A special song. Excellent, excellent
words to that. Let's go to Revelation chapter
9. This morning, Revelation chapter
9. Here's my subject. John saw a
fallen star. Let me read Revelation 9, the
first two verses, and then this evening we'll pick up and go
a little bit further in this ninth chapter of Revelation. Revelation 9, verse 1, and the
fifth angel sounded. And I saw a star fall from heaven
unto the earth. Literally, I saw a star that
had fallen. It had fallen from heaven unto
the earth. And to this star, to this angel that fell, to him was given the
key of the bottomless pit. And this star that John had seen,
that he saw falling from heaven, this one to whom the key of the
bottomless pit was given, he didn't have it originally, it
was given unto him, and that is significant to remember that. He opened the bottomless pit,
the abyss. He opened the abyss and there arose out of the bottomless
pit, out of the abyss, there arose a smoke out of the pit
as the smoke of a great furnace. Such was the severity of the
smoke that both the sun and the air
were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. In Revelation chapter 5, John
had seen the Lamb of God take the book of divine predestination
out of the right hand of the Father That's the book that has
all the fates of men and angels. That's the book of divine foreordination. This book has in it the destinies
of everything and everybody. And everything that is ever going
to happen is said to be written in the book. All things that God has ordained
are going to happen exactly as He ordained them to happen. I want you to always remember
that and I need to always remember that as well. You know, I sometimes
hear people talk about God allowed this or that People speak of
God's will of purpose and God's will of allowance. Or His will of purpose and His
will of permission. I really don't find those additional
words in the Bible. I just read of the will of God. Our brother read to us from Isaiah
14, God has purposed That's the way it's going to be. I'm not
here this morning to give you an understanding of all the minuteness of the intricacies
of God's eternal purpose. I can't do that. But I just know
that everything is ordained of God and everything that ever
happens will happen just exactly like God Almighty ordained it. I do not believe in luck. I do not believe in chance. I believe God. And I believe
that God, before He ever made the world, He mapped out everything. He ordained everything that would
ever happen. And that is so of you and me. Everything that happens in our
lives, everything that comes to pass in our day-to-day events,
the events of the days, all those things are ordained of God. I
do believe that you and I are responsible to God by our actions. We're responsible to believing. We're responsible to take heed
to what God says in His Word. We're all going to have to answer
to God. You and me and everybody. And though I believe all are
responsible, we're responsible to believe the Gospel. We're
responsible to seek God's face. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And if we don't believe Him,
God's going to damn us for it. And yet, ultimately, all things
are of God. God has His people in this world. They're said to be His elect,
His sheep. Others are said to be His goats.
How long have the sheep been sheep? As long as God has been God.
That's how long his sheep have been sheep. Because you see,
all of the purposes of God, they're as everlasting as God himself. How long have the goats been
goats? As long as God has been God.
That's true too. I'm not here to try to explain
to you how both the sovereignty of God and man's responsibility
can both be true. That's not my job. I'm just here
to tell you what the Bible says. All things are of God, and this
God of whom all things, to whom are all things, And for whom
are all things? This God is the one you're accountable
to. He's the one you'll answer to.
All things are of God. Everything's in this book that
John has seen in chapter 5. And then he sees the Lord Jesus,
the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God who was smitten for sinners. who redeemed us unto God by his
blood, he sees the Lord Jesus take the book out of God's hand,
the book of the fates of all men and angels. He sees him take
that book and John watches as he slowly opens the book by loosing
the seven seals thereof. Our Lord has all authority in
heaven and in earth. to execute God's will. I tell
you this morning, this world and all things and all people
in this world and you and your family and you and your life,
you're all following a destinated course ordained by God and you
will arrive at God's predestinated purpose you will fulfill whatever
God has ordained for you. Now you can't do anything about
what God has ordained, that stands. You can argue with it, take it
up with God is what I say. And I also know that you as an
individual, as somebody to whom God has given some understanding
and giving you some kind of capacities to think and reason, you have
a duty to God to seek His Word and find the truth. Whatever
the counsels of God may be, whatever the purpose of God may be, that's
going to come to pass. That's never going to change.
But this same God has told us some things that we should do.
Some things we ought to be busy about. And if we don't do them,
if we're not busy about them, seeking the Lord, searching His
Word, listening to the Gospel, believing this message, worshiping
our God and Father, adoring Christ Jesus, believing that He's the
only Savior of sinners, submitting ourselves to God. If we don't
do those things, that's our fault. And we're duty-bound to do those
things. Now you can go through life if
you want to. You can go through life saying,
well since God has ordained all things, it doesn't matter what
I do. So I'll just sit here. I visited
a man one time who, that was his attitude of dying of cancer. And I visited with him and talked
to him about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. And he said, well,
you know, I believe God's ordained all things and I just hope when
the end comes, I'm on the right side. I said, well, I'll tell
you this, I know God's ordained all things too. I do believe
that. And I also believe this same
God who ordained all things gave me some intelligence, a little
bit of intelligence. He gave me a mind. to seek Him
in His Word and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
we are dead in sin. There's no question about that.
But I heard preachers say this one time many years ago. He said,
we're like dead logs floating down the river of life. I take
issue with that. We're not dead logs. We're dead
sinners. We're dead sinners. to whom God
has given His Word. And God's put us under the sound
of the Gospel. Every week we're informed once
again of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. God
has warned us over and over and over again. He has said before
us His Gospel. He's had faithful ministers stand
in this pulpit and speak to you about things that matter forever. Men who've spoken to us about
God, God in His greatness, God in His holiness, God in His purity,
God in His grace, God in His love, God in His mercy, and that
this God can't spare the guilty. We've listened to the message
about our own guilt, about our own sinfulness. We've listened
to the message about our own inability. We can't give ourselves
a new heart. We can't give ourselves spiritual
life. We've heard the message of the
good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that God found
the way whereby He could save the lost, not at the expense
of His justice, not by compromising His law, but by putting to death
one who was fit and equal with God, fit to die, fit to be, worthy
to be our substitute, even the Lord Jesus Christ. In that way,
God satisfied His justice and He shows mercy, He forgives folks
like us. We've heard that message for
many, many years. Are we believing what we hear?
God helped us to believe. We're duty bound to believe Him. But our Lord Jesus, whether you
believe or not, that's between you and God. Our Lord Jesus, during these
days, during the days between His first advent and then His
second advent, His first coming and His second coming, Our Lord
Jesus, who died and rose again, He ascended back to heaven. He's
seated at the right hand of God. What is He doing today? Well,
He's bringing to fulfillment all that God has purposed. He's
opening the book, sealed with seven seals. And this is what
John is watching. He's seeing the Son of God open
the book. He has already seen him loose
six seals. Now these things happen all through
the gospel age, all during the church age. Our Lord is fulfilling
God's eternal purpose. We're not to think of these as,
okay, he does the first one and he finishes that, and then he
opens the second one and he finishes that. No, all of these things
are happening all at the same time. But they're presented this
way so that we can better grasp them, so that we can better understand
them. And then John sees, after seeing
six seals open, he sees the seventh seal open at the beginning of
chapter eight. At the beginning of chapter eight,
when he sees the seventh seal open, he sees seven angels to
whom were given seven trumpets. These are seven trumpet judgments. Warnings. Warnings. We've said this, God doesn't
send judgment without warning. What is God doing? You think
about your own life. As God brings in your experience,
He brings to pass close calls, sicknesses, illness in the family,
The death of loved ones. All of these things that God
brings to pass. Things outside of your family
that you behold. All of these are like the sounding
of trumpet warnings. And they're all saying to you,
if we would listen. God's got to give us an ear to
listen. The warnings are saying there's
a last judgment, a final judgment that is going to come. It's the
seventh trumpet judgment. And the seventh trumpet, you
have seven vials of judgment. And then the last one, that's
it then. And all of these things that
are happening every day, God's warning you. He's warning you. He's warning me. You're not always
going to live. You are going to face Me someday. There is going to be a final
judgment. A judgment, and it will be according
to righteousness. Righteousness. Perfection. That
is, it will be a judgment based on this, how do you compare with
the Son of God? He is the perfection. He is the
ideal. He is the righteous one. He is
the just one. He is the Lord our righteousness
and all of the things that happen to us every day throughout the
world, if only God would open up our ears that we might see
and open up our ears that we might hear. All of these are
so many warnings, so many soundings of the trumpets. Prepare to meet
God. And the only way you can be prepared
to meet God is to be righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what all of this is about.
And so many people, they come to the book of the Revelation
and they say, oh my, I can't understand anything about the
book of the Revelation. It doesn't have anything for
me. Oh, some preacher said there's something about China here and
the United States. Listen, it's something here about
you and about me and about the God that we're going to face.
That's what the book's about. And God has got to give us understanding
to see these things. And now John, John as he sees,
he sees this fifth angel who has a trumpet and he hears the
trumpet sound. And when he hears the trumpet
sound, all of a sudden God opens his eyes and he sees a mighty
star fallen. Where did it fall from? It fell
from heaven. where did it fall from heaven
to? It fell to this earth. It fell
to this earth. And since it was fallen from
heaven and all things originate in heaven, this came from God. It happened in God's purpose.
Remember, nothing happens outside the purpose of God. So something
happened in heaven and this star has fallen out of heaven and
He landed on the earth. This is the fall of Satan. This
is what John has now shown. Now this happened many, many
years ago. It happened even before God made
the man. Before He ever made Adam. Go
back to Isaiah chapter 14. This is the Scripture that our
brother read to us in Isaiah chapter 14. Isaiah chapter 14. Here's the
fall of Lucifer. Lucifer, who was a mighty angel. A star. A star. In the context of Isaiah chapter
14 that brother Ron read to us a few minutes ago, the words
are addressed, the words are spoken from Isaiah. The Lord
gave him the message to Isaiah. And it concerns the king of Babylon,
who is a picture or a type of Satan. And you'll notice in verse number
10, this looks to the end of Satan, or Lucifer, when he has
arrived at his judgment. And one of these days he's going
to be locked away in prison. It will be the end of him. Revelation
chapter 20 sets that forth. And in that day, all they that
speak, they will say unto thee, Are you become weak as we are? Now what has Satan done? Satan has ruined the world. But
now wait. Not without the purpose of God
being fulfilled. Satan brought sin into the world
as a result of Satan's fall. We know pride was found in his
heart. As a result of his fault, a lot
of things have happened. Sin came into the world. The
world's been ruined. Marred. Corruption's everywhere. Death reigns! Death reigns! That's a result of Satan's sin,
Satan's fall. What's another result of Satan's
fall? The truth has been hidden from
the minds and hearts of men. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 says
that. The God of this world has blinded
the minds of people. Listen, if you don't believe
the gospel of God's free grace, if you don't believe salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation not by your works, but salvation
by the Lord Jesus and His work of redemption, if you don't believe
this message, your mind and your heart and your eyes have been
blinded by the God of this world. His fall had a devastating effect. Oh, I know He led one third of
the angels in rebellion against God. Revelation chapter 12 says
that. That was another effect. But
He brought sin into the world and this sin has brought death. Death! It's all to be traced
back to Satan. He's ruined the world. And Isaiah
sees him here now, at the end he sees him already put in hell. And all the people that he deceived,
and he's deceived millions and millions of people, all of those that he led to the
broad way that leads to destruction, they're all now saying to him,
you're weak as we are now. They're saying in verse 10, are
you become like one of us? Let me tell you something. If
you die in your sins, you die without Christ Jesus, you're
going to suffer in hell right beside Satan and all of his demons. You're going to suffer right
with them. And you will be among those who
say, you've become weak like we have been. You've become like
one of us. What's happened to your pomp?
What's happened to your pride? Verse 11, it's been brought down
to the grave. The noise of thy vows, all the
celebration, where is it now? The worm is spread under thee,
and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen? How art
thou cast down? Remember, John saw a fallen star
from heaven. And now the question is raised,
how are you fallen? How did you come to fall? And
then cause us to fall. How did you come to fall? O Lucifer,
son of the morning, Thou art thou cut down. You know who cut
him down? Christ Jesus cut him down. He
cut him down. He cut him down when he fell,
and he cut him down at the cross. In fulfillment of Genesis chapter
3 and verse 15, Christ cut him down. He bruised his head, though
the Savior's heel was bruised. That's his substitutionary death.
And now the question is raised, how art thou cut down to the
ground which did weaken the nations? The word weaken means disabled. He's disabled us! He's disabled
us! Why are we in this pitiful condition
of disability, spiritual disability? Well, trace it back to Satan. Trace it back to Satan. For He,
verse 13, in the pride of His heart, He said in His heart,
I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit also on the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.
I'll take the place of the Son of God. And God says, Yet thou shalt
be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. And then they
that see thee shall narrowly look, they shall stare at thee.
This is a resumption, you see, of verse number 10 and 11. It's a resumption of this thinking
as those who are also in hell see him. See him after his final
condemnation. God brings him down to hell. And they stare at him. They narrowly
look. They stare at him. People are
going to stare at him and consider him and say, is this the man? Look up the word man. You know
what it means? Is this the champion? Is this the champion? Is this
the champion that did make the earth to tremble, that did shake
the kingdoms? Is this the champion? Consider his end. Consider his
end. This one that made the world
as a wilderness, made it lifeless. and destroyed the cities thereof,
that opened not the homes of the prisoners, that is, the One
who holds men captive at His will." Look at Him now. Look
at His end. John, over here in Revelation
chapter 9, then, he sees this fallen star. Luke chapter 10 and verse 18,
the Savior says to His disciples, I saw Satan fall from heaven
like a star. You and I know that in this universe
there is an ongoing war between good and evil, light and darkness,
wickedness and righteousness. We see it in the world, we see
it in ourselves. Every child of God knows about
the struggle between the new man and the old man, or the flesh
and the spirit. Paul says the flesh lusteth against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There is a continual
warfare between the God of glory and the destroyer. That is, between
Christ and that one who, notice this here in chapter 9, drop
down to verse 11. Here are two other names of Satan. They had a king. We'll begin
to talk about the locusts this evening more fully next Lord's
Day morning. They had a king, these locusts,
they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless
pit, the angel of the abyss, whose name in the Hebrew tongue
is Abaddon. But in the Greek tongue hath
his name Apollyon. If you've read John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress, you're acquainted with that name Apollyon. Destroyer. He's the destroyer. John sees the destroyer. He sees Abaddon. He sees Apollyon. He sees Satan. Now to be certain,
and I don't want you to misunderstand, there is not a tug of war going
on between our God and Satan. You watch Children sometimes playing a
tug of war and they'll have a rope. And this group's pulling this
way and this group's pulling that way and there's a line in
the middle. And some of you smile because you used to do that and
you're pulling with all of your might. And some people in their
minds think, no, that's a picture of God and Satan. God's pulling
this way toward good and Satan's pulling this way toward evil
and we're not sure what the outcome's going to be. Well, just erase
that from your mind when it comes to any kind of competition between
God and Satan. There is no competition. There
is God over all, blessed forever, and then there's Lucifer who
is just one of His servants. He does the Lord's bidding. I
will show you that this evening from the book of Job, chapter
1. But God uses Satan. Someone said
Satan is God's junkyard dog. A good description of him, I
suppose. God uses him to fulfill his purpose. Now Satan, in his capacity as
the destroyer As this one, Abaddon Apollyon, Satan who fell from
heaven has been given the key to the bottomless pit. Somebody
gave him the key. Who has the keys? We have already
studied back in Revelation chapter 1, the one who has the keys of
death and hell, of life and all the issues thereof is King Jesus. He has all the keys. He is Lord
over all. And He is set forth here as giving
a key to Lucifer. In other words, whatever it is
that Satan has it in his heart to do in going into the bottomless
pit into which the demons of hell had been cast, and he's
going to unlock them to let them out for a season. Whatever this
is all about, you can be sure of this, Christ Jesus is still
sovereignly controlling all things. It can rest in that. When I think
of Satan having the key to the great abyss of that place called
hell, and he opens it up and out of the shaft of hell, Out
of the shaft of hell, the scripture says, there arises a smoke. What
does smoke do? It hides the light. In fact,
so much so here that it says the sun and the air were darkened
by reason of the smoke of the pit. Satan releases smoke that
hides the gospel from us, that hides the good news from us,
that hides God from us. In our depravity and in our fall,
the things of eternal value have been hidden from our eyes by
the smoke that arises out of the pit that Satan has unlocked. And I'm going to tell you something.
The only one who can enable you to see, the only one who can
clear the smoke, clear it away, is the Son of God. Nobody else can. I've had people
say to me, and maybe some of you are thinking this way, I
just, I can't comprehend all of this. I can't wrap my mind
around, I don't understand this gospel. Well, it's so much smoke
you can't see. That's what it is. It's so much
smoke you can't see. Satan has unleashed the locusts. They've come out of the pit.
They follow the smoke. We'll talk about them tonight.
But here's this black cloud of smoke. It's like the smoke of
a great furnace. And all this smoke... You know,
I grew up in Bassett, Virginia. the corporate headquarters of
Bassett Furniture Company. And years ago, not now because
most all the factories there have been shuttered and torn
down, but years ago when those factories were just, oh, they
were humming along. Factories all over the place,
huge smokestacks. You see all this smoke billowing
out of the smokestack. And I tell you, sometimes there
in Bassett, Virginia, the smoke would be so thick, so heavy,
and of course lots of coal was being burned in furnaces and
so forth. It was so black. Sometimes you
couldn't even see the sun. You see, that's what Satan has
done. He's hidden the things of God
from our eyes. But don't be dismayed. Go to
2 Corinthians chapter 4. Let me give this to you in closing.
2 Corinthians chapter 4. Yes, He does blind the hearts
and the eyes, the minds of men and women and young people. But
He doesn't have the final word. There is one much stronger than
He is. You see, Satan has been defeated. I know Satan has made every effort
to get rid of the Christ of God. He made an effort to get rid
of Him when our Savior was born. He entered into the heart of
Herod and Herod said, well, I'm going to get rid of all the little
male babies two years old and younger. I'll get rid of this
Savior, the King of the Jews. Satan failed. Satan met the Savior
in Matthew chapter 4. He's going to tempt Him. He failed. He failed. Satan met the Savior
in the Garden of Gethsemane. He tempted Him then to stop this
idea of dying on the cross. Our Savior defeated Him then.
Our Savior defeated Him at the cross. Satan has been persecuting
the people of God. He began in earnest right after
our Lord Jesus was ascended back to heaven. Satan started persecuting
the people of God to shut the mouths of those who preached
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But he wasn't successful then
and he's not successful now. But Satan is still on the war
path. And I'll tell you the instrument
he's using today to blind the hearts of men and women and young
people. And you listen good. Here's what
he's using. False religion. He's using free
will, works, religion to blind the minds and the eyes of people
who don't know the truth. That's his great goal today.
Here's the smoke. The smoke of false religion. It belches right out of the bowels
of hell. Look at verse 3, 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine under them." John said, I saw the smoke belch forth out
of the shaft of the abyss, and it hid, it darkened the skies,
and the light of the sun was hidden. Look at verse 5, but
we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves
your servants for Jesus' sake. Okay preacher, people are in
the dark. People can't see. People are
blinded. People are deaf. Satan has his
sway over men. What should we do? Well, preach
Jesus Christ the Lord. That's what Paul said. Just keep
preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified because this is what
happens. Verse 6, For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness originally in Genesis 1, has
shined in our hearts. He causes the light to beam forth. He shines the light in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. He cannot frustrate the purpose
of God. He just can't. May God cause
the light of His grace to shine upon each of us this morning.
We'll go a little further in Revelation chapter 9 this evening. Let's go to 263. and seeing a shelter in the time
of storm 263.