The Last Days
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Lesson 42 | 10/12/25
Revelation 9 | Hell Unleashed
Transcript of teaching...
Well, so we're in Revelation chapter 9, and we've been going through this study for, I think this is the 42nd lesson, so almost a year or so. And this now, as we venture into this chapter, we start to see a page turn. We start to see the darkness getting darker. And here in Revelation chapter 9, we ended last week with the three woes, right? Whenever the angel is crying from heaven and he says, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. And here in chapter 9, we are going to see two of those woes. We're going to see why they are, why is the angel proclaiming this woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. But I have good news for you because None of us here are the inhabitants of the earth. None of us here are earth dwellers. None of us here love this world. We are in this world, but we're not of this world. And so this, the woe, is not to us. The woe is to those who have rejected our Lord and Savior. And we're seeing, again, like I said, His faithful vengeance as He's coming. This is what He's promised. He's promised to usher in everlasting righteousness. And these are the ways He's doing that. And we see now as we get closer and closer, closer to the middle of the week and then after the middle of the tribulation week, we're seeing things ramp up. We're seeing the wrath escalate to a very intense level and a very, what I would even call it, a very dark level as we see this Revelation chapter 9.
So if you have your Bibles, open up with me to this chapter, Revelation chapter 9. Now, you remember, as all of us do, that after Jesus Christ, died and He rose from the dead, Paul tells us that He was highly exalted and He was given the name that was above every name, right? So that at that name, every knee would bow of those in heaven, those on earth, and even those under the earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. But whenever you read those words, you see that, yes, He is Lord, He's my Lord. He's our Lord. Those in heaven, of course. Those on earth who believe, of course. But what about those who are under the earth? Right? He is Lord, even for those who are under the earth. And so today we're actually going to be seeing some of these things that are actually under the earth. pretty dark things that we're seeing, but Jesus is Lord over all. Remember whatever He said in Revelation 1:18. He says, I am the living one. I am alive. I was dead and I'm alive forevermore. Amen. and I have the keys to Hades and death. So Jesus has the keys. Jesus has the authority. Jesus has the authority of under this world. He has the authority of the entire universe, and we see Him enact this authority as He's taking the scroll, the title deed to this whole universe, which includes under the earth. And He, in His righteousness, is enacting this judgment coming on the whole world, and it is for the purpose to glorify the Father, to come in and usher in everlasting righteousness so that we can live and reign with Him for 1,000 years. And then at the very end, Jesus is going to roll this whole universe up, recreate this universe, and He's going to hand everything over to the Father. And the Father is going to come and dwell with us on this newly created world. So this is just one of the pieces to that point. And so these are necessary steps, necessary steps of expelling evil out of this world. And you can see as we go through, they are necessary steps, but they're hard. They're very dark and surprising even. So those are the things that I've been seeing, seeing what God is doing here at this judgment.
So let's start with reading just the first six verses. My goal is to get through all the verses this week in chapter 9. Let's just start with the first six verses, and that'll kind of whet our appetite a little bit about what is going on. So in verse 1, chapter 9, he starts. He says, Then the fifth angel sounded, And that's the first woe, right? So, and I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death, and they will not find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
Those are pretty heavy words when you really meditate on this and you see what is actually going on here. And my first question when I started studying this was the question, why? Why is he unleashing hell on earth? And you know, whenever I read commentators and I have my favorite people I like to listen to, and they kind of brush by the why. And they go right into the what, are these things? And we're going to get to that. But I think a more important question is, why is Jesus unleashing these demons, these demonic things, these beings from the bottomless pit? They're in that pit for a reason. Why is God letting them out? And so as I was pondering that, And I was praying, meditating on these things, and God told me, He says, I'm giving them their desire. I'm giving them over to their evil desire. These people of the earth, the inhabitants of the world, those who love this world, they love darkness, they love evil, they love the dark, and they hate God. And He says, I'm giving them over to their evil desires. And that is what wrath is. That is part of wrath. Wrath can be God simply just giving man over to his desire. And so the best example of that is in Romans chapter 1.
Let me just read that to you. You can flip over there. Romans chapter 1, let's just see what Paul says about this wrath on unbelievers. So Romans chapter 1, notice what it says in verse 18. So he says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So notice those words. The wrath of God is being revealed and it's coming against these ungodly people. Why? Because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Verse 19, Because what may be known of God, it's manifested in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. So here, just the creation alone is enough, it's enough light to get them to start seeking God and start groping for God so that they might find God. And so then as you go down in verse 24, notice the judgment that's coming against them. This is the wrath. He says, verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. So notice what the wrath of God is being revealed. It's being revealed in this judgment, but it's being revealed as he's giving them over to their uncleanness, giving them over to the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies. They want to do this, right? They are the people that they love what it says in verse 25. They've exchanged the truth of God. God for the lie. And they've worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So that's the first step. I mean, and how many times, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, that the earth dwellers, they love this world and they even treat this world as their God. That was actually last week we talked about that. And so that's one thing that God is doing, is He is making sure that everyone knows that He is God and that it's not this creation that is God, that it's just the Creator and that they should be worshipping the creation, they should be worshiping the Creator. So that's the first step.
Now, notice it keeps going, verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. So this is the next thing, that as they reject God and they start worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, then now God keeps giving them over to their passions. And here, God gives them up to vile passions. For even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another. Men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. That's wrath. Wrath is just God giving them over to what they desire. And of course, we're seeing that even today. I mean, more and more today it is becoming, it is infiltrating into our world. So then it goes on in verse 28. He says, and even they did not, as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, and the list goes on and on for several verses. And then look at verse 32.
He says, who, these people, these unrighteous people, these ungodly people who love the darkness, those people, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. Those people that are doing it, they won't admit it, but they know that the things that they're doing are deserving of death. And actually they want death. They want this hell. They want this evil. They want the darkness. And notice what it says. Not only do they do the same, but they also approve of those who practice them. These are the people that are the inhabitants of the earth, the earth dwellers. They love the darkness rather than light because they don't want their evil deeds exposed. They love doing these evil deeds. Even though they know that there's righteous punishment coming to them, they still, they reject it, right? They're without excuse. They know that God exists, but they suppress the truth and they put them away because they want to make themselves God instead. So these are the inhabitants of the world that judgment is coming on.
And there we see an example that wrath is God giving them over to their evil desires. This is what they want. You know, and it's October and it seems like every year, October, Halloween starts earlier and earlier, right? I mean, people start setting up their stuff in the yard. I mean, we take our dog for a walk and we can't walk, you know, three houses before we see this huge demonic monster, you know, staring down at us. I mean, these people, the world loves darkness. And so here chapter 9 is God truly giving them what they want. God is giving them their desire. In fact, in verse, in chapter 9, if you flip back there, Chapter 9, notice in verse 20, I think this tells us a lot. In verse 20 it says, But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone. Notice that. They reject God and they love worshiping demons. They love worshiping these dark, terrible things that are held captive in the bottomless pit.
And so I think what's happening is God says, you're worshiping these things. You want to worship these? I'm going to let them loose and you can see what you're worshiping. You can see what you desire. And so God is giving them over to their desires. So really dark things, but we can see from Scripture that this is what God, this is part of His wrath. This is what He's doing. He's giving them over. Now, not with, He would never give somebody over unless they've already been completely gone, hardened their heart themselves, right? He knows their heart. And so He's not giving them over to their evil desires. until he knows that they've truly rejected. Notice at the end, the rest of mankind, they did not repent. So the things that are coming on this world, he's not doing this so that they might repent. He's doing it, giving them over to their debased mind, almost hardening their hearts in this, just like he did with Pharaoh.
Now an example of this, again, just because I think this understanding the why is important here. And so in Numbers chapter 11, we actually see God do this right at the very beginning at the Exodus. So in Numbers chapter 11, he says a couple of things, and I won't read too much of this. But just to give you a flavor of what I think is the mindset of God as He's doing this. In chapter 11 of Numbers, we pick up where we see the children of Israel had gone through the Exodus. God had brought them through the Red Sea, provided manna for them, provided the living water from the rock. He had provided the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and was moving with them, right? Providing for them. And yet the people of Israel, the children of Israel, they started having this yearning desire to go back to Egypt because they did not believe in God. And in verse 4 of chapter 11, he says, now the mixed multitude who were among them, they yielded to intense craving. So the children of Israel also wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic, but now our whole being is dried up. There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes. They are so They're hating God. God is providing angels food, food from heaven, and yet they're despising God because of that. And so it says that they've yielded to the intense cravings.
And as they go on, as the story goes on, it says this. God says, okay, well, he pulls Moses aside. He says, okay, I'm going to give them their desire. So you look at verse 18. It says, then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat. So he says, you want meat? You don't like the bread that I've been giving you? You don't like the provision? Well, I'll go ahead and give you your desires. So he says, tomorrow you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying, who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt. Therefore the the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat not one day or two, nor five, nor 10, nor even 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. I mean, he's like, okay, you want meat? I'm going to give it to you. You're going to have it in abundance because you have despised the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever come out of Egypt? And so then you glance over to verse 33 and it says, and while he brings the quail in, right, he does exactly what he says. And it says, but while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people. Notice how God, Moses, writes this and it says, what him giving them over to what they want is wrath. that the wrath of God was aroused against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague because they had yielded to their craving.
Now in Psalm 78, the book of Asaph, I love Asaph's Psalms. I mean, David's Psalms are amazing. All the Psalms are amazing. I love reading the Psalms of Asaph. He's so real. And here he tells us another thing. He tells us in 7822, He says, because they did not believe in God and they did not trust in his salvation, yet he commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven and had rained down manna on them to eat and he had given them the bread of heaven. Men ate angels' food and he sent them food to the fool. But then he goes on and he says they weren't happy because they did not believe in God. So then it says, it goes on, he sent the fowl from the east and it says, so they ate and they were filled. For He gave them their own desire. They were not depraved of their craving, but while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them. So again, there's another witness that Asaph tells us that it's the wrath of God that was pouring out as he gave them their desire. You know what it says? For he gave them their own desire and they were not deprived of their craving. So you have the world and they're craving evil. They're craving these demons. They're craving darkness. And so God unleashes darkness on the earth.
And you might say, well, how can he do that? Does he have power to do that? Well, what did I just quote to you, He's Lord over everything, even under the earth, and He has the gates, the keys to the gates of hell. He has the keys to hell itself. He's the judge to decide who goes to hell and who gets released from hell. You know, after He rose from the dead, on His way up, and on that third day, He grabbed those that were in Abraham's bosom. He grabbed Moses and Abraham and David and all the great saints of the Old Testament who were held in Abraham's bosom. And he rescued them and he rescued those who were captive and he brought them up out of the pit of hell, out of Hades. And so here he has the right to say who's going to Hades and who will not go to Hades. He has the key. And those who do not go to Hades are the ones who believe in Jesus Christ. Amen. The ones who believe that He is the Savior. The ones who believe. Here it says they did not believe in God and they did not trust in His salvation. So wrath came on them. But we believe in God. We trust in His salvation. Therefore, when we die, we go to be with Him forevermore in heaven and eventually they come back down to this earth.
So that is the why. And I hope that helps you. It surely helped me whenever God started revealing that to me, that this is why God is unleashing hell on earth. And so as we go, let's just start understanding this. And we're just going to clip through these verses. And now let's start looking at where these things are coming from. So looking at verse 1 again, it says, then the 5th angel sounded. And of course, remember, this is the first woe to the inhabitants of the earth. And it says, and the 5th angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven. heaven to the earth. So you might be thinking this, and this might be a question, is, well, you keep talking about hell and Hades, but here, you know, he's talking about the bottomless pit. So why is that? So where is the bottomless pit and what is the bottomless pit?
Now, I think it's important for us to understand that because this word bottomless pit comes up several times in the book of Revelation. We see it come up again in chapter 11, verse 7. When we see about the two witnesses and they're being killed, this is at the middle of the week, the three and a half year mark, and it says this, when they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out from the bottomless pit will make war against them and overcome those two witnesses. that beast, that demonic spirit is coming out from the bottomless pit and it's going to possess the Antichrist. So that's why it gets so evil and so dark and he breaks the covenant with Israel at the middle point of the tribulation week because there's a demon that gets released out of the bottomless pit and it goes in and possesses the Antichrist. Now we see it again, the bottomless pit comes up all the way at the very end of Revelation in Revelation 20, We see this again when an angel comes down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who was the devil and Satan. The Holy Spirit wants us to know who he's binding. He's binding Satan. He's binding the devil. He's binding this serpent, this a dragon, right? So here he's binding, this angel is binding him and bound him for 1000 years and he cast him into the bottomless pit and he shut him up and he set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. So again, those are the instances that we see the bottomless pit come up in our study of the Book of Revelation.
And so I think it's important for us to know what is the bottomless pit and who has access to it and all those things. as we read, if we just look back at this verse 1 of chapter 9, we see that there's this star fallen from heaven and he's given the key to the bottomless pit. So this star, again, I think this is an angel. A lot of times stars, they could just be stars or meteors, but other times we see that stars are angels. Well, here, this star, I believe, is an angel. Why? Because it's actually given authority, right? It's given this key to open the bottomless pit. He's got an assignment. So I think this for sure is an angel. Now, some people say that this is a fallen angel. But again, like I said last week, I just cannot picture God giving a fallen angel the keys to hell, the keys to Hades. I just cannot picture that. Yes, he uses angels for as dishonorable vessels. He uses fallen angels in that purpose. We're actually going to see some of that at the four angels bound at the River Euphrates. Those are fallen angels, and he's using them for dishonorable purposes, right? or to dishonorable vessels for his purposes, I should say. So here though, this I believe is a good angel. And some people say this is Satan himself, that it's the Satan's fallen from heaven. Whenever Jesus said, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, right? Well, This is not a fallen angel. I just don't see that in my heart. So he's given this key to the bottomless pit. Now, you might ask, where is the bottomless pit? Where is this located? Well, notice, where's the angel going? It says he fell from heaven, and where did he go? Into maybe outer space somewhere or something? No, he went into the earth. And that Greek word is eis, which means into. So He fell from heaven and He actually went into the earth. So that's where Hades is. Hades is under the earth.
You remember whenever Jesus, He said, The only sign I'm going to give you is the sign of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. the heart of the earth. And Jesus went to Hades. So Hades is in the heart of the earth.
Question: Do you think the outer darkness and this that you're talking about?...
That's a good question. What is the outer darkness? Honestly, I don't know if that's Hades. I don't think it is. I think that's something different. Yeah, it's something different. It's outside the kingdom.
Question: But it's a part of hell, right?
I don't I don't think so. We could study a whole week or a whole day on what is hell, and what are all the different things. I don't think the outer darkness, we're weeping and gnashing of teeth. I think that more relates to the lake of fire, in my opinion.
Question: A place, Hades? Yes. But if it's hell, because those people that are there that didn't believe in Jesus Christ, they will never see him again. Right?
That's right. Yeah, that is right. Yeah. So whenever we're reading the Bible, especially in our English Bible, the word hell comes up a lot. And a lot of times we think of hell as like the lake of fire, right? That just like you said, the outer darkness, the lake of fire where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth for all eternity. That actually isn't truly hell. That's the lake of fire. Hades is going to be thrown into the lake of fire. So that is different. So as we say hell, so Hades is, or Sheol, is actually the place of the dead. It's a holding place where rebellious spirits are being held until the judgment. So that is Hades. Now as I read the Bible and as I ponder this, I see that it seems like there's different levels of Hades or different levels of this place of the dead. You have, and I kind of picture this, you have Hades, which is Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in the Greek, the place of the dead. That's on top here. And I'm just describing this two-dimensionally. Even though Hades is in the earth, it still has supernatural qualities, I think. So you have, because they hold spirits. So you have Hades and Sheol, And then it kind of funnels down. I picture it kind of funneling down, and you go further deeper, and there's this thing called the abusos, which is the deep. As you look at the Old Testament, particularly it comes up a lot in the Old Testament, called the abusos, or the deep. Now, the bottomless pit in Greek is the pit of the abusos. So the bottomless pit is not the abyss. The bottomless pit is the pit of the abusos. The pit of of the abyss. So you have Hades and Sheol, the place of the dead. Then I think a little bit deeper and darker you have the abyss. Then at the bottom you have this, like I picture like a funnel and then the shaft. And then you have this holding place, this special compartment in Hades that is the pit of the abusos, the bottomless pit, the pit of the abusos. And that's where I kind of picture that. Now in Job, Job 41, it also references to this place where, you know, the place of these wicked spirits, and it is called Tartarus of the Abusos. So you have, you've heard of Tartarus, right? So in Job, he specifically says, Tartarus of the Abusos, Tartarus of the Abyss, and you have the Pit of the Abyss. In my mind, I think those are the same. I think Tartarus is at the very bottom in the darkest place of Hades in the bottomless pit. I think either The Tartarus is a compartment in the bottomless pit, or it is the same as the bottomless pit, because they are either the pit of the Abusos or the Tartarus of the Abusos. Are you following me? So you kind of picture this funnel. And in the Greek, that word for pit is actually shaft or well. So I kind of picture this funnel where you have Hades and Sheol and where all the unbelieving souls go into that holding place. And then it funnels down more and you have the abusos, the deep, which is just a little bit darker. And then you come down this shaft to the pit of the abusos. And that is where these demons are being released. That is where this angel is unlocking that special compartment. Yeah, Laura. So where in all of this is the wisdom of Abraham? So that's a good question. So up here in the Hades in Sheol, According to Luke 16, we see that there's a great chasm, and I kind of picture this, and again, this is just my two-dimensional, three-dimensional mind, but you have on one side, you have the place of the unrighteous, and then on the other side, you have those who are the righteous, but they're dead. But they're in Hades, but they can't go to heaven because Jesus Christ hasn't defeated death yet. So you have a great chasm, and you have, on one side, you have the place of the dead that's unrighteous, And then on the other side, you have the place of the righteous dead, Abraham and those guys. That's why they call it Abraham's bosom. That other place is vacant. Nobody goes there anymore if you believe in Jesus. Because that was emptied whenever Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That's the way I believe it. Yeah, Victoria.
Question: Where is hell?
So, the Hades, this place that we're describing, I believe it's at the center of the earth. It's under the earth. It's in the heart of the earth. And so, you know, you think about, we don't have a clue what's... under the earth. I mean, the earth is something like 8,000 miles diameter. The furthest we've actually drilled, anybody's ever drilled, is like 40,000 feet. So 6 or 7 miles. We've just barely cracked the surface. And this thing is like 4,000 miles to the center. So we have no idea what is in the heart of the earth. And the Bible tells us this is where Hades is. Hades is in the heart of the earth. So, and that's hell. That's what we would call hell, but not the lake of fire, but this place of the dead. And then the bottomless pit is down at the darkest place of that. S
o as we go and we see, okay, this angel, he comes down from heaven, he comes into the earth, and he comes to the pit of the abusos, the bottomless pit, the pit of the abusos. And notice what he does at verse 2. He says, and he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. I think about the smoke. Here we are in Colorado, and sometimes we can smell the smoke from forest fires burning in California or something. And it's hard to see sometimes, and you can't see the sun sometimes. And that's just smoke from a forest fire. Whenever you have hell, and especially the darkest place of hell, belching out smoke, I can't imagine the darkness that that would entail. So here, in the bottomless pit, there's smoke that arises out of the pit.
Oh, and one other thing, let me just mention something. So these demon-type things are coming out of the bottomless pit. Well, the Bible tells us a little bit about who is in the bottomless pit right now. Who is held in the Tartarus of the Abusos? And we find that it is the fallen angels who sinned from Genesis chapter 6. Those fallen angels who had relations with women, it tells us in 2 Peter, and I'll just read it to you, 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 4, he says this, is where these angels are that had sex with women and created the giants and the Nephilim and all that. They were abominations and God punished them. And it says in verse 2, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell. Now that word hell is the word Tartarus. So that's what we're talking about. I believe that's the place that we're talking about. He cast them down to this pit of the Abusos or the Tartarus of the Abusos and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. Right? So that's where they are now. So you talk about this bottomless pit. There's dark things in this bottomless pit. You know, Jude, he again tells us something very similar in Jude 6. He says, And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but they left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. And if you overlay that with 2 Peter, we see that those same angels who left their proper domain, they actually left who they were supposed to be and they somehow morphed themselves into human being and had sex with women and created an abomination that we're still dealing with today. And so here we see that they are, those angels, not all fallen angels, but the angels that sinned in Genesis 6 are locked up in Tartarus, in the bottomless pit.
So that just gives us a little bit about what this place is. And I just want to mention this because it's really fun. Jesus, did you know that whenever he went to Hades, he didn't go there to suffer. He went there to proclaim victory. So he went there to capture those who were captive and clear out Abraham's bosom. But he also, it tells us, That's in First Peter. He tells us in First Peter that he actually went and he preached to the saints, or I'm sorry, he preached to the spirits that were in prison. Let me just read that. First Peter, there it is. First Peter chapter 3. So for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but He was made alive by the Spirit. By whom, by the Spirit, He also went and He preached to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is 8 souls, were saved through water. Those no doubt, those spirits that He preached to, they were no doubt these ones who were formerly disobedient during the days of Noah, and they were the one, they were the angels of Genesis 6. And so Jesus goes down into the bottomless pit. Why? They're not going to be saved. He's not preaching the gospel to them. He's proclaiming victory over them. He is saying, I am Lord, I am King, and you guys really messed up. He is proclaiming victory over those spirits and he's triumphing. I mean, in Colossians it says he triumphed over them in victory, right? He made an open show of them. He made an open display of them. And so I believe that's what's happening. That was happening there. So this is that place though. So Jesus is Lord of this place. He is Lord and he has the keys to this place and he's giving it to these angels or to this one angel to unlock.
Okay, so let's keep reading here.
Question: In your time of meditating and conjecture and all that you do, have you sketched a funnel and placed all this stuff? I did sketch a funnel and that's actually where God stopped me. Honestly, I started really diving in deep and Gail honestly knows a lot of this stuff and I don't know nearly what she knows about this stuff and so I was talking to her and God cut me off and he says, Nope, I don't want you going there. He says, I don't want you, you So we're not going to go deeper than what I've already given you. Because this is dark. This is very dark stuff. And I tell you, man, I was kind of in bad shape on Wednesday night. Remember that, Shayna? And I just wasn't doing well, you know? And so, but Thursday morning, it was so great. God just brought me, told me to take a walk with him around the lake. And so, which I never do. I don't go for walks by myself, you know? But I was with Jesus, so that was good. But again, he just told me this is what he wants me to teach. So this is what we're doing. We're just going through these verses, and this is what he showed me, and he told me not to go any deeper than that.
So here, let's just see. So the smoke arises as hell is belching out this grime, and then notice what comes out with that. It says, then, verse three, then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So as we understand what these things are, these are not like any scorpions we ever see, right? Locusts, they eat foliage, they eat green things, but they're commanded not to. So here we find that they're discerning. They have a way to discern things. They won't hurt any green thing, but they're only commanded to hurt those who don't have the seal of God on their foreheads. Now an interesting thing is remember the first trumpet, the vegetation was hit and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up, right? So now we see that it's obviously been some time because grass grows back and we see there's grass here, so he tells them, don't eat the grass. And the trees that are left, there's two-thirds of the trees don't affect the trees. So we can kind of see the timeline there. Okay, then these locusts, they're coming up, but they're not like any locust we ever have seen. They were given authority. That word power is escusia, it means authority. So they were given authority, and it says, as scorpions of the earth have this authority. And so now there are these like demonic locust slash scorpion things that are flying around, right? And they're given a command to only hurt those that do not have the seal of God on their forehead. So who are those people? Well, we know back from Revelation chapter 7 that these are the 144,000 that were sealed on their forehead. So Notice this. is very interesting. Here we see that everybody on the planet is going to be affected by these demonic locust scorpions, except for those 144,000 who have been sealed. And I would also say that the two witnesses, they have power that if anybody tries to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth. So they're probably somehow divinely sealed as well. So the two witnesses and the 144,000 witnesses have been kind of protected through all this wrath and all this stuff going on. But we've seen that Christians on this time, during this time, myriads upon myriads of Christians have died for their faith, they've come to Christ, they've died and they've come up to the altar. And in fact, that's why God is releasing these, this is vengeance because of the prayers of the saints, right? They're gathered around the altar.
So as I was thinking about this, I was like, well, what about the Christians that are alive during this time? The Christians that are not sealed, other than the 144,000, are they getting attacked by these demonic beings? And I just can't picture God doing that. I cannot picture God sending these demons from hell to attack believers. Because his judgments aren't coming on believers. Now, believers are being affected, like whenever you go through the wars and the famines and all those things, they are being affected indirectly, but I don't believe they're being affected directly from God's wrath. So I just cannot picture God allowing these demons to attack Christians. So there's two possibilities here. One is that those that are sealed on their forehead are not being affected. And then also we know that every Christian is sealed spiritually by the Holy Spirit. We know that. And so I think that could be a possibility, that any Christian that is on the earth, either whether they've got a seal on their forehead or have been sealed in their heart by the Holy Spirit, they're protected that way. So that's one conjecture and that's very possible.
The other one is that there may not be any Christians on the earth at this particular time other than the 144,000. That's one other possibility. And the reason I say that is because remember it says, back up here, woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth. So these are coming on the inhabitants of the earth. But that could go, you know, these judgments are truly coming on the inhabitants of the earth and not the Christians. But then you flip over, and we already read this, verse 20, it says, but the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent. The rest of mankind. It doesn't say the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. It says truly the rest of mankind who were not killed. And that word, rest of mankind, it's human beings. It's hoi anthropoi. It's human beings. So That kind of tells me that there is, maybe there is no Christians beside the 144,000 on the planet at this particular time. Now we know in the future, we know that there are Christians that do come to faith, because in Revelation 14:12, it says, here is the patience of the saints. This is after the middle of the week, and this is much, this is later, this is probably a year later. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Write, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' So there is just one example that we know there are Christians that come to faith after this. So here, but in this particular point, there may not be Christians alive on the earth. Because I think if, you know, I like to take the text as literally as I can, and whenever it says that, you know, that only the ones who were sealed on their foreheads are exempt, It doesn't say, you know, we're reading into the scriptures to say that those who are sealed by the Spirit are exempt. So, but I don't have a problem with that because I don't believe God is attacking Christians here, but it's just something to throw out. You guys make the decision.
Question: Do you think it could be like the Passover where if you put, you know, that's the seal, if there are any Christians left?
Yeah. Possibly there could be something that, you have the 144,000 sealed on their forehead. Yeah, they put something on their forehead and it could be, or God just knows who they are, but yes, it's probably, it could be something like that. Yeah. So you have to decide, is this a time that's so dark on the earth that there's just no Christians on the earth? But then eventually they do. It says that they did not repent. Well, that's a aorist indicative, meaning at that time, that's a snapshot in time that they did not repent. So maybe later there were some, obviously some will repent and come to faith. At this point the Jews are still not coming around. I mean, I'm sure there's some Messianic Jews. coming, but as a whole, the nation isn't. So there's a whole other thing. So there's a lot of Christians still yet to be had. But this particular time, just an interesting thing to throw out there.
Okay, so then we keep going. And they were not given authority to kill them. So now he says, you know, you can attack these people who aren't sealed. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days, men will seek death, they will not find it, they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. I mean, you talk about that torment. I can't even imagine that. I mean, these people are getting stung. I mean, I read a little bit about what it is to be stung by a scorpion. You know, it attacks the nervous system. People actually are falling down, foaming at the mouth. It's terrible, excruciating pain. It attacks the nervous system. So here, these things are tormenting people for five months. So that kind of gives us a clue, too, on how long these trumpets are going on. We see that green grass has come back. Now they're given the authority to torment for five months. So these probably, these last few trumpets are probably going on and they're going to bring us up to the middle of the week. It's been about a year, a year and a half is what's going to happen here. Okay, so now that last, verse 6, it says, in those days men will seek death and they will not find it. They're going to want to die, they're going to desire to die and death will flee away from them. You know, I just think, how is that even possible? If you really wanted to kill yourself, I mean, you'd think you'd be able to, but as I was pondering that again, I was thinking, you know, we've been talking about the tribulation martyrs and how death, God is granting them death as a means of escape to escape this evil world. We've mentioned that a few times. Here, you can see the exact opposite. God, He said, I have the keys of Hades and death. Evidently, He has this authority over death. even to the point where he's not allowing these people to die for five months. And again, this is wrathful judgment. So in some way, he's not allowing them to die. I can't even get my head around that, but that's what the text says. in his divine providence, right?
Question: I can see it. I can see it so bad. You're crawling around the ground, you can't even get to the bridge.
Right, well, yeah, that's the thing. They're probably, they're in so much pain, they might not even be able to function. Right, exactly. You can imagine the whole earth is shut down at this point. For 5 months, nobody can do anything. They're incapacitated. Okay, so now we go on verse 7, it describes these things. It says, the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for battle. So that means that they were organized, right? On their heads were crowns. And it's interesting, that word crown is actually Stephana's crown, it's a victor's crown. So we know that as Christians, that's our reward. Well, these guys are given a victor's crown. So, you know, John is seeing something very bizarre here and he's seeing that they've been given authority, they've been given victory. And their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair. Their teeth were like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for five months, and they had a king over them. The angel of the bottomless pit, and I believe this is a fallen angel. I think this is an angel that came up out of that place, probably. His name is Abaddon in Hebrew, but in Greek, he has the name Apollyon, which means destroyer. So here we have these bad demons. These demons are coming out. Also this fallen angel who is evidently their king, and he's the one organizing them. And truly, hell is being unleashed on the earth at this particular time.
So the little bit we know about demons, Demons are different than fallen angels, and I don't want to go down that road. But we know that demons have to have a body to inhabit. They can't materialize. Demons, from what we can tell from Scripture, they always are seeking a body to possess. So it's weird because these demons are in physical shape. I believe John is seeing this. These are actual literal things. These are not helicopters that John is seeing. He doesn't know what it is, so he's describing it like this. These aren't tanks. These aren't war machines. These, I believe he's seeing something, some demonic creature like this. So the question is, how did these demons get a physical form? And I don't really have a good answer. I'm going to throw out a couple of suggestions. One is that these could be some form of a cross-species thing that people are trying to fool around with right now, and they're trying to breed things together, and it's even got a face of a man. I mean, they're trying to do this weird stuff right now, right? So is it possible that China has these weird things that they're making, and then now this is the perfect thing for the demons to possess? That's one option. Don't know. I mean, it could be.
The other thing is that these things are locked up in the bottomless pit. Could these be some type of an abomination like the Nephilim that angels were messing around with and God was like, that's enough and he banished them to the bottomless pit? Could be something like that because they're coming out of the bottomless pit. So something like that. These aren't just demons. They are demons plus, right? They've got some physical attributes here. And so here we've got the, and they're led by this fallen angel named the Destroyer. Now in Psalm 78, it's very interesting. I'll just flip over there so I can read it. Psalm 78, he says something as I was reading that Psalm. Psalm 78, at the very end, I want to read this to you because I think it's interesting. It fits right in here. It says here in Psalm 78, verse 49, it says, he cast on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble by sending angels of destruction among them. So evidently God will send angels of destruction, whether they're good angels or fallen angels. It's a combination of both. Here he's using a fallen angel and his name truly is destruction.
So that's the first one. That's the first woe. Let's go on to the next one. So one woe is passed. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Now you remember the woe, the three woes is the 5th, 6th, and 7th trumpet, right? So we just saw the 5th trumpet. Now we're going to look at the 6th trumpet and that'll close out the chapter. It says, then the 6th angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. Now remember, the golden altar, that's the altar of incense. That's where the prayers of the saints are. That's where the tribulation martyrs are standing around. And so again, he reminds us that this is all in response to the prayers of vengeance for our blood, right? So then verse 14, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. So I'll stop there. So here we see that there's four angels. Now I believe these are fallen angels who have been bound at the river Euphrates. They're not in Tartarus. They're bound here at Euphrates. And they aren't the angels of the fallen angels of Genesis 6, but they are fallen angels who have been bound. And the wording tells us that. You know, they were bound and then they were released. Those words in Greek show that they're bound in chains. They're definitely not of free will. And they're bound at the great river Euphrates.
Now, as you go through and you look at Euphrates, you see that Euphrates is interesting because Euphrates was actually the furthest That was the eastern boundary of Israel. Whenever God gave Israel's land to them, the Euphrates River was the eastern boundary of that. Right now it's much smaller, right? But that's exactly, that was the promised land that God had given him. But on the east side of the Euphrates, there has always been demonic activity around there. You know, the Garden of Eden was somewhere around that Euphrates area, and we know that was where sin started. We also know that whenever Nimrod started building his kingdom. The Tower of Babel was very close by here. We know that Babylon was built on the banks of the Euphrates. So this whole area of Euphrates has always been a place of demonic activity. And here fallen angels are bound. So God has bound them at this place. And notice what we see come once these fallen angels are released. It says in verse 16. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was 200 million, and I heard the number of them. So I had to read that several times. I'm like, wait, four angels just got released, and now all of a sudden we have an army of 200 million? Where did these guys come from? And it doesn't say, it doesn't say that they came out of the bottomless pit. I think maybe they did. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out where did these guys come from? Because I think these are also demons. This is a demonic horde of another creature that we're going to see.
I don't think that this is a human army. A lot of people have said, well, this is China's army coming from the east. I think China might have something to do with it, but I don't think it's that. I don't think this is a Chinese army. This is something that is far darker, far deeper. And so I think these are obviously demons, much like the demon locusts and scorpions that we saw. They could be coming out from the bottomless pit. We don't know exactly. But we see that they've been given the authority, they were released, right? Notice those words here back to 15. The 4 angels, they had been prepared for the hour, day, and month, and they were released to kill 1/3 of mankind. So I don't know how long they've been bound there, but a long time, thousands and thousands of years, and yet God had a plan for them. This is an example of God using these things as dishonorable vessels to perform his purposes. He's again unleashing these terrible things on the earth and they're going to just ravage. You know, he's not, God is not killing people. He's just releasing these angels like rabid dogs and they're going over the whole world and they're going to kill. They're destroying. And that's what, so he just releases them. And so they have been prepared for this day. Again, God's plan, His providence is all coming together here. So this army was 200 million.
Now notice this army, they describe it. says, verse 17, And thus I saw the horses in the vision. Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. So they're evidently dressed in some type of uniform garb. And the head of the horses were like lions, like the head of lions. And out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. Right, that's not like anything we've ever seen, right? These are horses, they have the head of lions, they're breathing fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone. Those three plagues is killing a third of mankind, which came out of their mouths, for their power is in their mouth, and their tails, for their tails are like serpents having heads, and with them they do harm. So you've got this horse with the head of a lion breathing fire, and this horse has a tail like a serpent with heads, multiple-headed serpent, and it's creating devastation, blowing out fire, brimstone, and smoke, and it's killing a third of mankind.
So here, I mean, we do the math, and Monrad actually helped me with this a little bit last week. Whenever you do a third, so here we've seen that a quarter of the men have died, a quarter of people have died on the earth. If that happened now, there would be about 2 billion people, right? Because there's about 8 billion people now. That brings us down to 6 billion people then are on the earth. I'm sure through all the devastation, many, many other millions of people have died. We just don't really know the number. But now it says that 1/3 of mankind, so 1/3 of of the 6 billion people who were left, that would be two more billion. They've now died. So now you've got half of the population of the earth has now died up to this point, and probably more than half, because there's also millions upon millions who have died in other instances as well. So great devastation coming on the earth. Half of the world's population has died. And that doesn't even count the millions upon millions of Christians who have died either, right? So there's much destruction going on.
Now I want to bring you over to Joel and Joel chapter 2. Let me just read this from Joel because Joel actually describes this maybe this horde of demon horses that are coming about. And so in Joel chapter 2, notice what it says here. So Joel chapter 2, let me just read this. And it says in verse one, and we'll just kind of read down, it says, yeah, blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand. It's a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like morning clouds spread over the mountains. And so, of course, we're seeing that right now. he starts describing this army that's coming in. It says, a people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them. Right? These things have head of lions and they're blowing fire. So a fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. So they're leaving nothing unhurt. surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of a horse, of horses. And like stiff swedes, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. Before them, the people writhe in pain. Right? I mean, we've just been seeing that. They've been writhing in pain from the previous judgment. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. We've been seeing that, right? The Lord gives voice before His army. Interesting how it calls it His army, right? Nebuchadnezzar was called his servant. So these obviously are dishonorable vessels. They're forces of the Lord that he's using. His camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes his word, for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible, and who can endure it?
I don't know, but that sounds a lot like what's being described right here, that this is this, these are those, this demonic horde going through, and of course God is giving them the authority to do this. So then we wrap up the last two verses and it says in verse 20, we already read it, says, but the rest of mankind, which this is just shocking, after all this, men's hearts are so hard, that the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, right? That's what's been released. God's like, here, you want to worship demons? I'm giving you what you worship. And idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, and they could neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent, right? Twice he said that, of their murders, of their sorceries, or of their sexual immorality, or of their thefts. Right? And you look at that list there. They didn't repent of worshiping these demons and these false idols. But again, he goes on, he says, they did not repent, verse 21, of their murders. Of course, they've been murdering Christians this whole way. Or their sorceries. That word sorcery comes from the word pharmakia, which is actually like a drug. They did not repent of these hallucinogen drugs and those types of things. Or their sexual immorality, you know, we read Romans 1, they're perverse, they're just running wild with all the things going on with sexual immorality. Or their thefts. And I was thinking of something, what does the thefts mean? And the thing that came to me, and I think is the biggest thing you can steal from somebody is the truth. And here you have these people that are lying and they're robbing people of the truth. And so it's not like they're just stealing each other. Nobody has anything. I mean, with the devastation coming on here, everything is getting wiped out. You know, yes, there's plundering and all that stuff, but I think the theft is probably... stealing light, stealing the truth, you know, just deceiving. Obviously there's deception going on because they aren't repenting. They know this is God and they still yet will not repent. Shocking here.
Now I want to close like I was really praying about how do we close something like this? I don't want to end with that. And God brought me over to Micah chapter 5. So let's go over and read Micah chapter 5 real quick, just a few verses. Micah chapter 5, notice what he says. He says something very similar here. And again, I love the prophets, and I think the prophets just really help us explain what's going on here in Revelation. And so if you look at Micah chapter 5, and we see this, let's look at verse 12. So we see the purpose of the tribulation, and I'll let you guys find it. So Micah, Micah 5, and notice this what it says in verse 12. He says, and he's specifically talking to Jews, you have to remember, all this is coming on the Jew first and then to the rest of the world and then to the Gentile. But notice this, he kind of links it all together and it says this. In 512, he says, I will cut off sorceries from your hand. and you shall have no soothsayers. So that goes right to, they did not repent of these things. They did not repent of the sorceries. They did not repent of these worshiping these demons. He says, verse 13, your carved images I will also cut off. Right? And that goes back to the worshiping these idols of silver and gold and wood and stone. and your sacred pillars from your midst. You shall no more worship the work of your hands. I will pluck your wooden images from your midst. Thus I will destroy your cities, and I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations that have not obeyed. That word heard is actually the word obeyed. So I will execute this vengeance in anger and fury on all the nations that have not obeyed.
And we talked about this last week, right? What is the commandment? The commandment is to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. That is the commandment. And that's what he's saying. They have not obeyed that commandment. And so then glance over to verse 8 of chapter 6, and this is how we'll end. In verse 8 of chapter 6, he says this. He, that is God, has shown you, O man, what is good. And hasn't God done that? God has shown us His goodness. It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. It is God for the last, well, 6,000 years, it is God that has shown us His goodness. He says, He has shown you, oh man, what is good. Now I'll just add in. Now he's showing them what is evil, right? But he goes on and he says, and what does the Lord require of you? Or in the Greek Septuagint, it says, and what does the Lord seek out for you? What does he desire of you? What does the Lord want from you? This is what He wants. But to do justly, or a better translation might be, to commit to justice. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, right? That's what He wants us to do. Seek His righteousness, commit to His righteousness, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. He's bringing the high places low. That's what He's doing in the book of Revelation. That's what He's doing. And here, right now, He's telling us this is what He wants. He's showing us His goodness and all He wants to do. I love this. Notice the communion we have in this verse. He wants us to walk humbly with Him. Just submit yourself to Him. He's our God. He has all authority. We are our God. He wants us to humble to Him, and I love this, to walk with your God. Just to walk with our God. That's what He seeks. The Lord is wanting this. He wants us to walk with Him. Man, I love that.
So that's what we have the choice to make right now, is to choose to humble ourself to Him. He is God. He is the one who has all authority over death and hell, and He has all authority over everything. So humble yourself and walk with Him, and we can walk with Him for all eternity, amen? Praise God. Well, good. Well, let's give God praise. I love His Word. Even the dark things of this chapter, we can look and we can see hope in the midst of this darkness.
Let's go ahead and wrap up with prayer. Father, I thank you for this word. I thank you for helping me to get through this chapter. Father, I thank you for edifying us that we can understand just what are your methods, what's your means, what are you doing? And it all comes down to that, what we just read, that we would walk with you. That's your earnest desire, is that we would seek righteousness. love mercy and seek humility and walk with you. So that's our prayer to you. That we would, as we go into the world, that we would just see and have a heart for the lost, have a heart for these people who think they're their own God, but that we would, in this time, today is the day of salvation, that we would proclaim your justice, your righteousness, proclaim your love to those who hate you and for the chance that they may turn and repent and choose you. So Father, empower us to do that by your Holy Spirit and just give us that heart of love for you that we might yearn to walk with you in everlasting life. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Well, so we're in Revelation chapter 9, and we've been going through this study for, I think this is the 42nd lesson, so almost a year or so. And this now, as we venture into this chapter, we start to see a page turn. We start to see the darkness getting darker. And here in Revelation chapter 9, we ended last week with the three woes, right? Whenever the angel is crying from heaven and he says, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. And here in chapter 9, we are going to see two of those woes. We're going to see why they are, why is the angel proclaiming this woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. But I have good news for you because None of us here are the inhabitants of the earth. None of us here are earth dwellers. None of us here love this world. We are in this world, but we're not of this world. And so this, the woe, is not to us. The woe is to those who have rejected our Lord and Savior. And we're seeing, again, like I said, His faithful vengeance as He's coming. This is what He's promised. He's promised to usher in everlasting righteousness. And these are the ways He's doing that. And we see now as we get closer and closer, closer to the middle of the week and then after the middle of the tribulation week, we're seeing things ramp up. We're seeing the wrath escalate to a very intense level and a very, what I would even call it, a very dark level as we see this Revelation chapter 9.
So if you have your Bibles, open up with me to this chapter, Revelation chapter 9. Now, you remember, as all of us do, that after Jesus Christ, died and He rose from the dead, Paul tells us that He was highly exalted and He was given the name that was above every name, right? So that at that name, every knee would bow of those in heaven, those on earth, and even those under the earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. But whenever you read those words, you see that, yes, He is Lord, He's my Lord. He's our Lord. Those in heaven, of course. Those on earth who believe, of course. But what about those who are under the earth? Right? He is Lord, even for those who are under the earth. And so today we're actually going to be seeing some of these things that are actually under the earth. pretty dark things that we're seeing, but Jesus is Lord over all. Remember whatever He said in Revelation 1:18. He says, I am the living one. I am alive. I was dead and I'm alive forevermore. Amen. and I have the keys to Hades and death. So Jesus has the keys. Jesus has the authority. Jesus has the authority of under this world. He has the authority of the entire universe, and we see Him enact this authority as He's taking the scroll, the title deed to this whole universe, which includes under the earth. And He, in His righteousness, is enacting this judgment coming on the whole world, and it is for the purpose to glorify the Father, to come in and usher in everlasting righteousness so that we can live and reign with Him for 1,000 years. And then at the very end, Jesus is going to roll this whole universe up, recreate this universe, and He's going to hand everything over to the Father. And the Father is going to come and dwell with us on this newly created world. So this is just one of the pieces to that point. And so these are necessary steps, necessary steps of expelling evil out of this world. And you can see as we go through, they are necessary steps, but they're hard. They're very dark and surprising even. So those are the things that I've been seeing, seeing what God is doing here at this judgment.
So let's start with reading just the first six verses. My goal is to get through all the verses this week in chapter 9. Let's just start with the first six verses, and that'll kind of whet our appetite a little bit about what is going on. So in verse 1, chapter 9, he starts. He says, Then the fifth angel sounded, And that's the first woe, right? So, and I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death, and they will not find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
Those are pretty heavy words when you really meditate on this and you see what is actually going on here. And my first question when I started studying this was the question, why? Why is he unleashing hell on earth? And you know, whenever I read commentators and I have my favorite people I like to listen to, and they kind of brush by the why. And they go right into the what, are these things? And we're going to get to that. But I think a more important question is, why is Jesus unleashing these demons, these demonic things, these beings from the bottomless pit? They're in that pit for a reason. Why is God letting them out? And so as I was pondering that, And I was praying, meditating on these things, and God told me, He says, I'm giving them their desire. I'm giving them over to their evil desire. These people of the earth, the inhabitants of the world, those who love this world, they love darkness, they love evil, they love the dark, and they hate God. And He says, I'm giving them over to their evil desires. And that is what wrath is. That is part of wrath. Wrath can be God simply just giving man over to his desire. And so the best example of that is in Romans chapter 1.
Let me just read that to you. You can flip over there. Romans chapter 1, let's just see what Paul says about this wrath on unbelievers. So Romans chapter 1, notice what it says in verse 18. So he says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So notice those words. The wrath of God is being revealed and it's coming against these ungodly people. Why? Because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Verse 19, Because what may be known of God, it's manifested in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. So here, just the creation alone is enough, it's enough light to get them to start seeking God and start groping for God so that they might find God. And so then as you go down in verse 24, notice the judgment that's coming against them. This is the wrath. He says, verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. So notice what the wrath of God is being revealed. It's being revealed in this judgment, but it's being revealed as he's giving them over to their uncleanness, giving them over to the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies. They want to do this, right? They are the people that they love what it says in verse 25. They've exchanged the truth of God. God for the lie. And they've worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So that's the first step. I mean, and how many times, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, that the earth dwellers, they love this world and they even treat this world as their God. That was actually last week we talked about that. And so that's one thing that God is doing, is He is making sure that everyone knows that He is God and that it's not this creation that is God, that it's just the Creator and that they should be worshipping the creation, they should be worshiping the Creator. So that's the first step.
Now, notice it keeps going, verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. So this is the next thing, that as they reject God and they start worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, then now God keeps giving them over to their passions. And here, God gives them up to vile passions. For even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another. Men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. That's wrath. Wrath is just God giving them over to what they desire. And of course, we're seeing that even today. I mean, more and more today it is becoming, it is infiltrating into our world. So then it goes on in verse 28. He says, and even they did not, as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, and the list goes on and on for several verses. And then look at verse 32.
He says, who, these people, these unrighteous people, these ungodly people who love the darkness, those people, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. Those people that are doing it, they won't admit it, but they know that the things that they're doing are deserving of death. And actually they want death. They want this hell. They want this evil. They want the darkness. And notice what it says. Not only do they do the same, but they also approve of those who practice them. These are the people that are the inhabitants of the earth, the earth dwellers. They love the darkness rather than light because they don't want their evil deeds exposed. They love doing these evil deeds. Even though they know that there's righteous punishment coming to them, they still, they reject it, right? They're without excuse. They know that God exists, but they suppress the truth and they put them away because they want to make themselves God instead. So these are the inhabitants of the world that judgment is coming on.
And there we see an example that wrath is God giving them over to their evil desires. This is what they want. You know, and it's October and it seems like every year, October, Halloween starts earlier and earlier, right? I mean, people start setting up their stuff in the yard. I mean, we take our dog for a walk and we can't walk, you know, three houses before we see this huge demonic monster, you know, staring down at us. I mean, these people, the world loves darkness. And so here chapter 9 is God truly giving them what they want. God is giving them their desire. In fact, in verse, in chapter 9, if you flip back there, Chapter 9, notice in verse 20, I think this tells us a lot. In verse 20 it says, But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone. Notice that. They reject God and they love worshiping demons. They love worshiping these dark, terrible things that are held captive in the bottomless pit.
And so I think what's happening is God says, you're worshiping these things. You want to worship these? I'm going to let them loose and you can see what you're worshiping. You can see what you desire. And so God is giving them over to their desires. So really dark things, but we can see from Scripture that this is what God, this is part of His wrath. This is what He's doing. He's giving them over. Now, not with, He would never give somebody over unless they've already been completely gone, hardened their heart themselves, right? He knows their heart. And so He's not giving them over to their evil desires. until he knows that they've truly rejected. Notice at the end, the rest of mankind, they did not repent. So the things that are coming on this world, he's not doing this so that they might repent. He's doing it, giving them over to their debased mind, almost hardening their hearts in this, just like he did with Pharaoh.
Now an example of this, again, just because I think this understanding the why is important here. And so in Numbers chapter 11, we actually see God do this right at the very beginning at the Exodus. So in Numbers chapter 11, he says a couple of things, and I won't read too much of this. But just to give you a flavor of what I think is the mindset of God as He's doing this. In chapter 11 of Numbers, we pick up where we see the children of Israel had gone through the Exodus. God had brought them through the Red Sea, provided manna for them, provided the living water from the rock. He had provided the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and was moving with them, right? Providing for them. And yet the people of Israel, the children of Israel, they started having this yearning desire to go back to Egypt because they did not believe in God. And in verse 4 of chapter 11, he says, now the mixed multitude who were among them, they yielded to intense craving. So the children of Israel also wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic, but now our whole being is dried up. There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes. They are so They're hating God. God is providing angels food, food from heaven, and yet they're despising God because of that. And so it says that they've yielded to the intense cravings.
And as they go on, as the story goes on, it says this. God says, okay, well, he pulls Moses aside. He says, okay, I'm going to give them their desire. So you look at verse 18. It says, then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat. So he says, you want meat? You don't like the bread that I've been giving you? You don't like the provision? Well, I'll go ahead and give you your desires. So he says, tomorrow you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying, who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt. Therefore the the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat not one day or two, nor five, nor 10, nor even 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. I mean, he's like, okay, you want meat? I'm going to give it to you. You're going to have it in abundance because you have despised the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever come out of Egypt? And so then you glance over to verse 33 and it says, and while he brings the quail in, right, he does exactly what he says. And it says, but while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people. Notice how God, Moses, writes this and it says, what him giving them over to what they want is wrath. that the wrath of God was aroused against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague because they had yielded to their craving.
Now in Psalm 78, the book of Asaph, I love Asaph's Psalms. I mean, David's Psalms are amazing. All the Psalms are amazing. I love reading the Psalms of Asaph. He's so real. And here he tells us another thing. He tells us in 7822, He says, because they did not believe in God and they did not trust in his salvation, yet he commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven and had rained down manna on them to eat and he had given them the bread of heaven. Men ate angels' food and he sent them food to the fool. But then he goes on and he says they weren't happy because they did not believe in God. So then it says, it goes on, he sent the fowl from the east and it says, so they ate and they were filled. For He gave them their own desire. They were not depraved of their craving, but while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them. So again, there's another witness that Asaph tells us that it's the wrath of God that was pouring out as he gave them their desire. You know what it says? For he gave them their own desire and they were not deprived of their craving. So you have the world and they're craving evil. They're craving these demons. They're craving darkness. And so God unleashes darkness on the earth.
And you might say, well, how can he do that? Does he have power to do that? Well, what did I just quote to you, He's Lord over everything, even under the earth, and He has the gates, the keys to the gates of hell. He has the keys to hell itself. He's the judge to decide who goes to hell and who gets released from hell. You know, after He rose from the dead, on His way up, and on that third day, He grabbed those that were in Abraham's bosom. He grabbed Moses and Abraham and David and all the great saints of the Old Testament who were held in Abraham's bosom. And he rescued them and he rescued those who were captive and he brought them up out of the pit of hell, out of Hades. And so here he has the right to say who's going to Hades and who will not go to Hades. He has the key. And those who do not go to Hades are the ones who believe in Jesus Christ. Amen. The ones who believe that He is the Savior. The ones who believe. Here it says they did not believe in God and they did not trust in His salvation. So wrath came on them. But we believe in God. We trust in His salvation. Therefore, when we die, we go to be with Him forevermore in heaven and eventually they come back down to this earth.
So that is the why. And I hope that helps you. It surely helped me whenever God started revealing that to me, that this is why God is unleashing hell on earth. And so as we go, let's just start understanding this. And we're just going to clip through these verses. And now let's start looking at where these things are coming from. So looking at verse 1 again, it says, then the 5th angel sounded. And of course, remember, this is the first woe to the inhabitants of the earth. And it says, and the 5th angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven. heaven to the earth. So you might be thinking this, and this might be a question, is, well, you keep talking about hell and Hades, but here, you know, he's talking about the bottomless pit. So why is that? So where is the bottomless pit and what is the bottomless pit?
Now, I think it's important for us to understand that because this word bottomless pit comes up several times in the book of Revelation. We see it come up again in chapter 11, verse 7. When we see about the two witnesses and they're being killed, this is at the middle of the week, the three and a half year mark, and it says this, when they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out from the bottomless pit will make war against them and overcome those two witnesses. that beast, that demonic spirit is coming out from the bottomless pit and it's going to possess the Antichrist. So that's why it gets so evil and so dark and he breaks the covenant with Israel at the middle point of the tribulation week because there's a demon that gets released out of the bottomless pit and it goes in and possesses the Antichrist. Now we see it again, the bottomless pit comes up all the way at the very end of Revelation in Revelation 20, We see this again when an angel comes down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who was the devil and Satan. The Holy Spirit wants us to know who he's binding. He's binding Satan. He's binding the devil. He's binding this serpent, this a dragon, right? So here he's binding, this angel is binding him and bound him for 1000 years and he cast him into the bottomless pit and he shut him up and he set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. So again, those are the instances that we see the bottomless pit come up in our study of the Book of Revelation.
And so I think it's important for us to know what is the bottomless pit and who has access to it and all those things. as we read, if we just look back at this verse 1 of chapter 9, we see that there's this star fallen from heaven and he's given the key to the bottomless pit. So this star, again, I think this is an angel. A lot of times stars, they could just be stars or meteors, but other times we see that stars are angels. Well, here, this star, I believe, is an angel. Why? Because it's actually given authority, right? It's given this key to open the bottomless pit. He's got an assignment. So I think this for sure is an angel. Now, some people say that this is a fallen angel. But again, like I said last week, I just cannot picture God giving a fallen angel the keys to hell, the keys to Hades. I just cannot picture that. Yes, he uses angels for as dishonorable vessels. He uses fallen angels in that purpose. We're actually going to see some of that at the four angels bound at the River Euphrates. Those are fallen angels, and he's using them for dishonorable purposes, right? or to dishonorable vessels for his purposes, I should say. So here though, this I believe is a good angel. And some people say this is Satan himself, that it's the Satan's fallen from heaven. Whenever Jesus said, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, right? Well, This is not a fallen angel. I just don't see that in my heart. So he's given this key to the bottomless pit. Now, you might ask, where is the bottomless pit? Where is this located? Well, notice, where's the angel going? It says he fell from heaven, and where did he go? Into maybe outer space somewhere or something? No, he went into the earth. And that Greek word is eis, which means into. So He fell from heaven and He actually went into the earth. So that's where Hades is. Hades is under the earth.
You remember whenever Jesus, He said, The only sign I'm going to give you is the sign of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. the heart of the earth. And Jesus went to Hades. So Hades is in the heart of the earth.
Question: Do you think the outer darkness and this that you're talking about?...
That's a good question. What is the outer darkness? Honestly, I don't know if that's Hades. I don't think it is. I think that's something different. Yeah, it's something different. It's outside the kingdom.
Question: But it's a part of hell, right?
I don't I don't think so. We could study a whole week or a whole day on what is hell, and what are all the different things. I don't think the outer darkness, we're weeping and gnashing of teeth. I think that more relates to the lake of fire, in my opinion.
Question: A place, Hades? Yes. But if it's hell, because those people that are there that didn't believe in Jesus Christ, they will never see him again. Right?
That's right. Yeah, that is right. Yeah. So whenever we're reading the Bible, especially in our English Bible, the word hell comes up a lot. And a lot of times we think of hell as like the lake of fire, right? That just like you said, the outer darkness, the lake of fire where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth for all eternity. That actually isn't truly hell. That's the lake of fire. Hades is going to be thrown into the lake of fire. So that is different. So as we say hell, so Hades is, or Sheol, is actually the place of the dead. It's a holding place where rebellious spirits are being held until the judgment. So that is Hades. Now as I read the Bible and as I ponder this, I see that it seems like there's different levels of Hades or different levels of this place of the dead. You have, and I kind of picture this, you have Hades, which is Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in the Greek, the place of the dead. That's on top here. And I'm just describing this two-dimensionally. Even though Hades is in the earth, it still has supernatural qualities, I think. So you have, because they hold spirits. So you have Hades and Sheol, And then it kind of funnels down. I picture it kind of funneling down, and you go further deeper, and there's this thing called the abusos, which is the deep. As you look at the Old Testament, particularly it comes up a lot in the Old Testament, called the abusos, or the deep. Now, the bottomless pit in Greek is the pit of the abusos. So the bottomless pit is not the abyss. The bottomless pit is the pit of the abusos. The pit of of the abyss. So you have Hades and Sheol, the place of the dead. Then I think a little bit deeper and darker you have the abyss. Then at the bottom you have this, like I picture like a funnel and then the shaft. And then you have this holding place, this special compartment in Hades that is the pit of the abusos, the bottomless pit, the pit of the abusos. And that's where I kind of picture that. Now in Job, Job 41, it also references to this place where, you know, the place of these wicked spirits, and it is called Tartarus of the Abusos. So you have, you've heard of Tartarus, right? So in Job, he specifically says, Tartarus of the Abusos, Tartarus of the Abyss, and you have the Pit of the Abyss. In my mind, I think those are the same. I think Tartarus is at the very bottom in the darkest place of Hades in the bottomless pit. I think either The Tartarus is a compartment in the bottomless pit, or it is the same as the bottomless pit, because they are either the pit of the Abusos or the Tartarus of the Abusos. Are you following me? So you kind of picture this funnel. And in the Greek, that word for pit is actually shaft or well. So I kind of picture this funnel where you have Hades and Sheol and where all the unbelieving souls go into that holding place. And then it funnels down more and you have the abusos, the deep, which is just a little bit darker. And then you come down this shaft to the pit of the abusos. And that is where these demons are being released. That is where this angel is unlocking that special compartment. Yeah, Laura. So where in all of this is the wisdom of Abraham? So that's a good question. So up here in the Hades in Sheol, According to Luke 16, we see that there's a great chasm, and I kind of picture this, and again, this is just my two-dimensional, three-dimensional mind, but you have on one side, you have the place of the unrighteous, and then on the other side, you have those who are the righteous, but they're dead. But they're in Hades, but they can't go to heaven because Jesus Christ hasn't defeated death yet. So you have a great chasm, and you have, on one side, you have the place of the dead that's unrighteous, And then on the other side, you have the place of the righteous dead, Abraham and those guys. That's why they call it Abraham's bosom. That other place is vacant. Nobody goes there anymore if you believe in Jesus. Because that was emptied whenever Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That's the way I believe it. Yeah, Victoria.
Question: Where is hell?
So, the Hades, this place that we're describing, I believe it's at the center of the earth. It's under the earth. It's in the heart of the earth. And so, you know, you think about, we don't have a clue what's... under the earth. I mean, the earth is something like 8,000 miles diameter. The furthest we've actually drilled, anybody's ever drilled, is like 40,000 feet. So 6 or 7 miles. We've just barely cracked the surface. And this thing is like 4,000 miles to the center. So we have no idea what is in the heart of the earth. And the Bible tells us this is where Hades is. Hades is in the heart of the earth. So, and that's hell. That's what we would call hell, but not the lake of fire, but this place of the dead. And then the bottomless pit is down at the darkest place of that. S
o as we go and we see, okay, this angel, he comes down from heaven, he comes into the earth, and he comes to the pit of the abusos, the bottomless pit, the pit of the abusos. And notice what he does at verse 2. He says, and he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. I think about the smoke. Here we are in Colorado, and sometimes we can smell the smoke from forest fires burning in California or something. And it's hard to see sometimes, and you can't see the sun sometimes. And that's just smoke from a forest fire. Whenever you have hell, and especially the darkest place of hell, belching out smoke, I can't imagine the darkness that that would entail. So here, in the bottomless pit, there's smoke that arises out of the pit.
Oh, and one other thing, let me just mention something. So these demon-type things are coming out of the bottomless pit. Well, the Bible tells us a little bit about who is in the bottomless pit right now. Who is held in the Tartarus of the Abusos? And we find that it is the fallen angels who sinned from Genesis chapter 6. Those fallen angels who had relations with women, it tells us in 2 Peter, and I'll just read it to you, 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 4, he says this, is where these angels are that had sex with women and created the giants and the Nephilim and all that. They were abominations and God punished them. And it says in verse 2, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell. Now that word hell is the word Tartarus. So that's what we're talking about. I believe that's the place that we're talking about. He cast them down to this pit of the Abusos or the Tartarus of the Abusos and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. Right? So that's where they are now. So you talk about this bottomless pit. There's dark things in this bottomless pit. You know, Jude, he again tells us something very similar in Jude 6. He says, And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but they left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. And if you overlay that with 2 Peter, we see that those same angels who left their proper domain, they actually left who they were supposed to be and they somehow morphed themselves into human being and had sex with women and created an abomination that we're still dealing with today. And so here we see that they are, those angels, not all fallen angels, but the angels that sinned in Genesis 6 are locked up in Tartarus, in the bottomless pit.
So that just gives us a little bit about what this place is. And I just want to mention this because it's really fun. Jesus, did you know that whenever he went to Hades, he didn't go there to suffer. He went there to proclaim victory. So he went there to capture those who were captive and clear out Abraham's bosom. But he also, it tells us, That's in First Peter. He tells us in First Peter that he actually went and he preached to the saints, or I'm sorry, he preached to the spirits that were in prison. Let me just read that. First Peter, there it is. First Peter chapter 3. So for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but He was made alive by the Spirit. By whom, by the Spirit, He also went and He preached to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is 8 souls, were saved through water. Those no doubt, those spirits that He preached to, they were no doubt these ones who were formerly disobedient during the days of Noah, and they were the one, they were the angels of Genesis 6. And so Jesus goes down into the bottomless pit. Why? They're not going to be saved. He's not preaching the gospel to them. He's proclaiming victory over them. He is saying, I am Lord, I am King, and you guys really messed up. He is proclaiming victory over those spirits and he's triumphing. I mean, in Colossians it says he triumphed over them in victory, right? He made an open show of them. He made an open display of them. And so I believe that's what's happening. That was happening there. So this is that place though. So Jesus is Lord of this place. He is Lord and he has the keys to this place and he's giving it to these angels or to this one angel to unlock.
Okay, so let's keep reading here.
Question: In your time of meditating and conjecture and all that you do, have you sketched a funnel and placed all this stuff? I did sketch a funnel and that's actually where God stopped me. Honestly, I started really diving in deep and Gail honestly knows a lot of this stuff and I don't know nearly what she knows about this stuff and so I was talking to her and God cut me off and he says, Nope, I don't want you going there. He says, I don't want you, you So we're not going to go deeper than what I've already given you. Because this is dark. This is very dark stuff. And I tell you, man, I was kind of in bad shape on Wednesday night. Remember that, Shayna? And I just wasn't doing well, you know? And so, but Thursday morning, it was so great. God just brought me, told me to take a walk with him around the lake. And so, which I never do. I don't go for walks by myself, you know? But I was with Jesus, so that was good. But again, he just told me this is what he wants me to teach. So this is what we're doing. We're just going through these verses, and this is what he showed me, and he told me not to go any deeper than that.
So here, let's just see. So the smoke arises as hell is belching out this grime, and then notice what comes out with that. It says, then, verse three, then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So as we understand what these things are, these are not like any scorpions we ever see, right? Locusts, they eat foliage, they eat green things, but they're commanded not to. So here we find that they're discerning. They have a way to discern things. They won't hurt any green thing, but they're only commanded to hurt those who don't have the seal of God on their foreheads. Now an interesting thing is remember the first trumpet, the vegetation was hit and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up, right? So now we see that it's obviously been some time because grass grows back and we see there's grass here, so he tells them, don't eat the grass. And the trees that are left, there's two-thirds of the trees don't affect the trees. So we can kind of see the timeline there. Okay, then these locusts, they're coming up, but they're not like any locust we ever have seen. They were given authority. That word power is escusia, it means authority. So they were given authority, and it says, as scorpions of the earth have this authority. And so now there are these like demonic locust slash scorpion things that are flying around, right? And they're given a command to only hurt those that do not have the seal of God on their forehead. So who are those people? Well, we know back from Revelation chapter 7 that these are the 144,000 that were sealed on their forehead. So Notice this. is very interesting. Here we see that everybody on the planet is going to be affected by these demonic locust scorpions, except for those 144,000 who have been sealed. And I would also say that the two witnesses, they have power that if anybody tries to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth. So they're probably somehow divinely sealed as well. So the two witnesses and the 144,000 witnesses have been kind of protected through all this wrath and all this stuff going on. But we've seen that Christians on this time, during this time, myriads upon myriads of Christians have died for their faith, they've come to Christ, they've died and they've come up to the altar. And in fact, that's why God is releasing these, this is vengeance because of the prayers of the saints, right? They're gathered around the altar.
So as I was thinking about this, I was like, well, what about the Christians that are alive during this time? The Christians that are not sealed, other than the 144,000, are they getting attacked by these demonic beings? And I just can't picture God doing that. I cannot picture God sending these demons from hell to attack believers. Because his judgments aren't coming on believers. Now, believers are being affected, like whenever you go through the wars and the famines and all those things, they are being affected indirectly, but I don't believe they're being affected directly from God's wrath. So I just cannot picture God allowing these demons to attack Christians. So there's two possibilities here. One is that those that are sealed on their forehead are not being affected. And then also we know that every Christian is sealed spiritually by the Holy Spirit. We know that. And so I think that could be a possibility, that any Christian that is on the earth, either whether they've got a seal on their forehead or have been sealed in their heart by the Holy Spirit, they're protected that way. So that's one conjecture and that's very possible.
The other one is that there may not be any Christians on the earth at this particular time other than the 144,000. That's one other possibility. And the reason I say that is because remember it says, back up here, woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth. So these are coming on the inhabitants of the earth. But that could go, you know, these judgments are truly coming on the inhabitants of the earth and not the Christians. But then you flip over, and we already read this, verse 20, it says, but the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent. The rest of mankind. It doesn't say the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. It says truly the rest of mankind who were not killed. And that word, rest of mankind, it's human beings. It's hoi anthropoi. It's human beings. So That kind of tells me that there is, maybe there is no Christians beside the 144,000 on the planet at this particular time. Now we know in the future, we know that there are Christians that do come to faith, because in Revelation 14:12, it says, here is the patience of the saints. This is after the middle of the week, and this is much, this is later, this is probably a year later. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Write, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' So there is just one example that we know there are Christians that come to faith after this. So here, but in this particular point, there may not be Christians alive on the earth. Because I think if, you know, I like to take the text as literally as I can, and whenever it says that, you know, that only the ones who were sealed on their foreheads are exempt, It doesn't say, you know, we're reading into the scriptures to say that those who are sealed by the Spirit are exempt. So, but I don't have a problem with that because I don't believe God is attacking Christians here, but it's just something to throw out. You guys make the decision.
Question: Do you think it could be like the Passover where if you put, you know, that's the seal, if there are any Christians left?
Yeah. Possibly there could be something that, you have the 144,000 sealed on their forehead. Yeah, they put something on their forehead and it could be, or God just knows who they are, but yes, it's probably, it could be something like that. Yeah. So you have to decide, is this a time that's so dark on the earth that there's just no Christians on the earth? But then eventually they do. It says that they did not repent. Well, that's a aorist indicative, meaning at that time, that's a snapshot in time that they did not repent. So maybe later there were some, obviously some will repent and come to faith. At this point the Jews are still not coming around. I mean, I'm sure there's some Messianic Jews. coming, but as a whole, the nation isn't. So there's a whole other thing. So there's a lot of Christians still yet to be had. But this particular time, just an interesting thing to throw out there.
Okay, so then we keep going. And they were not given authority to kill them. So now he says, you know, you can attack these people who aren't sealed. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days, men will seek death, they will not find it, they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. I mean, you talk about that torment. I can't even imagine that. I mean, these people are getting stung. I mean, I read a little bit about what it is to be stung by a scorpion. You know, it attacks the nervous system. People actually are falling down, foaming at the mouth. It's terrible, excruciating pain. It attacks the nervous system. So here, these things are tormenting people for five months. So that kind of gives us a clue, too, on how long these trumpets are going on. We see that green grass has come back. Now they're given the authority to torment for five months. So these probably, these last few trumpets are probably going on and they're going to bring us up to the middle of the week. It's been about a year, a year and a half is what's going to happen here. Okay, so now that last, verse 6, it says, in those days men will seek death and they will not find it. They're going to want to die, they're going to desire to die and death will flee away from them. You know, I just think, how is that even possible? If you really wanted to kill yourself, I mean, you'd think you'd be able to, but as I was pondering that again, I was thinking, you know, we've been talking about the tribulation martyrs and how death, God is granting them death as a means of escape to escape this evil world. We've mentioned that a few times. Here, you can see the exact opposite. God, He said, I have the keys of Hades and death. Evidently, He has this authority over death. even to the point where he's not allowing these people to die for five months. And again, this is wrathful judgment. So in some way, he's not allowing them to die. I can't even get my head around that, but that's what the text says. in his divine providence, right?
Question: I can see it. I can see it so bad. You're crawling around the ground, you can't even get to the bridge.
Right, well, yeah, that's the thing. They're probably, they're in so much pain, they might not even be able to function. Right, exactly. You can imagine the whole earth is shut down at this point. For 5 months, nobody can do anything. They're incapacitated. Okay, so now we go on verse 7, it describes these things. It says, the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for battle. So that means that they were organized, right? On their heads were crowns. And it's interesting, that word crown is actually Stephana's crown, it's a victor's crown. So we know that as Christians, that's our reward. Well, these guys are given a victor's crown. So, you know, John is seeing something very bizarre here and he's seeing that they've been given authority, they've been given victory. And their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair. Their teeth were like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for five months, and they had a king over them. The angel of the bottomless pit, and I believe this is a fallen angel. I think this is an angel that came up out of that place, probably. His name is Abaddon in Hebrew, but in Greek, he has the name Apollyon, which means destroyer. So here we have these bad demons. These demons are coming out. Also this fallen angel who is evidently their king, and he's the one organizing them. And truly, hell is being unleashed on the earth at this particular time.
So the little bit we know about demons, Demons are different than fallen angels, and I don't want to go down that road. But we know that demons have to have a body to inhabit. They can't materialize. Demons, from what we can tell from Scripture, they always are seeking a body to possess. So it's weird because these demons are in physical shape. I believe John is seeing this. These are actual literal things. These are not helicopters that John is seeing. He doesn't know what it is, so he's describing it like this. These aren't tanks. These aren't war machines. These, I believe he's seeing something, some demonic creature like this. So the question is, how did these demons get a physical form? And I don't really have a good answer. I'm going to throw out a couple of suggestions. One is that these could be some form of a cross-species thing that people are trying to fool around with right now, and they're trying to breed things together, and it's even got a face of a man. I mean, they're trying to do this weird stuff right now, right? So is it possible that China has these weird things that they're making, and then now this is the perfect thing for the demons to possess? That's one option. Don't know. I mean, it could be.
The other thing is that these things are locked up in the bottomless pit. Could these be some type of an abomination like the Nephilim that angels were messing around with and God was like, that's enough and he banished them to the bottomless pit? Could be something like that because they're coming out of the bottomless pit. So something like that. These aren't just demons. They are demons plus, right? They've got some physical attributes here. And so here we've got the, and they're led by this fallen angel named the Destroyer. Now in Psalm 78, it's very interesting. I'll just flip over there so I can read it. Psalm 78, he says something as I was reading that Psalm. Psalm 78, at the very end, I want to read this to you because I think it's interesting. It fits right in here. It says here in Psalm 78, verse 49, it says, he cast on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble by sending angels of destruction among them. So evidently God will send angels of destruction, whether they're good angels or fallen angels. It's a combination of both. Here he's using a fallen angel and his name truly is destruction.
So that's the first one. That's the first woe. Let's go on to the next one. So one woe is passed. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Now you remember the woe, the three woes is the 5th, 6th, and 7th trumpet, right? So we just saw the 5th trumpet. Now we're going to look at the 6th trumpet and that'll close out the chapter. It says, then the 6th angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. Now remember, the golden altar, that's the altar of incense. That's where the prayers of the saints are. That's where the tribulation martyrs are standing around. And so again, he reminds us that this is all in response to the prayers of vengeance for our blood, right? So then verse 14, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. So I'll stop there. So here we see that there's four angels. Now I believe these are fallen angels who have been bound at the river Euphrates. They're not in Tartarus. They're bound here at Euphrates. And they aren't the angels of the fallen angels of Genesis 6, but they are fallen angels who have been bound. And the wording tells us that. You know, they were bound and then they were released. Those words in Greek show that they're bound in chains. They're definitely not of free will. And they're bound at the great river Euphrates.
Now, as you go through and you look at Euphrates, you see that Euphrates is interesting because Euphrates was actually the furthest That was the eastern boundary of Israel. Whenever God gave Israel's land to them, the Euphrates River was the eastern boundary of that. Right now it's much smaller, right? But that's exactly, that was the promised land that God had given him. But on the east side of the Euphrates, there has always been demonic activity around there. You know, the Garden of Eden was somewhere around that Euphrates area, and we know that was where sin started. We also know that whenever Nimrod started building his kingdom. The Tower of Babel was very close by here. We know that Babylon was built on the banks of the Euphrates. So this whole area of Euphrates has always been a place of demonic activity. And here fallen angels are bound. So God has bound them at this place. And notice what we see come once these fallen angels are released. It says in verse 16. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was 200 million, and I heard the number of them. So I had to read that several times. I'm like, wait, four angels just got released, and now all of a sudden we have an army of 200 million? Where did these guys come from? And it doesn't say, it doesn't say that they came out of the bottomless pit. I think maybe they did. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out where did these guys come from? Because I think these are also demons. This is a demonic horde of another creature that we're going to see.
I don't think that this is a human army. A lot of people have said, well, this is China's army coming from the east. I think China might have something to do with it, but I don't think it's that. I don't think this is a Chinese army. This is something that is far darker, far deeper. And so I think these are obviously demons, much like the demon locusts and scorpions that we saw. They could be coming out from the bottomless pit. We don't know exactly. But we see that they've been given the authority, they were released, right? Notice those words here back to 15. The 4 angels, they had been prepared for the hour, day, and month, and they were released to kill 1/3 of mankind. So I don't know how long they've been bound there, but a long time, thousands and thousands of years, and yet God had a plan for them. This is an example of God using these things as dishonorable vessels to perform his purposes. He's again unleashing these terrible things on the earth and they're going to just ravage. You know, he's not, God is not killing people. He's just releasing these angels like rabid dogs and they're going over the whole world and they're going to kill. They're destroying. And that's what, so he just releases them. And so they have been prepared for this day. Again, God's plan, His providence is all coming together here. So this army was 200 million.
Now notice this army, they describe it. says, verse 17, And thus I saw the horses in the vision. Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. So they're evidently dressed in some type of uniform garb. And the head of the horses were like lions, like the head of lions. And out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. Right, that's not like anything we've ever seen, right? These are horses, they have the head of lions, they're breathing fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone. Those three plagues is killing a third of mankind, which came out of their mouths, for their power is in their mouth, and their tails, for their tails are like serpents having heads, and with them they do harm. So you've got this horse with the head of a lion breathing fire, and this horse has a tail like a serpent with heads, multiple-headed serpent, and it's creating devastation, blowing out fire, brimstone, and smoke, and it's killing a third of mankind.
So here, I mean, we do the math, and Monrad actually helped me with this a little bit last week. Whenever you do a third, so here we've seen that a quarter of the men have died, a quarter of people have died on the earth. If that happened now, there would be about 2 billion people, right? Because there's about 8 billion people now. That brings us down to 6 billion people then are on the earth. I'm sure through all the devastation, many, many other millions of people have died. We just don't really know the number. But now it says that 1/3 of mankind, so 1/3 of of the 6 billion people who were left, that would be two more billion. They've now died. So now you've got half of the population of the earth has now died up to this point, and probably more than half, because there's also millions upon millions who have died in other instances as well. So great devastation coming on the earth. Half of the world's population has died. And that doesn't even count the millions upon millions of Christians who have died either, right? So there's much destruction going on.
Now I want to bring you over to Joel and Joel chapter 2. Let me just read this from Joel because Joel actually describes this maybe this horde of demon horses that are coming about. And so in Joel chapter 2, notice what it says here. So Joel chapter 2, let me just read this. And it says in verse one, and we'll just kind of read down, it says, yeah, blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand. It's a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like morning clouds spread over the mountains. And so, of course, we're seeing that right now. he starts describing this army that's coming in. It says, a people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them. Right? These things have head of lions and they're blowing fire. So a fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. So they're leaving nothing unhurt. surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of a horse, of horses. And like stiff swedes, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. Before them, the people writhe in pain. Right? I mean, we've just been seeing that. They've been writhing in pain from the previous judgment. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. We've been seeing that, right? The Lord gives voice before His army. Interesting how it calls it His army, right? Nebuchadnezzar was called his servant. So these obviously are dishonorable vessels. They're forces of the Lord that he's using. His camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes his word, for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible, and who can endure it?
I don't know, but that sounds a lot like what's being described right here, that this is this, these are those, this demonic horde going through, and of course God is giving them the authority to do this. So then we wrap up the last two verses and it says in verse 20, we already read it, says, but the rest of mankind, which this is just shocking, after all this, men's hearts are so hard, that the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, right? That's what's been released. God's like, here, you want to worship demons? I'm giving you what you worship. And idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, and they could neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent, right? Twice he said that, of their murders, of their sorceries, or of their sexual immorality, or of their thefts. Right? And you look at that list there. They didn't repent of worshiping these demons and these false idols. But again, he goes on, he says, they did not repent, verse 21, of their murders. Of course, they've been murdering Christians this whole way. Or their sorceries. That word sorcery comes from the word pharmakia, which is actually like a drug. They did not repent of these hallucinogen drugs and those types of things. Or their sexual immorality, you know, we read Romans 1, they're perverse, they're just running wild with all the things going on with sexual immorality. Or their thefts. And I was thinking of something, what does the thefts mean? And the thing that came to me, and I think is the biggest thing you can steal from somebody is the truth. And here you have these people that are lying and they're robbing people of the truth. And so it's not like they're just stealing each other. Nobody has anything. I mean, with the devastation coming on here, everything is getting wiped out. You know, yes, there's plundering and all that stuff, but I think the theft is probably... stealing light, stealing the truth, you know, just deceiving. Obviously there's deception going on because they aren't repenting. They know this is God and they still yet will not repent. Shocking here.
Now I want to close like I was really praying about how do we close something like this? I don't want to end with that. And God brought me over to Micah chapter 5. So let's go over and read Micah chapter 5 real quick, just a few verses. Micah chapter 5, notice what he says. He says something very similar here. And again, I love the prophets, and I think the prophets just really help us explain what's going on here in Revelation. And so if you look at Micah chapter 5, and we see this, let's look at verse 12. So we see the purpose of the tribulation, and I'll let you guys find it. So Micah, Micah 5, and notice this what it says in verse 12. He says, and he's specifically talking to Jews, you have to remember, all this is coming on the Jew first and then to the rest of the world and then to the Gentile. But notice this, he kind of links it all together and it says this. In 512, he says, I will cut off sorceries from your hand. and you shall have no soothsayers. So that goes right to, they did not repent of these things. They did not repent of the sorceries. They did not repent of these worshiping these demons. He says, verse 13, your carved images I will also cut off. Right? And that goes back to the worshiping these idols of silver and gold and wood and stone. and your sacred pillars from your midst. You shall no more worship the work of your hands. I will pluck your wooden images from your midst. Thus I will destroy your cities, and I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations that have not obeyed. That word heard is actually the word obeyed. So I will execute this vengeance in anger and fury on all the nations that have not obeyed.
And we talked about this last week, right? What is the commandment? The commandment is to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. That is the commandment. And that's what he's saying. They have not obeyed that commandment. And so then glance over to verse 8 of chapter 6, and this is how we'll end. In verse 8 of chapter 6, he says this. He, that is God, has shown you, O man, what is good. And hasn't God done that? God has shown us His goodness. It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. It is God for the last, well, 6,000 years, it is God that has shown us His goodness. He says, He has shown you, oh man, what is good. Now I'll just add in. Now he's showing them what is evil, right? But he goes on and he says, and what does the Lord require of you? Or in the Greek Septuagint, it says, and what does the Lord seek out for you? What does he desire of you? What does the Lord want from you? This is what He wants. But to do justly, or a better translation might be, to commit to justice. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, right? That's what He wants us to do. Seek His righteousness, commit to His righteousness, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. He's bringing the high places low. That's what He's doing in the book of Revelation. That's what He's doing. And here, right now, He's telling us this is what He wants. He's showing us His goodness and all He wants to do. I love this. Notice the communion we have in this verse. He wants us to walk humbly with Him. Just submit yourself to Him. He's our God. He has all authority. We are our God. He wants us to humble to Him, and I love this, to walk with your God. Just to walk with our God. That's what He seeks. The Lord is wanting this. He wants us to walk with Him. Man, I love that.
So that's what we have the choice to make right now, is to choose to humble ourself to Him. He is God. He is the one who has all authority over death and hell, and He has all authority over everything. So humble yourself and walk with Him, and we can walk with Him for all eternity, amen? Praise God. Well, good. Well, let's give God praise. I love His Word. Even the dark things of this chapter, we can look and we can see hope in the midst of this darkness.
Let's go ahead and wrap up with prayer. Father, I thank you for this word. I thank you for helping me to get through this chapter. Father, I thank you for edifying us that we can understand just what are your methods, what's your means, what are you doing? And it all comes down to that, what we just read, that we would walk with you. That's your earnest desire, is that we would seek righteousness. love mercy and seek humility and walk with you. So that's our prayer to you. That we would, as we go into the world, that we would just see and have a heart for the lost, have a heart for these people who think they're their own God, but that we would, in this time, today is the day of salvation, that we would proclaim your justice, your righteousness, proclaim your love to those who hate you and for the chance that they may turn and repent and choose you. So Father, empower us to do that by your Holy Spirit and just give us that heart of love for you that we might yearn to walk with you in everlasting life. In Jesus' name, amen.
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