Let's go back to Revelation,
the Scripture that was read to us, Revelation chapter 9. Thankfully, He will never leave
us by ourselves. The Lord is always with us and
we are grateful for that. We are studying these judgments
of God called the seven trumpet judgments. This is the one we're studying
this morning, the fifth trumpet judgment, locusts out of the
smoke. That's our subject for today,
locusts out of the smoke. Now concerning the judgment of
God, We know three things are written in stone that can't be
altered, changed, or tampered with about judgment. Number one, the God of the Bible
will judge sin. There's no question about that.
Sin is the transgression of God's law. It is that which is absolutely
against the holiness of God. and violates His demands for
perfection. Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 18
says God is the God of judgment. He is the judge of all the earth. And as Abraham said in Genesis
18-25, sure the God of the earth will do right. We read in Exodus 34, the Lord
says that He will by no means clear the guilty. We read in
Romans 6 and 23, the wages of sin is death. The death of the Lord Jesus is
the absolute evidence that God will punish sin because our Lord
Jesus died. under the wrath of God bearing
the sins of all of His people. So know this, the God of the
Bible will judge sin. There is no question about it.
Secondly, the only way sin could be removed, the only way it could
be put away and forgiven by God in a just and righteous way,
was for the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, to be made flesh and
dwell among us, as we read at the beginning of the service,
burying all the sins of His people in His body on the tree, and
then die under the wrath of God to satisfy infinite justice that
God demanded. No other death could do that.
No other sacrifice could put sin away. We read in Hebrews
chapter 10, the blood of bulls and goats could never remove
even one sin. Throughout the Old Testament,
rivers of blood flowed from Jewish altars, but all of it together
never drowned in one sin. But the blood of the Lord Jesus
drowned all the sins of all those in whose stead He laid down His
life. You see, God, before He made
the world, gave to His Son a people, a multitude which no man can
number. This is divine election. And our Lord Jesus vowed in the
covenant of grace that He would give Himself the sacrifice to
save His people from their sins. And in due time, the Scripture
says, Christ came and He did what He promised to do. what
He set out to do, what God ordained Him to do. He saved us from our
sins. He put away the sins of all of
His people by His substitutionary death upon the cross of Calvary.
No wonder then that the angel said to both Mary and Joseph,
Thou shalt call His name Jesus. And in Matthew 1, he said to
Joseph, Thou shalt call His name Jesus for He shall save His people
from their sins. And when our Lord Jesus was born,
and one who is Emmanuel, God with us, Joseph said his name
shall be Jesus. Jesus. He isn't a want-to-be
Savior. He doesn't desire to save. He
has already saved his people from our sins by his substitutionary
death upon the cross of Calvary. I said the other week, I think
it was, that we sing the song, Jesus Saves. I recognize the
fact that in the present tense, we do experience God's salvation
as the Spirit of God reveals the Son of God to us. Jesus saves
us by His great grace. But let me tell you something,
we were saved before God made the world. 2 Timothy 1 and verse
9. For He has saved us and called
us with a holy appalling in Christ Jesus. And our Lord Jesus saved
us when He died upon the cross of Calvary. We were justified
by His blood. And since He justified us, we
read in the last of Romans chapter 4, He was risen from the dead
as the reward of His work of justification. And so number
one, the God of the Bible will, must, punish, sin, Secondly,
the only way God could punish sin, the only way sin could really
be removed and put away, was for Christ Jesus to die in the
stead of His people. And He did just that. The Scripture
says in Hebrews 9 and 26, once in the end of the world hath
He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And then number three, all who
live and die in sin and unbelief. Those who die without trusting
the Lord Jesus. Those who die bearing their own
guilt. Those who die without a mediator,
without a savior, without a substitute, without the grace of God. without
salvation being brought home to their heart, they must face
the judge of all of the earth. That God of whom Abraham said,
the God of the earth must do right. And let me tell you, there
is no hope for any sinner who dies without Christ Jesus. If
you die without God, if you die without Christ, then you die
without hope. You die without salvation. I
do believe as long as there's breath, there is hope. We seek
God's face, we seek His mercy for the members of our families,
for those who are near and dear to us. A person who has heard
the Gospel, maybe even years ago, may in the last moments
of their life be brought to salvation in Christ Jesus. We just studied
last week the conversion of Matthew and this morning, preparation
to go into the lesson. Today I reminded our class about
Matthew's conversion. He only heard two words, follow
me. And we might say well there's
no gospel in those two words. Matthew was a Jew. He was brought
up having learned about redemption and substitution He knew about
the Passover lambs. He knew about God's offerings
for sins. All of those things. He knew
about Messiahs, that He was promised in the Old Testament to come
into this world. But all of those things made
no sense to him until the Spirit of God made him aware of Christ
Jesus. And then He opened the eyes of
his soul He opened his ears to the voice of Christ Jesus. And
then when the Savior said, follow Me, all of that Gospel that he
had heard before, suddenly it all kind of fell into place.
And the Lord drew him unto Himself. But if God doesn't draw you,
if He leaves you as He finds you in your sins and in your
spiritual deadness, Then you must be separated from God when
you die. When you die. I speak to those
of you who have not closed with Christ Jesus. You have not been
brought to faith in Him. The wrath of God is real. Just
take a look at Calvary once again. You recognize the wrath of God,
the judgment of God against sin is absolutely the truth. If you
die without Christ, the Savior said where I am, you can't come.
And I earnestly appeal to you to be reconciled to God. And
I earnestly appeal to God on your behalf, Lord, do a work
of grace in the heart to cause sinners to seek Your face and
to believe upon the Son of God. There is in the Bible one illustration
of what we call a deathbed experience. The thief on the cross who believed. So we hold out hope for you who
are yet in your sinfulness. You who are in unbelief, we hold
out hope that God will bring you unto Himself. There is one
illustration, I say, of a deathbed experience. But, as far as I
can tell from the Bible, only one that we not presume upon
the mercy of God. But there is one to give us hope,
to give us hope. I've often spoken with people
who had loved ones who died and they say, I don't know if they
died in faith or not. I don't know if they died in
Christ or not. I know they heard the gospel.
I said, well, there's always that possibility maybe God was
pleased to make that gospel real to them before they stepped out
into eternity. That's not for us to know. I know God will do His work and
whatever He does is right. He's right when He saves. And
He's right when He damns. And He's going to get justice
either way. In your salvation, His justice
was satisfied by the death of the Lord Jesus. If He condemns
you forever to be in the hell, His justice will have a measure
of satisfaction, and yet it won't be full satisfaction. That's
why torment is forever. As a warning regarding this future
judgment, God sends many of what we call trumpet judgments. He sends them into our lives
and they warn us. There will be the sounding of
the final trumpet. The seventh trumpet will sound.
The seventh vial of God's wrath will be poured out. This is a
warning to all of us. Be prepared to meet God. These
trumpet judgments are sounding out every day. They're brought
upon the wicked. There are no warnings for God's
people. There are no judgments. for God's
people because all of the judgment of God upon our sins. has already
been settled at the cross of Calvary by the death of our beloved
Redeemer. There is no judgment for us.
There is no condemnation for us. We have nothing to fear as
we look forward to the day of standing before a holy God at
the great white throne judgment because we stand before God in
Christ Jesus. We will stand before Him then
even as we stand before Him now robed in His righteousness. We
stand in the perfections of Christ Jesus. No judgment for us, but
these trumpet judgments are for the wicked because they persecuted
God's people, because of their persistent unbelief, because they wouldn't heed other
warnings that God has sent and the hearts have remained cold
and adamant against God. Because men will not receive
the message of the gospel, God sends upon them trumpet judgments. And I'll tell you this fifth
trumpet judgment thus far is the worst of all. It's the worst
of all. He gives to Satan Satan, who
is this star, who has fallen from heaven to earth, he has
given to him, the Lord Jesus, who has the keys of all authority,
he has given to Satan the key of the bottomless pit, to the
deep abyss, literally to the shaft of the abyss. Think of the abyss like this.
Here's the abyss. Here's a shaft. God has shut
it up and He gives to Satan, He gives to the dragon the key.
Our Lord Jesus gives him the key and He says, open it up.
And when He opens it, here's this, it just begins to belch
forth smoke. Smoke. Smoke that hides the sun. Smoke that hides the light. This
is a judgment of God. There are all kinds of judgments
that God sends in this world. There are physical calamities.
Listen, what happened this week, what happened in Las Vegas, I
hear that as a trumpet. That's a trumpet judgment from
God. And other things that happen throughout the world, These are
warnings from God. You're not going to live. You're
going to die. You're going to die. And most
likely it would be at a time when you least expect it. I know
once in a while sometimes people become so ill and we know death
is imminent. The family is called in and the
doctor says it won't be long now. And some of us have been
in those situations. But many times death comes as
a shock. Oh, how quickly our life can
be snatched away from us. And as we view these things throughout
the world, they should be in the ears especially of the wicked
like the sound of a trumpet. Wake up! Wake up! You're not always going to live,
you're going to die. You're going to face God and
here's another warning to you. Sadly, As we shall see later
in our studies in the Revelation, all of these trumpet warnings,
they have no effect upon men because they won't bring men
to repentance. Men are responsible to repent
of their ungodliness, of their idolatry, of their belief of
a false gospel, But in and of themselves, all of these warnings
have no authority, they have no ability to really do a work
of grace in a man's heart. That is a work the Spirit of
God alone must do. He must do. And yet, God continues
to send these warnings. These warnings. This fifth trumpet
judgment, here's the smoke coming out from the abyss. It travels
up the shaft. It begins to hide the light. What is the light? It hides the
Son. It hides the Gospel. This is
an additional blindness that God sends to men. Listen, those
of you especially are most in danger who have listened to the
Gospel of God's free grace of the Lord Jesus, over and over
and over again and yet you refuse to see the light. God gives you
a little bit of light and you won't walk in the light that
God gives you. You won't take heed to the word
of God. The things of the gospel mean
virtually nothing to you. Your religion is a mere formality. In ritualism, you come to church
and you stand as the rest of the people of God stand, and
yet you have no real interest in your heart to glorify God
or believe the Lord Jesus Christ. And there does come a point when
God says, OK, that's it for you. And He sends forth the smoke.
And then all of a sudden, you not only are spiritually blind,
from the blindness that is within, Satan blinds you with the smoke
of deception and false religion. Let me give you a reference. Go over to 2 Thessalonians chapter
2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. In verse 7, we read about the
mystery of iniquity that's working. What is a mystery? Well, that
which is hidden, that which you can't see, that which isn't obvious
to you. The mystery of iniquity is already
at work. What is this mystery that the
apostle is talking about? Bear with me, if you would. Hold
your place here in 2 Thessalonians. Go back to the book of Revelation,
if you would. This time, Revelation chapter
17. What is this mystery? What is
this that's hidden, that's not obvious to the natural man? Revelation,
if you would. Chapter 17. Look at verse 5. This is speaking of false religion
presented as a prostitute or a harlot. Because she's so seductive. That's false religion. It's very
seductive. Very beautiful and alluring to
draw you in. God has given the name of Babylon
to false religion. Now look at verse 5, Revelation
17, upon her forehead was a name-written mystery. Babylon the great, the
mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. You see, false
religion. False religion. It is the smoke. that belches forth out of the
shaft of the great abyss. And God uses false religion in
order to blind the minds of men even further, even further. So as you go back to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, The mystery of iniquity. What is the mystery of iniquity?
It's Babylon at work. It's false religion at work.
What is false religion? Well, it's anything contrary
to true religion. It's anything contrary to the
Gospel. It is most especially salvation
by works and man's will. That's the mystery of iniquity.
And it's already working is what the Apostle Paul said nearly
2,000 years ago when he wrote this. He said the mystery is
already working, the mystery of false religion, the mystery
of deception. And it says in verse 7, only
he who now let it, only he who now hinders it, he will let, he will hinder it
until it be taken out of the way. In other words, there are
different times during the history of men when the Lord, as it were,
gives the key to Satan and says, release some more smoke. Go ahead
and open up the shaft of the abyss and blind the minds of
men even more. But as it says in Revelation,
it's only for five months. In other words, it seems to come
in waves. Then it goes back. God will often
send a revival. He'll send a revival of the Gospel,
a revival of the truth. And the smoke for a while clears. And then all of a sudden, the
Lord says it's time for it again. Release the smoke again. And
the smoke comes out again. It's the Spirit of God who lets
or who restrains. The word let it means to restrain,
to hinder, to hinder. It's an old English word. Until
it'd be taken out of the way. In other words, this is all restrained
by the Spirit of grace. It's only the Lord who restrains
the work of Satan. He dominates the work of Satan.
He controls the work of Satan. Satan can only do what God says,
OK, you can do this. Here's the key. Here's the key. Verse 8, Then shall that wicked
be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth, shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, that
is, in time, And this wicked is Antichrist's religion. Even
him, you notice those words are italicized, whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders
and with all deceivableness. This is all the work of Satan,
which is ultimately the work of God, which is a trumpet judgment
upon men who persecuted the church and refuse to believe the Gospel,
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish, and here's the reason, because they receive not the
love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this
reason, God shall send them strong delusion. God shall send them
strong delusion. You know what the word delusion
means? Look it up if you have a concordance at home. Look it
up and you'll see that Augustus H. Strong says a delusion is
to be led away from the right way. To be led away from the
right way. There is one way to God. Christ
Jesus is the right way. He's the only way. And we preach
this only way over and over and over again. And men say, no,
I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I believe
there are other ways. And then God says, okay, I'll
send you a strong delusion and then you'll be led away from
the right way, further away into more delusion. Delusion, one writer says, means
error. That is, very powerful error. John Gill, the great commentator,
he says it means the efficacy of error. What does efficacy mean? It successfully
gets the job done. And I'm going to tell you something,
if God ever sends you a strong delusion, it will get the job
done. It will get the job done. It
will do exactly what God purposes for it to do. This error that God sends brings
about a strong delusion. Men who wouldn't hear and believe
the Gospel, they will hear and they will believe error. And that error which comes forth
out of the abyss. Out of the abyss. Thank God everybody
doesn't believe it. Everybody's not going to be sent
a strong delusion. Some people are going to be saved
by God's grace. Verse 12 again, that they all
might be damned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure
in unrighteousness. But, don't you love the Lord's
buts? But, we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, for this
reason. God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto He called you by our Gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know why we're not
going to be deluded? You know why we're not going
to be deceived? You know why we're not going to be led away
from the right way? It's because God before the world
began. chose us unto salvation in Christ
Jesus. That's the reason. That's the
only reason. It isn't because we're smarter,
we're more intelligent, we have more ability to discern these
things. No, the natural mind doesn't
discern the things of God. If we believe the Gospel, if
we hold on to the message of salvation by grace in the Lord
Jesus Christ, it's only due to God's electing grace. That grace
given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now go back
to Revelation chapter 9. Okay then. The Lord Jesus gives the key
to the bottomless pit. To the star fallen from heaven,
even Lucifer. The smoke arises as the smoke
of a great furnace. The sun and the air were darkened.
And then there came something out of the smoke. Oh, and by
the way, before I forget it, you know back in chapter 8 there's
another smoke that's mentioned. It's the smoke of the incense.
You remember that? Back in chapter 8. In fact, if
you want to turn back there. In verse 4, here's our Lord Jesus,
our great high priest, burning incense upon His censer. The hot coals come off the altar,
the place of sacrifice. He presents our prayers to God. That's the smoke of His incense.
It's a very pleasant thing to God. Pleasing to the Father. Chapter 8 and verse 4, the smoke
of the incense. which came with the prayers of
the saints ascended up before God by the angel's hand." The
Lord Jesus. Here's a pleasant smoke that
goes up. With all of our worship and with
all of our prayers, it goes to God. But now here, contrasted
with that, is an evil smoke. A smoke that deceives and deludes. And then out of the smoke there
comes the locusts. The locusts. The locusts represent
preachers of false religion. They don't come out of the pit.
They come out of the smoke. They're messengers from Satan.
They minister in what the scripture calls the synagogues of Satan. The houses of worship where Satan
is honored and where His messengers proclaim their message. Verse
4, it's commanded these locusts that they should not hurt the
grass of the earth. That's the people of God. Low,
but alive. We've been humbled by God's grace. We're the green grass of the
earth. Neither can they hurt any tree.
We're trees of righteousness which the Lord has planted by
His grace. The only ones that can't do damage
to Those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads. You
see, we've been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. God's
people have. The Gospel of good news, the
Gospel of Christ took our place. Christ died our death. The justice
of God is fully satisfied. It's been sealed into our minds
and into our innermost being. It's been sealed in our souls. We're sealed by the preserving
grace of God. And the Lord says, you can do
damage to all these others, but you can't hurt My people. Because
He says in John chapter 10, I give My people eternal life. They
shall never perish. They can't be deceived and they
can't be deluded. But He says in verse 5, to them
who was given that they should not kill them, but they can sure
torment. No, they can't kill them. That's
why our Lord said, don't fear those that can kill the body.
That's all the power they got. You better fear Him who can kill
the soul. Him who can judge you and put you in hell. They sure can torment people
or a man of a scorpion when he strikes a man. In those days
shall men seek death and shall not find it. They shall desire
to die and death shall flee from them. What do I take away from
this? Simply this fact that ultimately false religion can bring no joy. It brings misery. False religion, a religion based
upon works and man's will, It can't bring you any real happiness
in the soul. And in the end, you're going
to find that out. That's what you want to hang
on to. Because the only joy to be had is the joy in Christ Jesus. We joy in the Gospel. We joy
in what God has done. The Lord is our joy. The Lord
is the reason for our rejoicing. Listen, here's what we're happy
about this morning. Our salvation is fully dependent
upon Christ Jesus. He did it all. He did the work.
He has finished it. He set it upon the cross. It
is finished. It's done. God is satisfied. There's our joy. It doesn't rest
upon me. It's not dependent upon me in
any way, shape, or form. It's dependent upon Christ Jesus.
But if you've got a salvation that is dependent upon you, ultimately,
it's going to bring you misery. It will bring you misery. And
then, beginning in verse 7, John describes these locusts. These locusts. Now these are
not insects. These are false preachers who
masquerade as preachers of light. But ultimately they came out
of the smoke. The smoke as a result is the
judgment of God. You see how false religion has
grown today? You see these mega-churches? You hear these preachers on television? Can you hear the trumpet sounding?
That's the judgment of God. There was a time, some of us
were talking about it this week, there was a time when there was
some respect for the Word of God in this country. I'm not
saying we were a Christian country. Those of you who know something
about history, you know that. But there were some principles
Based upon the Scriptures, there was a time when the Word of God
was respected. That's all but gone today. It's
gone. Those days are long gone, for
the most part. It's a sad day. A sad day. And God is sending judgment. Would to God that men would listen
to Him. Verse 7, I'll go into this real
quick. The shapes of the locusts were first of all, he said, likened
to horses. Likened to horses. Like, not
they were horses, but they were like. Horses prepared unto battle. They professed to be, these men
professed to be soldiers in the arm of our Lord. And like war
horses, they're prepared for the battle. They're all joined
together. In Judges 6 and verse 5, the
armies that invaded Israel were likened to locusts for the multitude
of their number. And you look at religion today,
false religion, with all of their preachers and their evangelists
and their missionaries, they're like horses. prepared for battle. There's so many of them. And
one dies off, there's two to take their place. They're thick. They're together. There's kind
of an ecumenical atmosphere among religion. We're all getting together. And they are all together in
this sense. They're all together in opposition
to the gospel. Like war horses. Our Lord in
Matthew 7 likened them to hungry wolves. They all hunt together. In John 10, He likened the thieves
and robbers. He said the thief comes not but
to steal, to kill, and destroy. Here John sees them as locusts
and scorpions. And then he sees them like horses
prepared for battle. They're ready for battle. They're
ready for military conflict. But the battle is not against
a country. The battle is not against another
kingdom, except it is a spiritual kingdom that they battle against.
They battle against the kingdom of God. They battle against men. And the objects of their attack,
always remember this, the objects of their attack, the souls of
men. These are the soldiers of Satan.
They seek to murder the souls of the unsuspecting. And like
war horses, they're well equipped to do their work. They're well
organized and they're well trained. Everything about them is calculated
for the battle to destroy the ignorant. False preachers set
forth their message that deludes and deceives the unsuspecting. Secondly, he says, and on their
heads were, as it were, crowns of gold. As it were. They weren't
really crowns of gold, but as it were, crowns of gold. What
does that mean? They pretend to be the saints
of God. Back in Revelation 6 and verse
4, the people of God have crowns of gold. Every believer has a
crown. Has five crowns that await us. Did you know that? Somebody says,
will you sing the song, Will there be any stars, any stars
in my crown when at evening the sun goeth down? I can still remember
those songs I sang for my Arminian years. The Bible speaks specifically
of five definite crowns. The incorruptible crown, the
crown of life, the crown of righteousness, the crown of rejoicing, the crown
of glory. And every believer will receive
all of those five crowns. Every child of God will have
them. And according to Isaiah 28 in verse 5, it indicates that
all of whose crowns are the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our crown
of glory. He is our crown of rejoicing.
It says in Isaiah 28 5, In that day shall the Lord of hosts be
for a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, and the residue of
his people. You see, Christ Jesus, He's the
prize we seek. Yes, He is. He's the crown that
we wear. He's the reward of His people.
That's why Jeremiah said in the book of Lamentations, the Lord,
the Lord is my portion. He is my inheritance. We have
Christ Jesus. We have all. We want no more.
We need no more. He is our glory. He is our joy. He is our righteousness. He is
our life. And He is our incorruptible crown. In heaven's glory, Christ is
all. He is all. The locusts, however,
they don't have crowns of gold. They have what appears to be
crowns of gold, but they're just imposters. That's all they are. Certainly they have a pretense
of being the saints of God. They profess to be the people
of God, but they are not. They have crowns of fool's gold. Fool's gold. They're not what
they appear to be. And then he says, thirdly, their
faces are as the face of men. There's nothing outwardly to
distinguish these locusts from other men, these false preachers
from other men, because they don't reveal what they really
are. They show compassion. They're
often very nice. They seem to be very caring men. They don't put forth their real
appearance, which is monsters. They're monstrous men because
they have a message of death. Listen, any messenger who delivers
to you a message that makes salvation ultimately dependent upon you,
he's not a messenger of life, he's a messenger of death. They
may appear to be angels of light, but they just masquerade that
way is what it says in 2 Corinthians. They're masqueraders, even as
that One who leads them, Satan himself, He transforms Himself. He masquerades as an angel of
light, but He is anything but light. And these men are anything
but ministers of God. They're locusts. They're locusts
out of the smoke. But they look like other men
and it says in verse 8, In verse 8, they had the hair
of women. They're very seductive. False
religion is very beautiful. False religion has so many things
to draw people in. It's so alluring. It's fun coming
to this church, they say. We have a coffee shop for you.
We have playtime for the children. Look at all the activities we
have during the week. We do everything for your family.
You need not go anywhere else. We've got it all right here. Very seductive. Meant to draw people in. Then he says they have teeth
as the teeth of lions. Make no mistake about it, they're
out to devour. They're out to devour. National
Geographic, I read an article on locusts. They said a plague
of locusts is a devastating natural disaster. And I'm telling you,
the plague of these spiritual locusts is a devastating spiritual
disaster. And it's going on all around
us. There's a great infestation today of locusts, especially
in this country. But in other places as well. Brother Allen was telling me
that when he went to Africa over there, he met up with all kinds
of false religions over there. Well, that doesn't surprise us.
It's everywhere. There's an infestation everywhere
of false religion. and they always wreak havoc. These locusts have the teeth
of lions and they devour, but they don't devour crops, they
don't devour trees, they don't devour the grass, they don't
devour the vines, they devour men. They devour people. And no surprise there, their
boss goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. No surprise that they're the
same way. And then it says they have breastplates,
as it were, the breastplates of iron. They seem invincible. It appears there's nothing to
fight against them with. They're so numerous! And they
just keep coming! Wave after wave after wave of
them! But their breastplate is man-made
armor. It can't stand the tide of God's
judgment against them someday. Whereas we have a breastplate
of armor, and you know what it is? It's the breastplate of righteousness.
The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, the
sound of their wings is as chariots running to battle. They're so
zealous. They make a loud noise. They
compass land and sea to gain more converts. They put forth
great religious efforts. They're always busy making a
noise. All the while, the Gospel very
quietly does its work. And then he says, Their tales
are like scorpions. Their message is poisonous. They
say a lot of good things. Yeah, but they don't say the
good thing. They don't preach the gospel.
And they had a king over them. Verse 11, they had a king over
them which is the angel of the bottomless pit. And if you had
any doubts before as to what kind of locusts these are, these
are not real locusts. They're not the insect variety
because Proverbs 30 verse 27 says, the locusts have no king. The locusts have no king. But these do. These have a king
over them. He's the angel of the bottomless
pit. He's the one who unlocked the
key and let them out for a while according to God's providence.
His name is Abaddon in the Hebrew tongue. His name is Apollyon. He's the destroyer. And this is what John says, one
woe is past. Remember he had already said
three woes are to follow. He says one woe is past. and
two woes more hereafter. May God, in His mercy, keep us
from error. Keep us true to the Gospel. There
is a glorious message of good news. May God give us grace to
hear it. For if we refuse to hear it,
it may very well send darkness and locusts in the smoke that
causes the darkness. We will believe a lot. God keep
us in the gospel.