Revelation Chapter 10: 1-7

“I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. He had a little book open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars. When he cried out, seven thunders uttered their voices. Now when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them.’

“The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.”

Revelation 10 is a bit of an interlude between trumpets six and seven. In Revelation 7 there was an interlude between judgments as well. This just seems to be the pattern. We will look at this more in just a bit. But at the end of Revelation 9, we find a belligerent and stubborn people left on earth after the sixth trumpet sounded and one-third of the earth’s remaining population was killed. We are told in Revelation 10:9: 20-21,

“But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

The roots of the sin nature are deep. They penetrate the soul, the mind and the will. We do not want to come to face to face with our rebellion towards God. We see it all around us, but it is important that God’s people take a look in the mirror first.

We live in a time of gay pride parades, open relationships with adultery as the thing that holds them together. We live in a time where it is clear that the rich have one law and the poor another. We live in a time when children rule the home and the government has become their babysitter. We live in a time when being a Godly man is being maligned and called out as hating women. We are living in a time when open defiance of God is promoted and rewarded. And we live in a time where the Lord’s churches are riddled with false doctrine and lost people.

One of the hardest things to come to grips with is our own sinful depravity. Often, while leading someone to Jesus, we talk about their sin and that the Holy Spirit will help them to realize that they are sinners in need of a Savior and they will cry out to Jesus.

As we mature in Jesus with the constant reading of the Bible and prayer, we go from being sinners to being sinful. We must come face to face with the depth of just how sinful we are. We realize that every waking moment needs to be guarded, every thought has to be reframed, and every word needs to be considered before it leaves our mouths. We understand that one failure can bring a lifetime of sorrow, and we come to understand that we are each, individually, the chief of sinners.

At the same time that the Holy Spirit is doing this, we begin to grow in love for the Lord as we realize the meaning of Romans 5:8 – God loved us while we were still sinners (sinful to the core). We grow in appreciation for His matchless grace and His never-ending mercy. Our spirit becomes more tender to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and we find that things we did not realize were sinful are sinful in light of loving God and our neighbor first. We begin to weigh each action in light of the holiness of God; and as we grow older, we come face to face with the understanding that there is a judgment to which all who call Jesus Lord must be subjected to.

But the people at the end of Revelation 9 are not this way. They understand that it is God who is causing their pain and suffering. There is no question in their minds that God is All-powerful and that He is in complete charge of the creation. Yet, in rebellious defiance, they refuse to repent. The obvious indication is that they could have, had they humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God. But the sin of pride and rebellion had so riddled their thinking, framing their lives just like the Bible is supposed to frame our lives, that they refuse to humble themselves and seek God. They had bought into the lie that is very prevalent today that no one has the right to question how I live.

Well, be sure of this: God has the right to judge, and He will exercise His right to judge. He will call every word, deed, thought and inaction into question; and since they have rejected His grace, His love, His Son’s sacrifice and His offer of peace, they will enter and remain in an eternal Hell.

Over the past few years, we have become nations that no longer issue consequences for sin and breaking the law unless it is very, very heinous. Children no longer fail in school, no one really wins a trophy, they no longer allow parents to spank, and we certainly can’t yell at kids as it may hurt their fragile minds. Thus, we have raised a generation that does not understand consequences and that there are some things that you just don’t do.

Sadly, they think God is the same way as their parents and their societal leaders. They think that God will look the other way, and they associate His grace with tolerance. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this. God hates sin, and unsaved sinners are His enemies. There will be a day of reckoning.

Another Mighty Angel, Revelation 10:1

Some commentators think that this is Jesus; but most don’t, and I am inclined to stay with the later. The word translated ‘another’ means another of the same kind; thus, this was a created angel like all other angels, but from another hierarchy. This mighty angel had a rainbow on his head; notice that in all of these judgments there are no global floods. There may be isolated floods like when the asteroids hit the water and coastal regions are flooded, but there are no global floods in the Tribulation. God has the rainbow as a perpetual reminder of the covenant He made with man thousands of years ago and recorded in Genesis 9:16.

He has a ‘little book’ and stands firmly on the earth and sea, showing God’s dominion over land and sea. In the pagan world, we see that many have gods of the sea, gods of the land, gods of the sky, and on and on. Our God, the God of the Bible, is God of all. From the heights of Heaven to the depths of the deepest sea are His; even Hell is His. Then this angel speaks, and his voice is like the sound of a lion, and then John hears loud thunders. King David records for us in Psalm 29 these words,

“Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; The God of glory thunders; The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon” (Revelation 10:1-5).

I am currently reading in the book of 2 Samuel for personal readings; and then, as I am teaching through Revelation, I have come to a profound appreciation for God’s power, strength and majesty. Were our Lord to walk into the Serengeti, the animals would run to Him and fall at His feet, fully aware of who He is. Were He to be surrounded by a pride of lions, they would come to Him like little kittens wanting to be petted, simply in awe of their Creator. But we humans are defiant, and we run from the Lord rather than to Him. We have lost sight of His majesty and wonder.

God Loves Mysteries, Revelation 10:4

John was about to write the stuff that he heard from the loud thunderings. But he is told not to do so. God is not obligated to tell us everything, furthermore, anything at all. Over the centuries there have been mysteries in the scripture that have been revealed. The mystery of grace is the most prominent one for us, as it pertains to our time of the last 2,000 years – the mystery that God would send Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.

But there are other mysteries. We find in Daniel 12: 1-4,

“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

Here Daniel is told that the things that he was writing about some 500+ years before Jesus’ birth would take place in the time when ‘knowledge will increase and men run to and fro.’ No time in history aligns to this verse better than our time. In just the last 100 years, look at where we have come from and to. In 1892, a locomotive from the Wellington and Manuatu Railway set the average land speed record of 68 kph or 42 miles per hour. At times, this train did over 60 miles per hour. Let that sink in; this was almost 1,900 years after Jesus walked the earth and we had gotten to 42 miles an hour.

Here we are just over 100 years later, and we have scooters that can do over 40 miles an hour. In 1892, we had just reached 42 miles an hour, but now we know how to put rockets past the atmosphere. We have grown in engineering; we are discovering things every day that blow our minds. I was listening to a doctor last night talking about using DNA to personalize medicine and medications. They are, in the very near future, going to be able to design a specific medical approach to your diseases based on DNA.

We live in a time when knowledge is increasing exponentially. We are the generation that Daniel’s prophecy was for. Let that sink in; we revere these Godly men, and rightly so; but you and I understand more of God’s plan than Daniel did.

In this case, John was told not to write down what he heard. This was for God to know and no one else. We must trust the nature, character and faithfulness of God. We, in our finite minds, are not able to handle all that God knows; and so He, as a loving Father and kind God, restricts what we are allowed to know. Don’t you wish there were something that you had never learned, and are there not some things that you wished your children never had to learn? Well then, respect the wisdom of God and be contented that He is doing what is best for us.

Everything as God has declared, Revelation 10:7

God cannot lie. No greater confidence should we as His children have than that God cannot lie. His promises are secure, His guarantees are forever and He is not a double-minded God. Whatever He says He will do, He will set about to do it. In verse 5, the mighty angel who is standing on the earth and the sea, raises his hand to swear by God that whatever judgments that God has promised are about to come through. No more delays, no more patience, and no more grace it would seem.

This brief break between the sixth and seventh trumpets seems to most observers as a calm where God extends His grace one more time, hoping, waiting and looking for men to repent. God truly does not want anyone to go to Hell. He does not want any to miss out on what Jesus has done for them. Just one last reprieve, one last moment to take stock of where you are, to realize that God is God and you are not. One last opportunity to take advantage of the loving kindness of God.

But, God’s patience does come to an end. I have a dear friend who has just finished Jeremiah for the first time, and he commented that God has simply unleashed His wrath on the southern kingdom. The destruction was horrible and the loss of life was a lot. God had patiently waited for Judah to repent, to turn back to Him for 490 years. But they would not; they had little rays of hope: a good king here and there; but, for the most part, the Southern Kingdom of Judah rejected God as their God and turned on Him. They never thought that their measure of grace would run out.

God sent prophet after prophet, and very few listened. Most of the people rebelled and rejected God to His face, defiant and arrogant little clumps of clay turning their backs to their God. One day, the nation of Babylon showed up, and the time for repentance had come to an end. Such is the case here as the angel raises his hand to swear by God that all He has promised to do will happen.

We love to sing of God’s promises of blessings, provisions and grace. But His promises of judgment, accountability and wrath are just as true and just as secured by His character. God cannot lie. Repent; there is still a little time. The emphasis should be on a ‘little’ time. Fall at the feet of Jesus and seek his forgiveness. His offer is secure and His kindness unsurpassed, but just as sure are His judgments and wrath. I leave you with Psalm 2:12,

“Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your rebellion, when His wrath ignites in an instant. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

 

Revelation Lesson 23: Hardhearted Humans, Stubborn & Hopeless 

Revelation Chapter 9: 13-21

“Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is 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 and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.

“And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed—by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they do harm.

“But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.  And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

We hate death. We fight it with every fiber of our being. The struggle to live is ingrained in our DNA and the DNA of all creation. God created people, men and women, as eternal beings. We know that we will live forever; the question is, where? As our bodies age, we still remember that kid that we once were. We mature in our thoughts and learn a few things, but we remain young inside. The body slows, the mind may slow and even wander, but the soul is youthful and ready for the next step.

Are you ready? Has your future been secured in Jesus and by Jesus? This is the question that all mankind must face. There is no R.I.P. without Jesus as your eternal peace. You must have peace with God the Father through God the Son, and this peace is in us through God the Holy Spirit. John the Apostle puts it this way in John 5:12, and this is as plain as it can get:

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Four Angels, demons bound by God, Revelation 9:13-14

In the Bible we never see the Holy angels ever in chains. They are free as they do the work of the Lord around the earth and in Heaven. Many of Satan’s angels are also free and are part of the principalities against whom we fight daily (Ephesian 6: 12). But there are some very, very dangerous angels that are bound by God. In Jude verse 6 we are told this about some of these angels; I have my understanding of this but it is not relevant to our discussion today,

“And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.”

So, there are angels that are bound in chains, under darkness until the time of the judgment day. In Revelation 7 we have already met another set of four angels that are stationed at the four corners of the earth, referring to the 4 poles: North, South, East and West. It is clear that these four angels in chapter 7 are not the same ones we meet in chapter 9.

Right now, as the time of Halloween approaches here in Southern Ontario and around North America, we hear about demons and ghosts. People make fun of them. Of course there are no ghosts; we are told that once a man/woman dies they are immediately taken to Heaven or to Hell. They do not wander around their loved ones or stay in the house. But in the case of demons, the Bible is clear that these exist and are actively serving their temporary master Satan. There is a real and seemingly violent spiritual battle going on with the armies of Heaven and Hell all around us.

These four angels that we meet in Revelation 9 are made by God, and at one time they would have been in His service. But, in their rebellion, they had to be bound for whatever reason we don’t know and don’t need to know. God repurposed them, and He set them in chains until a specific hour, day and month. These phrases are eye-opening statements for many Christians. You mean that God had these demons chained and He knew exactly what day that they would be released – in fact He designed the day? Yes! A thousand times Yes! Many Christian parents, my wife and I included, teach our kids a little song:

This is the day (this is the day) that the Lord has made (that the Lord has made).
We will rejoice (we will rejoice) and be glad in it (and be glad in it).
For this is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it;
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made.

We use this to help our kids to appreciate each day, and there is nothing wrong with that. But Psalm 118:24 where we find the root of this song, this is a part of Halal Psalms sung at the Passover. “This is the day that the Lord has made” is a reference to the day that Jesus was crucified. God made that day, He planned that day, and nothing was left to chance – from making sure that Rome was in charge of Jerusalem to making sure that the soldiers were professional killers who understood death, so that Jesus’ death could not be disputed; to the fact that Rome used crucifixion as a main source of killing criminals; to the fact that there was a new unused tomb in which to bury Jesus, and on and on we can go.

God planned every last detail, worked within the framework of man’s free will, and overlooked every decision in His Sovereignty. That day, that particular day, was the day that God had made to make atonement for our sins.

Well, in like manner, He has prepared these demons – the bound angels – for a particular month, day and hour, and that day had arrived for the people of earth. During the previous trumpet, they had longed for death and they were forbidden from dying by God. But this day they were going to get death; the very thing they had longed for but was so elusive would now hunt them like prey.

I love this verse as do many Christians; we think about our home in Heaven:

1 Corinthians 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

Well, let me say to you that this is also true for those under the wrath of God. They could not imagine the horror that was coming their way. The finite human mind could not have pictured these Hell-bent demons that God unleashed on the earth. I am literally shaking as I write this, trying to imagine the suffering that will engulf the earth. They are released from the area of the Great River Euphrates (verse 14).

This river plays a prominent role in the Bible; it is mentioned quite often. It was one of the four rivers that ran in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10-14). It ran through Babylon and was a witness to the people who revolted against the Lord in Genesis 11. Of course, Babel is the root of many of the pagan religions that exist even today. This river has seen many revolts against God along that way of man’s history. But on this day, there would be only obedience by these fallen angels; no revolts today.

Two-Hundred Million Demons, Revelation 9:16-17

This this is the first army of 200,000,000 unleashed upon the earth. There will be another army later on, a physical one. This is a spirit army; the ‘soldiers’ are visible and certainly terrifying, but it is a spiritual army nonetheless.

One of the things that one will learn as you study the Bible is that the spirit world is real and that it is often more real than the physical world that we see. Spiritual warfare is real; Satan fought Michael for the body of Moses (Jude verse 9). Jesus cast out demons; He was attacked and personally tempted by Satan; demons recognized Paul but not others; we can go on, I am sure. The spiritual world has not changed. It is still active and alive today.

The people on earth at this time begin to be slaughtered. One-third of the remaining population is killed by these demons who look like horses in the body, have the heads of lions, and tails that are like snakes.

You know, sometimes we get what we ask for; and when we get it, it is nothing like what we envisioned. There is a monument called the Georgia Guidestones; it has Ten Commandments of the New World Order. The first one is this: Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

No one ever thinks that they are one of the ones that they are going to get rid of. We currently have a population of about 7,000,000,000; so to get to the 500,000,000, they have to kill off over 90% of the population, and that will include some of the very people who are pushing for this change. God is about to answer their prayer, so to speak. These demons will ravage earth; death will be painful and plentiful.

I cannot imagine the stench that will hover over the earth: the smell of death, sulfur and the aroma of burning bodies. No one will be safe from these demons and their deadly heads, both to the front and rear. These things are unstoppable; they do not need sleep or rest; they have no pity and no emotions. They know their fate – the pit of Hell.

Recall how the demons, when they met Jesus, often asked if He was there to torment them? Was it the time? they would ask. They know their fate, their end, and they have accepted that there is no redemption for them. So why be good; why even try? The wrath of God is nothing to be messed with. Being under the wrath of God is a horrible place to be.

Hardhearted People, Revelation 9:20-21

These two verses are some of the hardest verses to read in the scriptures. The people of earth were seeing the wrath of God in a way that shook them to the core. They could see what happens to the redeemed versus the lost. In the previous trumpet, the sealed ones of God were not even touched by the scorpion locusts. Yet, the people of the earth would not repent. The opportunity to repent was there; they simply refused to do it. They continued to defy God and would not humble themselves before Him.

How sad! It really is. I read this, and it breaks my heart; I feel sad. God is willing if they will, but they simply will not.

They continue to worship false gods, idols and demons; they continue in committing murder, in sorceries and in sexual misconduct. They not only refuse to repent, they would not even stop their immoral practices. I mean there are 200,000,000 demons killing people all around them, and they continue to worship them rather than turn to the Living God!

Oh, what a sad people we are! We are so stubborn and hardhearted, bullheaded and full of pride that we cannot admit we are defeated and that we need help.

So many try to please God on their own, to please God without Jesus, pushing the idea that God has to accept their righteousness because they are better than the next guy.

God wants to have mercy on us; He wants to help us and save us. God extends His grace in the midst of His wrath, and He is both willing and able to offer us peace. But so many of us reject Him, as do these people here during this time not too far into the future.

Lord help! Come to Jesus NOW! Come while there are no demon armies chasing you and no scorpion locusts biting you; and, for now, there are not even humans chasing you to kill you – at least not here in North America. Repent; call on Jesus and be saved. The end is near.

Ephesian 2:14-18 “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca