Thank you for selecting this message by Dr. James Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman preaches verse by verse through the entire book of the Bible. From all of us at Living Water of Lapine here in Central Oregon, we hope that it will encourage you and feed you spiritually. And if you would like to leave a message after the sermon, our contact information is found on the sermon page where you found this sermon. Now may God richly bless you as you listen. Seatbelts can be a real hassle, can't they? Some people just don't want to be bothered even when the law requires that we buckle up. According to the Associated Press, a New Zealander named Ivan Segedin took it to extreme. The police ticketed him 32 times over five years for failing to use his seatbelt. Even though this was costing him big money, Segedon refused to buckle up. Finally, instead of obeying the law, the man decided to rely upon deception. He made a fake seat belt that would just hang over his shoulder and make it appear that he was wearing a seat belt when he was not. This trick worked for a while. Then he had a head-on collision. He was thrown forward into the steering wheel and killed. Human beings can be so stubborn. Even to the point of death. Ivan Sigatin certainly serves as a primary example of that. But even on a greater example of obstinate foolishness, it has to be what we read today in our passage of study through the book of Revelation. We're gonna come to it in our final two verses, and it is absolutely mind-boggling. I've been reading it for several weeks now, and every time the pig-headedness of mankind strikes me. Now, before we see these two concluding verses of our study, we need to work our way toward it and allow our hearts to be impacted in a slightly different manner. The Lord directs our attention with the verses that preceded so that we might get a grasp of the evilness of sin. We have great need to see what sin really is. Can we be honest just for a moment here? Are there not occasions when we view our particular sin that often tempts us as a pleasant thing that we could otherwise enjoy only if it wasn't for those pesky, unnecessary, burdensome commands that God has made us aware of? Maybe we don't actually say this, but it's as if in our deepest heart of hearts, we believe that God is a dark Lord who is really holding out on us. There are things that I could enjoy, but he won't let me have them. God's holding out on me. Isn't that at the center of our stubbornness? Our thinking has to be just as muddled. If we were to conclude, you know what? If the New Zealand lawmakers and the law enforcers had not made such a pesky, burdensome law requiring seatbelts, Ivan Segedin could have enjoyed driving so much more. Those New Zealand lawmakers and enforcers, they were holding out on him, weren't they? God has proper restrictions that are for our benefit. God has given us Revelation chapter nine in part so that we can be convinced that idolatry and sin will not profit us. Now there are two thought grenades that I want to pull out of this that'll help us defeat what is at the core of yours and my stubbornness and all of mankind. Thought grenade number one. God withholds nothing That is profitable from us. And number two, you're gonna hear me lob this grenade several times before we're through today. God is so loving and so just that he will not force anyone into heaven. He will allow those who do not choose him to make that choice and to stubbornly keep making that choice. even when it is undeniably obvious that the choice has no profit. As we open the ninth chapter of Revelation, we come to two more trumpet judgments. The last three trumpet judgments are separated from the other four, which we studied last week in chapter eight, by the fact that these are three woe trumpets. Low judgments carry a greater impact. Up until this point, the great devastations that had rocked the earth seemed directed against the physical world itself. Terrifying to be sure, but affecting man indirectly. Under the judgment of the first trumpet, the trees and the grass were devoured by the hail of fire and blood. Next, the creatures in the sea and the ships moored along the coast were destroyed by the impact of a burning mass from outer space. When the third trumpet blew, another projectile from space had poisoned the waters of the world, and then energy-generated processes of the sun and stars were reduced for a time. All of these judgments struck fear in the human hearts and indirectly led to pain, death for many, but undoubtedly most survived, surviving only great terror and terrible inconvenience. After a few days, the sun resumed its normal shining, the grass began to grow again, the water supplies were treated and made potable, and men went back to their own personal concerns. again ignoring the voice of God. God is so loving, and He is so just, that He will not force anyone into His heaven. He will allow those who do not choose Him to make that choice, and to stubbornly keep making that choice, even when it is undeniably obvious that the choice has no profit. When the next trumpet would sound, it would become even more undeniably obvious. It will be the first of the three great woes announced to everyone by an angelic messenger that flies through the heavens. Every single person would indeed experience directly the warning and then the mighty sting of judgment. So open your Bibles with me, please, to Revelation. We're gonna get a running start into chapter nine by reading verse 13, the last verse of chapter eight, and then the first verse of nine. So these two verses read like this. Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead. Whoa, whoa, whoa to those who dwell on the earth. at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow. And the fifth angel blew his trumpet. And I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth. And he was given a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. Now we've already seen two stars and said that these were literal stars or meteors that probably are going to fall to the earth. But here we have a different kind of star because it is referred to as him and he acts with intelligence. We're now talking about a very unusual person. The star is different. Therefore, from the stars that are mentioned at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, for example. This star not only acts with intelligence, but he is given a key that he uses. And no inanimate object could do this. I want you to notice how Isaiah describes Satan. In Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 15, we read, How you are fallen from heaven, O day star, son of dawn. How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the Mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the North. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high, but you were brought down to shield to the far reaches of the pit. And then in Luke's gospel, we read in Luke 10, 18, and he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Well, if we understand that the star is Satan being cast out of heaven, then what does he do? He goes down and he takes the key to the abyss, which apparently means that God is permitting him to do so. A key denotes authority and power, and this is given to him by God. This empowerment is the permissive will of God. Satan is permitted to have authority and power, but God is still the one in full control. One way in which God judges man is to give him what he wants. Man has not wanted God to rule. but is more interested in doing what Satan wants him to do. So God lets Satan do his work that he has always wanted to do upon them, great destruction and ruin. You voted for him. Now you live under the awful consequences of that choice. God is so loving. He is so just. that he will not force anyone into heaven. He will allow those who do not choose him to make that choice and to stubbornly keep making that choice even when it is undeniably obvious that that choice has no profit. The term abyss occurs nine times in five different passages of the New Testament. In Luke 8.31, it is the place which demons don't want to be sent. In Romans 10, 7, it is translated as the deep and it is portrayed as the opposite of heaven. One being above the earth and the other being below. Here in Revelation 9, the shaft of the abyss is opened. In Revelation 11, 7, we will see that a beast comes up from the abyss. Finally, in Revelation chapter 20, verses one through three, Satan is chained and thrown into the abyss for a thousand years, the shaft being locked and sealed over him. This is the New Testament data that we have to work with in understanding what is being portrayed here. So apparently, the abyss is the prison of demons and fallen angelic beings. This explains the fear of the demons in Luke 8.31 when they wanted to remain free. They didn't want Jesus to lock them up in this prison. Now the abyss does not appear in the final two chapters of Revelation because it's no longer needed. You see in Revelation chapter 20, we come to a place where there is no need for a prison. The time of final judgment will have come, and both the devil and those belonging to him are cast into their final place of torment, a different place, which is called the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20, verse 10. Now, when this shaft is opened, John says, smoke filled the air. The sun and the air are darkened. Unusual demonic filled locusts come out of the shaft, but they're still under God's restrictions. Let's read verses two through six. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkened with a smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days, people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. So evil spirits come out of the pit. They had been confined for thousands of years in this place. Now they are released to help bring judgment upon the wicked people of the earth. Twofold command was given to these spirits. God is still running the show. These evil spirits are controlled by God, just as Satan was, as we read in the book of Job. They are commanded to do that which is contrary to their nature. They're not to hurt the grass or the trees, but instead they are to torment with their painful scorpion-like stings only those individuals who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. You know, the sting of a scorpion sets the nervous system on fire. It's not like a mosquito bite. It's not even like the sting of a bee or a wasp. Scorpion stings are extremely painful. and can cause a person to go into convulsions. These creatures are to inflict pain and suffering for five months, which is the average lifespan of a locust. The pain from these creatures will be very intense. They will, people on earth being stung by them to try to avoid them, they'll flee to mountains, they'll flee to the sea, they'll flee to the desert. They'll bar the windows on their homes, they'll cringe in their cellars, but there is no escape. These are spirit beings, not even solid walls deny them access. Their fury swarm all over the earth, penetrate fortresses, swooping on men and women wherever they can flee, none can escape. The plague is so dreadful and the pain so fearful, people will utterly despair. They will even seek death, futilely hoping that the grave might relieve them of their suffering, even though they surely know that by now hell is waiting for them and These very creatures of torment will be there too. But they can't even commit suicide. Perhaps their guns will misfire, their knives will slip out of their grasp, poisons will lose their potency, men will cripple and injure themselves, but somehow they can't kill themselves. And before they can try again, they must suddenly flee another of these omnipresent pursuing locust-like demons. Now we might expect that some of these tormented men and women will finally break down and repent and call on God for forgiveness and for salvation. God's long-suffering desire for their repentance is shown in 2 Peter 3.9 Because of that, it's probably the very reason that he will not allow them to die during this unspeakable five months. You see, God is so loving. God is so just. But he will not force anybody into his heaven. He will allow those who do not choose him to make that choice and stubbornly keep making that choice. even when it is undeniably obvious that the choice has no profit. The appearance of these locust creatures is terrifying. John uses the words like and as to try to describe for us these creatures. The only way that he knew how. Let's look at his description verses seven through 11 here. In appearance, the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces, their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek he is called Apollyon. Now, notice that the text does not say the locusts were horses with human faces and golden crowns on their heads. John is merely describing what he saw and it seems almost to be searching for words capable of conveying the amazing sight that he was seeing to his readers. The demon locusts were shaped like battle horses. There were appendages on their heads that looked like crowns. Their faces were human-like features, thus expressing perhaps the intelligence and purpose in their malignant behavior. These were not merely a strange new variety of insects that had swarmed up from some unknown breeding ground. These are demon spirits from hell who were probably temporarily given these bodies for this task. These strange bodies that John describes, I believe, will be specially created by God for this particular judgment because demons are spirit beings. They don't have bodies, but I think God is going to give these particular bodies for this judgment. These locusts are further differentiated from ordinary locusts in that they have a king over them. Proverbs 30 verse 27 says, The locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank. The king or the leader of these locusts is probably one of the fallen angels, chief henchmen of Satan. This is something that is going to be rather frightening. His name in Hebrew means destruction. And in Greek, it means the destroyer. This seems to confirm what Daniel told us, that the demon world of fallen angels is divided into ranks. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter six the same way. I think in the demonic realm, there are generals, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, and but privates, men who are on the earth. Surely knew by now that Christ is in heaven. The raptured saints are in heaven. The eagle-like angels have been seen flying through the heaven announcing, whoa, whoa, whoa. And we even saw in Revelation chapter six, verse 16, they knew it was the wrath of the lamb that was visiting with all of this devastation on earth. yet they persisted in their hatred of God, choosing Satan instead. So God would allow them to experience a little direct fellowship with their future co-inhabitants in the Lake of Fire. This, mankind, is what you are choosing. Verse 12. The first woe is past. Behold, two woes are still to come. This is a most ominous proclamation. Judgment is not over. More is to come. And it's only intensifying. This passage teaches us that God's judgment is painful and terrifying, and that only those whom God seals will be protected from his judgment. You cannot keep the judgment of God from falling. It will come. Verses 13 through 16 now. Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God 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, the day, the month, and the year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice 10,000 times 10,000. I heard their number. The angels who were bound are evidently very evil. Why else would they be bound if they were not evil? Releasing them turns loose a flood tide of destruction on the earth. They were bound away from the others, maybe because of the enormity of their evilness and their treachery. Why were they bound at this particular location, the Euphrates River? Though this is rather difficult to explain, the prominence of this area in scripture cannot be overlooked. The Garden of Eden was somewhere in this section of the earth. The sin of man begins here. The first murder was committed here. The first war was fought here. Here is where the flood began and began to spread all over the earth. Here is where the Tower of Babel was erected. this area were brought the Israelites in their Babylonian captivity. Babylon was the fountainhead of idolatry. And here is the final surge of sin on the earth during the great tribulation period. The Euphrates actually marks the division between East and West. It was Kipling who said that the East is the East and the West is the West and never, never the twain shall meet. That's true to a certain extent, isn't it? Perhaps there is right now this restraining influence, which keeps the hordes of the East from spilling over into the West. Well, what we see here in Revelation chapter nine is going to be broken down. It was Napoleon who made the statement, China is a sleeping giant. God pity the generation that wakes her up. China is waking up. Right now, building a massive military, a navy, taking all the islands in the Pacific and building military bases on them. China's very much awake. China represents one-fourth of the world's population. If you take the peoples of the East, of the Orient, beyond the Euphrates River, you have most of the population of the world. By the time you account for India, as well as China, and all the other nations there, East of the Euphrates. Suppose they start moving. Something restrains them right now, but they're going to move someday. From the time of Alexander the Great, white man has had his world dominance. Colonialism, as far as white man is concerned, will come to an end. The forces beyond the Euphrates have been held back. Apparently, these four angels have something to do with holding them back. John had no point of reference to describe the modern weapons that we have today. As I read what he describes, it sure seems like weaponry that we currently have. But not every theologian agrees that this is a human army, such as Asian forces coming together. They see it as more demonic forces, not human. But whatever one's interpretation at this point, the results are the same. The death toll staggers the imagination. Verses 17 through 19. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them. They wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lion's heads, and the fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed. by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails, for the tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound." Breastplates of various colors, suggests armored chariots, tanks, missile launchers, other vehicles of war, maybe ships. Maybe they're in camouflaged with various colors. Maybe they have their national colors. If this is a conglomerate army of nations from the east, Asian armies coming together. Lion's mouths that are spouting fire and belching smoke suggests cannons and mortars. Tails like snakes that do injury, perhaps describe gunships, rotor in the tail. This may even depict weapons not even yet invented, don't know. Now I realize it's difficult to say precisely what all this means, but it just seems to me that this is a military campaign, which results in monstrous slaughter of enormous scope. The death toll is staggering. If the world is 3 billion in population, then 1 billion will die. That's a lot of graves to dig. Probably have to use mass graves of a billion people. Dead and dying will be everywhere. Make any war that we've had previous look like a Sunday school picnic. Under the fourth seal, we saw as we were looking at the fourth seal, 25% of the world's population experienced death. Now under the sixth trumpet, a third of the remaining, so 75% will be killed. Another 25%, half now, of the world's population will be eliminated, and it is only halfway through the tribulation. With each passing day, the words of the prophets are coming together like pieces of a great puzzle. Isaiah 24 wrote about it. Isaiah 24, Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken His word. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and a few men are left." What cannot be denied, what is so clear from our passage, is that divine judgment is coming for the wicked. And it'll be great, and it'll be painful. Sin may enjoy popularity by so many honors today, but judgment time is coming. And those who have embraced sin are going to pay a heavy penalty. They do not have good prospects for eternity. And now we come to our final two verses, which I spoke of at the beginning of this message. we come to unbelievable stubbornness. Revelation 9 verses 20 and 21. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. nor did they repent of their murders, or their sorceries, or their sexual immorality, or their thefts. The most frightening thing about Revelation chapter nine is not the judgments that God sends, but the sins that men persist committing, even while God is judging them. There'll be no more atheists, no more people saying there is no God. They've seen the angel fly across the sky and pronounce the woes. They've shown a knowledge that this was the judgment of the lamb, but they'll still reject God as their authority and choose Satan instead. Particular sins are mentioned by John. Each sin is appalling in its own way and the people did not even repent of these. Each sin, though only a sampling, indicates how absorbed in sin they are. Each seeking his or her way forward and intent on satisfying their own cravings and lust. The outpouring of judgment upon the earth was the final attempt by God. to bring people to repentance. They had a chance to turn from their evil deeds, but unfortunately they did not. They saw what was occurring, but they still refused to turn to God, desiring instead to continue to worship demons and idols. This is why there has to be eternal punishment. God does everything he can to draw people to himself. But these people want to continue in their idol worship and live out what that worship leads to, murders, witchcraft, immorality, and thefts. They've chosen their side and so they must remain there. When God's call is consistently rejected, then judgment must fall. God is so loving, he is so just, that he will not force anyone into his heaven. He will allow those who do not choose him to make that choice and to stubbornly keep making that choice, even when it is undeniably obvious that the choice has no profit. In 1875, a British poet named William Ernest Henley published a short poem that expressed one way to cope with life's circumstances. The poem, called Invictus, ended with these famous lines. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Here is the poem right here. Out of the night that covers me, black is the pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever gods may be for the unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. In popular culture, those last two lines usually represent some kind of heroic, self-sufficient stand against evil and injustice without submitting to God. It represents mankind's terrible act of defiance that would carry on with his own terms. For over a hundred years, Henley's poem has inspired many people. In the 1980s, the poem encouraged former South African President Nelson Mandela through the dark days of his imprisonment. Years later, Clint Eastwood used it as the title for his popular film about the South African rugby team. Sadly, it was also the great influencer on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. who was responsible for the deaths of 168 men, women, and children and the injuries of 800 more. He scribbled out the words Invictus and handed it to the authorities as his last words before his execution. 16 years after Henley first published Invictus, British preacher Charles Spurgeon offered another philosophy of life. On June 7th, 1891, Charles Spurgeon preached his last sermon, and he used in closing the following. Every person must serve somebody. We have no choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend on it, you will either serve Satan or Christ, either self or the Savior. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters. But if you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest into your souls. If you could see our captain, You would go down on your knees and beg him to let you enter the ranks of those who follow him. It is heaven to serve Jesus. Have you made that choice? Are you still in the stubbornness resisting a God who holds his arms out wide? saying, follow me, my ways are better.