Let's go back to Revelation chapter
9. As Brother Randy read these verses,
I'm sure that you have come to an understanding that the Bible
is not just a casual read. There's some things in there
that are difficult to understand. I think that over the years,
most people have Sort of read them like a science fiction book
or a movie. And I would urge you, don't go
to Hollywood to get your theology. This is not a cartoon. This is
reality. It's symbolism. A lot of symbolism
here. But the symbols, to understand
the symbols, you gotta go back to the Old Testament, and it's
not, a lot of times it's not time effective to go back and
read all the verses, but at the same time, when you read passages
like this, you see a lot of negativity. I mean, you can, if you read
these things, you say, you know, it looks pretty bad. Not much
of a good outlook for our day and the future. But there's a
lot of positivity here too. And that positive message is
for the people of God. And it's wrapped up in the truth,
the truth, the gospel truth of the glorious person and the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm only gonna deal with
the first four verses here today. But this is, the title of the
message is The Fifth Trumpet. As you know, in this part, this
segment of the revelation that God gave to the Apostle John
on the Isle of Patmos, we see Christ, the Lamb of God, on the
throne, opening the seven-sealed book of God's providence, God's
purpose, what God is doing and going to do in this world. And
only the Lamb of God is worthy to do that. Man cannot do that.
We're subject to our limitations, but God reveals these things
to his people. And mainly, not to scare us,
and not to draw pictures, cartoons, That's not what these symbols
are meant to do. You'll see these charts and all
of this. Don't get involved in that. That
just complicates the matter. But what he does is he uses these
things to drive us more and more to his word, his truth, as it
is in Christ. And the lesson for any of us
is this, cling to Christ for salvation and life, forgiveness,
righteousness. Don't look anywhere else. Don't
look to yourself. Don't look to your denomination.
Don't look to mom and dad. Look to Christ and live your
life running the race of grace, striving to follow Christ, looking
unto Jesus, the author, and the finisher of our faith. And right
there's the main lesson of all of Revelation. But back up here
in verse 13 of chapter 8, look at this. Now this last part of
this is the seventh seal being opened, and within that seventh
seal is revealed seven trumpets. Now the number seven is symbolic
of a finished Complete work. That's what that means. God created
the world in six days and he rested on the seventh day because
the work was done. It was a perfect work. Sabbath,
the seventh day. Christ is our Sabbath. When he
was on the cross, what did he do? He accomplished a work, the
work of redemption by the shedding of his blood. And he said, as
recorded in John 19, 30, it is finished. You see, our Sabbath
is not a day. Now, under the old covenant law,
that was a day or a week sometimes. And then they had Sabbath years.
But all of that was pointing by type and picture to the finished
work of Christ who is my Sabbath. You can read about that in Hebrews
chapter four. In other words, I rest in a finished
work of salvation. That's what a believer does.
I rest in a finished righteousness. And that means I rest in Christ.
And he's my Sabbath. Sunday is not the Christian Sabbath.
Sunday is the Lord's day where it is appointed for us to meet
together to worship and rest in that finished work of Christ.
But Christ is our Sabbath. Do you understand that? Well,
in this seventh trumpet, or this seventh seal, we see seven trumpets
announcing, that's what a trumpet does, a message, and it's a message
of judgment. a message of judgment to the
world. And we've already seen four messages in the first four
trumpets. Look at verse 13 of chapter eight.
It says, and I beheld and heard an angel flying, a messenger,
that's what an angel is, through the midst of heaven, saying with
a loud voice, and he says the word woe three times. This is
the last three trumpets of judgment, trumpets of woe. Woe, woe, woe
to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices
of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound. Three
woes coming. You know what a woe is, don't
you? It doesn't mean stop, like when you're on a horse and go,
woe. It's a message of distress. Woe
is me, Isaiah said, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up.
I am in trouble. I'm a man of unclean lips and
I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. We're all sinners. And we're under distress. When
God the Holy Spirit reveals the reality of who we are by the
truth of God, not just quoting a verse saying, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, we're all sinners, blah,
blah, blah. No, it's really a distressful message to the people of God
that reaches the heart, reaches into the inner being and says,
I'm in trouble. And I don't know the way out
unless God reveals the way out through the preaching of the
gospel. And then that distress turns in to peace that's found
in Christ. So there are three trumpets left,
three woes, and he says here in verse one of chapter nine,
look at it, the fifth angel, this is the fifth trumpet of
woe. He sounded, and he saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth,
and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. Well,
that star, as Randy said, is Satan himself. who was an angel
of light to begin with. That's Lucifer, you know the
name Lucifer, it means light. Known as Lucifer, which means
light bearer or day star. And he fell from heaven when
he was lifted up with pride and rebelled against God. And many
angels fell with him. And to him was given the key
of the bottomless pit. Now notice it says the key was
given to him It means to have the ability to open a door, that's
what a key is, and indicates that Satan does not have this
ability of himself. It had to be given to him. Christ said to his disciples
before he ascended unto glory, listen to this, this is Matthew
28, 18, he said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Now Christ is God manifest in
the flesh. As God, he always had all power.
In fact, John 1 talks about his part in creation in the Trinity,
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God
in three persons, but all having a unified work in the creation
of this world. So how could we say all power
was given to him? This is the power and authority
that he earned as the savior of his people, as the redeemer,
as the mediator, as the one who finished the work, as God manifest
in the flesh. And that power that Christ has
is given to him on behalf of his people. We who believe in
Christ, who have been given the gift of faith and repentance,
we have an awesome power behind us. It's a sovereign power. It's
an undefeatable power. We don't always see it in our
lives. Sometimes we go about and we feel like we're defeated,
don't we? And in many ways we might be. But spiritually speaking,
in the salvation that God has freely given us through Christ,
nothing can overcome us. Christ told his disciples before
he left this world, he said, in the world you'll have tribulation,
trouble. This world is full of sorrows
and trouble. But he said, be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world. You see, it's not our power to
overcome the world. We don't have that. Christ does. So my point is this. This speaks,
when he says Satan is given a key to the bottomless pit, it actually
speaks of the sovereignty of God over all things. God's not
the author of sin, don't get me wrong, but he governs and
he controls all things for his glory and the good of his people.
If he doesn't, we're in trouble. If he doesn't, we have no hope.
How else could you believe a passage of scripture like Romans 828?
For all things work together for good to them that love God,
who are the called according to his purpose. All things, all
things good, all things evil. And how can they work together
for our good? Because God is the one who's working it. Again,
he's not the author of evil, he's holy. We learned in Revelation
118 that Jesus Christ alone has the keys of hell and of death.
Satan has no power but that which is given by God to be an instrument
of God's judgment against the wicked. One old preacher used
to say, Satan is on God's leash. A lot of people say, well, I
don't like that. If you knew the reality of life and death
and judgment and eternity, you'd like it. You'd like it a lot. And if you stand before God without
Christ, without being washed in his blood and clothed in his
righteousness, you'll stand there and say, boy, I wish I had a
like that. God is a God of grace, folks. His grace has no limits and it
reigns through righteousness. Not mine, not yours, we have
none. The righteousness of Christ freely imputed to his people. Ever since the fall of man, Satan
has been allowed by God to dominate this fallen world. That's why
he's called the prince of this world. Even the God of this world. He fell from heaven to the earth
He was allowed to roam the earth to deceive the nations throughout
the Old Testament age. Where was the gospel in the Old
Testament? It was with God's people, the
Jews at that time under the Old Covenant. This word, when you think about
the bottomless pit and all of that, have you ever heard of
the word Tartarus? It's a word the Greeks use for
the realm of darkness. Satan's realm is the realm of
darkness, and when God saves his chosen people, who he chose
before the foundation of the world and gave to Christ, when
he saves us by the power of the Spirit, he delivers us from the
power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, the kingdom
of light. That's what he does. And this gives us an understanding
of what this bottomless pit is. It's not a big hole in the ground
on earth. People say, well, we found the
entrance to hell. Yeah, I have too. It's unbelief. Looking for a place on earth
where he said, hell is not in the center of the earth, folks.
It's not below the ground. The bottomless pit, you know
what the bottomless pit is? It's this earth in its darkness. And it's bottomless because it
has no end. The defeat of Satan. And the
Bible teaches us in the realm of darkness on this fallen and
cursed earth into which Satan was cast. that when Christ died,
the defeat of Satan described as being the work of Jesus Christ
on the cross. Look over at John chapter 12
with me. And that's one thing about this.
You read passages of scripture like this, one of the things
it tells you, you need to study the scriptures. Now the gospel is a simple message. So simple a little child has
the brain power, the capacity to understand it. Salvation. Salvation conditioned on Christ
and on him alone, who by himself fulfilled all the conditions
to secure the salvation of his people. Sinners saved by grace. Redeemed us by his blood. justified
us by his righteousness, giving us life from the dead, you must
be born again. That's a simple message. All the blessings of God given
to sinners, unworthy sinners, in Jesus Christ, based on his
merits, not ours. In other words, if you're blessed
of God, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, there's not
one blessing that you have, not one, that you can actually say,
I earned that, or I deserve that. Lord, if thou should mark iniquities,
who would stand? If God ever at any time, and
I'll take it this far, because this is biblical, if God ever
at any time gave this preacher what he deserved and what he
has earned, it would be damnation forever. I'm telling you that. And if you don't agree with that,
you don't know grace. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, look at John
chapter 12. Christ speaking of his death in verse 31. John 12,
verse 31. And he says, now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, talking about his cross, being lifted up on the
cross, will draw all unto me, draw all his people unto himself. And this he said, signifying
what death he should die. Satan was cast out by the death
of Christ. He was bound up for a while so
that he could no longer deceive the nations as he did in the
Old Testament. Because at Pentecost and thereafter,
you remember when Peter preached the gospel there, and there were
all kinds of people there, and then the gospel began to go out
to the nations. Satan could no longer deceive
the nations in the sense of hindering or even prohibiting the gospel
going out to the nation. And what does that tell us? It
tells us that God has a people out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation. I was listening to a preacher
the other day. He said, well, God's not finished with the Jews.
Well, that's right. He's not finished with the Arabs
either. He's not finished with Americans. He's not finished
with Europeans. God has an elect chosen people
out of all nations. And he's going to save them.
He's going to bring them under the preaching of the gospel.
We have to understand that this was God's purpose from the very
beginning. This is no plan B. You may have heard the term dispensationalism,
which is a common belief among professing Christians. And really
what that means is dispensations of time that God did one thing.
He saved people this way in one dispensation. He saved people
another way. That's not so. God has always and will always
save His people by His grace. And Satan, the enemy, who has
the key to the bottomless pit, this dark world, his main goal
is to keep people from hearing that truth. You don't believe
me? Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
four. Turn over there. Look at this
passage. Now a lot of people are deceived
about Satan and his work, this star that fell from heaven. You
know, when I see images of what people call Satan, with the horns
and the tail and the tooth and the pitchfork. You know, I think,
have they never read the Bible? You know, Satan loves that stuff.
Because that fools people. That deceives people. Listen
to what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 3. 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 unto them." Satan's main goal is to keep
sinners from hearing and believing the gospel. Because he knows
that when they hear and believe the gospel by the power of God,
the Holy Spirit, his hold over them is gone. And so Paul writes
here in verse five, for we preach not ourselves, we don't preach
salvation conditioned on ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, conditioned
on Christ, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake, for
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what we're here for. Jump
over to verse, Verse of, no, chapter 11, I'm sorry. 2 Corinthians
chapter 11. Now think about this. Satan's
work to deceive the nations. You know what Satan's main tool
in deception is? False religion. He's a religious
devil. Man by nature is religious. He
doesn't know the way of the Lord, and he wants to seek salvation
and eternal life in some way that will give himself glory.
In other words, who makes the difference between saved and
lost? It's God. It's not you or me. But look here in 2 Corinthians
11 verse three, look at this. But I fear lest by any means
as the serpent beguiled Eve, now the serpent was Satan appearing
in the form of a serpent, through his subtlety, so your minds,
now listen, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. Now that word simplicity, what
it really means is singularity, singleness. And what does it
say? It says that my whole salvation,
from beginning to final glory, is conditioned on this one person
and this one work, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the simplicity
of it. It's all in Christ. It's not Christ plus what I do
to make me righteous or accepted with God. It's all Him. And Satan wants to corrupt your
mind and get you to looking somewhere else and to someone else. And
that's why he says, look at verse four. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus. Now that word another means one
of a different kind. Not the true Jesus, a counterfeit.
A counterfeit Christ. Huh, think about that. One thing
that I want to know for the assurance of my salvation in my own mind
and heart, is the Christ I preach and hear, is he the Christ of
the Bible or is he a counterfeit? Well, according to the simplicity
that's in Christ. Here's this single person, Jesus
Christ. Who is he? God manifest in the
flesh. God manifest in the flesh. Every
bit God, every bit man without sin. And what did he do when
he died on that cross? Did he make salvation possible
if you'd cooperate? The Bible says that by nature,
it is as we're naturally born, we won't cooperate. We'll just
go our own way. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. The Bible says faith is the gift
of God to his people. For by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's not natural to us, it's
the gift of God. So did he die just to make it
possible for those who would believe? No, that's a counterfeit. Christ died to save His people
from their sins, and He said it this way in John 6, 37. He
said, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He said this.
He said, This is the will of Him that sent me, that of all
which He hath given me I should lose. Anybody know the next word? None. Nothing. But raise Him
up again the last day. So verse four, if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you've
received another spirit which you've not received, how do you
know the Spirit of God is here today? Well, the Spirit of God will
lead sinners nowhere to no one but Christ crucified and risen
from the dead. His blood, His righteousness
alone. If you're looking elsewhere for
salvation, or for assurance, or for rewards, it's not the
Spirit of God leading you. Or another gospel, salvation
conditioned on sinners. Let me give you two things that
are common to all false gospels. Number one, they make salvation
conditioned on sinners at some stage, in some way, to some degree.
Number two, they will always measure righteousness or holiness
on a sliding scale. And that's what it is. Somebody
might say something like this. They might say, well, I know
I'm a sinner, I'm not perfect, but I've not done anything worthy
of hell. Well, you're measuring righteousness
the wrong way. How do we who believe the gospel
measure righteousness? Well, Acts 17 31 says it this
way. that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent because
he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained in that
he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised
him from the dead. We have to measure righteousness
by Christ. And that's a perfect righteousness. And if I don't have that perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in Christ, then I'll
be damned forever. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. Look across
the page there in 2 Corinthians 11. Look at verse 13. Now, this is in line with our
text. Hold your finger there at 2 Corinthians 11 and go back
to Revelation 9 just for a moment. It says in verse two of Revelation
9, he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose its smoke out
of the pit. You know what smoke does, don't
you? It burns your eyes. It impedes your sight. And as
a smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened
by reason of the smoke of the pit. You couldn't see the sun. Christ is the son of righteousness.
What's Satan's goal here? To keep you from seeing Christ
in His glory. In the glory of His person, in
the glory of His finished work. And the air, what is that? That's
what you need to live. That's the Spirit of God. Now
we know Satan does not have the power to ultimately deceive God's
people, and I'll show you that. But look at verse 3, And there
came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, Locusts back
then and even today you talk about the seven-year locust and
all that how they come and they destroy They come in in groves
and they they destroy crops and under them was given powers the
scorpions of the earth have power These these locusts have power
to sting and to death poison What is that that's false preachers
preaching their false gospel as they're inspired by Satan
And there's a lot of them Every day Verse four, it was
commanded them that they should not, well, let me go back to
2 Corinthians 11 first. All right, he says, verse 13,
for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. In other words, claiming
to be apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is of
no great thing that his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness. Appearing righteous, appearing
to be good, but not so, whose end shall be according to their
works. Now go back to Revelation nine, verse four. Now you say,
well, this message is a real downer. Let me end on a positive. Look here. And it was commanded
them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither
any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which
have not the seal of God in their forehead. Now verse four describes something
different. It describes living things. Grass. Green grass. Trees. You know the people of God are
called trees of righteousness, aren't they? Those who have the seal of God
in their foreheads. We learned about that in another
passage, I think back in Revelation 7. What is the seal of God? It's
the gospel truth imprinted upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit. What is our hope? What is our
life? It's that the gospel in the power
of God the Holy Spirit has led us to Christ. I want you to turn
to one more passage and I'll close. Look at 2 Thessalonians
2. And I'll pick up here next time,
but I want you to see this. Here he's talking about Antichrist. And a great falling away of the
visible church on earth. In other words, the church began
in the truth, but has fallen away from the truth. We used
to sing a song when I was in a rock group years ago. And it
said this, he said, lot of churches, but not much truth. Lot of emotionalism. Lot of people, but where's the
truth? That's the great falling away
spoken of here in 2 Thessalonians, and I'll deal with that even
more. But look at verse seven of 2 Thessalonians 2. He says,
the mystery of iniquity doth already work. That's an iniquity
that people do not recognize by nature. If you see this iniquity,
it's because the Spirit of God has revealed it to you. And that
iniquity is that measuring righteousness on a sliding scale. And he says,
only he now will let until he be taken out of the way and then
shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan
with all power and signs and lying wonders. Things that impress,
but it's a lie. They deceive. And he says, and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish, now look at it, because
they receive not the love of the truth, that they should be
saved. What's our hope? The truth. Christ
said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the light. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. And he says in verse 11, for
this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should
believe a lot. That's God's judgment against
those who continually refuse. That they all might be damned
who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Pleasure even in religion that's unrighteous. But here's the positive. And I read it at the beginning
of this service. But we're bound to give thanks always to God
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has 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. That's a positive. God has a
people. And my friend, do we realize
how much we are blessed but to be delivered out of that kingdom
of darkness, we didn't deserve it and we didn't earn it. It
was solely the sovereign work of Almighty God. Grace upon grace
upon grace. Oh, we ought to thank God every
day, shouldn't we? Worship Him. Let's close our
service by singing hymn number 17, Come Thou Fount of Every
Blessing.