And before we get into the text
itself here in Revelation 9, I want to preface this with a
thought or two. If you consider the word of God
as a whole for a moment, we know that God gave his law as a schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. The whole reason for the law,
the goal of the law is Christ, not for us to act better. Us
acting better is not going to help us or God. Of course we
want to honor him in our lives once we know him, but just being
better than somebody else outwardly is not gonna help anybody. And
the Lord doesn't, he's not naive enough to think that's gonna
happen anyway. We're all together sinful in ourselves. And as we
look at this chapter, you might think, because remember now,
at the end of chapter eight, Let me read verse 13 of chapter
8. I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven,
saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitors of
the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the
three angels, which are yet to sound. Three angels, three trumpets,
three woes. And that's exactly what it is.
The next three trumpets result in woe upon upon the earth. And you might think, well, that's
kind of a depressing thing to talk about. You know, it's just
nothing but bad about that. Well, the truth of the matter
is in the law of God, there's nothing but bad for a sinner.
All the law does is tell you everything that you've got to
do that you can't do. And everything you can't do is
everything you've done. That's not good news. But what's
the result of it? If we hear it with an ear of
faith, we'll run to Christ as fast as we can. Same with our
chapter in that. It is depressing language. It
is terrible, a terrible scene, but with a good purpose for God's
people. The law is a schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ, Galatians 2.24. To Christ give all the
prophets witness. that through his name, whosoever
believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. That's the end of all of God's
word, including the law, including Revelation nine. Listen to first
Corinthians two, two, I determined not to know anything. This is
Paul. He wrote most of the new Testament. I determined not to
know anything among you say Jesus Christ and him crucified. So
considering these and many other scriptures, what's the purpose
and goal of the book of Revelation? Lots of terrible, frightening
language in some cases, but it's the same purpose as the rest
of scripture, to cause us to look to Christ, to take refuge
in Christ, to rest in Him, worship Him. And so think about that
as we go through these and A lot of people, again, religion, and
I'll just say that in general, we live in a religious world,
and I was part of it for many years, for some years. And they look at the book of
Revelation and talk about it and present it as though it was
like a book of future, revelations concerning future events that
are gonna happen that give us clues as to when the Lord's gonna
return and what it's gonna be like when he does. That's not
it, that's not what it's about. And we need to keep that in mind.
It's like all other scripture. It brings us to Christ, to worship
him. He's already said nobody's gonna
know the time when he comes back. Why would he write a whole book
about that if he already said you're not gonna know? Now among these trumpets, at
the sounding of which these events took place on the earth, there
are three woes, these last three trumpets. Revelation 8, 13, I
read that to you already. Woe, woe, woe. The first half
of chapter nine here is the first of those woes. The other four
trumpets were other things. These are woes. And look at verse
one, the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star. fall from heaven
unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless
pit. And he opened the bottomless
pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke
of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were
darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. Now you have a star
that's a hymn. See that? I saw a star fall from
heaven unto him. So we know that this is a person.
And it's Satan in this context. Of course, it's Satan. We see
what he's, what's happening to him and what he's doing. He's
given the key of the bottomless pit. Now we know who gave him
the key because in Revelation chapter one, the Lord Jesus Christ
said, I have the keys of hell and of death. But Satan gets
the key from him. He's given it. And of course,
he opens the bottomless pit. That's what he does. He unleashes
havoc and destruction on the earth. Remember now that this
is all spiritual language. A smoke arises out of it. But
what is that smoke? It's not just the smoke of a
fire. We know what this smoke is by
what it does. It darkens the sun and the air.
These heavenly lights always represent the truth. God's shedding
light upon the earth. The son of righteousness is a
name that's given to the Lord Jesus Christ. But this smoke
darkens the light that God sheds upon this earth and it darkens
the air. It fouls the air. It makes it
hard to see and hard to breathe. It diminishes knowledge. threatens
health spiritual health Spiritually speaking, of course, it's the
false gospel of Antichrist If it's the gospel is the light
that God sheds upon this earth. The only thing that can darken
that for some people For most people that are alive on this
earth Is the Antichrist false gospel of free will religion
that's born of hell itself It came straight out of the bottomless
pit If you're surrounded by this
smoke, you'll be stupid. No light, not much light's gonna
get through, and it's gonna be distorted. It's not gonna be
true light once it gets to you, if you're listening to this false
gospel. And if you breathe it in, it'll kill you spiritually. It'll destroy your soul. And
it's the smoke of a great furnace. Most of the inhabitants of this
earth right now are blinded and poisoned by this terrible smoke. And I wish I could, that God
would, and I know he can't, I'm not gonna say I wish he could,
I know he can't. I wish he would instill in us the gravity of this and cause
us to just be angry about it. Not angry in the sense that were
frustrated. How can you be frustrated when
you know God's on the throne? We know that God's gonna serve
his goodwill and purpose through all of this. But to see what's
happening to folks that we love, to family and friends and people
we work with, the smoke gets in their eyes so that they don't
see who God is. They can't see what they are.
What a sad thing to not even know what you are. They can't see how God saves
sinners like them. They don't even count themselves
as sinners, except in just some generic sense. Oh yeah, I've
done some bad thing. That's not what it is to be a
sinner. To be a sinner is to be evil, demonic, and out of
your mind. but they don't know anything
about the things of God and it poisons the very souls of men
against God and his son. And as I suggested, and I know
it's true of you too, there's some people that I love very
much that have been blinded and poisoned by this smoke to the
point that they believe that they're saved. Most of them believe
that they're saved by something that they've done for God. Can
you imagine reading this book, this book, and walking around
thinking, well, I made my decision for God, and so he saved me now. Everything's fine. It's almost
unbelievable, isn't it? Except we still remember how
blind we were. That's why it's believable. They think that they did something,
they made some kind of a decision, Walked in the aisle or repeated
a prayer or something, and God saved him because of it. That
was the difference. It was up to them. That's what
everybody tells them. We see some things going on politically
right now that are infuriating, aren't they? In this country,
and almost unbelievable, isn't it? It's almost unbelievable.
that you could mess things up in such a short period of time
and think you're actually doing a better job. Just disaster,
absolute disaster. And it's not arguable, is it?
Though people would. But the degree of blindness and
harm that's being caused to our country, think about what false
prophets are doing. Think about what they're doing
and the consequences of that. The only reason I mention the
political stuff is because we get mad about that, but yet we
don't even think about what's going on in this world with the
horrible lies that are being told people. It's just the opposite
of the truth. Salvation is by the will of man.
When God spelled it out, it's not of him that willeth, but
it's of God that showeth mercy. In verse three it says, there
came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And unto them
was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. And these are, of course, the
false prophets that Satan unleashes on this world. What do locusts
represent always in the scripture? What do they do? They destroy
people's livelihood. They kill what we need. That's
what they do. They destroy They represent destruction
and loss. They eat, that's what they do,
they eat. That's all they do. It just so
happens what they eat is what you need. They eat what you eat until you
don't eat. And think about this now, you
work hard, people work hard. You don't have to be a farmer,
it's the same thing. Somebody's farming somewhere
and you've got to have it, right? So you're working hard to get
it, whether you're actually busting the ground or writing up a sales
receipt or building something. Whatever you're doing, it's the
same thing, isn't it? By the sweat of your face, you're eating
bread, just like the Lord said it would be. Sweat and till and plant and
weed and water. For what? Why are you doing that?
So people can eat. But what do the locusts do? They
sweep in like a cloud and they eat it all, filling their bellies
and starving everybody else. Of course, that was more of an
issue in this day than it would be now. But you see the clear
spiritual picture from this. It's the same principle as the
Lord described when he told the Pharisees, you devour widows'
houses. You live off of them and they
suffer because of you. As we've seen several of the
plagues that were brought upon Egypt referenced in these revelations,
Already we've seen that, haven't we? The water turned to blood
and other things. And this is also one of them.
The locusts came and ate everything that the hail didn't destroy. False preachers are a plague
upon God's earth. And we need to understand that
now. You can't be friends with them. You can't have anything
to do with them. They're monsters. They're absolute
monsters. They destroy what you need in
order to live. And also, they'll sting you if
you threaten them in any way. They've got a sting too, you
see that? Locusts with a sting of scorpions. As the scorpions of the earth
have power. Power is given unto them. Deadly poison. In some cases
deadly, in some cases just painful. They take away that which gives
life and what do they give in return? Poison. What a picture,
what a clear picture. It's important to understand
that this is talking about these monsters that walk around, you
know, they walk around with their hands folded and they've got
a little smile on their faces. Crosses around their necks. They
look in benevolent. Aren't they? They look religious
They're soft-spoken and they may say inspirational things.
They're monsters It's hard to see him that way But if you see
with eyes of faith and what God said, you'll see him that way
By God's grace, I see him that way. I really do. It makes me
sick to my stomach. I Even see one in a store somewhere
their little collar If you think some of the language
in the in the scriptures against false religion and those that
hate Christ, it's harsh You've just never seen him the way God
sees him yet We don't see him exactly the way he does In verse 4 it was commanded them
to That they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither
any green thing, neither any tree, but only those, nothing
alive, nothing that's alive. They can't hurt them. But only those men which have
not the seal of God in their foreheads. The only ones who are alive in
this world are the ones that God has sealed. That's pretty
clear here, isn't it? Pretty clear. And look, there's
a difference. I always have to say this. We
don't despise people that don't know God. You don't kick a blind
man for being blind. But I'll tell you what, the one
that would exploit a blind man, the ones that murder souls, I don't see a good word for him
anywhere in the scripture, do you? David said, I hate him with
a perfect hatred. The enemies of the Lord. That
doesn't mean we hate everybody that doesn't know God. We want
to see them know God, don't we? We'd do anything for some. And to them, it was given that
they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented
five months. Now, this is believers now. You're not to hurt them, but to be tormented here, and
we don't know what all is included in that word, We don't suffer
a whole lot right now, but God's people, and again, this is not
something that's gonna happen one of these days right before
the Lord comes back. This has been going on in the
earth since the beginning now. We know that. There's been lies
being told on God since the garden. And it was a smoke then, a poisonous
smoke then, and a devouring plague. But to be tormented, whatever
this is, it doesn't cause any hurt. You're not really hurt
when you suffer as a believer. My children thought I was hurting
them when I spanked them, but I didn't hurt them. It was just
a little torment. You see what I'm saying? There's
a difference between truly damaged. They're not to do any damage
to us. They can't do it. God's not gonna allow it. but we got to put up with them
a while, don't we? But bless God, it's by his directive that
we do. It's not because of some struggle
between good and evil, it's because God set it up this way and we
better be okay with it. As the torment of a scorpion
when he striketh a man, and in those days shall men seek death
and shall not find it and shall desire to die, and death shall
flee from them. The Lord gave Satan the key for
a little while to open that bottomless pit. But that doesn't mean he
has unlimited power. The Lord restrains him. Don't
hurt the living, the ones that are alive. Don't hurt them. Remember Job, just as with Job,
the Lord curtailed Satan's desire, his ability, to hurt Job, in
Job 2, 3, And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my
servant Job? But there is none like him in
the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and
escheweth evil. And still he holdeth fast his
integrity, although thou movest me against him, to destroy him
without cause. That word destroy, you always
gotta look up the original and understand the context. He didn't
destroy Job, he destroyed everything he had. And you understand that
from the context. He didn't destroy Joe. That's
what he wouldn't let Satan do. Satan answered the Lord and said,
skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his
life. But put forth thine hand now
and touch his bone and his flesh. You've taken some things away
from him now, but touch him. And he'll curse thee to thy face.
And the Lord said unto Satan, behold, he is in thine hand.
Well, I hope he never says that about me. But save his life. He's in your hand, but you can't
kill him. And here in our text, now God
commands that these false preachers cannot and shall not harm anyone
who has the seal of God in their forehead. This is not some kind
of a tattoo that's going to be put where you can't function
in the world without it and things like that. I know it could look
that way. There's weird stuff like that
going on already that could turn into something like this. But
the seal of God is a spiritual seal. Only God can see that. And when the word seal is used
concerning believers in the word of God, it always has to do with
belonging to God and therefore being safe under his protection,
under the precious blood Christ it always does I could quote
a bunch of it listen to Ephesians 113 in whom you also trusted
after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation
in whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise sealed by the Holy Spirit and in Ephesians
430 aggrieved not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed
unto the day of redemption in other words You're bulletproof
until the ultimate day of redemption. When God redeems, he's already
redeemed our souls. He's gonna redeem us body and
soul and bring us where he is to be with him forever. He's
gonna take possession of who he purchased. And you're sealed
until that day. Second Timothy 2.19, nevertheless,
the foundation of God standeth sure Having this seal, the Lord
knoweth them that are his. I like that. And let everyone
that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So these
locusts can't harm God's people, but they can and will throughout
the ages to some degree or another. Like I say, we're going through
a time now where we worship in relative peace. But hadn't been
that long ago, it wasn't that way. Hadn't been that long ago. In this country now it has for
a good while, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine it not being
that way around here for too long. But whatever it is, it's the
Lord's permission, isn't it? To whatever degree it happens
in any given place or time and to what people, it's the Lord's
permission. It's given to them to do it.
by our savior not deadly to the elect but painful and annoying
if you get bit by a scorpion you're going to know it and think about this what is
five months why five months that's interesting isn't it we can't
know for sure everything that that signifies but i'll tell
you this it's not a day or a week even a week of torment It's tough,
isn't it? Even a day. But it's more than
that. But it's not all that long either,
really, in the grand scheme of things. And I think that's the
intention here. The good news is that locusts
don't live that long. You know how long locusts live?
About five months. I googled it. It says they live
between three and six months. They can't torture us that long,
can they? Not that long. As long as they live, they'll
torment believers and destroy and poison everybody else, but
not forever. Not forever, because God said
so. In verse seven, the shapes of the locusts were like unto
horses prepared unto battle, and on their heads were as it
were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men,
and they had hair as the hair of women. and their teeth were
as the teeth of lions. So we're given these descriptions
and we've been through things like this in the scripture before
and seeing that these are spiritual attributes pictured by physical
things that we understand and know something about so that
we can grasp the spiritual truth of this. Horses prepared unto
battle. They pretend to be warriors for
God, don't they? We're fighting the good fight,
you know, we're trying to win the world. Send your money if
you wanna help us win the world and build buildings and save
the heathen and all that. They pretend to be warriors for
God, but notice they're not actually doing battle, they're just always
preparing for it. Here's what we're gonna do, here's
what we're gonna do, but they don't ever do anything, not for
God. They're not in the fight, they
just look like they are. God's people are pictured as
true warriors with armor and a sword and fighting. Paul said, I fought the good
fight of faith. I finished my course. I've kept the faith.
I've fought a good fight. And he did, didn't he? Boy, I'll
tell you what. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. It's much more intense, much more insidious. Much more
deadly than that. Notice that the crowns they wear,
it says they're like gold. You know what's like gold? Not
gold. Isn't that the truth, man? Boy,
they love to be crowned, don't they? That's why they wear different
clothing than everybody else, so everybody can look at them
and kind of be in a little bit of awe of them, you know. They love
the approval and the praise of men, but their crowns are fake. They call themselves reverend,
but it's fake. It's fool's gold. God crowns his people with righteousness. and salvation by God's grace.
We don't seek to be crowned by men. Do you want men to put a
crown on your head? That's one of the worst things
that can happen to you. But we're crowned by God, by his grace.
Man, if we suffer with him, he said, you'll reign with me too. Their faces were as the faces
of men, but they had hair like women. They're freaks, aren't they?
They're monsters. Locusts with a scorpion sting. But they don't look that way
on the outside. They look like men. That's what they are. They're men, but effeminate men.
They have the hair of women. The Lord calls them harlots in
the book of Proverbs and other places in scripture. And that's
the nice word for them. I won't say the other word. Harlots. And I believe that's the picture
here. I know this, most so-called preachers are girly men. I've
known a bunch of them. I think most of them are preachers
so that they won't have to work. I really do. I've known a bunch,
I'm telling you, I've known a bunch of them, still do. They've never
had a speck of dirt under their nails their whole miserable life.
They couldn't change a light bulb if their life depended on
it. And look, even women aren't as
effeminate as they are. They're really not. There's nothing
wrong with being girly if you're a girl. That's wonderful. That's what you should be. It's
beautiful. But a girly man is a disgrace. And teeth like a lion, like their
father the devil, they seek whom they may devour. The Lord has
made his people wise as serpents, but harmless as doves. I don't
want to hurt anybody, do you? I don't want to hurt anybody
physically or spiritually, even those that utterly disagree with
me, unless they're false prophet. And then if the Lord gave me
the go-ahead, I might put some hurt on some of them. But it's
not up to me, is it, or anybody else but him. They had breastplates
verse 9 as it were breastplates of iron It's interesting because
you see we see breastplates elsewhere in scripture don't we but not
like these ones The sound of their wings was as the sound
of chariots of many horses running to battle false preachers are
very careful to protect themselves and They wear breastplates of
iron. They fashion themselves breastplates
from earthly materials. In contrast, God's preachers
are interested in protecting the sheep, not themselves. Paul
said, I count not my life dear unto myself, that I might just
testify the gospel of the grace of God. And all the Lord's preachers
have some of that attitude now. And we have breastplates too,
but not of iron, not to protect number one. You know, Simon did
that for a little bit, didn't he? And it broke his heart that
he was that way. He cursed and denied the Lord
in order to protect himself. It broke his heart. And it's heartbreaking that we're
all the same way we are. But we have breastplates not
of iron, which can only protect from the dangers of earth, from
what men can do unto us. We don't need that. We wear the
breastplate of Christ's righteousness, which protects against the true
threat to sinners, the righteousness of God, the justice of God, the
wrath of God. We're not protected against the
evils of men, except, of course, God's will, but he hasn't promised
us that we won't be hurt by men physically. Stephen was stoned. Most of the apostles were martyrs
in one way or another, I believe. Many, many, many of God's sheep
have been martyrs down through the ages, and we might very well Someday be again probably not
in our lifetime, but who knows? He hasn't promised us protection
from earthly things, but he has from spiritual When he talks
about our safety spiritually He says not a hair of your head
can fall to the ground Not a dog or wag its tongue in your direction Hmm Boy, and they had a king
over them. Everybody does. Everybody's ruled
by somebody. They had a king over them, which
is the angel of the bottomless pit. There's no question about
who that is. Whose name in the Hebrew tongue
is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. Abaddon means destruction. And
Apollyon means destroyer. So no matter how you spell it, it's the message from hell and
it results in hell for those who believe it. There can be no compromise, no
cooperation, no respect. You know, people say, well, we've
got to respect those who disagree with us. Not in spiritual things,
we don't. Not when it comes to a false
prophet. They're sent by Satan. Their
message is from hell itself. And they need to be dealt with
as such. We got no respect for their opinions,
because that's all they've got is opinions. When you abandon
the word of God, what do you have left? What seems right unto
you, which is why God flooded this earth and killed everybody,
except those that found grace. in his eyes. No tolerance of false religion.
Absolutely none. And those who are openly involved
in it, Paul said some of them save with fear as though you're
snatching them right out of the fire. And of course we know we
don't save anybody. We know in the context it's God
that saves them, but are we involved in that? We might be. Might sure
enough be, if the Lord's pleased to use us. That's written to impress upon
us the desperation of the situation. The dire urgency of it. It's
as though they're in a burning house and we've got to get them
out. If there's any way we can. Of course, the only way we can
do that is by telling them about Christ. and he's got to tell
them about him and use us to do it. The Lord said that even if you
just bid them God's speed, you're a partaker in their evil. I don't wanna make any bones
about that. But thank God, and think about
this now as you're going to bed tonight, thank God that they
cannot Touch us, their king cannot harm us without God's permission. And God has commanded that they
shall not harm us. You're not protected now from
the destruction and the horrors of false religion because you're
smarter than them or than other victims. It's not because you're
more spiritual or for any other reason than this. God said, don't
touch him. He's mine. Don't harm her, she's
mine. And that's how we can sleep at
night. And sleep in peace. I will both lay me down in peace
and sleep. For thou, Lord, only makest me
to dwell in safety. Many a night I've I've said that
in my heart over and over. It's an eternal promise from
God to keep us and before too long to bring
us home. Let's pray.