I want you to turn in your Bibles
this morning to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Now
the message this morning is going to be from Revelation chapter
9. And the title of the message
is Ministers of Satan. Ministers of Satan. Sounds like
it might be a very negative message. A lot of it is negative. A lot
of it is tragic. But there is some good because
we know that of the three great enemies of the people of God,
of the church, the world, the flesh, and the devil, all three
have already been defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ. When he
died on that cross and rose again from the dead, That was the victory
over all our enemies. And so whatever we go through
in this life, whatever we hear, whatever we experience, we know
that we who are in Christ, as the Bible calls it, in Him, we're
made the righteousness of God in Him. We're chosen before the
foundation in Him, all of that. That means we're washed in His
blood, we're clothed in His righteousness, and we begin a life from the
dead by the Spirit. And our hearts are right with
God, not because of any worth or merit or earning power in
ourselves, but because of Christ. So, we're gonna be looking at
this in Revelation chapter nine, but I wanna read as a parallel
passage 2 Thessalonians chapter for our scripture reading, then
we'll have our prayer and launch into the message. Verse one of
2 Thessalonians 2. Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is his second coming,
by our gathering together unto him, he will gather his church
unto himself, that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled
neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us, as
that the day of Christ is at hand, meaning that it's coming
in our lifetime. The second coming of Christ,
he may come any time. But for me to stand up here and
say, now he's coming today, or coming tomorrow, is wrong. Because
only he knows who's coming. And so he says, let no man deceive
you by any means. For that day shall not come,
the day of his second coming, except there come a falling away
first and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition."
Now that falling away is an apostasy. You've heard that term. And it's
a falling away from the truth. Get that in your mind. That which
had a good beginning now has a bad end. And he's talking about
the visible church here on earth that is known generally as Christianity. And basically it's, and I'm gonna
show you this now, basically it's people and groups, denominations,
who claim to be Christian, but they deny the doctrine of Christ,
the truth. They deny the gospel, they preach
false gospels in the name of Christ. Now that's important
because what we're gonna be taught, ministers of Satan are deceptive.
But hold on, he says verse four, who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God. Now this man of sin, I believe
he's speaking of Satan and his minions, but it says that all
that is worshiped so that he is God sitteth in the temple
of God showing himself that he is God. In other words, like
he's speaking in the name of God. Well, if I'm not telling
you the truth, I'm not speaking in the name of God. Do you understand
that? If I just give you my opinions, or if I don't, if I, listen,
if I say nothing, I had a young man tell me he went to a church
service a couple weeks ago, and he looked at another person,
he said, this guy's not saying anything. He's just telling stories. Well, I'm here to preach the
scriptures. That's what I want you to hear. That's what I want
to hear. That's what feeds our souls. The word of God, not story. Stories may be good and they
may make you feel good. They may have a moral ending. What do they call it? Aesop's
Fables, there was a moral at the end, you know. They may try
to tell you how to live and all that. But if it's not the word
of God that leads sinners to Christ for salvation, Eternally
speaking, it'll do you no good. So he says in verse five, remember
you not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things.
Paul had already preached this in Thessalonica. He says, and
now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in
his time. That word withholdeth means to hold back. Now, There's
something we have not yet seen the full measure of Satan's deception
and the full measure of God's judgment against it. Something's
holding it back. Well, no, it's not something's
holding it back, it's someone, it's God Almighty and the Spirit
of God holding it back. We read about that in Revelation
where the four angels the corner of the earth, they hold back,
you know, hurt not the earth. God's judgments coming down on
the earth in these trumpet judgments that we've been studying. And
these are good, as far as we're concerned, these are good signs
for us to measure our days. But not just to think about we're
limited in the number of days we have, but to seek the wisdom
of God in his word, in Christ. And so he says in verse seven,
for the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Now this is an
iniquity that man does not understand and know by nature, it's the
mystery of iniquity. And you know what iniquity is,
it doesn't measure up, it doesn't balance out. What does man by
nature think causes him to measure up? to where he can say, I know
I'm going to heaven. It's his works, his decisions,
his will. That's wrong. That looks good,
but it doesn't measure up because the only way I can measure up
and balance out is as I stand in Christ, washed in his blood,
clothed in his righteousness. And so he says, the mystery of
iniquity doth already work. That's false gospels of salvation
conditioned on sinners by the works and the wills of sinners.
Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of
the way. That which is holding it back, which I believe he's
talking about the Holy Spirit there, he'll be taken out of
the way and then it'll come down like a flood of judgment. And
then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth, with his word. That's what that means. It's the word of God. And shall
destroy with the brightness of his coming when Christ comes
again, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan
with all power and signs and lying wonders. Things that seem wonderful to
men and women, but it's a lie. Isn't that something? And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness. Here's an unrighteousness that
is deceptive. in them that perish because,
and listen to this, now underscore this in your mind, because they
receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Do
you love the truth? Do I love the truth? What truth? The gospel. The gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace conditioned on Christ He who is God manifest
in the flesh who fulfilled those conditions by his death on the
cross as my surety, my substitute, my redeemer, who fulfilled all
righteousness, put away my sins, and secured me for eternal glory
by his word. And they receive not the love
of the truth, verse 11, for this cause God shall send them strong
delusion that they should believe a lie. That's God's righteous
judgment upon those who receive not the love of the truth. And
that's something, isn't it? That they all might be damned
who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Well, what is our only hope? Well, look at verse 13. Now,
here's the positive for believers. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. That's sovereign
electing grace. And he did it through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, setting us apart by the
spirit in belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel. to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, brethren, stand
fast and hold the traditions of which you've been taught,
whether by word or by epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation, comfort, security, and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word
and work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
how thankful we are that we who believe by your power and by
your grace that we were chosen before the foundation of this
world, that Christ was set up to be our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer and our preserver, our intercessor, that he came
to earth and died on the, obeyed the law and died on the cross
to save us from our sins, to establish righteousness whereby
we stand before you justified, and from which we gain life from
the dead, spiritual life. We pray that you would be with
us, open our ears and our eyes and our hearts to the understanding
of this truth. We pray this in Christ's name
and for his sake. Amen. Now let's turn in our Bibles
to Revelation chapter nine. You remember back in chapter
eight, verse 13, the angel introduced in the last three trumpet messages,
three woes. Woe, woe, woe. Woe is a term
of distress, danger, sorrow. And then he begins with the fifth
angel, which is the first woe, this trumpet. blowing the trumpet,
the trumpets of God's judgment. That's what's contained in the
seventh seal, the trumpets of God's judgment. Every time something
happens here on this earth that is bad and negative, whether
it's the death of somebody we know, whether it's a disaster,
all kinds of things, these are trumpets blowing, reminding us
that This world is coming to its end and that we must have
Christ for our salvation. This world is not our home. This
world will not last forever. Christ is coming again, God's
final judgment. And how do I want to be found?
If I die before then, how do I want to be found before God?
That's what this is talking about. Verse one says, the fifth angel
sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven and earth. That's
Satan, who began as an angel, Lucifer, which means light. He
fell from heaven to earth. He disobeyed, rebelled against
God and a number of angels fell with him. And to him was given
the key to the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit is the realm
of darkness that we live in on this earth. And God gave this
key to Satan. Satan has no power but that which
is given him of God. Now God is not the author of
evil, but he is the controller of all things. He works all things
after the counsel of his own will. He opened the bottomless
pit and there rose a smoke out of the pit. This smoke, what
is that smoke? It's the false ideas, the false
doctrine of Satan He says, as the smoke of a great furnace
and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke
of the pit. What does the sun represent?
The light. The sun represents Christ who
is the light. He's the son of righteousness.
And what does the air represent? It represents the power of the
spirit to bring sinners to life. You're not gonna live if you
don't breathe. You need air. And here's what this is saying.
This smoke, that comes out of this pit, it is meant to hinder
you from seeing Christ, the Son of Righteousness. And it's to
hinder you from breathing the spiritual air of life. And we'll
see that in just a moment. And it says in verse three, there
came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. This is ministers
of Satan. You know, locusts, this is a
metaphor, you see, this is a symbol. Locusts back then, you know,
when swarms of locusts would come, they talk about the seven-year
locust. They destroy everything, all the crops, everything. And
these locusts come up out on the earth, and unto them was
given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. Scorpion,
that poison that's in the tail of a scorpion. This is the false
preachers, the ministers of Satan, the false doctrine that kills. That's what it does, it's poison.
Verse four, and it was commanded them that they should not hurt
the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any
tree. That's the living things. And that's indicative, symbolic
of the people of God. They have life, like green grass. And like a tree, we're called
trees of righteousness. In other words, these false preachers
with their false doctrine, they cannot hurt the people of God
so as to cause us to perish. That's what it's saying. Now
they can torment us as they did in the first years of the New
Testament church and as they do all along, but they cannot
kill us. And the other ones that they
can hurt in the way of eternal damnation, it says, but only
those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. What is the forehead represent?
It represents the mind. You remember back in the old
covenant, the high priest had a miter upon his head, like a
turban. And there was a metal plate on
the front of that, where his forehead was, and the metal plate
said, holiness unto the Lord. And what that was indicative
of was the fact that that high priest, when he performed the
duties of his priesthood, what was to be on his mind? The holiness
of God. That's what was to be sealed
into his thinking. Well, those who have not the
seal of God in their foreheads, that's unbelievers. In their
minds, they have no interest in the gospel. They have no interest
in the holiness and the glory of God. It's not sealed in their
minds. But unto the people of God, the
grass of the earth, the green thing, the tree, Those who are
born again of the Spirit and have life within themselves,
that gospel of Christ, His way of salvation, it's sealed in
our minds and in our affections and in our will, and we can't
get away from it. We're convicted. We're convinced
by God through the preaching of the gospel that my only hope
of salvation is God's grace in Christ. That's it. Nothing else. If I'm gonna live forever and
ever and ever and ever, it's gonna be God's way in Christ.
The Bible says grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. And so now from verses five to
verse 12, in this first woe, he describes this situation.
Now let me say this before I get into these verses. I'm just gonna
read through them rather quickly, but you follow along. Satan reveals
himself, manifests himself in various ways. For example, you
remember the Gadarene demoniac back in Matthew chapter eight?
Called himself Legion, several demons. And that man, you know,
he was wild. Probably frothing at the mouth.
He was probably cursing. That kind of thing. You know,
today you might see cults, satanic cults. Satan manifests himself
that way. But Satan also manifests himself,
makes himself known in a more subtle way. And I want you to
turn to John 8, 44. Book of John, chapter eight. Now, if you were to happen upon
what we call today a Satan worshiper. They might appear to you in a
black robe and might have an upside down cross and all of
that. I'm not talking about the pitchfork
and the teeth and the horns, that's silly. That's cartoonish. But there are Satan worshipers.
And they do deceive some people because they have a following.
They don't deceive a whole lot of people. They don't. But they do deceive some. And
you may see them. You know, you hear stories about
these people gathering together at night in the woods and killing
cats or drowning cats and all that stuff. All right, that's
satanic. All right. But let me show you
what Revelation 9 is talking about. Let me show you a more
subtle way. Look at John 8, 44. Now here
Christ is speaking to some of the most religious, moral men
of that day. Sincere, dedicated men trying
to earn their way to heaven by their works. And listen to what
he says to them in John 8, 44. He says, you are of your father
the devil. And the lust the unlawful desires
of your father, you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and a bow not in the truth. Religious people, religious preachers,
not abiding in the truth. And he says, because there's
no truth in him, when he speak of the lie, he speaketh of his
own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell
you the truth, You believe me not. You see that? Now go back
to Revelation nine. Look at verse five. These locusts,
these ministers of Satan, rising up out of this smoke of false
doctrine. It says, and to them it was given
that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented
five months and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion
when he striketh a man." He's talking about the ministers of
Satan, Satan himself, just like in 2 Thessalonians 2, tormenting
the people of God for five months. Now, why five months? Well, it's
indicative of a short period of time, and it is a short period
of time. It may seem long to us. but it's a short period of
time. Somebody said that five months
is the lifespan of the actual insect locust. So whatever, they're
going to torment. And you know, the Apostle Paul,
this is why he wrote in Ephesians chapter six, when he told them
to put on the whole armor of God that you may withstand the
wiles of Satan, be on your toes, wake up, study to show thyself
approved unto God, all of these things. Because they're going
to be tormented. It may be physical torment. It
may be torture. It may be death. It may be mental
torment. It may be ostracizing. It may
be alienation from family and friends. Whatever it is. We live
in this generation. We stand here and preach the
truth of God's grace and salvation. But we're surrounded by false
doctrines. False gospels, every true church
is, in every place. And he says, it may be that we'll
be killed for the faith. There've been martyrs for the
truth. Now that's not to say, somebody
told me one time, said, nobody's gonna be martyred for a false
gospel. Oh yes, they will. There's been plenty who have
died in the cause of a lie. But it may be that God's people
will die in the cause of the truth. Verse six says, and in
those days shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall
desire to die and death shall flee from them. Now this is speaking
of the unbelievers. There's going to come a time
when the judgments of God bring unbelievers to pray for death. And they won't find it. These
demonic forces are free to assault the people whom Satan has deceived.
And they'll bring hardship, suffering upon all who are not sealed in
Christ. They'll destroy all hope and make people wish they were
dead, although death itself flees from them. These are things that
will happen as we get closer and closer to the second coming
of Christ. Verse seven says, and the shapes
of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle.
They seemed to be powerful. They seemed to be overwhelming.
I think about Pharaoh and his chariots coming after the children
of Israel, and they were afraid, but God destroyed them. And on
their heads, as it were, were crowns like gold. They seemed
to be Moral, sincere, dedicated, in command. They speak with authority. Their faces were as the faces
of men. What do we see in the Gospel? We see
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. These false
preachers come in the name of men, for men, speaking their
own ways. Verse eight, they had hair as
the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
The hair of women. They appear beautiful, outwardly. They appear to be right. They
appear to be moral. That's what it's talking about.
And their teeth like the teeth of lions. Satan, remember what
Christ told Peter? Satan wants to devour you, Like
a lion devours its prey. He says in verse nine, they had
breastplates as it were breastplates of iron. You know, we who believe in Christ
have breastplates, don't we? Symbolically speaking, what is
it called in Ephesians chapter six? The breastplate of righteousness. That's our hope. That's our defense. When Satan hurls his arrows It
is errors, but His arrows of accusation against us, our breastplate
of righteousness turns Him back. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. God
has forgiven our sins. On what ground? The blood of
Jesus Christ. God has declared us righteous. in his sight on what ground? The imputed righteousness of
Christ. And he says in verse nine, the sound of their wings
was as the sound of chariots and many horses running to battle.
That's what reminded me of Pharaoh and his chariots. The chariot
back then, it's like we look at a tank. That's how they looked
at a chariot. Powerful, they seemed to be.
In verse 10 it says, and they had tails like unto scorpions,
that poison that comes out of the scorpion's tail, that's their
false doctrine, their false gospels of salvation conditioned on sinners. And there were stings in their
tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. They'd
been loosed. This is the woe. Verse 11, they
had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit. Satan is called the prince of
this world. And that's who it's talking about.
His name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon. But in the Greek
tongue, his name was Apollyon. Both names mean destroyer. Isn't that something when we
consider our savior? He's not a destroyer. He's a
giver of life. He's a savior. Isn't that something? We have a savior. He shall save
his people from their sins. He's not going to leave us without
a hope. And so when this, it says in
verse 12, one woe is past, and behold, there come two woes more
hereafter. This is the issue of the day. This is why we have to stick
to the word of God, get into our own opinions and follow the
evil, dangerous, destructive doctrine of men. This is why
we preach the word of God and not the word of men. And this
is why we go to his word alone as our authority. May the Lord
bless us in his word. May he keep us from the deceptions
of Satan. All right, let's conclude the
service by singing a few verses of hymn number 228.