Revelation 9:20-21 “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk, 21 and they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts.”
INTRODUCTION – REVELATION 9:20
Chapter 9 closes with a very powerful statement that spells out in a decisive way the reason for the Tribulation judgment that has come on the earth from Chapter 6 and why this judgment will run its full course. The time is set as 7 years by the Old Testament, but that will not be shortened because mankind will not repent even though the fear of God is fully evident and in full swing.
Revelation 6:15-16 “And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.'”
Man is so deluded, so sinful, and so hardened in his heart and spirit that he will NOT repent even though these judgments fall with each trumpet blast. I said the 7 years will not be shortened as they are shortened already. This world requires a prolonged judgment, but the Lord tells us this designated Tribulation is already shortened. Matthew 24:21-22 “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short.”
Some may wonder why God is doing this. Why not bring the age to the end and punish the evildoers? Why is all this misery coming to the earth and upon human beings? There is a humanitarian thought these days that people do err because they are not responsible – it was the drugs or ADHD or a strict father or not enough cabbage when young that is responsible. People should not be punished, so jail terms are avoided or criminals who are jailed are released early. The guilty should not suffer for their sins! The victims can but not the perpetrators! Psychologists have a lot to answer for; they generally are humanists, blinkered [blinded] in reality, and dead to the thoughts of God.
The general premise of the world is that people are basically good, and we all need just some “modifying.” God’s view is the opposite. Man is reprobate, and there is no goodness in him. We may read Romans 3.
There are two reasons why God will judge. The first is that this world is sinful and must be judged as a world. God will not overlook sins; His holiness will not permit that. Sin cries out for penalty. On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of the world and suffered the penalty of those sins. He met the very last dregs of the just requirements sin and penalty demanded. Why then is penalty still remaining?
We could suggest two words: “appropriate” and “accept.” Those who repent of their sins and accept the Lord Jesus as personal Saviour accept the pardon offered by the Saviour, and appropriate the righteousness of Christ to themselves. As a result, their sins are forgiven and the penalty of their sins is wiped away, for it was carried by the Saviour. Those who refuse to do that must bear their own sins and receive what those sins have incurred. That will meet finality at the Great White Throne. As well, this world has become so sinful that the bucket is starting to overflow. Once the Church is raptured in Revelation 4:1, the onset of wickedness is immediate and intense. God will judge this world for the sins committed, for the day of judgment has come.
Do not forget also that this world has accumulated sins through all the long years.
God’s love and compassion are expressed in His patience and pardon since the cross, but most refuse to accept that graciousness of God and walk over God’s grace. Those who are redeemed through believing on the Son will never face the penalty for sins. We are now the righteousness of God. 2Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
The second reason for judgment is Israel. For 2,500 years, they have lived in rejection of their Messiah, but the promises given to Abraham will not be set aside, for God will bring the nation into eternal blessing. To do that, they must go through the fire, not only to bring about this repentance but to refine them.
Hosea 5:15—6:2 “I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face. In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.’
“Come, let us return to the LORD for He has torn us, but He will heal us. He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days. He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him.”
They will be redeemed, but it will be as silver is refined through the intense heat of the fire.
The “works of their hands” (Rev 9:20) means, in a broad sense, all the evil mankind has done, and in a narrow sense, what they have created and what have become their gods. Two lines of activity are specified, namely demonic worship and idolatry. Let’s look at those in some measure.
DEMONOLOGY
Satanic activity takes a multitude of forms, some of it more open as in the religions of the Australian aborigine and some other native cultures. The witch doctor or medicine man was the focus and spiritualist medium, the ones possessed by Satan and implementing his will and destruction. It was Satanism. The more involved in the occult these tribes and cultures were, the more primitive and debased the culture was. Their legends and practices were strongly fearful, for Satan bound the souls of these people, so they engaged in horrible practices. This is the overt expression of this form of demonism. In fact, so debased did the Australian aborigine appear to early visitors to Australia that some suggested these were people without souls.
It might be one thing to recognize these primitive practices of the past (and the present, for that matter), but it becomes an entirely different thing to adopt satanic practices as part of one’s own culture. To speak about these things publicly is to incur the wrath and condemnation of nearly everyone around, so strong is the satanic delusion in the working of the occult. However, we ought to be aware of the things that have infiltrated our so-called enlightened western Australian society.
The Queensland Government opened Parliament with a “smoking ceremony” in 2009. This was an aboriginal occult practice connected with evil spirits. Other Parliaments (Federal) have adopted similar practices and have displayed on the walls of building depictions of rainbow serpents and “aboriginal paintings,” which are totemic representations of the occult thread of their beliefs and practices. The corroboree [nocturnal, noisy festivity] was intimately linked with their spiritist religion. These things are being forced on us, along with their chants.
We cannot mingle elements of the occult and demonology with what is supposed to be Christian such as is happening here, and not incur the consequences of that. What are the consequences? A nation going off the rails in mental health and decisions; in the weakening of the moral fabric it once had; in a hardening and increasing lawlessness of its people, the rush headlong into socialism – the godless, atheist humanism – and the inability to govern efficiently. We will see the consequence also in the physical well-being of the nation – droughts, disasters, and other calamities for the nation because it has allowed the works of its hands to accept demonology. The nation is not aware of this. I think no nation is aware of the downward plunge that is happening everywhere.
There are other influences that have swept the world and done more to promote demonology than any other aspect, and they are rock/contemporary music and what are known as computer games, now “gaming,” and the closely related comic videos on television and computer. In fact, some of what is promoted in children’s television is dreadful and frightening in programming young minds with occult demonic-looking figures.
I am not going into the debate about rock music itself and its ancient links with African connections, these being occult. What I want to do is concentrate on the content of this music, its brainwashing, and the capturing of the minds of two to three generations. I feel this upsurge began in the 1970s, and when one examines the lyrics of these bands, it is horrible; for the content is often a perverted sexuality, especially homosexuality, advocacy for drugs, and plain straight, demon advocacy.
KISS may have been one of the forefront bands, but most of them promote the occult in music, and as individuals are committed to occult practices. It is said that KISS means “Knights in Satan’s Service,” and if you have seen the images of the band, they are satanic looking. In the performances, KISS included fire breathing and other pyrotechnics, smoking guitars, blood-spitting, rockets, levitating drum kits, and much more. Another band of the time, ACDC, used the slang term for bisexuality for its name. All this permeates the “music” as it is known, and over the past four decades, it has gotten worse. Can I say that one can’t take the rock music genre and give it a Christian dress and think it will honor God! It won’t! It is used in contemporary churches, but it is the world’s music and insults the Lord.
What we have is a second and third generation growing up in hardcore propaganda and infiltration of the occult, so much so that anti-God and pro-evil sentiment is filtering through all the world’s societies. The world is being softened up for the religion of the future, which will be a demonic worship; for the world will worship the World Leader and engage in the practices of the False Prophet. Drug-based demonology will be the religion!
Computer games and videos are a source of evil so bad that it possesses the minds of the players. I must hasten to qualify this – not all computer games but those that focus on occult themes and have role-playing that connects with spells and demonic figures. So many young minds have fallen prey to this form of satanic possession and oppression, and it is worldwide. Stylized and graphic violence is also a part of these games, and violence and destruction is not of God. And if not, then it is of the Devil.
I knew a young man in the church who had great promise, but then he got into Dungeons and Dragons, fell away, and departed from the Christian faith. A reviewer, Pulling, described D&D as “a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination…” The snares of the devil are everywhere, and the teeth are sharp, and many get snapped up and taken captive, carried away to the devil’s lair. Every appearance of evil is everywhere. These last days of the Church age are vital for discernment and reliance on the Lord for guidance. All I can say to the young Christian is, “BE AWARE!
Can I also mention the rise of books and stories with an increase in occult themes? I saw this starting in schools in the 1980s in the books that were being produced and entering school libraries, and it was horrifying to see. So many are based on “witch themes” and tampering with occult subjects, and the production of these books has gotten worse. Of course, much of this is disguised in the captivating and fantasy storylines, touching on the spectacular, which kids find intriguing. We all know about Harry Potter, and some of the misguided Christian parents who think Harry Potter is fantasy and harmless — you are doing incredible damage to your children.
The reason for developing the ideas I have is to demonstrate the ever-increasing and stronger influence of demonology in our societies. This has contributed in turning the world from God and will continue to do so as it prepares people’s minds for the religion of the Tribulation. The New Age Movement contains a lot of practices related to the occult. A deeper study of this can be found in the excellent books by Kurt Koch, even though they date back to the 1960s. Just to mention a few of these practices may be beneficial. They are some (a small segment) of what is covered by Kurt Koch:
Amulets, Astrology, Black and White Magic, Charming, Clairvoyance, Iridology, Fetishes, Firewalking, Horoscopes, Fortune Telling, Freemasonry, Magical Healing Methods, Mesmerism (Hypnosis); Omens, Palmistry, Rod and Pendulum, Spiritism, Yoga, Baha’I, Goblins and Elves, Ghosts, Halloween, Kathryn Kuhlman, Levitation, Magic Charms, Meditation, Parapsychology, Poltergeists, Scientology, [the so-called] 6th & 7th Book of Moses, Ouija Boards, Speaking in Trances, Automatic Writing, Astral Travelling, Materialization, Translocation, Extrasensory Apparitions, Vampires, Peace Symbol, Uri Geller, Mediumistic Influences, and many others lesser known.
IDOLATRY
Verse 20 of Revelation 9 mentions the value-graduated building materials, which would speak of the wealth and accessibility of cultures. Of course, the gods of Egypt were crafted of gold and jewels, but the gods of the old Polynesians and Melanesians were carved of stone and wood. We know the literal worshipping of idols that were made by cultures may be a thing of the past. Romans 1:21-23 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
But we live with a modern idolatry, and what verse 20 is expressing are conditions in the Tribulation. Here the “works of their hands” will be houses, business and personal alliances, fortunes, addictions, drugs, and the great one – married to and addicted to wickedness – and all that the self-made man admires. An idol is that which replaces God, and in this age and the one to come, it is materialism and the occult.
What the verse tells us is that mankind in the Tribulation will not turn to God but will pursue all his own efforts and take comfort in his own possessions with loyalty to them and rejection of God’s call. No matter what God throws at them in the way of Trumpet Judgments, they will not repent. The mind, so firm in demonic servitude, will not turn to God, but it will bear the consequences!
PART 2 will look at Revelation 9 and verse 21. God bless you all.
Ron