REVELATION 8-11 REVELATION REFRESHER SERIES PART 42021 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Revelation 8-11 Revelation Refresher Series Part 4

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2021. Well, as we dive into Revelation chapters 8 through 11 this evening, we're going to

We're diving into the middle of the tribulation period. Now, I don't say the middle in the technical sense, but just we're in the midst of the tribulation period as we look at this. Last week, we looked at chapters 6 through 8. There's a little bit of overlap here. And we saw the opening of the seven seals on the scroll that had seven seals. And so a quick recap of that to bring us up to speed.

We first saw the Antichrist come forth out of the first seal that was opened, the first horseman of the apocalypse. Then the second seal was opened. The next horseman comes out and peace is taken from the earth.

And then we see the third seal, and that is famine that strikes the world. And we saw that it was going to be a very intense famine that would affect all of the earth. And then the fourth seal is opened and a quarter of the earth dies as a result of the seal opening, as a result of all of the things that are taking place. There's great death upon the earth and 25% at that point are killed.

Then in the fifth seal, we see that martyrs comforted there in the presence of God, in the throne room of God. As the sixth seal is opened, there's catastrophic events, earthquakes and lightnings and thunders and all of these things that take place. And then the seventh seal, that's where we ended last week. That's where we start tonight, looking at the seventh seal being opened. And as the seventh seal is opened, there is silence in heaven, it says, for about half an hour.

And it's really the calm before the storm because in the seventh seal comes forth seven angels with seven trumpets.

And in a similar fashion, as each seal was opened and things were happening upon the earth, well, now as we look at the trumpets, as each trumpet is sounded, then there's going to be corresponding events that take place upon the earth. And so we're going to be looking at really the seventh seal, which is fulfilled in the seven trumpets here in chapters 8 through 11 tonight. And so looking at the summary, first of all, here in Revelation,

Revelation chapter 8, the first thing on the outline is the seventh seal, the silence in heaven. We just read through that. The key verse here of this chapter is when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Again, that calm before the storm, and then we see it begin to take place. The second point on the outline is the first trumpet. And as it sounds, one third of the vegetation upon the earth is burned.

And

And so that's the quick look at these first few trumpets as they're sounding. Again, we're in the midst of the tribulation period and God is bringing forth his judgment upon the earth for their rebellion against God and dealing with, really some have referred to it as kind of like the eviction process, as Satan, the usurper, has taken authority over the earth. The Lord is kicking him out, demonizing

dealing with the issue of sin, bringing forth judgment and justice. And so all of these things are unfolding as the Lord prepares to take the throne and rule and reign here upon the earth.

And so these trumpets are sounding and there's devastating things happening here upon the earth. And as we look at these things, it's a little bit difficult for us to imagine, but it's worth taking a few moments to stop and consider what these things might be and what it might be like a little bit.

Now, if you remember the scene, as we saw before, there was several times that we've seen the scene in heaven, the throne room, and there is this incredible worship taking place. At this point, in the opening of the seventh seal, all of that worship ceases. Those angels that were, you know, continually flying about the throne room of God saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And

those angels now cease to say. They cease to praise. The 24 elders, which possibly represents the church, we talked about that. We always see them, we'll see them again tonight as well, worshiping before the throne. But they're quiet.

the martyrs and the other believers that we see before the throne worshiping and praising God and now they're quiet. The multitude of angels that we see in that heavenly scene worshiping, they're all quiet and there is this deadly silence, this quietness. I'd like to demonstrate it. If you were here in the room, I could probably demonstrate it better, but if I just be quiet right now.

Then you just hear whatever background noise is happening wherever you're watching this. But you know how it is where there's those times of silence and the quietness can be deafening. The quietness can really be quite intense. And that's what it seems to be here, that there is this silence, this hush.

As all of heaven prepares themselves for the things that are about to take place upon the earth. And one thing that's clear as we work our way through Revelation and looking at the tribulation period is, I don't want to be here. You don't want to be here. These are things that should cause us to prepare ourselves and make sure that we are staying close to Jesus.

that we would know him and walk with him because the Lord is on the throne and he is going to execute all of these things that we're reading about. And so we need to be prepared for his return. Well, let's walk through these trumpets now. The first trumpet sounds in verse seven, and here's what it says in verse seven. The first angel sounded and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth and a third of the trees were burned up.

And all the green grass was burned up. Here is the first trumpet sounds. Now the earth begins to be hit with hail mixed with fire. It's kind of an interesting combination, right? Hail mixed with fire. They seem to contradict each other, but it's not the first time that we've seen this.

The plague in Egypt in Exodus chapter 9, you see something similar there as there was hail that was mixed with fire and it was so heavy, it says, that it hit all of Egypt and it had not seen anything like that ever before in its history. And so as you can kind of picture those plagues as they were hitting Egypt, there's some parallels and similarities here to the plagues that the world is bringing or that the

In a similar way, in Pharaoh's defiance of the Lord and refusal to submit to the Lord, here is the world experiencing very similar things. And so it's going to be hail and fire that comes down upon the earth. And it's so devastating, it says, it makes such an impact that a third of all the trees are burned up. And the green grass was burned up as well.

NASA estimates that there's about 400 billion trees on the earth. So a third of those is about 133 billion.

Billion, yeah, 133 billion trees that would be burned up in the midst of this. And so there's going to be, you know, you think about the wildfires in California that we experienced, right? And how those things hit. Well, that's going to be happening all over the place as there is these huge forest fires, as there's these, you know, massive devastating fires that hit the earth as this hail and fire rains down upon it.

Now, it's interesting to think about this because it could be considered a couple different ways. And maybe, you know, you could think about it this way. If you walk out of your house tomorrow and look down your street, you can look at all the trees and maybe imagine, you know, one out of three is going to be on fire and going to be destroyed. And perhaps it will be spread out worldwide, kind of in that way, proportionately all around the world.

But there's another aspect that is a possibility. As with much of the book of Revelation, there's a lot of room for speculation and considering how things might be fulfilled and how they might play out. It might be more centralized to a particular area. And so this fire and hail that comes down might be hitting, you know, maybe a particular region of the earth more so than other spots around the earth. And so this is a possibility.

And that is a possibility that might be interesting to consider. Not that I have some great case to make for that, but again, it's just an interesting perspective to consider. If you think about the layout of our planet, North and South America combined make up about 28% of Earth's

all of the land on the earth. And so, you know, you can kind of see the parallel, perhaps. It's about a third of the earth contained in just North and South America. And so if, you know, something were to happen that would devastate these two continents,

Or is it one continent? I don't know. My geography is bad. But you get the point, right? That it could be centralized. Or, of course, it wouldn't have to be North and South America, but any of the other regions as well. But it might be more central to a particular location, or it might be spread out and all

All over the earth, they're experiencing the same kind of thing. One out of three trees burned, the grass and all the vegetation is burned as a result of this event. And so the first trumpet hits and the vegetation is ruined. And again, it's a devastation upon the earth. Well, then the second trumpet sounds in verses eight and nine. Here's what it says. Then the second angel sounded.

You'll notice, two continents. Okay, thank you, Pastor Cisco. You'll notice as we look at these trumpets that

a lot of these seem to be things that are happening like externally and then hitting the earth. And so a lot of these things perhaps will be fulfilled with asteroids, with comets, with meteors, you know, all of these different kinds of things that we see in the sky that might be now actually happening

penetrating our atmosphere, hitting the earth, hitting the sea, because it says here in verse 8 that something like a great mountain, again, we see it burning with fire, thrown into the sea.

Perhaps that is a good description of seeing something come through the atmosphere and it would light up from the friction and the heat and then boom, land in the ocean, land in the sea. The result of that is that a third of the sea becomes blood.

Now, a third of the sea creatures die, a third of the ships are destroyed, and so there is this water damage. So the first trumpet sounded and there was all this damage on the land and the vegetation was destroyed. But now we see the impact in the sea or in the ocean.

Now, in this case, it's probably not spread out more likely than the land one that we saw because it's one single great mountain that is cast into the sea. Now, you'll notice here in verse 8, it says it's something like a great mountain. So it's not...

It's literally a great mountain, but something like that. He sees this massive object that looks like a great mountain, and it hits the sea, and it causes all of this destruction. Now, similarly, if you think about this and hitting in one location, you can think about all of the oceans. There is a massive amount of square miles on the earth that are the ocean. 71% of the earth's surface is ocean.

But if this great mountain is hitting a particular ocean, it might be the Atlantic Ocean. Because the Atlantic Ocean is 41% of, I'm sorry, 29% of all oceans. So about a third. And so I mentioned this a little bit last week, I think. Scoot over a little bit so you can still see me. Okay.

but so there's, uh, some websites that you can kind of play around with numbers and, and see like the impact area of a particular kind of event. And so here's a screenshot of one of those. And, uh, it's, you can find it at asteroid collision. Heroku app.com. And you can put in a location, you can put in the size of the asteroid, and then you can, you know, see, uh,

the different levels. And you can see all of those rings there and they have different descriptions that talk about the level of destruction and how it would be impacted. And so I just put down, it said 4,300 meters was like the size of a small city. So I chose that because here it says there was...

like a great mountain. And so if it would hit the Atlantic ocean, you could see it really, uh, cover the, the whole ocean and impact the, that whole area as well as of course the land. And, uh, you could probably imagine the tsunamis that would take place as a result as well. Um,

And so this second trumpet sounds, it affects now the ocean. Now, I'm not pinpointing that and saying that's for sure. Okay, you know, put it on the sound doctrine scale. It's like, that's a definite maybe. But it's just something to consider. There is going to be this kind of event that takes place. We don't know exactly where, but we do know that it will take place at the sounding of this second trumpet. Well, then the third trumpet sounds in verse 10 and 11.

And it says,

And so here we see now another element falls from the heavens, penetrates the atmosphere, is on fire, and now hits, this time affecting the freshwater. So the previous trumpet hit the oceans, the saltwater, but now the freshwater is affected.

Again, possibly a comet, an asteroid, something of that. It hits a major source of water, maybe penetrates underground and infects and contaminates a third of the fresh water of the earth. And it's so impactful that many people are now dying because they have consumed this water and it is poisonous now. It is deadly.

And so it's not just bad tasting, it's not just bitter, you know, it's not just that it doesn't taste so good, but it's deadly as a result of this trumpet, as a result of this judgment that hits. Well, then that brings us to the fourth trumpet, verses 12 and 13. And here we see a third of the stars are darkened. In verse 12, then a fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars.

Now this one's an interesting one, and there's plenty of different theories to kind of consider in this. Some have suggested, you know, there's a gravity change or a rotation of the earth change. Seems possible that it's atmosphere effects, so that as a result of all of these things, you know, hyperspace,

hitting the surface of the earth, there would be great amounts of debris in the atmosphere, in the air, that would block out the sun and the moon and the stars to a great degree. And so that's one of the possibilities. A third of the stars being darkened, you know, that are invisible to us or unable to be seen.

But God's very big, and he's creative, and he can do what he wants. And so using natural laws of physics and such, it takes millions of light years for light from the stars to reach us. So it seems unlikely that that would burn out, except for unless it burned out a long time ago, and then we're just notified of it when the light goes out later on during this time. We don't know, but however God does it, he does it.

Whether it be in the atmosphere, whether it be, you know, something that he does that we haven't thought of yet. This is going to be a time of darkness, literally, as well, of course, as spiritually, as these judgments are poured out upon us.

Now you can look at these things, the third of the earth being burned, the vegetation, the third of the sea turned to blood, a third of the water made bitter, a third of the stars being darkened, and you can kind of begin to imagine and understand the devastation that will happen. And yet here the Lord takes a moment to point out, you really have not seen anything yet. Check out verse 13. It says, And I looked...

And I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blast of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. The Lord interjects at this point. He sends a messenger, an angel to cry out, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth.

Those first four trumpets were bad, but these last three trumpets, a woe for each trumpet. Trumpet five, trumpet six, trumpet seven, woe, woe, woe for these things which are about to take place. And so here's a quick preview of that. The first woe, the fifth trumpet sounds, we're going to see locusts from the bottomless pit that come and attack humanity. The second woe,

the six trumpet sounds, and a third of mankind is killed by a demonic army. And then the third woe, the seven trumpet sounds, we'll see heaven open, lightning, earthquake, and hail. And then likewise, like we saw with the seven trumpets,

Trumpets coming out of the seventh seal, the seven bowls of judgment, which we'll get into later on in Revelation, come out of this seventh trumpet. And so all of these things are really intensifying and increasing. And so even in the midst of the tribulation period, things are mounting up and getting worse and worse. Now, as we think about these things, and again, thinking about the first four trumpets that we've just seen,

The numbers here really are significant to me and cause me to reflect on the authority of God and the power of God, because this is a measured judgment. Like every one of them is specific. It's a third of the vegetation, not a fourth, not a fifth, not half, but a third. It's a specific amount, which means there is some restraint that's happening.

God could just eliminate everything altogether, just in one swoop, just as he created the world. He spoke it into existence, and six days he formed and fashioned it. We saw that in Genesis not too long ago. God could wipe out the whole universe in no time at all if he chose to, but he's measuring it out. And so we might take a measuring cup, get a third cup of flour,

Maybe I better make that cornstarch so it's gluten-free so my wife's not allergic to the message. So you scoop it in, you get out a third, you measure it out, you shake off the extra, right? Oh, there's a little bit, like it's not filled up yet, so you put a little bit more in. And you know, you get just the right amount to use for the meal.

for the recipe at hand. And in a similar way, the Lord here is metering out judgment in a very precise and measured way. And so it's a third of the vegetation, a third of the sea turned to blood, a third of the water made bitter, and a third of the stars darkened. Because one of the things that God desires, even through the midst of this, is repentance.

And he's giving people opportunity to repent all throughout this tribulation period. He is bringing forth judgment and intensifying it one step at a time so that it's the way that God always works with judgment so that men have opportunity to repent before it gets worse.

And then as he brings worse punishment or worse judgment, then now they're more uncomfortable and there's a more likely chance that they will repent and turn and get right with God. And so in this way, God is able to use the least amount of judgment to achieve the most amount of repentance. He doesn't just pour out all the judgment and give men no opportunity to respond. He gives out just a precise amount and

to maximize the amount of people who have opportunity to turn and get right with him. It's a scripture I will refer to often throughout the book of Revelation. 2 Peter 3, verse 9, speaking about end times, Peter says, "...the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but he is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Peter's talking about the second coming. And he's saying the Lord hasn't returned yet because he's wanting people to come to repentance. And even here in the midst of the tribulation, as the trumpets are sounding, it's not the second coming yet because God is still wanting people to come to repentance. He doesn't want anyone to perish. And so you see God over and over again, even in the midst of judgment, showing incredible mercy.

giving people who have been rebellious, who are in clear defiance against God, giving them an opportunity to turn and get right with him.

And so it's important, even as we look at these things of judgment, to recognize the character of God and the nature of God in the midst of it. He's still holy. He's still merciful. He's still loving. He must deal with sin, but he also does everything that he can so that nobody can say they weren't given opportunity, that they all have a chance. They all have opportunities upon opportunities to

to hear from the Lord, to turn and to become right with the Lord by faith in Jesus Christ. And so I think that's an encouragement, not just for this tribulation time, but through whatever we experience in life.

So, you know, there are those who feel like they're just well past beyond what God can do with a person. But let this tribulation period be a reminder to you. No, no, there's going to be people that are in far worse conditions than you, but God will still be measuring out judgment to show mercy, to give that opportunity for repentance. And so if it's you or there's people in your life that, you know, you feel like are out of reach or they feel like they're out of reach or you yourself feel like you're out of reach,

Understand that God, he is big, he's powerful. And as you think about how big God is, his mercy and his love and his compassion are that big too. And he is willing to receive back those who have been in great defiance against him. Well, we're gonna move on now to chapter nine here of Revelation. And the trumpets continue here in Revelation chapter nine. And so we're looking at now Revelation chapter nine. The key verse is verse six,

It says this, in those days, men will seek death and not find it. They will desire to die and death will flee from them. So as we talked about, the judgments are intensifying. Things are getting worse and worse. It's going to get so bad that people will want to die desperately. And yet death will be kept from them during this time. The outline of this chapter gives us verses 1 through 12. We see five months here.

of demonic torment take place as the fifth trumpet sounds. And then the sixth trumpet sounds in verses 13 through 21, and we see four angels kill one third of mankind. A third of all people on the earth will die at that point.

So digging into these things a little bit, first we have five months of demonic torment in verses 1 through 12. And as opposed to, you know, like the first trumpet where we have one verse, here we have quite a lot of detail. There's a lot of things that are happening here when the fifth trumpet is sounded. John says in verse 1 that he saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth.

Now, we saw in the previous trumpets all these physical manifestations of things falling to the earth. But there seems to be now a spiritual thing that has happened.

And perhaps it's an event that happened. And so he saw this, you know, spiritual being fall to the earth, or he's describing one who has fallen already previously. He didn't see it, but here is this star that has fallen. It seems to be speaking of an angelic being because he has now given the key to the bottomless pit.

And so there's some type of being here, an angelic being, a demonic being. Many suggest that this is Satan himself, but we can't say any of those for sure. But what we can say for sure is he has the key to the bottomless pit. And again, I just want to take the moment to point out, notice how much God is in control throughout this. The bottomless pit is locked and

And it's something that, you know, we see demons throughout the ministry of Jesus saying, please don't send us into the abyss, the bottomless pit. Please, you know, don't send us there. They don't want to be locked there. They don't want to be trapped there. But they are contained there. But here is the key. And at the right time, at the precise time, you know, at the right moment, God says,

gives authority for this bottomless pit to be opened. And so once again, we can see everything is measured and precise because God is giving mankind opportunity to repent. And so in verse two, it tells us he opened the bottomless pit and it's quite a dramatic scene here. There's smoke arising out of this pit.

like the smoke of a great furnace. And so there's this darkness that comes. It even tells us the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. And so it seems like a physical manifestation. Now it could be spiritual in the sense, you know, it's a spiritual darkness. But the way John's describing it here gives me the picture of this visual thing that's impacting the earth.

And so here is this new scene now as the bottomless pit is opened. Now there's going to be the ushering forth of some other type of judgment. What is that judgment? Well, it tells us in 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. And so we see a couple important things happening here. In the midst of this smoke, there is this swarm of locusts that come forth, but they're not grasshoppers, right? Like locusts that we would think of. It seems like these are demonic beings that are coming forth to inflict harm upon the earth.

Now, it could be that there are special physical creatures that God has created for this occasion, and they're not demonic beings. We can't say for sure. But these come forth now, and they have a specific mission. Now, normally, locusts, when they swarm, they eat up and consume all of the vegetation. And they can be quite devastating. They can wipe out a nation's crops in just a few days.

But in this case, these locusts don't swarm on the vegetation, they swarm on the people. And they're empowered to inflict harm to people. Not everybody, but to those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. You remember back in chapter 7, last week we saw the 144,000, the servants of God that were sealed.

Well, they were sealed in chapter seven. And so now as we head into further in the tribulation period, God begins to protect them from some of the things that are happening. And so similar to the plagues of Egypt, where there was that change, where God said, okay, I'm gonna show you that I'm on high. I'm gonna show you that I'm in control. And so I'm gonna make a difference. And the children of Israel are not going to experience these plagues like Egypt does, right?

Again, it's God's demonstration of his authority and his power and opportunity for people to turn and repent and submit to him. And so here we see something similar. God will be demonstrating his power as everybody else on the earth is stung by these locusts that have power like scorpions.

I don't know about you, but that is kind of like a terrifying, you know, visual in my head, right? Like locusts that swarm, like whomp, right? They would come through, they would wipe out entire fields of crops. But could you imagine, you know, this massive invasion of these demonic or perhaps physical creatures that are just bringing the pain and the stinging like scorpions do, right?

Again, they don't destroy the vegetation, but they're attacking the people. In verse 5, it says, 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.

So it's like being stung like a scorpion. Now, the last time I taught through the book of Revelation, I had no idea and I couldn't tell you that I had been stung by a scorpion. But this time through, I have a little bit of experience with that because I was stung by a scorpion.

I do have a little bit of a sense of what that felt like. Now, in my case, it was nothing very serious. It was back in Missouri, and I was with my family for like a family reunion, and I was walking around barefoot in the house that we rented, and

I stepped on something as I was cleaning up, and all of a sudden, I felt this electricity coming up my leg, and I jumped back, and there's pain that's happening, and I'm crying out, and I look down, and there's a little scorpion on the ground. And we kind of freaked out for a little bit until my aunt said, it's like a bee sting around here. Those are kind of common. So if you've never been stung by a scorpion, and you're trying to picture this, you could picture a bee sting, right?

But understand, it's not just a sting, but it's five months of torment. So a bee sting or worse, for five months, I mean, even a bee sting for five months would be very difficult to endure. It's going to be so difficult to endure. It tells us in verse 6 that people will want to die. They will seek death, but they will not find it. There's going to be this strange time for this five-month period where people,

people will be prevented from dying, the Lord is telling us. Death will flee from them. And so again, here you see the hand of God. Notice it says in verse 5, they were given authority, they were not given authority rather, to kill, but only to torment. There's this limitation, this measurement. And then people want to die, but they won't be able to die. This to me seems like God really saying, look,

You need to get right. You have limited opportunities now. And he's calling people to repentance even through these trumpet judgments. Because if they got their wish and died, then their opportunities for repentance would be gone. But God here is inflicting the judgment and withholding death to give them another chance. God is not willing that any should perish.

Well, in verses 7 through 10, we get a little bit of a description of the locusts, and it's a little bit, you know, we can't say for certain, you know, exactly what these things are, what they're like. It gives us a little bit of an idea, but not specific, and you can kind of work through those things a little bit and try to visualize it for yourself. But one of the key words that's found there in verses 7 through 10 is like. Like.

And so it's not exactly something that we have seen or known. It's like this. It's like that. It's similar to...

It doesn't seem to be mechanical. Some people will look at this and try to envision military equipment and things, and perhaps the Lord has a way of fulfilling that in those things. But it's not obvious from the text that that's what it is. It doesn't really seem to be natural. It really does seem to be a horde of demonic creatures that torment mankind for five months.

And so there is this judgment that will come upon the earth. Now, some talented artists have come up with some renditions of what they might look like. And so here's an idea of what these locusts might look like.

That's just a joke to lighten things up a little bit. That's Hopper from Bug's Life. But here's the real illustration here. So it's this locust, like locust wings, but it describes this, you know, the stinger and all of these things here. And so, you know, that's maybe a little bit of an idea. Maybe that helps you visualize it a little bit. It tells us in verse 11 that they have a king and the king over them.

the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. And so there is this horde of these kinds of locusts. They have a leader, possibly it's Satan, perhaps another demon. He's called Abaddon, Apollyon, which means destroyer. And so they are literally going to destroy. There's going to be this great destruction and pain inflicted upon the world at that point.

Well, then in verse 12, it tells us one woe is past. Still two more woes are coming after these things, right? You go back to Revelation 8, 13, woe, woe, woe, and now you understand, well, this is the first one. And no wonder, you know, woe is the right word for that because there is this great torment that comes upon the earth. But now the second woe is about to happen. That's the sixth trumpet. And now a quarter or four angels are going to bring death to a third of mankind.

In verse 13 and 14, it says,

Now, there's a lot of things we don't know about this particular trumpet judgment. Who are these four angels? Why are they bound? Why are they bound at the Euphrates River? All of these things are things that, you know, we don't know and people perhaps speculate about. But what does seem clear is that they are fallen angels because they are bound at the Euphrates River. They're not

willingly submitted to God, but they're bound there, they're held there, and now they're going to be released. And so this seems to be for demonic creatures, for fallen angels who are now going to be released to inflict harm to humanity. In verse 15, it says, And again,

I hope it's not getting too old, but just to reiterate, look how much God is in control in the midst of this. These four angels in rebellion to God have been prepared for this hour, this day, this month, this year. Like this very specific, right this precise moment, that all of this, you know, was prepared for this time. A specific time, a specific task, right?

a third of mankind are killed as a result of these four angels being released. Now, as you think about that, and again, notice the placement. Trump number six comes after trumpet number five. I know some of that new math that they're teaching is a little bit difficult for us to understand, right? So trumpet number six comes after trumpet number five. You have five months of people dying

wanting to die, but unable to. God withholds death from them so that the next trumpet sounds, a third of mankind is killed. Again, you see God's mercy. If he didn't make that time of torment last for five months, they would have less time, less opportunity to turn and get right, because a third of mankind is going to die when these angels are released. And

When God is saying something, when he's speaking something, it is always with a sense of urgency that we need to receive it. These four angels, it's not just them by themselves, but verse 16 describes an army that comes with them, and it's a 200 million soldier army.

Now, we don't know exactly if this is an army of human beings and these things perhaps are describing modern warfare or if it's an army of demonic beings and that's what's being described here. But we see these soldiers described. We see them being led by these demonic creatures. It describes the soldiers a little bit in verse 17 and 19. It says in 17, I saw the horses in a vision saying,

Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. In verse 19, it says, the power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they do harm.

So if you thought the visual of the locust scorpions were a little bit scary, these are even much worse. And so these soldiers on horses, and there's all of the ways to inflict harm with the heads and the tails and the smoke and fire, the brimstone. Again, perhaps this is a very poetic way to describe modern warfare. And it's describing those kinds of mechanics and things.

But also it's a strong possibility that it's just describing some type of demonic army that comes upon the earth at this time.

And it deals a strong death blow and a third of mankind is killed at this point. Verse 18, it says, Now, back in the seals, we saw a quarter of the earth was killed. I think it was the fourth seal killed.

And so here we see a similar event where it's just like one occasion, one time, massive death upon the earth. And so doing a little bit of math again to kind of visualize and help us understand these numbers a little bit.

The world population as of January 2021, now it's grown since this because I haven't updated it since two weeks ago when I shared these statistics, but 7.8 billion people upon the face of the earth or thereabouts. If the rapture takes place and 32% of the world that claims to be Christian is Christian and they're caught up, then it's going to be a big deal.

then that's about two and a half billion people that would be raptured out of the world, leaving a little over five billion people to enter into the tribulation period.

When the fourth seal is opened, a quarter of the earth is killed. And so doing the math, that's about 1.3 billion people at that time. And so after the fourth seal, there would be just under 4 billion people populating the earth. Well, after the fourth seal, of course, comes 567. Now the trumpet judgments. And so this event now happens, you know, from this 4 billion or so people that are left and

Aside from those who died before this, in between, again, we don't know the timing and exact details of these things. But if you take a third of this 3.9 billion, it's the same number almost as the fourth seal. It's another 1.3 billion people would be dying at this point in the tribulation period as the sixth trumpet is sounded.

And so following this, the world population would be down to about 2.5 billion, 2.6 billion people upon the earth. Now you look at that compared to where we are now, you look at that compared to where the population would begin at the beginning of the tribulation, and so that's about half of those who entered into the tribulation period would die from these two specific judgments that hit, the fourth seal and the sixth seal.

trumpet. And so devastating things and hard for us to picture this kind of devastation, even facing a pandemic and all of the things that we've seen over the past year. It's really nothing. It doesn't even, it's not even on the same scale. It's like the minor leagues or even, you know, T-ball compared to, you know, what is going to take place during the tribulation period. Again, the point is none of us want to be here.

And so we need to understand this is the reality. This is the truth. This is what is going to be taking place and be preparing ourselves right now, being walking with the Lord and close to him in keeping ourselves from these things that are to come. Now,

Someone could ask, you know, why go through all of these efforts and all of, you know, this sequence of trumpets and seals and bowls and, you know, all of these things? Why not just destroy everything at once? But the answer is, as I've been sharing, 2 Peter 3, verse 9, because God's not willing that any should perish. He wants all to come to repentance. And so He's giving opportunity after opportunity to give us a chance, give humanity a chance to

And one of the most astounding things to me here in the book of Revelation is the last couple verses here of chapter 9, verse 20 and 21. It says,

Here, the Lord takes a moment to call out the depravity of humanity. That even in the midst of this time of tribulation, where it is going to be clear that

that this is judgment from God. Again, there's the distinction of the 144,000 who are protected while the rest of the planet is tormented by these demonic locust scorpion things. There's going to be this clarity that God is at work here, that he is on the throne.

Even from the beginning, back in chapter 6, we saw that they understood that humanity was saying, you know, it's the wrath of the Lamb. It's the wrath of God. And even though they understand the wrath of God, even though they understand that God is real at this point, that it's not an intellectual argument that they don't believe, right? It's not because, well, I just need more proof that there is a God. No, no, that's not what's happening.

The reality is they will not repent, even when they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God. Even when there is this great judgment that is happening, these terrible demonic plagues that are hitting the earth fiercely and intensely, there is this resistance, this refusal to repent. They did not repent of all of their sins.

And so here we have, even in the midst of the judgment, again, God is dealing with people who are stubborn and hardened hearts and refusing to submit to him in turn and get right with him and receive forgiveness and blessing and goodness that he would have in store for them. As I look at these things, it always speaks to me and reminds me of the importance for me personally to make sure that I keep my heart soft before the Lord.

Because I am capable of being one of these guys here who refuses to repent no matter what God shows me, no matter what God says. I'm capable of that. That is, you know, what we are capable of as human beings. The author of Hebrews says, hey, if you want to hear the Lord's voice, then respond today as he speaks. Don't harden your hearts like the children of Israel did in the wilderness.

And there's an importance for us to be soft in our response to the Lord. Allow him to change us. Allow him to move upon us. Allow him to redirect us. Because if I harden my heart, well, I can become very hard against God. And if I refuse God in the little things, I will soon be refusing God in the bigger things.

And so this speaks to me. Again, the book of Revelation is great because even though it's talking about all of these future things, we see very clearly the power of God, the authority of God, and the mercy of God on display. But we also see the depravity of man and the importance of us keeping our hearts right before God because this is what we are capable of. And it's to this extent that we understand

can be and might be rebellious against God. Well, I want to take a moment before we go on into the next chapters to talk about death in the midst of the tribulation period. This is a question that people often have. What happens to people when they die in the midst of all of these things? And so I just want to walk you through a few steps here and to think about these things a little bit.

So, of course, we're looking at eternity with God as the ultimate goal, the ultimate ideal. That's heaven. That's what we're looking forward to. Now, in this passage,

we're looking at kind of three different time periods. The present time, where you and I are right now. We're looking at the tribulation. That's what we're studying here in Revelation 6-18. We have this tribulation period. And then we have the millennium, the 1,000 year reign of Christ. And

And so I just want to help us think through a little bit here what happens to people when they die in the midst of these different time periods. And so starting with the present time, of course, when believers die, they go into the presence of God. So that is believers who have died before us, believers who die today, believers who die up until the rapture of the church.

they go immediately into the presence of God. They begin their eternity with God. I mean, in one sense, we begin eternity with God when we are born again, right? But they enter into the next life and that eternity with God in that fullest sense there immediately. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8, we are confident, yes, well-pleased rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. That when we leave this body,

we are then present or in the presence of the Lord. And so the believers who die now and previously and up to the rapture, they go immediately into eternity with God. But then you have the rapture. And the rapture is unique and interesting because it's at that point, those who are alive and remain, every Christian, every born again believer who is alive at that moment will be caught up and taken off of the earth.

And so everyone who enters into the tribulation period is an unbeliever. There's no believers who enter into the tribulation. There will be people who later on become believers, maybe immediately after the rapture or throughout the tribulation period, but no one who is a believer before the rapture enters into the tribulation period.

And so there is this collection event where God collects all of the born again believers and they're caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And we've talked about the rapture a few times, so I'm not going to get into that in any more depth than that.

But then as we head into the tribulation period, as we talked about, there will be people who believe in Jesus. The ministry of the 144,000 will be taking effect. People will be hearing the gospel. They'll be realizing the truth. And so they will become Christians after the rapture.

And they will most likely die during the tribulation because, well, as we saw, half of the population will die just in those two judgments, not mentioning all the other ones that were taking place and the persecution that will happen. And so a believer who is in the midst of the tribulation who dies will enter into the presence of the Lord just like we do today. Again, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

There's a couple other groups that we need to consider here in the tribulation period, though. You have the martyrs that we saw in Revelation chapter 6, as well as Revelation chapter 7. And both times we see these martyrs who come out of the tribulation period. They're in heaven before the throne of God.

And so we see, you know, those who are killed for their faith during the tribulation period also enter into eternity with God. And we have that proof right there as they're in the presence of the Lord in Revelation chapter 6 and chapter 7.

Then you have the 144,000, and I highlight them because they're special in the sense that they're not going to die during the tribulation. They're sealed by God to be protected, and they're going to survive the tribulation and enter into the millennium, the 1,000-year reign of Christ. And so they survive and head in to the millennium.

And it's interesting to think about because you have the present time transitioning into the tribulation and all of the believers will be gone. Only unbelievers will head into the tribulation. When it comes from tribulation to millennium, you have the opposite.

all the unbelievers will die and only believers will head into the millennium. And so there's going to be this, you know, kind of difference that takes place there. It's kind of the opposite on each end.

Well, at this point, we've only been talking about believers. What about those who do not believe in God, and what happens to them in their death? As we see the two and a half billion people that we're kind of roughly estimating, what happens to unbelievers? And it's really the same throughout all of the time periods. The present time, the tribulation, when someone who is not a believer in Jesus, one who is not born again, dies.

they, when they die, enter into a place called Hades. Now, the word Hades simply means place of the dead. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word was Sheol, and it means the same thing. It's a place of the dead. But it's a temporary place. So it's not the permanent place of death. It's not the final place of judgment. It's a temporary place of judgment. There's a passage you can consider in Luke chapter 16, where Jesus says,

gives an account of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus and, uh, looks at what they experience after death and, and the contrast between them. And one was in Abraham's bosom, one was in a place of torment and there was a chasm between them. And so there's some discussion about that as far as, you know, what exactly is being described? Is it a parable? Is it a real story? You know, all of that, but, but it illustrates, uh, if nothing else, that the, uh,

temporary torment that takes place for one who dies apart from Christ. And so Hades is that temporary place of torment until the final torment. In the Bible, the word Gehenna is used when it's talking about the final permanent place of torment. When we're talking about hell, we're not talking about Hades, we're talking about Gehenna. It's that final judgment that takes place.

And so this Hades is temporary until after the millennium. And after the millennium, Hades will be emptied out.

And it tells us this in Revelation chapter 20, and so we'll cover it a little bit more in detail when we get there. But there will be the great white throne judgment, and then the lake of fire, which is that final place of judgment. And so as you look at these things, as you consider these things, of course, the important thing to consider is where do you want to spend eternity?

Because we're gonna be in eternity somewhere. It will be either eternity with God or eternity apart from God. And believers have this great hope and this great promise that when we die, we will be in the presence of the Lord. No matter what time we die, no matter what day we die, no matter what season we die, no matter what time period we die, we will be in the presence of the Lord. And that's a great hope and promise for us to consider.

I just noticed the clock and my time is expiring. So I'm going to move on really quickly. Chapter 10, we're not going to really get into anyways, because chapter 10 is a little bit of a parenthetical chapter.

In fact, chapters 10 through 14 are mostly parenthetical thoughts. Up to this point, you know, we've been seeing a lot of things in sequence. The seven seals, the seven trumpets, you know, they're opening sequentially. But here it seems in chapters 10 through 14 that the Lord hits pause and says, okay, let me explain some things to you.

And so it's like, you know, if you've ever had to pause a movie to explain, you know, okay, let me give you the background to this character. You know, it's like watching The Mandalorian with someone who's never seen The Clone Wars or Rebels. And, you know, I have to pause and say, okay, so this character, you know, here's where she comes from and here's her background. And that's why Kim doesn't watch those shows with me because there's too much

you know, explanation, and she just wants to sit and watch the show, right? Well, here we have that. The Lord pauses and says, let me give you some background. Let me give you a little bit more detail. It's not necessarily, you know, future sequence events that are happening here, but it's kind of a stepping back and reflecting on certain things. And so in verses one through seven, John sees a mighty angel with a little book,

But we don't know what it says. He hears a loud thundering and a voice, but he's told not to write it down. So we'll talk a little bit more about that next time as we'll dive into these chapters a little bit in more detail. And he takes the book and he eats it in verses 8 through 11.

Well, that brings us then to Revelation chapter 11. And again, we're not going to cover the entire chapter or even very much of it because most of it is parenthetical. But just to highlight that last few verses there, verses 15 through 19, the seventh trumpet sounds and the temple in heaven is opened.

And so in verse 15 here of Revelation 11, it says, the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. And here you can see the glimpse of the eviction process coming to an end, right? Now the enemy is being cast out and now the announcement is made, this is the Lord's, that this earth belongs to him, the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ,

he shall reign forever and ever. And then there erupts this scene of worship once again. Verse 16, the 24 elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped. And they said, we give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was and who is to come because you have taken your great power and reigned.

And here the 24 elders, probably a picture of the church, is worshiping God because of his exercising of authority to take control, to establish his kingdom. Again, we see the sovereignty of God and the reality of him upon the throne throughout this. Then in verse 19, the temple of God was opened in heaven. The ark of his covenant was seen in his temple and there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, and earthquake and great hail.

You remember Moses was instructed, make sure you follow the pattern that I show you on the mountain when you build the tabernacle, right? We've seen that tabernacle many times. And this, God says, this is the pattern because it's a pattern after the things of heaven.

The author of Hebrews tells us that in Hebrews chapter 8. Well, here we see in verse 19, the temple of God was opened and now the Ark of the Covenant is exposed. It's revealed. It's shown. And now there's going to be seven more judgments.

From this, we'll see this as we kind of fast forward to chapter 15 later on in the coming weeks. We'll see that seven angels come with seven bowls of judgment that will be poured upon the earth. And so it's this continuation of that, but there's some gaps in between as there's some additional thoughts that are being brought forth by the Lord in chapters 10 through 14. And then we'll pick up the sequence again in chapter 15.

And so as the seventh trumpet blows, the final part of the tribulation begins and the final judgments are made ready. And so we'll see that unfold again in the coming weeks.

So we've covered quite a bit tonight in looking at the seven trumpet judgments, Revelation chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11. And there's a lot of these things. But again, the theme that I continue to see throughout is the authority of God

the mercy of God, the depravity of man, and the importance for us to stay close to the Lord, to keep our hearts soft before the Lord. And so I would encourage you to draw near to him as you prepare for the things that are to come. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this reminder and this encouragement and your great patience with us.

that no matter how far we run from you, no matter how much we defy you and fight against you, Lord, you always are there waiting and ready to welcome us back. And so God, I pray that you would draw us near. Lord, as we see these things, we recognize the truth of your sovereignty. You are Lord.

Help us to submit to you now and not later. Help us to turn our hearts over to you now and not to wait until it's a forced thing later on or even to resist that, Lord. May you keep us in a condition, Lord, where we are open and receptive to what you have to say. Help us, Lord, to obey you in the little things, Lord, that then we would be faithful with much. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

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