We are going to close tonight with the
fifth seal in chapter 9, but I really feel like that we need
to review just a little bit of what we studied last week in
Chapter 8 because these things are difficult to understand and
sometimes are difficult to retain. And I want to emphasize these
first four seals that we looked at in Chapter 8. I just want
to go back over them quickly and Not only emphasize, but maybe
to look at it just a little, add just a little to it to help
us to remember what these symbols mean, because if we're just going
to rush through this book and not learn anything from it, it's
just not going to do any of us any good. It's just going to
cause your pastor to labor for nothing. So let's go back and
look at this again and look at it and maybe emphasize some things. about these first four seals
that we did look at last week. And I made a statement last week.
I don't know exactly how I said it, but I made the statement
that one of the reasons we don't understand these symbols and
these seals that's being opened, the judgments that's coming,
the trumpets that's being blown, and the judgment that's coming
out of that is because this is not things that's unusual for
us. It's things that's happening
in everyday life and we look over it because it's happening
in everyday life. And I think that's why we miss
these things. We look at this hell mingled
with fire and we think, man, that's so terrible. When that
happens, everybody's going to notice that. But what if it's
happening now? What if it's been happening all
along, but it's such commonplace that we don't notice it? So,
let's go back over these and emphasize this again. And here
in chapter 8, we looked at this first seal in verse 7. The angel
which sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood,
and they were cast into the earth, and the third part of the trees
were burned up. And all green grass was burned
up. And we looked last week that
this hail and fire mingle with judgment is an awful, awful judgment. This happened back in the Old
Testament when the children of Israel were slaves down in Egypt. Remember that? The Lord sent
this judgment upon Pharaoh and that's what it was. It was hail
and fire and rain, and when the hail hit, it was so hot that
the fire ran along the ground. Let me read that verse, just
a portion of what happened when God sent that hail. When Moses
lifted up his stick towards heaven, here's what happened. Moses stretched
forth his rod towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and
hail, and the fire ran upon the earth, and the Lord rained hail
upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail and fire mingled
with hail, very grievous." It was very grievous. There was
none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
And the hell smote throughout all the land of Egypt, all that
was in the field, both man and beast, killed everybody and everything
that was in the field. The hell smote every herb of
the field and break every tree of the field. And only in the
land of Goshen, where the children of Israel was, there was no hell
and fire. So when we read this judgment
of hell, that is a judgment of God. These are not accidents
that have taken place in the book of Revelation. This is the
purpose of God sending His judgment upon this world for rejecting
His truth, for worshiping devils and refusing to repent of the
lust of the flesh. This is what's happening now
and it's coming for the reason that this world is living in
rebellion against God. What do these trees represent?
Well, we saw last week that they represented people. Even the
righteous are said to be like trees planted by the rivers of
water. The blind man said, I see men
as trees walking. So trees represent people, but
especially trees represent the mighty people. Just before the
flood in chapter 6 of the book of generations, here is what
was said, and here is why the Lord, one of the reasons He brought
judgment upon the world. There were mighty men in those
days. Mighty men. Mighty to do evil. Mighty to persecute believers. Mighty to disobey God. They were
men of renown. Just after the flood, there was
a man by the name of Nimrod. We all hear about Nimrod, don't
we? He was a wicked man. But the scripture said, Nimrod
began to be a mighty man in the earth. But what happened to these
mighty men? God cut them down. He mowed them
down. And throughout the Old Testament
especially, sometimes get your concordance and look at the places
where God cut down the mighty men and the woes that are pronounced
against them. Listen to these places. He leadeth
the princes away spoiled, and he overthroweth the mighty. And the prayer of Mary, the mother
of our Lord in the New Testament, she said this, He hath put down
the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. Throughout the Old and New Testament,
God has a crow to pick with mighty men. They are usually His enemies,
and many of them are the oppressors of His people. You see your calling,
brethren, how that not Many mighty are called. And the Lord takes
them out. He takes them down. He sends
judgment upon them. This hell, whatever that is and
whatever form that comes, He takes out mighty men. I wouldn't want to be a mighty
person, would you? I don't want a lot of influence. I don't want
to be a head of some political party. I don't want to be a general
in the army. I just want to be a poor old
nothing. Because that's who the Lord came to say. He chosen the
weak and the nobodies to confound the things which are mighty. So that's what these trees represent. The hell came and destroyed them. And flesh, what does this grass
symbolize? Well, it symbolizes flesh. So
many places in the New Testament. Flesh is as grass. Remember what James said? And
it raises up and grows into so pretty, but as soon as the sun
rises with a burning heat, it withers the grass. Grass in the
scriptures symbolizes flesh. Listen to Jeremiah 17.5. Thus
saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and
maketh flesh. his arm, and departeth from the
Lord." The Lord has a controversy with flesh, doesn't He? Those
who are in the flesh cannot please God. Paul said, if a man think
he has, we're of, he might trust in the flesh, I'm o'er. But he said, we're not of those
who trust in the flesh. We are all those who worship
God in spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence
in the flesh. And the Lord is either going
to humble flesh, and bring it into subjection to Himself, and
make us a new creature, or He is going to destroy flesh. But
He cannot endear for flesh to glory in His presence. And He
has pronounced such a woe upon it, we come here to the last
book in the Bible, and he sends this hail, mingled with fire,
and what does it do? It destroys grass. Flesh cannot
inherit the kingdom of heaven. And see, is this the reason why
we can't understand these symbols? Because we forget what they represent
throughout all the other scriptures. Flesh. Flesh is no good, is it? It's absolutely no good, and
it's going to wither. The flesh, Peter said, and all
the glory of man is as the flower of the grass, and it's going
to wither. Those who are in the flesh cannot
please God, but you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
So that's the first trumpet of woe. And I think you can remember
that. If I come up to you next week and say, what does What
does trees represent? Well, those mighty trees represent
man. A flash of grass represents a flash. And here in verse 8
is the second trumpet. Here is where we saw this great
mountain burning with fire and it was cast into the sea. Now,
sea in the scriptures often represents peoples. It represents nations. The wicked are like what? The
troubled sea. And this mountain represents
trouble and turmoil among the nations. Our Lord Jesus said
there would be distress of nations and perplexities, the sea and
the waves roaring. When you see trouble among nations,
when you see them hating one another and potential war, That's
what this mountain is. It's been cast into the sea.
Remember in chapter six, we saw that red horse and the one that
sat on the red horse had a big sword and he took peace from
the earth. Remember that? There's no peace
to this earth, no lasting peace. And what did that result in?
It results in this second trumpet bringing turmoil among the nations. taking away peace, and what comes
out of that? Threatening one another, having
war with each other and hating one another. That's what's going
on now, isn't it? We see it over there now in the
East, if you've been keeping up with what's going on over
there in Israel, when Hamas shot their rockets in and killed several
hundred Israelis, and then went in and murdered a bunch of them,
and treated them awful, and now Israel retaliated, And they've
gone in to the Gaza Strip, and they say now 6,000 or 7,000 have
been killed. And Lebanon in the north is now,
they're intercepting rockets from Lebanon. And Iran's standing
on the sidelines. They think they're ready to get
involved, and even Russia. And if they do, China's going
to be there to help them. There's perplexities among the
nations right now. It's turmoil. hatred and threatening
war, there shall be wars and rumors of wars. And why is that? This mountain that is burning
with fire has been cast into the seas of humanity and is creating
this turmoil. And it has been going on all
along, hasn't it? And it will continue and probably
worsen as we get closer to the end of time. And you know something,
brothers and sisters? Man has no remedy for it. They think they did. They keep
coming up. League of Nations, United Nations,
NATO, and all of these organizations. And they haven't stopped it.
When God's judgment comes, it comes irresistible. And man can't
stop it. The third angel sounded here
in verses 10 and verse 11. And the third angel sounded and
there fell a great star from heaven. burning as a lamp, and
it fell into the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains
of water. And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And
the third part of the waters became Wormwood. And many men
died of the water because they were made bitter." What is this
star? We looked in the first chapter
of this book and we studied about those stars. Remember, they were
angels. They were in the right hand of
our Lord. He controls them. Those were messengers to the
church. They were preachers. They preached
the gospel. They instructed the Lord's people.
They comforted the church. They are pastors. They are called
of God to pastor. It was said of John the Baptist
that he was a burning and shining light. He was a star, wasn't
he, in the Lord's hands. But here's another star that
we read about here. He's a falling star. He fell
down from heaven. And who is that? That's Satan. I beheld Satan as lightning fall
from heaven. And the Bible says that he transformed
himself into what? That angel of light. That's the way he appears, an
angel of light. And you know something? He transformed
his ministers. and to ministers of righteousness. What will be the end of those
who profess to know God? They profess to be called of
God to preach. They consider themselves to be
lights to others, guides to other people. They profess to be messengers
of Jesus Christ, and yet they preach a false gospel. They lie
on God, and they make merchandise of men's souls. What will be
the end of those people? God threatens those people. The
Lord threatens those people. It's a serious thing, brothers
and sisters, to be a false preacher. It's a serious thing to say,
God has called me, and you have people set in under your ministry,
and you give them instructions from the Word of God, and yet
you misrepresent what God says. You lie to men, and you lie on
God. And the Lord Jesus Himself said,
If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the
ditch. And here's what Jude said about
false preachers. He adds this woe I thought about
as I read this, the woe of these trumpets. And Jude said, Woe
unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, They ran
greedily after the Arab Balaam for the reward, and they perished
in the gainsaying of Korah." You know some things that all
three of these individuals had in common. All of them were religious
people, and yet all of them hated God. All of them misrepresented
the right way of salvation, and they persecuted the Lord's people.
And Jews said, woe be to them. And here in our text before the
Lord closes His Bible, He pronounces a curse upon these stars. They are ministers of Satan,
that star that fell out of heaven. Listen to our Lord, what He said
about them. He pronounced a curse and a woe
upon the leaders of false religion in his day. Listen to Matthew
23. And if you want to get your concordia sometime and just go
through Matthew, especially the book of Matthew and Luke, and
look at the woes that the Lord Jesus pronounced upon religious
leaders. And here's just three verses.
Woe unto you, you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. You
shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. You neither go in
yourselves neither suffer you them that are entering to go
in. What do you, scribes, pharisees,
and hypocrites? For you devour widows' houses,
and for a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you shall
receive the greater damnation. What do you, scribes, pharisees,
and hypocrites? For you can pass land and sea
to make one convert. And when you've made him, you
make him two-four more the child of hell than you are. You deceive
his soul. You've lied to him. And God says,
I'm going to deal with you. I'm going to deal with you. And
you follow these false prophets, and you'll have a bitter end.
That's what happened to these people that drank this water.
They died a bitter death. It's a serious thing, isn't it?
Verse 12, here's the fourth angel now. And the fourth angel sounded,
and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part
of the moon, and the third part of the stars. So as the third
part of them were darkened, and the day shone not for the third
part, and the night likewise. Now, I've said most of this. It's symbolic, but I don't say,
I'm not denying that some of this could be literal darkness. Maybe it's a mixture of both.
Maybe some of this darkness is spiritual darkness like we're
going to see in chapter nine. Maybe some of this darkness of
the sun and the moon and stars, maybe it is literal. And maybe
this, what we see here in this verse, maybe some of it is literal. And I'll tell you why this could
be so. There was a period in the history of this world that
we call the Dark Ages. You might have studied some on
that. It lasted mainly from the time the Roman Empire began to
fall around 500 to some say between 1400 and 1500. And there were
times during these dark ages where
the sun and the moon and stars were literally darkened. I mean,
it became twilight in the year 536. In Asia, they didn't know
what happened then, but they speculate now that it was a huge
volcano and one erupted in 536, one in 540, one in 547. All the light that they had throughout
all Asia was just twilight. It got cold, it stayed dark,
they couldn't plant their crops, and it lasted for almost 150
years. It created depression, there
was suicide, mentally ill people. Can you imagine? You said something,
Colleen, last week about when you lived up in Alaska, you had
to have the little lamp shining on you because it's depressing.
What would it be like to live 150 years and the most light
you saw was twilight? That would be devastating to
your emotional well-being. And they said, that between one-third
and one-half of all the Eastern Roman Empire died as a result
of this darkness for 150 years. Some people were born and lived
all their life in twilight. That could be part of this, couldn't it? And there was all kinds of
plagues come within those 150 years. But in 1347 AD, most of you remember
this too, just before the Dark Ages ended, they had an awful
plague. Remember the bubonic plague? The Black Death? Man, that was
awful. That hit Europe, came in from
some country, I can't recall now which one it was, but they
brought it in on ships. And the plague spread like wildfire. They said you could get out of
bed at breakfast, you would have a fever. At lunchtime, you would
be vomiting violently, and by dinner, by supper, you're dead. And within five years, there
was estimated as much as 50 million people died in Europe alone,
in five years. Can you imagine the emotional
stress on the mind and on the heart of people? And maybe, maybe
it was something like this, was the judgment of God with the
moon and the sun and the stars being darkened. A grievous, grievous
time in the history of this world. And what was it? It was the judgment
of God. The judgment of God, we went
through this. I call it a little deal, it wasn't
with some people, but really, when you compare it to other
things that's happened in this world, COVID, that was a small
thing, wasn't it? But look how that affected people. They're still finding children
that were kept inside during those couple of years that they're
so emotional, Distraught, they're trying to get them to adapt now
to society just after two years. What about going through some
of this stuff? But I guess this, what we're
looking at here at this fourth trumpet would probably fit right
in there, the darkness. The fifth trumpet, let's look
at this verse by verse quickly and I won't keep you very long.
We're just going to look at this fifth trumpet and we'll begin
next time with the sixth trumpet. But here in chapter nine, this
fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven and to
the earth and to him was given the key of the bottomless Now
here, I think, is my understanding of this. This is the same star
that John just saw back in chapter 8. Some say this is the Lord Jesus
because only He has the key to the bottomless pit. Well, it's
never said of Christ that He fell from heaven. Every time
it's talking about Him from heaven, He came down. In the 10th chapter,
he's a mighty angel which came down from heaven. But Satan was
the angel that was cast out of heaven. And Christ said, I beheld
him as lightning fall from heaven. And some people will say, well,
how did he have power to open this bottomless pit? Well, he
didn't have that power. It was given to him. When God
is pleased to give Satan power, He can give him power to do certain
things at certain times. So that's what he did here in
verse one. This fifth angel sounded and
there fell from heaven a star into the earth and to him was
given the key to the bottomless pit, but only to do a specific
thing at a specific time. And look what happened in verse
two, what he did. And he opened the bottomless
pit and there arose a smoke out of this pit as the smoke of a
great furnace. And the sun and the air were
darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. I'm reading William
Hendrickson, and he has a wonderful commentary on this book if you
want to know more about that. It's called More Than Conquerors
Through Christ, if you want to read that. Here's what he said
about this smoke. This is the smoke of deception,
and delusion and sorrow and moral and spiritual darkness and depredation
that is constantly spewing out of the pit of hell. I think,
brothers and sisters, this pit has been open for some time,
don't you? I don't think it's a time in
the future that it's going to be open because look at the delusion
that's going on now. Look at the ignorance that's
in our society now. And look at the Dark Ages. Who
ruled the Dark Ages? What denomination, what organization
basically was prominent during the Dark Ages? Catholicism. I
think the pit was open then, don't you? And look what happened
here. We have another symbol. And there
came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And unto them
they were given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. Locusts, these were armies of
demons and they were bent on doing all the evil they could
to society. Nothing good comes out of hell,
brothers and sisters. And these locusts weren't literal
locusts, but they're demons. What else could be in hell but
demons? And all this smoke come up and it blinded so many people's
eyes. And then when people's eyes were
blinded, these demons come out. And they were symbolized by locusts. Now here's another plague that
fell on Egypt. Remember that? Let me read you
the devastation. of these locusts down in Egypt
when God sent them. In Exodus chapter 10, when Moses
spread out his rod and the Lord brought in this wind and locusts,
and the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested
in all the coast of Egypt, very greedy were they. Before them
there was no such locusts as they, neither after them. For
they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land
was darkened. And they did eat every herb of
the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had
left. And there remained not any green
thing in the trees, and in the herbs of the field, throughout
all the land of Egypt." When you read the devastation that
locusts can bring, It's amazing. I saw a picture in Jerusalem
with a picture of a man standing under a humongous tree. And they
had him standing there and took the picture to show how huge
the tree was. And it was a beautiful tree.
It was a green tree loaded with leaves. And the reason they took
it, because they saw this form of locust coming towards the
tree. And 20 minutes, 20 minutes, Those locusts stripped that tree. There wasn't a single leaf left
on that tree in 20 minutes. That's how devastating locusts
are, and that's why they're used to represent these demons. They do the same destruction
to men and society in a moral and spiritual sense as those
locusts do in a natural sense. And here in verse 4, look in
verse 4. And it was commanded them that
they should not hurt the grass of the earth. They ain't going
to hurt any grass. It's not about the grass. Neither
any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which
have not the seal of God in their foreheads. These demons are going
to do a lot of harm. They're going to hurt. But I
tell you, some people they're not going to touch. They're not
going to touch God's people. Remember, we saw them sealed
last week, a week before last. The Lord seals His own. And Satan may tempt them. He may
discourage them. He may trip them up. But there's
one thing about it. Demons, the most powerful demons,
cannot do God's people any permanent harm. They can't do it. It said that the Satan deceives
the whole world, but he can't deceive God's elect. If it were
possible, he could, but it's not possible, is it? So he hurt
those who did not have the seal of God in their foreheads. And
verse 5 and verse 6 tells us something about this. And to
them, it was given that they should not kill men, but that
they should be tormented five months. And their torment was
as the torment of a scorpion. when he strike of the man. And
in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it,
and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."
Torment! You know people, this world's
got a habit of romanticizing demons. They made
a show, not too awful many, probably a decade or so, two ago now,
remember one of the demons? One of the holy angels, one of
the elect angels, he fell in love with this woman and he wanted
this woman so he fell out of heaven so he could have this
woman. They romanticize these things.
Listen, brothers and sisters, demons are not the friend of
society. They not only hate God's people,
they hate everybody. They have been consigned to hell.
They're out now on a reprieve. No propitiation has been made
for them. They are not redeemed. They will
not be redeemed. They'll be consigned to hell
for all eternity and their aim now is to do all the harm they
can to society. And that's what this judgment
here is about. Torment. Torment. This is the work of demons. When
our Lord Jesus came to the land of Israel, when he came down
from heaven and took our humanity, ain't it amazing how many demons
he had to deal with? That place was full of demons. Remember the Gadarean maniac? He had 2,000 demons in him. And the Lord Jesus cast them
out into those swine and they destroyed them. Remember the
Canaanite woman who came to the Lord Jesus and said, have mercy
on me. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. See what these demons do. They
drove this poor man from his house, his wife and his kids.
He lived in the graveyard, stripped himself naked, waste all over
himself. He stinked, he cried, he cut
himself. Satan tempted to destroy and
destroy himself, no doubt. That's the work of demons. That
woman that was bent over for eighteen years and could in no
wise lift up herself, what was her trouble? Satan bound her. That little boy, the man came
to the Lord and said, Have mercy upon him, because devils, unclean
spirits, take him and cast him into the water and into the fire
to destroy him. And Peter said to Cornelius,
he said, Jesus came doing good and healing all that was oppressed
of the devil. What is the devil's job? What
is the demon's job? To torment society. To seek to
damn every soul that he can. To oppress people in their minds.
To discourage them and afflict them in any way that they can. And here in verse 7 through verse
10, look at them. Look how they are described.
These are all symbols. But boy, just get this big picture.
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared
unto battle. And on their heads it were as
crowns like gold, and their faces as the faces of men. And they
had their hair as the hair of a woman, and their teeth was
as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates as
it were the breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings
was the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails lacking to
scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their power
was to hurt men five months." Let me quote Hendrickson one
more time. He said, look at the description
of these hellish locusts. Like horses prepared for battle,
their crowns of gold indicating their victory, those faces like
human beings who were bent only on destruction, that hair as
of furries, those teeth as of lions, those breastplates of
iron indicating invincibility, the sound of their wings like
the noise of countless prancing horses and jolting chariots on
the field of battle, And last but not least, that exceedingly
painful and burning, yet not fatal, scorpion sting, striking
terror into the hearts of men and filling their souls with
the worst inconceivable dread and utter hopelessness, so that
they seek death but cannot find it. Can you and I conceive of
a more frightful and horrible true picture of the operations
of the powers of darkness in the souls of the wicked? Here
are demons robbing men of all light, robbing them of the way
of true holiness and righteousness and joy and peace and wisdom
and understanding. So this is the judgment of God,
and probably This is just my personal understanding and opinion,
but I would imagine up until now, this fifth trumpet is the
most devastating one, because it brings about the most devastated
enemies of our souls, and that's these demons. And verse 11, we'll
close quickly with this. And they had a king over them.
This is an army, isn't it? They have a king over them. Which
is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew
tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath its name Apollon. Some people said this has never
been explained like this in any verse. You've never had the Hebrew
and Greek word be brought together and mean the same thing. Abaddon
is destroyer. Apollon is destroyer. Abiding in the Hebrew and appalling
in the Greek, and they both mean destroyer. What kind of a being
is Satan? He is a destroyer. That is what
he came to do. Our Lord told the Jews of His
day, You are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father
you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and a bode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When
he speaks of I, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar, and
the father of it. He is a thief, Christ said. And
a thief cometh not, but to kill, and steal, and destroy. But Christ is come, that we might
have life, and have it more abundantly. Brothers and sisters, aren't
you thankful? Aren't you glad? Don't you rejoice
that God has sent us a Savior? He sent us a great one. And He's
come to deliver us from the power of this darkness. And aren't
you glad that He gave you grace to repent and to believe in Him
and turn from this power of darkness to God in Jesus Christ and to
wait for His Son from heaven that delivered us from the wrath
to come. Thank God. Thank God for that. And it's somewhat discouraging.
To read about these things and study these things. But it makes
us thankful for our Savior. For his keeping power. And wouldn't
it be awful to not to be lost? Wouldn't it be awful to be lost?
And living in this kingdom. Not sealed with that seal. Not having the Holy Spirit. And
you would be exposed to the will of these devils. who will do
whatever God allows them to do. And I imagine as time gets closer
and the end gets closer, you and I will probably see the workings
and the influences of demons more and more. Cleave to the
Savior, brothers and sisters. Cleave to Him. Believe His promises. Believe His Word. And cleave
to Him. Father, thank You. Thank You
for Your precious Word. Oh, thank you, Lord, for giving
it to us and for preserving it for us, for giving us some understanding
of it. Give us grace now, Lord. Knowledge
is not enough. To understand these things is
not enough. Give us grace, Lord. Give us
grace to know you, grace to believe you, grace to escape the snares
that's laid in our pathway. Give us grace to love one another,
to care for one another, to reach out to one another. Give us grace,
our Lord Jesus, to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and
follow you. Lord, you make these commands
upon us and we can't do anything. But if you'll give us grace,
we can do everything that you command us to do. If you'll give
us grace, your grace is sufficient for us. Thank you for this, dear
people. Thank you for their patience
and their kindness. Be merciful to those who are
suffering. Brother Larry mentioned those,
Lord, in other places that suffer for your cause and your name.
Remember them. Strengthen them. Remember Lathar
and Gene. Be gracious to them and others
in this congregation who are suffering physically afflictions. And Lord, those who are weak,
be gracious to them. We pray these things for Christ's
sake. Amen.