Revelation 9 13 in the sixth
angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden
altar Which is before God? This voice we've seen in the
context is the voice of Christ From the four horns of the golden
altar. That's the altar of incense that
we've seen already In this study this before God so it's it's
this order comes from God and that's comforting right off the
bat here and You remember that these last three trumpets that
sounded are all woes, the three woes that are pronounced upon
the earth. And yet there's comfort right
from the outset regarding this sixth angel blowing the sixth
trumpet. We're reminded here that whatever
is unleashed on this earth With all of the other times that
these different things were unleashed the order comes from the throne
from from God himself from Christ From the golden altar, which
is before God the single voice is the voice of our Savior He's
in charge He gives the order For these four messengers to
be released in verse 14 You heard the voice saying to
the sixth angel, which had the trumpet, loose the four angels,
which are bound in the great river Euphrates. We'll have to
remember now that the angels are just messengers. There are
different types of angels, and we'll talk a little bit about
that in the river Euphrates here. But picture this, here's a voice
from the throne of God saying unleash these angels. And this
is, as I said, it's a comfort to God's people, no matter how
woeful the pronouncement is, and the result of all of this,
to know that it comes from the throne. God has chosen a people
for the foundation of the world, and he works all things for their
good, and none of this changes that. None of this changes that. It's part of that. This is part
of what works for our good, even the woes, the joys and the woes
of this earth work together for the good of God's sheep. His
enemies are our enemies, and they have to be destroyed. As
he sees fit, not in our time or our way, but vengeance is
mine, saith the Lord. So the river Euphrates is unique
here and mentioned because it runs through Babylon, which is
also mentioned often in the book of Revelation. Babylon always
pictures false religion. You remember the name given to
Babylon by God and how it pictures false religion. And remember
again that these angels are just messengers. An angel can be anybody
that God uses for a purpose. He sends them to do something
for him. Satan is an angel. And does God use him for God's
purpose? Of course he does. God's preachers
are called angels. Christ is the angel of the covenant.
These angels here are bound on earth. They are likely men or
representative men that being bound here just means it doesn't
mean that there were some angels, you know, angels with wings in
the river that were in chains. You know, that's the kind of
thing that comes into our mind when we read that, but it just
means that they were restricted from doing what God made them
in order to do until he unleashes them to do it. He chooses them,
he determines what they're gonna do, just like he raised up Pharaoh
for the purpose of showing his power in him, the way that he
did, but not until he was ready. And so these are bound from doing
what they were born to do because of God's purpose until he unleashes
them with this trumpet to do what he created them to do. in
the time that he purposed them to do it. And then verse 15,
the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour
and a day and a month and a year for to slay the third part of
men. And remember now, this is not
just four people or four angels that the number four, it just,
the reason the number four is mentioned is because of the four
corners of the earth. What's gonna be unleashed here
is gonna affect everybody in the world. Remember the angels
that were facing in all the different directions, north, south, west,
and east, and other places in this book. And that doesn't mean
there were four of them. They're representative of folks
who are gonna affect everybody in every direction. So these men who wreak destruction
on the earth, as we're gonna see, they're prepared. They're prepared. Remember where
it says, I believe in the book of Jude, that God aforeprepared
some to destruction? He does do that, and these are
some of them. It's Christ from the throne who
unleashes them, and so who was it that prepared them? That was
him too. That was him, of course. This
is true of evil men and believers. God prepares them to do what
they're gonna do. Believers, of course, whatever
the Lord has for us to do in this world. You ever think about
that? You think God, if it's his entire
purpose for you as a believer just to make a living and get
by in this world and go shopping every once in a while or whatever,
go to a movie? There's not much to this life,
is there? Unless we're servants of the Lord, unless he uses us
in this world. So this is true of evil men and
believers. From the moment you're born,
God is preparing you for things that will not happen for some
time. And that's a lot to do with how we often wonder, why
in the world did that happen? Why did I go through that? Why
did I have to experience that? or this or whatever. God doesn't
live in the moment like we do. We just live right now. We can
remember a few things and we look forward to a few things
that may never happen. I remember things that never happened. I
don't know if y'all do that. They didn't happen the way I
remembered them, but hey, as long as I don't know any better,
who cares? But anyway, but we live in the moment pretty much,
don't we? and probably should as people. But God doesn't do
that. He's eternal and His purposes
are eternal. And when it comes to time and
what takes place in time, He knows the end from the beginning.
You know why He does? Because He purposed the end from
the beginning. And when you apply that principle
to people, you have our text. Notice an hour a day a week in
a month or a month in a year Whatever it was that was mentioned
there an hour a day a month in a year Different amounts of time
for different people not just for but everybody whoever's involved
in this thing Whoever God prepares he takes his time however long
that takes And many of the things that we
experience are preparing us for things that we don't even know
about yet and And so that's an important truth to understand,
to see here, even though we don't know exactly how he prepared
them, or who for how long, but we don't
speculate about things like that. We learn what's clear, what's
clear. God prepared them for this great
purpose that he had for them, and he does that for everybody. Well, that just makes us puppets,
Chris. Well, I'd rather be his puppet than Satan's, wouldn't
you? Don't we pray, Lord, direct my
steps, pull my strings. That's exactly what I want. I
want him pulling my strings. So every corner of the earth,
these four are going to do something that affects everybody. And it
says here, the third part of men. That's not literal either,
of course. It's not exactly 33.3333333% of men. That's not what it's saying.
But I'll tell you this, a third is a huge portion. That's a lot,
isn't it? If a third of the people died,
That'd be a lot. A third is catastrophic. Remember
8-7, remember Revelation 8-7, look at that. The first angel
sounded and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood and
they were cast upon the earth and the third part of the trees
was burnt up and all green grass was burnt up. Remember that's
picturing literally the wrath of God and third part of people
are were Destroyed by the wrath of God and all of the grass.
That's everybody all people are Under the wrath of God by nature
Paul said by nature were the children of wrath even as others
but God who is rich in mercy For his great love wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sins Hath saved us in
Christ so We see that third again, is what I'm saying. And it's
the same third. It's not a different third. Still
talking about the same third that's under God's wrath. And
here they are being actually destroyed by false religion,
by the army of horsemen that we're gonna read about here.
The third part of all mankind is under God's wrath, and this
being a third in our text is not a coincidence. The reason
God judges this third part in wrath and condemnation is because
of their false religion. That's why God judges people.
We're under sin by nature. We're born sinners. We have a
sin nature within us. But the acting out of that sin
nature is what? We worship idols. We believe
lies. We're proud. We're self-righteous.
In the garden, we said with Satan, I will be, I will determine what's
right and wrong. I don't need God to tell me what's
right and wrong. We were lifted up in pride and
self-righteousness. And all of that is satanic. As
we've seen in the context, it's straight out of hell, isn't it? Idolatry, pride, antichrist,
self-righteous, freewill religion. Verse 16, in the number of the
army of the horsemen, 200,000 thousand And I heard the number
of them 200 million again It's not a specific number It's a
big number. That's what we need to take away
from it's a big number. There's a bunch of them That's
what we take away from this there. They're an army of horsemen They're
not they're not angels by nature Armies have one purpose. You
know what the purpose of an army is? It just has one. To kill
people, right? I'm sorry, but that's what it
is. If you don't need to kill anybody, you don't need an army.
An army cannot fail any more magnificently than not to kill
anybody. That's what they're for. It's
an army of horsemen. Some say this is a war that took
place in history sometime in the Middle East. Some say this
is a future war that's gonna take place in the end times. The truth is, it's just war period.
These horsemen picture warfare in the earth. And as we know,
men have been killing one another since the beginning of time. And today, what are men doing
today? They're killing each other. And in between today and the
beginning, what did men do? They killed each other. But remember our comfort in this
now. I don't want to just paint this terrible dark picture that
is dark. There's no other way to paint
it. God has painted it, and it's dark, it's terrible, it's horrifying,
but remember our comfort. Our comfort in the midst of a
world full of killing is not our wish for world peace. Our
comfort is not in the better angels of men. Have you ever
heard of that one? Let's just appeal to their better angels,
you know, men's better angels. What does that even mean? What
in the world? Where'd they get that from? If there were better
angels, we wouldn't have any of them. And angels are perfect,
so how can there be better ones? It's the stupidest thing. Well,
it's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But it's up
there on the list, isn't it? That's not our comfort, that
people are just gonna figure out that killing people is not
the answer. Sometimes killing people is the
answer. But this world's not gonna get
any better for it. Our comfort is not that our army
is bigger and better than other armies, though it is. Our comfort is in that nobody
kills anybody unless and until God releases them to do so. And then they'll do exactly what
he wants them to do, not until. That's what we learn here and
that's our comfort in this. Somebody said one time that there's
nothing wrong with killing as long as the right people get
killed. Well, the right people are gonna get killed because
God is on the throne and it's gonna happen exactly when he
wants it to and where he wants it to and to whom he wants it
to. That's how I sleep. It really is. Verse 17, and thus I saw the
horses in the vision and them that sat on them having breastplates
of fire and of Jason and brimstone and the heads of the horses were
as the heads of lions and out of their mouths issued fire and
smoke and brimstone. What a picture, what a fearsome,
picture this is. I'm not sure what the Jason is
symbolic of. It means hyacinth, which is a
flower that is deep red bordering on black. That's what the definition
said. It's a deep red flower bordering
on black. And that's probably not a color
that invokes, you know, peace and less anxiety, but I don't
know what it signifies here really. Maybe blood. Maybe picturing
the death that is brought by false religion and evil men of
all kinds. We know this though, I do know
what fire and brimstone signify everywhere in scripture. Remember,
I believe the first time fire and brimstone are mentioned is
when God rained it down on Sodom and Gomorrah. And then of course
you recognize those two words from the book of Revelation,
the lake of fire and brimstone is what is how hell is described. The second death, hell, God's
wrath in both cases. These warriors, these horsemen
with the breastplate of fire, they're under the wrath of God
and the wrath of God is what they bring upon all whom they
conquer, whoever they effect, whoever they destroy. They bring
the wrath of God upon them. You've probably figured out by
now that this is not just a physical earthly war. I believe that's
included the fact that people are killing one another. Abel
killed by Cain, first murder that's recorded in the scripture.
It was why? Because it was because of Christ,
wasn't it? Because of Christ. But this, though it likely includes
people just killing one another, but the greatest plague upon
mankind is the army of antichrist, satanic religion that is always
sweeping through this world, destroying lives and souls everywhere
they go. There's a whole bunch of them.
They go to the four corners of the earth. If they find a country
they haven't polluted yet, then they'll raise a bunch of money
from blind fools that give them money so they can go corrupt
that country. All over the world they do that
nonsense. Instead of a breastplate of righteousness which is worn
by those who are under the blood of Christ, these ones under the
wrath of God without Christ in his righteousness have a breastplate
of fire and brimstone. Their heads are like lions. Satan
walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So
it's no wonder that these are like their king. They're like their leader. They're
like their father, the devil. And they look like him. They
act like him. They sound like him. They do like him. And here's
what we have to understand. This is important now, and this
is the lesson of this. False religion. And it wasn't
some weird thing. There's nothing new under the
sun. It wasn't some weird thing that we have no idea what they
said. We know what false religion is. It's the religion of man. There's only two religions. There's
Christ and there's not Christ. There's grace and there's works. Christ and the sinner. You either
trust yourself or you trust Him. You look to yourself or you look
to Him. It's all up to you or it's all
up to Him, one or the other. So we don't have to wonder what
they taught, what came out of their mouths, like we're gonna
see in a minute. And we hear it today, don't we?
We turn the TV on and there's one of them on there talking
about it. They say, God loves everybody and Christ died for
everybody. It's not just a little difference
of opinion. It's not a matter of opinion
at all. It's life and death. It's not
that we just have a little different beliefs, that we're all God's
servants. Not at all. To say that God loves
everybody means that God's love has nothing to do with salvation.
If God loves you and you go to hell, then what use is God's
love? We don't worship a God like that.
We worship the God whose love is salvation, whose electing
love is life. To say that Christ died for everybody
means that the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary has nothing to do
with salvation. Paul said, who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, whoever liveth. to make
intercession for us. It makes God's love impotent
and Christ's sacrifice a failure. You see that? It's a soul damning
heresy. That's why maybe the blood red,
the deep red color. And that's why what we're going
to see in a little bit, what comes out of their mouth, the
catastrophic, it's a catastrophic number of people. that are affected, isn't it?
A third. And we talked, we speculated a little bit. It doesn't mean,
it's not that you can't speculate, but we need to make clear when
we're just thinking, maybe this or that. And don't count on that. We count on what God clearly
reveals. Why is it a third part that are
affected negatively here? I'm not 100% sure about that,
but I know that a lot of babies die before they Some before they
ever even born into this world, and some shortly after. We don't
believe God puts those in hell. How can anybody believe that?
They're elect by God. They don't have to make a decision
for Jesus to go to heaven when they die. If God chose them and
loves them, they're going to be with him forever. And God
doesn't make a creature just for the purpose of putting it
in hell. We know that He delights to show mercy, and He's slow
to wrath. But a third part. Maybe that's
why. Because so many... In many countries
in this world, more people die than live. And especially in
the past, it's been that way. As infants, I mean. But look what comes out of their
mouth. It's fire and smoke and brimstone. Remember the smoke that issued
forth from the bottomless pit in verse two of this chapter?
That's where what comes out of their mouth comes from, from
hell. fire and brimstone and smoke.
That kind of narrows down who these are, doesn't it? It's those
who speak satanic antichrist heresy. In verse 18, 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. Listen again, it didn't just
set them on a different path to heaven from us who believe
in the free grace of God in Christ It killed him it killed him it
murdered him it murdered their souls That doctrine which comes
from hell itself Murders the souls of men This is what Paul
was talking about in Romans 10. Let me read you this from Romans
10 1 and Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved, that God would save them. Remember where he said, others
save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, as though you're
pulling them out of the fire. That's what he's saying. He prays
that God would pull them out of the fire, that he would save
their souls from death and hell. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God. They're talking about God and
Jesus and heaven and all of those things, but not according to
knowledge. They don't know who God is. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, they don't know how a sinner can be righteous
before God. And going about to establish
their own righteousness. have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. If you're gonna have righteousness,
you will have to have Christ. To everyone that believeth now,
the difference between your own righteousness and submitting
to Christ as your only righteousness before God is life and death. Paul didn't say they just need
to share my opinion. I need to convince them to think
like I do. It's not a matter of opinion. He said they need to be saved.
They need for God to save them. That's the difference. He prayed
that God would save them and cause them to own Christ Jesus
as their only righteousness. Out of Christ's mouth comes what? Grace. His words are what? Eternal life. Thou hast the words
of eternal life. But out of the mouths of antichrist
false preachers comes forth the same thing that comes out of
the bottomless pit of hell. Verse 19, their power is in their
mouth. And in their tails, that's the
way they kill a third of the people in the whole world, is
with their mouth. What comes out of their mouth.
And their tails, look at their tails. Their tails were like
into serpents and had heads. So they have two heads, two faces,
and with them, they do hurt. That's what they do. Boy, they
look so nice, don't they? It sounds so nice. But everywhere
they go, they're killing people. And we've got to understand that.
Got to understand it. Got to act accordingly. Just in my limited experience,
there's been many times when folks have asked me, can't we
just do a little bit of, have some little, you know, Fellowship with them in some
way. Can I go can I go with my friend, you know to her trip?
No, you can't No I've had people other people ask me that about
their children. No, don't go anywhere near them I've told some people I'd rather
send my children to a leper colony Than I would to a false church
for any reason I This just signifies here that
not only is their doctrine the doctrine of devils, but they
are deadly poisonous. They've got a mouthful of hell
on one end and a deadly poisonous venom on the other. Satan took
the form of a serpent, of course, in the garden. Serpent always
pictures poisonous evil, and Paul describes the godless in
this way in Romans 3.13, their throat is an open sepulcher. And with their tongues they have
used deceit, the poison of asps, the poison of snakes is under
their lips. That's the head that's on their
tail. Our text says their tails had
heads and with them they do hurt. And it's sad and it's infuriating
and heartbreaking to see the hurt that they do. But remember, the Lord tells
them who they can hurt and who they can't. Remember recently
in one of our messages in this, he said, don't hurt the grass. Don't hurt the grass. They're
not gonna do that. They're not gonna hurt who God
don't want them to hurt. In verse 20, the rest of the
men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not
of the works of their hands that they should not worship devils
and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood
which neither can see nor hear nor walk neither repented they
of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornication
nor of their thefts ah Spiritual you know the Lord all
through scripture calls it spiritual adultery didn't he? When men
worship false gods spiritual fornication murderers sorcerers,
it's like witchcraft it's Of the devil and their thefts they
rob God of his glory But the suggestion here is that
this should cause repentance Those that had not Killed by
these plagues yet Repented not Of the works of their hands that
they should not worship devils They're involved in with them
they're part of it And it should cause repentance to see False religion and what it does
to people to see how corrupt it is when compared to the truth,
how evidently false it is. I mean just flat out. Call no
man father, father this and father that. Don't forbid to marry, oh you
can't marry because you're a priest. God loves everybody. Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. Christ died for everybody. I
lay down my life for my sheep. and you don't believe me because
you're not my sheep. I lay down my life for them and
they shall never perish. I give unto them eternal life. They hear my voice and they follow
me and they shall never perish. It's just, what I'm trying to
say is it's just, you don't even have to study to know that false
religion is false. It's just on the surface, plain
as day false. So this ought to cause repentance.
To see the corruption in it. It makes you sick. I don't even
want to talk about it from up here because it's sickening what
goes on in religion. And it's evident to everybody.
So the reason it says, it mentions that these do not repent is because
they should. Witness the tragedy of false
religion and its consequences should cause others to run to
Christ And ask for mercy But it don't
and it won't Nothing is going to cause a sinner
to repent Except If God gives them repentance
This reminded me of Luke chapter 16. Let's turn over there and
close it. Luke chapter 16. What a story this is. We're talking
about hell, aren't we? False religion and people going
into the lake of fire and brimstone. Consequences of false religion
of despising God in this world and this story goes right along
with that Luke chapter 16 verse 19 There was a certain rich man
which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously
every day And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was
laid at his gate full of sores. And desiring to be fed with the
crumbs which fell from the master's table, moreover the dogs came
to lick his sores. And it came to pass that the
beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
And the rich man also died and was buried, and in hell he left
up his eyes, being in torments." And some people say, You know,
being rich is a sin, and that's why this man went to hell, and
being poor, you know, that's a virtue, so he went to heaven.
It's teaching exactly opposite of that. It's saying that it
don't matter. It's specifically teaching that
it don't matter whether you're rich or poor. You have outward
advantage if you're rich, but that don't mean anything if you
don't have Christ. You lack many outward advantages
if you're poor, and yet, if you just know the Savior, You don't
have to be rich to believe on him, do you? You don't have to
have many outward advantages. You just need one advantage.
You need God to shed abroad his love in your heart and give you
faith in Christ. It's specifically teaching what
men teach the opposite of. In hell he lifted up his eyes,
being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus
in his bosom, And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy
on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger
in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented. His idea of mercy
wasn't forgiveness of sin. It was relief of his torment. That's not mercy. You need mercy
from God in the form of forgiveness of sin. But Abraham said, son, remember
that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise
Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, because he's
with the Savior. But thou art tormented. And beside
all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed.
so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither
can they pass to us that would come from thence and he then
he said i pray thee therefore father that i would ascend him
to my father's house for i have five brethren that he may testify
unto them lest they also come into this place of torment Abraham
saith unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear
them. In other words, they have the
Old Testament scriptures. They have the word of God, which
from beginning to end points to Christ. Let them hear, that's
the only way they can come to be with the Savior. And he said, no. He still didn't give a hoot for
God's word. That won't work. The word of
God didn't work for me. It won't work for them either.
But, Father Abraham, but if one went into them from the dead,
they'll repent. You know, if we do miracles on
stage, you know, in front of everybody, they'll repent, they'll
believe. And he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the
prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from
the dead. If you don't believe God, there's
no hope for you. And this man, though he was in
hell, he's sitting there talking to Abraham in heaven and hasn't
repented. So how does he think his brothers
are gonna repent if they see somebody return from the dead?
Mercy still didn't mean forgiveness from God. He still wouldn't bow
and confess his sins before God, sitting there in hell talking
to Father Abraham in glory. And yet he thought some fantastic,
you know, outward emotional experience would do the trick for his brothers.
Only one thing will. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And how shall they hear? How shall they believe on Him
of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how is anybody gonna preach
this gospel unless they're sent of God? Only God can give repentance. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy
2.25, in meekness, in humility, with love in your
heart, with compassion and tenderness in your heart. Instruct those that oppose themselves. They're not my enemy, they're
their own enemy. And right now they're God's enemy. If God per adventure will give
them Repentance. That's how it happens, and that's
the only way. Of course they didn't repent in our text. They're not going to until God
has mercy on their soul. And that's true of everyone we
know. So we pray, don't we? We ask God, have mercy. My heart's
desire and prayer to God for those I love. is that they might
be saved. Amen.