Revelation: Part 25

In this modern age, especially up until about 15 years ago, it was difficult for anyone to accept the fact that demons really truly exist. And yet the Bible speaks of them with the same straightforwardness and candidness that it does any other detail. And I can tell you, I’ve come face to face with them. I have been involved in exorcisms.

And it wasn’t the psychological exercise, believe me. I had my shirt cut off my back as I ducked a guy that swung at me with a butcher knife when I was talking to him, the demon in him spoke in another voice to me. And strangely enough, they need to get a new line, because they talk a lot like they did in the Bible. Demons say, I know who you are.

And I said, and I know who you are. But I don’t say that as if it’s something that we can play with. It’s not something we can play with. Or it’s not something we should ever seek.

But pure evil does exist, and it has two sources. One is the fallen nature that we’re all born with. And the other has to do with the fallen angels that followed Satan and became known as demons. And the book of Revelation, more than any other book, points out that the movements of man in some of the most insane destructive things that he does is the direct result of the action of these demons playing upon the fallen natures that man has and playing upon the weaknesses that they know much better than any psychologist will ever know because they’re supernatural and they know what we think.

So I’m thankful just to give you a little cheerier note. The Bible says, greater is he who is in you than he who is in this world. And if you have the Holy Spirit living within you, then demons cannot come in and take possession of you. However, if you’re out of fellowship long enough, they can have quite an influence on you.

And so that’s a tremendous motivation to stay in fellowship with God because if we’re out playing games with God and there’s sin in our life that we’re not confessing and we’re not confessing something and turning to God and depending upon the Holy Spirit to give us power over these things, then they can lead us on a very destructive course. But why do I say this? Well, let’s read the first few verses of Revelation 9 where we start off with the introduction of something that’s added too little trumpet judgments. Because it says, look at the last verse of chapter 8.

This will give us an idea of this. Verse 13. Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!” So he says there are going to be three woes.

In other words, the last three trumpets are labeled also as woes. And this word means “something of unprecedented catastrophe and suffering and destruction.” So the last three trumpets are also called the three woes. And I don’t mean that in the sense of saying to a horse, whoa.

I mean in the sense of absolute dread and catastrophe. So in 9:1, then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven – or literally in the Greek it’s a star out of heaven – which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. Now, the star that falls is obviously what? A person, huh.

Because he’s given a personal pronoun name, and it says a key is given to him. And it is Satan, you’re absolutely right. Now, the verb that’s used here that says, he which had fallen to the earth, it’s in the perfect tense, perfect active participle.

The book of Revelation is a book God commands us to read over and over again. He promises us a blessing. But it is heavy reading if you understand. I think the reason he wants us to do it is because once we see what he says is coming, we get a much better appreciation of what Jesus has done for us.

Verse 6. In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die and death flees from them. God is supernaturally not even going to let people take their life. The torment that comes with these demons is so horrible for a period of five months that people just want to die, and they’ll try in every way to die, but they can’t.

Then it says, verse 7, now, I want you to read with me very carefully what it says here. Verse 7. The appearance of the locusts was like. Now, the minute you say that, you’re describing something and you say it’s like this.

What do you mean? It’s, right, exactly. In other words, you’re saying it isn’t a locust, but it looks something like it. Now, all through this, he’s going to keep saying like, like, like, like.

Because here is a first century man who has time traveled up to the 21st century, and he had the opportunity. If you can call it an opportunity.

To see what is going to happen in our soon future. Brought back to his own time and told to write about what he saw and heard. And now in that mode, he, a first century man, is trying to describe what he actually witnessed. And that’s why he uses appearance like, and so forth.

Okay. With that now in mind, let’s read it. The appearance of the locust was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads, appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. All right.

Now, this is why, if you’re going to study the Bible, you need to learn something about the history of the time in which it was written, okay. Now, a horse prepared for battle, what kind of a horse would be prepared for battle, and how would it be prepared for battle? Well, you would have to go to the Roman legions, wouldn’t you? They would go into battle with their horses draped with armor.

And so when it says a horse prepared for battle, you think of a horse that’s got this armor that is sewed together and draped on the horse, and that’s so that the, you don’t ride out there and a lance hits the horse, and down you go. Or an arrow hits him. So they had elaborate armor that they would drape on the horse. And so whatever this thing is, he says this locust reminds me of a horse that’s prepared for battle, and by that, he means it’s got this elaborate armor on it.

Okay. All right. And… It’s a strange horse.

Because it says, and on their heads appeared to be a crown like gold. Appeared to be. And their faces were like faces of men. Now, have you ever seen a scorpion like that?

Or something, a horse? Like that?

That’s a weird horse. All right. And then it says, and they had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of the lions. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was literally like the thunder of chariots, and many horses rushing to battle.

And they have tails like scorpions, and stings; in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. And they have a king over them, the angel of the abuzz; his name is in Hebrew abaddon, and in Greek apollyon. Now, isn’t that interesting. You know the Holy Spirit rarely ever goes to that much trouble to explain about something.

He gives us both the Hebrew name and the Greek name. And both in Hebrew and in Greek, this word means the ultimate destroyer. This is not Satan. This is some – Ephesians 6 tells us that demons are well organized into ranks, and they are super disciplined into certain levels and ranks.

And this apparently is one of the higher echelon of Satan’s fallen angels. And he is a king over this group that has been released from hell that actually came into power once before, just before the flood in the days of Noah. And it says he is going to wreak destruction. Are you following me?

I’m trying to be as faithful to what the Word of God says as I can be. I don’t want to add anything to it, I’m just trying to understand it as 21st century man looking at it through the eyes of a first century man. But this apollyo n, he is apparently someone who is really pure evil, almost as evil as Satan. Listen.

Some of these computer games, the result of some of these computer games, I believe that there’s almost, in some cases, I’m sure there’s a demonic influence in them, because it develops such a callousness about killing. After all, it’s a game. And when you in the game hit somebody and blood spatters everywhere and so forth, it develops a mindset for that. We’re creating real monsters through these things.

When you throw the Bible out, you can’t explain a lot that’s going on today, because only the Bible tells what’s the source of some of the behavior we see today. And these demons, God said that as time for this period to happen, and just before he takes every living believer out of this world in a flash of a second, that Rapture, the great snatch when he’s going to snatch up every living believer in a moment of time, the Bible said just before that God was going to remove his restraint over man. And you see it. Listen, the only reason this world has lasted as long as it has is because the Holy Spirit has been restraining the natural evil in our fallen natures and he has kept bound angels that are so vicious that they would incite the unbeliever to unbelievable acts of horror.

Well, we see all of that happening. And the next phase that we go to, or verse 12, it says, the first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. And then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. God has the real tabernacle in heaven of which the one on earth was a copy.

And the four horns of the golden altar are the place of sacrifice where prayer is offered up inside the holy of holies. And the voice comes from this golden altar, which has all of the prayers of the believers. And it says, the source of releasing this next judgment comes from the prayers of the saints. Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard the voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

And the four angels, who had been prepared. Now, look at this. The four angels who had been prepared for the hour and the day and the month and the year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind. Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be prayed.

You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, and if it were not so, I would have told you. And if I prepare a place for you, I will come for you that you may be with me where I am.

And he says, in this I say to you, Paul said, by the word of the Lord, he said that the Lord will come with a voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together to meet them in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord wherefor comfort one another with these words. As we study this book, we see things being fulfilled right before our eyes. And I’ll relate this to a lot of things in the Ezekiel factor next week. But we see all of this being fulfilled right before our eyes.

And instead of being terrified and afraid, we need to be excited and with full hope and be seeking to introduce the saving faith of Jesus Christ as many as we can. Because our time here is very short.

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary, and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives.

Thank you so much for standing with me as a watchman on the wall. I pray daily that he will reward your faithfulness and protect and prosper you in these difficult times. Thank you again for being a vital part of my team.