilence, COVID will not stop that. If you're one of God's
children whom he chose before the foundation of the world,
for whom Christ died, He's gonna send His Spirit, He's gonna bring
you under the gospel and He's gonna give you life. Gonna give
you a new heart. And that's what it means to be
sealed in our foreheads, sealed in our minds, our hearts, the
inner man. And how do you know you've been
sealed? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he your
salvation, your hope, your righteousness? Is he everything? Is he like
David said, your whole salvation? This is all my salvation. This
is all my desire, all my hope. But now here in this second woe,
God's restraint is being lifted in a degree Not fully lifted. When God's,
listen, when God's restraint is fully lifted, that's it. It's
all over then. This world's gonna be burned
up, as Peter wrote. But here, God's restraint, his
forbearance, is lifted to a degree, and his judgment falls upon a
third part of the earth. That's what it's gonna say. Look
at verse 15. After the four angels were loosed,
which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year.
That's a set time. That's all that means. Don't
try to figure out numbers and dates and all of that. It's just
simply saying this was a set period of time set by God. It wasn't an afterthought. It
wasn't God throwing a temper tantrum. It isn't God saying,
well, I've tried to do my best and now I'm giving up. I've had enough. No, this is
God's set time. And he says, for to slay the
third part of men, a great multitude, not an exact number here, but
a great multitude of people that's greater than what was before.
But before he said a fourth part of the earth, now a third part
of the earth. And that's just a great number of people are
going to be killed, are going to hurt. during these wars, conflicts. I see these commercials on TV
about wounded warriors and things like that, and it just breaks
my heart that a lot of times, it's for an unjust cause. Now,
sometimes it's for a just cause, but you know how politicians
are. You know, somebody said war is old politicians playing
a game of chess using young men as the pawns. And sometimes that's
true. Now don't get me wrong, I love
our country. But our country's not our salvation,
Christ is. God's grace is. But go back,
what about this great river Euphrates? You probably studied that in
school in geography, didn't you? In ancient history. The Tigris
and the Euphrates, they were in that crescent, that fertile
crescent, where some believe that the whole world began there,
civilization, the Garden of Eden, and all of that. Well, the river
Euphrates, back in the Old Testament, represented a division between
the people of God, Israel, under the Old Covenant, and the people
of the world, evil empires such as the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian
Empire. And so the river Euphrates was
a river that basically fed and nourished evil empires such as
Babylon. Now you're going to see later
on in Revelation, you know what Babylon represents? False religion. And that's what it means. at
that river Euphrates, and what he's saying here, it's a symbol
therefore of the wicked world. It's a boundary beyond which
lay exile and danger for the people of God. It was a boundary
of God's land of promise and peace to his people. You can
read about that in Genesis 15 and Deuteronomy 11. The point
here is that God has hedged in his people to preserve, he's
hedged us about. to preserve and protect us from
the judgments falling upon the world. Not that we won't be affected
now. That doesn't mean when COVID
comes, you're not going to get it. It doesn't mean you may not
die. You may die from it, but you're
still protected because death for a believer is what? It's a passage into everlasting
glory. to be with Christ. Think about
what Christ told the thief on the cross, today you'll be with
me in paradise. Do you think that's just a myth? Or some kind of a dream or wishful
thinking? I don't, I believe it's true.
I believe that thief is in paradise today with his Lord and his Savior. And all just waiting to be glorified
with the rest of us. That's what he is. And it's all
because of the grace of God. We're under grace. We're under
that umbrella. We stand on that foundation.
Christ is our hope, built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. Dare not trust the sweetest frame. As far as politics is concerned,
you know I don't preach politics from the pulpit, thank God. But I'm one, I think that the
United States, we ought to have a good, strong defense, military,
I do. But in the ultimate end, that's
not our salvation, is it? Because we have a strong defense
with Christ. We're gonna sing at the end of
the service that he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock. And that's where we are. We have
on our breasts the breastplate of righteousness. But God has
hedged his people about. So here the river Euphrates speaks
of the boundary between peace and war. That's what he's talking
about. Salvation and destruction. Look at verse 15. He says, and
the four angels, which were loose, which were prepared for an hour,
a set period of time, and a day and a month and a year for to
slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of
the horsemen were 200,000,000." What is that? Like 200 million?
Something like that. And I heard the number of them.
What he's saying, there's never been an army that big. You know,
I mean, people talk about China and the million men. It's not
this big and it's never going to be. But what he's saying is
that multitudes of people are going to be in conflict over
the period of the last days from Christ's first coming to his
second coming and be killed. And that's happened and is happening.
And it will continue to happen until the Lord comes again. And so look at this. These angels
were prepared by God for this purpose. and they're God's judgments
against sin. You know, why do we have conflicts?
Why do we have wars? It's sin. And sin recognizes our differences
to the point of pride. People, they fight wars, there's
race wars, there's economic wars, territorial wars, greed. That's why wars come about. Pride,
religion, It's all there, isn't it? That mess that man is in. And so here they are, the timing,
the duration, the extent of God's judgment. You know, they're all
set by God in his purpose and plan for to slay the third part
of men. Again, a great multitude. But
physical wars and conflicts are symptomatic of a greater spiritual
problem, and that's what I'm talking about, that exist in
man by nature. And that's the sinfulness that
causes us not to turn to God. Men turn to their own beliefs,
their own machinations. It's like the weather, climate. Man thinks he can control it,
he can change it, he can save it, but he can't. Now that's
not to say that we're not to be responsible and take care
of the things that God has given us. I want to drink clean water,
how about you? I want to eat clean food. I want
to breathe clean air. But climate change, duh. It's been changing ever since
the fall And it'll continue to change because this world is
fleeting. It all changes. It's all going to pass away.
But the word of the Lord is forever. It never changes. Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday, today, yesterday, and forever. The purpose of these judgments is a message from God telling
sinners, prepare to meet your God. And how do you prepare to
meet your God? Well, you seek him in his word. How does God say that he will
meet with sinners on their own merits? In judgment. in damnation. But those who meet
with God dressed in the righteous robe of the Lord Jesus Christ,
oh my, so what a blessing, what a glory, what an assurance, what
a security, what a life. That's something else. There is a spiritual application
to this, the number of these Horsemen, the number of this
army. The spiritual application has to do with the overwhelming
numbers in Satan's armies that will attack and try to infiltrate
the church here on earth and be successful to a point. Until this church here on earth,
the visible church, is so far gone and destroyed. We'll read about that over in
Revelation 11 when it talks about the death of the two witnesses.
That's what that's about. We know that true believers are
not immune to the devastation and death brought about by physical
wars on earth, but God's true people are preserved and protected.
The true church of the living God, redeemed by his blood, the
gates of hell will not prevail against it. Isn't that what he
said? The gates of hell. Look at verse
17. And thus I saw the horses in
the vision, and them that sat on them having breastplates of
fire, fire meaning God's judgment, our God is a consuming fire.
See, these are instruments of God's judgment. Jasonth, Jasonth
is a dull and dark blue stone. And it's identified as smoke
later on. And it says, and the heads of
the horses were as the heads of lions. They appeared to be
ferocious. But you know what? Our Savior
is the lion of the tribe of Judah. and he's more powerful than all
of these put together. Out of their mouths issued fire
and smoke and brimstone, all symbols of God's judgment, instruments
of God's judgment. This is God's work. You know,
Satan is called a roaring lion seeking to devour and destroy
the souls of men. But again, We who stand in Christ
have on the breastplate of righteousness against whom will shield us against
the onslaught of Satan and his accusations. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
is risen again. Seated at the right hand of the
Father ever living to make intercession. There's that golden altar. that
altar of intercession. Verse 18, he says, by these three
was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoke
and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths. Think about
it this way, there are physical wars, there'll be fire, there'll
be smoke, there'll be destruction, all that, and there's a spiritual
war we fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Think
about the smoke that comes out of the mouth of false preachers. Satan's ministers preaching their
false gospel, and that's what it is. It's smoke and mirrors. It's not a solid truth concerning
the person and work of Christ. It's directing men and women
to try to save themselves by their decisions and their works.
And it issues forth out of their mouths. It's a deadly, deadly
poison. Verse 19, for their power is
in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails were like unto
serpents and had heads, and without them they do not hurt. All of
these, speaking of their instruments, how the warfare goes on, their
minds were set on destruction. They left destruction, in other
words, their destruction before them and behind them. And no
one can escape from them in either direction. And as to their own
hearts and minds, they're inspired and energized by Satan, who's
at enmity with Christ and his people. But you know as well
as I do, Satan has already been defeated. I told Sue this morning,
I said, Satan's like a person on death row, just waiting till
the sentence is carried out. But he has been loosed for a
season to deceive the world. We read about that last week
in 2 Thessalonians 2. Look at verse 20, or verse 19. For their powers in their mouth,
their tails, for their tails were like unto serpents, and
had heads, and with them they do hurt. Verse 20, and the rest
of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented
not of the works of their hands. Think about that. These judgments
alone will not bring repentance. It takes the goodness of God
to bring repentance. And you know what the goodness
of God is? Christ crucified, risen from the dead. You remember
when the Apostle Paul, when he was an unregenerate man, you
remember what brought him to repentance? that glorious vision
of the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness alone, by which
Paul saw that all that he before held in high esteem as recommending
him unto God was nothing but dumb, evil. That I may win Christ, he said,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faithfulness of Christ. But they wouldn't
repent. I think about the story that
Christ told of the rich man and Lazarus. And the rich man in
hell lifted up his eyes and he said, send Lazarus back for I've
got brothers there. Tell them so that they won't
end up where I am. And he was told, though they
see one risen from the dead, they will not repent. He said,
they have Moses and the prophets. They have the word of God. It's
the word of God in Christ that brings sinners to repentance
through faith in Christ. That they would not repent. Listen
to verse 20. Not of the works of their hands.
That's the most precious thing in the eyes of men. The works
of their hands. That's what they think saves
them. And that they should not worship devils and idols of gold
and silver, brass and stone and of wood, which neither can see
nor hear nor walk. That's the idol God's, any God
but the true God. And verse 21 says, neither repented
they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, and usually
sorceries is indicative of false religion, nor of their fornication,
physical or spiritual, nor of their thefts. And I think of
that theft as sinners trying to rob God of His glory. by preaching
salvation conditioned on sinners and not on Christ alone. Well,
everything that we see that brings about conflicts between people,
even individuals, conflicts between nations, wars, it's the clarion
call of this trumpet. Prepare to meet thy God. Run
to Christ. Believe in Him, rest in Him.
You've got no other hope. I've got no other hope. Hide
in Him. Let's bow our heads and pray,
and then we're going to sing our closing hymn. Heavenly Father,
we thank you for your mercy that you've given us in Christ to
shield us from these trumpet judgments. Knowing that we're
on this sinful earth, but you have saved us out of the world
by your grace, given us to Christ, that we're in him and in him
eternally and unchangeably, that we have a righteousness that
answers the demands of your law and justice, and that we have
life within to cause us to see our sinfulness and hopelessness
without Christ. Let us look to him and live by
him and follow him by your grace. In his name we pray, amen.