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[0:00] Father, we pause now to acknowledge your grace and goodness in providing us with information through your word. We ask that as we engage the content today, you will most of all remind us of your promise that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.

[0:18] And yet we are aware of scripture, as we will see even this day, that your justice and your wrath can be as intense and as great as is your grace.

[0:33] So we pray that you will help us to enter into the solemnity and the seriousness of this and also into a spirit of real thanksgiving for what you have already delivered us from in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[0:45] We commit this time to you with thanksgiving in his name. Amen. First of all, I'd like to direct your attention to a couple of passages of scripture that are key to what we're going to be talking about.

[1:03] And the first one is in 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 3.

[1:16] I think it's chapter 3. Maybe it's chapter 4. No, it's chapter 4 and verse 4. Just a couple of verses, but they are very germane to what we are going to be talking about in connection with the fifth and the sixth seal.

[1:32] And we read in 2 Peter. For if God spared not the angels, but sinned, and cast them down to hell.

[1:43] Now, Weymouth translates that, hurled them down to Tartarus. The ASV translates it, committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved.

[1:55] Goodspeed says, committed them to dark dungeons to await their doom. 20th century New Testament says, and committed them to caverns of darkness to be kept under guard for judgment.

[2:13] And spared not the old world, but saved Noah, and so on. Then the other reference is in the tiny epistle of Jude. Yes? What was that reference at?

[2:24] 2 Peter. I think it was chapter 4. It might be chapter 3. Chapter 3? Okay. I stand corrected. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 4.

[2:35] Chapter 2. Chapter 2. 2 verse 4. What is it? 2 verse 4. Well, I started with 4, moved to 3, and now it's in chapter 2.

[2:46] Does anybody think it's in chapter 1? Okay, let's settle on chapter 2. Got that? I don't have the chapter here. I've just got the verses here in front of me. And I want you to note particularly, this is spoken of in the past tense.

[3:02] And the question automatically arises, when did God do that? Well, it appears from the context that when he did it, was in connection with when they sinned.

[3:16] It seemed to have been involved in their punishment for their rebellion against the Almighty. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, these of course were originally created morally neutral, but again with a volition, just like people.

[3:37] Some of these created angels exercised their volition in a negative way toward God. And they rebelled. They sinned. God responded by incarcerating them.

[3:51] How do you go about incarcerating spirit beings? We don't have any difficulty understanding the incarceration of physical beings.

[4:03] We put them behind bars. And they are confined there. But with spirit beings, that's an entirely different thing. And in Jude chapter, well, there's only one chapter in Jude.

[4:17] I can't miss this one, can I? Jude 6. Jude 6 says, And the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

[4:48] And that is very much going to involve what we are talking about today. The judgment of the great day. Rhames renders that unto the judgment of the great day in perpetual bonds under thick gloom hath he reserved.

[5:08] The New English Bible says, And God has reserved them for judgment on the great day bound beneath the darkness in everlasting chains.

[5:21] We just cannot imagine, at least I cannot imagine, that kind of a scenario. And then, the other reference to which I referred is in Luke's Gospel, chapter 8.

[5:35] And it has to do with our Lord casting out the Gadarene demoniac. And it starts in Luke, chapter 8, and verse 26.

[5:46] And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time.

[6:04] 20th century New Testament corrects that, refers to them as demons. There is but one devil, singular, who is the same as Satan.

[6:15] But there are multitudes of demons. Best we can understand is that demons seem to have been, and I don't know how else to categorize them, demons seem to be fallen angels.

[6:31] As they were originally created, as I mentioned, they were created morally neutral. But they rebelled against the Creator. And it appears that they took upon them a demonic kind of being.

[6:45] In the same way that Lucifer, before his fall, became Satan, or the devil, after sin entered into him. So, as best as we can determine, we know God didn't create demons.

[7:00] God created angels. So, I think we can reasonably assume that these that began as neutral angels became eventually demonic beings or demonic spirits.

[7:16] And they are involved here. And there, of course, was a tremendous upsurge in demonic activity during the earthly life and ministry of our Lord. We find some demonic references in the Old Testament.

[7:30] Not a lot, but some. But during the ministry of Christ, there appears to have been a lot more demonic activity. And, during the tribulation period, demon influence and activity is going to proliferate like it never has in the history of humanity.

[7:50] Ron, you had a comment or question? Yeah, the angels that are chained, do you think those are the same angels in Genesis that were the sons of God that were the daughters of men?

[8:02] I do not know. There have been times when I thought so, times when I thought not. I just don't know. As I've said before, I've been on both sides of that issue at least twice.

[8:13] I just can't, I do have real difficulty, I have real difficulty comprehending how spirit beings can mate sexually with human beings and produce and produce an offspring.

[8:34] It seems to me to be genetically out of bounds from the way God created both of them. But there's a lot of other things I don't know about too and this could be just one more that I don't understand as much as I would like.

[8:47] So, if I were to have to take a position, I would say that the sons of God are the godly line and that the daughters of men are human as well and that they constitute an ungodly line and that there was an interrelationship between them that produced the offspring that they did.

[9:11] But that could be wrong. Yeah, John? If these angels that kept the first estate were cast down into chains, then how are they demons today that are running around doing their bad work?

[9:28] We don't know. At least I don't know. I don't know if all of them are incarcerated or if only certain of them are. I am not at all that familiar with demonic activity today.

[9:47] I have read and heard some missionary reports from certain areas where the gospel has had almost zero penetration and I am talking about certain areas of India and Nepal and Tibet and certain places in Africa where there certainly can very easily be made a case for demonic activity.

[10:14] I think I think there is probably some demonic activity that is dismissed and attempted to be treated here as mental illness when it isn't mental illness at all it is demonic activity and there probably are places where demonic activity is mistaken for mental illness and vice versa but these are not the same they are radically different there is a legitimate mental illness and there is demonic activity and I suspect that diagnosing that might be difficult but at any rate let's see what happens with this demoniac the Gadarene in verse 28 of Luke chapter 8 when he saw Jesus now this is a man this is a man who is possessed by a demonic spirit this is referred to as an angostromuthos demon it is a demon that indwells a man and speaks through a man speaks through human vocal cords and he says it is actually the demon who is doing the talking here but is utilizing this man who is called the

[11:30] Gadarene demoniac using him and he probably if you took this Gadarene demoniac cleaned him up and put a suit of clothes on him and put him out here in the mall parking lot you probably wouldn't know him from anybody else but as he is indwelt by this demon he of course is influenced by him and he saw Jesus he cried out fell down before him and with a loud voice said what have I to do with thee Jesus thou son of God most high I beseech thee torment me not for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man for often times it had caught him and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters and he break the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilderness someone who is possessed genuinely possessed by demonic spirit may very well have a supernatural kind of strength or ability about it as this man no one was able to hold this guy down no one was able to bind him in time and confine him so that he could not make the nuisance of himself that he often did and in verse 30

[12:45] Jesus asked him saying what is thy name and he said legion now remember this is the demon speaking utilizing this human being's physical frame and speaking capacity legion because many devils were entered into him and they plural they besought him Jesus that he would not command them to go out into the deep the American standard version says into the abyss sometimes referred to as a bottomless pit Beckworth translation does translate it bottomless pit now based on what we see here in this particular miracle it is apparent in response to a question asked earlier obviously not all of these evil spirits are confined in this abyss those who are not confined to the abyss know about it and they fear it and they dread it this is a legion of demons indwelling this man on the loose having their way with him there is something about demonic spirits wanting to inhabit a physical body a physical body of some kind any kind is apparently better to them than not having a body to indwell not having a body to command and far more preference than being committed to the abyss apparently this is where the majority of these fallen angelic spirits who have become demons are and as far as I can determine this is where they are today this is where they are right now but they are not always going to remain there as we shall see and in verse 32 there was a herd of swine of many swine feeding on the mountain and they the demons besought him

[15:03] Jesus that he would allow them to enter into them in other words indwelling the body of a pig is far preferable to indwelling nobody at all and certainly far preferable to the abyss or the pit this seems to be the thing they dreaded most I have no idea why these were not in the abyss I have no idea why all of these fallen spirits are not in the abyss and why they are not all confined there but apparently they are not so we are told that Jesus allowed them or gave them permission then went the demons out of the man and entered into the swine the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake now and were choked or were drowned so we almost get the impression that what else can I say but the pigs were driven mad it seems that this demonic influence produced just an erratic and irrational suicidal behavior in these what we would call dumb innocent like animals and they plunged headlong off of this cliff into the deep and all drowned in a sense that is in keeping with demonic activity because they seem to have one particular string on their violin if you will and that is destruction they are destroyers and they seek to do nothing but harm injure inflict pain or destroy and they are of course a complete counterpart to everything that God is about in his creation these are destroyers of what

[16:57] God has created now with those introductory remarks I want you to come to our text that we're going to be working from in Revelation chapter 9 and this is on page 1213 can I ask a question real quick yeah would you assume that since they were cast into well they went over the cliff because the Lord decided not to put them in it that they were not destroyed they were not no no they were most certainly not destroyed with the swine the swine were destroyed as physical animals but the demons that indwelt them and here is our difficulty in understanding that and understanding the passage before us as well and also understanding the distinction between spirit and body that I've been researching for the last couple of years and some of you have been helping me with that spirit beings are not destroyed by anything physical spirit beings are not subject to physical danger or harm they are in a different category altogether than anything we can imagine matter of fact your spirit my spirit is indestructible as well our bodies certainly are not but our spirits are and this is part and parcel of being made in the image and likeness of God we have a spiritual capacity about us and that spirit is going to live on it is your human spirit that was regenerated and made new when you received

[18:49] Christ as your savior and it is that same human spirit that is absent from the body and present with the Lord at the point of death and the body may be cremated may be buried at sea may be buried in the ground makes no difference the spirit lives on and that is part of the mystery of not only humanity but the creation of God so let's get into this if we may I'm on page 1213 chapter 9 the fifth angel sounded or the fifth angel blew his trumpet and right away we've got a correction here that needs to be made and I the new american standard makes it but for some reason the compilers didn't put the new american standard translation in here and they most certainly should have at the end of verse one because we read and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit the way this reads the way it should read at least in the new american standard also is that

[19:56] John says I saw a star having fallen from heaven he isn't witnessing the fall he is saying the star has already fallen now earlier in revelation we saw that stars referred to stars they were actual stars but stars may also refer to individuals not a heavenly body but an individual and the context is that which determines whether the star is a real actual star a luminous body in the heavens or whether it is an angel or whether it is an individual what do we call people who have a principal part in a movie or in a play we call him the star he is the star of the show that simply means he is the principal one so I think that is the way it is being used here when he talks about a star having fallen from heaven and this star appears to be none other than a fallen

[21:02] Lucifer who has become Satan and a key is given to him that is the key of the bottomless pit a key in scripture generally generally speaks of authority it has to do with the ability to lock something or unlock something Peter was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and Christ is referred to as the one who has the keys of life and death so this individual whom I believe to be Satan is given a key I cannot think of anyone who could possibly give him this key other than the person of Christ himself now why in the world would Christ give a key to Satan because

[22:08] Satan is going to be used along with his minions to deal out a long awaited punishment and retribution upon those who dwell on the earth God is going to use Satan he is not going to use Satan in any way that Satan is going to cooperate but as Martin Luther put it yes there is a devil and he is a very powerful devil but you have got to remember Satan is God's devil he is I always think of Satan like a mad dog he is on a chain and he can go no further than what the chain will allow him and God is at the other end of the chain so Satan is actually utilized by God to serve God's purpose he doesn't believe he is serving God's purpose he has a score to settle with humanity because this thing goes all the way back to creation and the fall of our first parents there has been a sore judgment inflicted upon demonic activity as we will see and they have built up a powerful head of steam of resentment against the almighty and against all of humanity they are going to view God and man as being responsible for their incarceration in this bottomless pit and when they are released they are going to come out mad as hell and that is very literal we just cannot imagine the invective the pain the anger that is going to be spread upon the earth by these beings it is just absolutely unimaginable having been given this key to the bottomless pit he opened the bottomless pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace most translations render this the abyss it is a lower place

[24:35] I believe and I believe this text is teaching that there is a physical place deep in the bowels of the earth that has an opening on the surface of the earth we don't know where it is in fact it may run all the way through the planet from one end to the other we have no way of knowing where the mouth of this pit is could be in the Sahara desert could be in North America could be in Africa could be in Antarctica we don't know where it is but I am satisfied that there is a geographical geological spot on this earth where this great abyss is connected we just don't know where it is but it will be identified when the key is used to open it and there is an incredible volume of dark thick smoke that exudes from this and we are told that it is going to be so intense it will be like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit well we can understand that just from a couple of our volcanoes going off we know what that produces a thick kind of ash and this is going to be so intense it's just going to be supernatural and it's going to just pour forth from the earth and there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth

[26:21] Beck says grasshoppers well I don't think that quite cuts it and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power and it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth in other words these are not vegetarian locusts they should not hurt the grass of the earth neither any green thing neither any tree but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads as far as we can determine this would apply to the 144,000 who have the seal of God and are virtually indestructible I do not know whether believers who have come to the Lord this is after the rapture believers who have come to the Lord as a result of the preaching of the 144,000 or as a result of other evangelistic endeavors

[27:23] I do not know if they are going to have this seal as well so that even though they are in the tribulation period they will be exempt from the torture of these beasts I do not know that but we do know this there are going to be multitudes of believers who are martyred during the tribulation period huge numbers of them are going to be martyred during the tribulation period so it may may be that many of them will suffer the torment and the death from these and verse 5 to them it was given that they should not kill them but that they should be tormented five months and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man I have never been stung by a scorpion but I am told by entomologists people who know and study insects that a scorpion sting is probably the most painful sting that a human being can endure and still live young children have been known to die from a scorpion sting particularly a mid-east variety scorpion such as the kind that may very well be involved here with that kind of sting and in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it well now

[29:03] I can't quite imagine that because it seems to me that if one were suffering from some kind of excruciating pain especially if you weren't a believer suicide might be a very tempting thing to just end it all put a bullet in your brain or cut your wrists or something how is it that these could want to die and not be able to die well I can think of at least one scenario and I don't know if it has any merit or not but just think about it it could be that this deadly type sting will render some degree of paralysis and incapacity to function we know that the venom from certain deadly snakes invariably attacks the nervous system and renders the individual virtually incapable of doing anything so it could be that there is some kind of a morbid incapacity to act or move some kind of paralysis where the pain would be so great and so intense that all you can do is lie there and suffer and slowly starve along with it wanting to die wishing to die trying to die and being unable to die this is an incredible kind of scenario we're talking about it is the likes of which the earth has never seen before and this is precisely what Christ was talking about when he said the time of tribulation such as the world has never seen and will never see again in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them and I want you to look at the description of these and bear in mind these are supernatural beings

[31:18] I'm not saying godly supernatural beings they are ungodly supernatural beings I don't know how their composition came to pass we do not have any reason to believe that Satan has creative power he has destructive power but we do not know him to involve creation in any way so I cannot account for the existence of these beings because they are demonic yet they are going to utilize physicality where will these grotesque bodies have come from because what we are talking about is a creature that has a resemblance to a horse a human a locust a lion and a scorpion

[32:18] I can't conceive of anything like that and each of these caricatures represents a different intensity as is represented by that animal each one of these spell out a varying capacity of these incredible evil I don't know that you can call them beings I call them things we just cannot focus on well let's read on the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle and on their heads were as it were crowns of gold now he didn't say that they had crowns of gold on their hair he says as it were crowns of gold kind of resembled crowns of gold and their faces were as the faces of it doesn't say that they have men's faces it says they were like the faces of men and they had hair as the hair of a woman and their teeth were as the teeth of lions you ever see a male lion when he's roaring and throws that mouth wide open and you see those massive incisors and teeth in there they just look absolutely fearsome

[33:55] I wouldn't know how I'm not artistic to begin with but even if I were it would be hard to draw one of these and they had breast plates as it were breast plates of iron and the sound of their wings oh good grief now they got wings what a conglomeration and you know you know what our problem is in understanding anything like this is because all of this is completely out of our frame of reference we are familiar with humans we know what they look like we are familiar with a lion we are familiar with a man we are familiar with a locust we are familiar with a scorpion let's put all these together and that's something we are not familiar with but you need to understand these are supernatural times and supernatural beings the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle they really make a commotion and they had tails like unto scorpions now scorpions tail comes up over his head so that even though his tail is behind him he can still face you and sting you by simply dipping forward with that stinger these are the most grotesque ugly evil mysterious things that I think the scriptures ever describe and there were stings in their tails and their power was to hurt men five months you know this is just mildly reminiscent to a provision in the book of

[35:39] Job when God told Satan you can do anything with Job that you want you can afflict his body with boils you can kill his family you can take all of his wealth from him you can take his health from him but I won't allow you to kill him you cannot take his life and it seems as if that is part of what is involved here these supernatural beings are going to have the ability to inflict incredible pain and suffering but I want you to keep one thing in mind it is all deserved justice is being served even through these evil instruments mankind is not going to be on the receiving end of anything he doesn't have coming this is going to be done with the full knowledge and approval of the almighty think of that this is the long suffering of

[36:58] God worn out exhausted it's come to an end and now justice is going to be served they had a king over them which is the angel of the abyss the bottomless pit this is none other than Satan his name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek tongue has his name Apollyon and both of those of course mean the destroyer and if you'll flip over your page one woe is past and behold there come two woes more hereafter and we will reserve that sixth angel and his trumpet but I want to share with you some comments from commentary by John

[37:59] Phillips and this was written by the way this commentary was written in 1974 so it's already what 25 about 35 years old and we think in terms of we wonder in terms of when is this going to happen well we're confident that the rapture will have occurred and this will be part of the tribulation and Dr.

[38:29] Phillips says these times may be much nearer than we think forces are already at work in society that presage the overthrow of the existing order of things forces of subversion are hard at work in every country of the world every known vice and all forms of social and family and discipline are encouraged religion the home family life everything in society that is normal and stabilizing is under attack agents of subversion leave no stone unturned as they pursue their goals sabotage guerrilla warfare street violence anarchy and insurrection are common lawlessness is an accepted part of modern society and is being subtly inculcated into the minds of the young well if it was 35 years ago what's going on now terrorism has become a worldwide phenomenon in 1984 alone for instance according to one who has made an in-depth study of the subject there were 2,679 attacks committed by 126 of the world's 174 existing terrorist groups that was in 1984 think of how that has proliferated to today he continues the world is already being prepared for what is to come it is one of the ironies of the age in which we live that at a time when scientific enlightenment is at its zenith and men are educated pragmatic and materialistic in the extreme millions are turning to the occult for entertainment enlightenment and eventual enslavement every year hundreds of new books are published along with dealing with demonism witchcraft magic spiritism ghosts and prophecy every season brings its quota of tv shows featuring similar themes soothsayers prophets astrologers fortune tellers are given avid hearing by millions the groundwork is being laid for an enormous increase in demon activity soon to burst upon the world what will happen under the blowing of the fifth trumpet which is what we're talking about will all be will be made all the easier because men have been preconditioned to reject biblical truth and to accept the doctrines of demons these beings are going to surface and well let me just share this with you and we'll probably have time to open it for

[41:31] Q&A modern man professes not to believe in demons but they exist just the same moreover they are clever with a diabolical cunning men's attitude toward the demon world may well be likened to man's attitude in the dark ages toward bacteria now I want you to understand and I don't want you to think I'm putting down science but science needs to be put in its place and as I said Sunday science is all about perpetual discovery science is about learning and developing and understanding new things discarding old errors and taking on new things so science is an ongoing proposition and we all benefit from it but it has its limitations and man's attitude toward the demon world may well be likened to man's attitude in the dark ages toward bacteria if we could be transported back to

[42:31] London England in the year 1666 you could say that's a long time no it's not that's not a long time ago that's only 110 years before we signed the declaration of independence and we're a young country 1666 been very long ago at all in connection with the age of civilization we would find ourselves in a nightmare world the great bubonic plague was at its height the sights and sounds of the city were like the terrible climax of a horror movie it was generally believed that fresh air was the culprit fresh air responsible for the bubonic plague the college of physicians recommended the frequent firing of guns to blow away the deadly air people sealed themselves in their rooms and burned foul smelling messes to ward off the fresh air chimneys were sealed rooms were gray with smoke and people choked in the suffocating stench outside palls of black smoke hung over the city people sat in the tightly sealed chambers grimly determined to endure the smarting smoke convinced they were thus immune to the plague we could tell them they were wrong that the plague is not caused by fresh air but by germs microscopic organisms spread by fleas and they would have laughed you to scorn but that's what it really was have any of you seen any pictures from the middle ages from this period of time when the bubonic plague was making its inroads throughout

[44:40] Europe when every morning the death carts would come around and bodies would be stacked on these carts like cord wood have you ever seen pictures of people wearing a bird costume with feathers on top and a pointed aperture for a beak and wear it like a mask because some of the most astute scientific minds of that day had noticed that there were no birds dying from this plague so birds must have some kind of immunity or whatever this is that is responsible for killing people doesn't attack birds so make yourself look like a bird can you imagine that wearing almost

[45:40] Halloween like costumes to make your this was the science of the day now today we just we just dismiss that as how could they be so stupid well let me tell you something man has an earned reputation for being able to be really stupid and sometimes our ignorance is surpassed only by our arrogance we have a track record of stupidity that just won't quit and all the while what we're trying to do through science is eliminate more and more of the stupidity and come into more and more enlightenment but we just we are just at a loss to understand this so well I intended to get through chapter 9 but it's obvious that we're not going to but I want to give you a heads up as to what's coming and let's just read the text if we may and we'll save comment on it for our next session the the sixth angel sounded verse 13

[46:49] I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet loose the four angels that are bound in the great river Euphrates oh my goodness now wait a minute we've got a bottomless pit full of demonic beings now we've got some kind of demonic beings bound incarcerated in a river is any of this stuff to be taken literally I think all of it is I think every bit of it is literal it's just hard for us to imagine and where it is symbolic it is symbolic of something that is real now we've got to deal not only with an abyss and we don't understand how non-physical beings can be bound in an abyss how can non-physical beings be bound anyway

[47:55] I don't know except God has the ability to do that we certainly don't now we've got these angels bound in the great river Euphrates the four angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year for to slay the third part of men and the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand that's two hundred million but what we are talking about is two hundred million demonic beings and I heard the number of them and thus I saw the horses and the vision and them that sat on them having breastplates of fire and of jason and brimstone or sulfur and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone by these three was the third part of men killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths and their power is in their mouths and in their tails for their tails were likened to serpents and had heads and with them they do hurt oh come on now really what is all of this stuff

[49:30] I'll tell you what all this stuff is it's just what it says it is you have got to recognize that our understanding our appreciation our familiarization has to give way to a completely foreign entity with which we have no connection or familiarization at all this is a whole new thing it is a world and a scene the likes of which nobody has ever seen before and it is all culminating in this is the divine payoff for man's millennia of rebellion and rejection of his authority this is what it's coming down to why Euphrates what is involved here about the Euphrates well I have if I can find it maybe it's just as well that I don't but it's the description that

[50:37] W.A. Criswell offered about the Euphrates river and when I share it with you I guess I don't have it with me but when I share it with you you'll see how and why the Euphrates river is so key this is a tremendously influential and important river and it separates Asia from Europe and you can see in our next session why it is so key and what these demonic beings that are incarcerated I just can't imagine demonic beings bound in the Euphrates river where are they in the Euphrates river are they on the bottom are they seated well they don't have a physical body they are going to assume a physical appearance such as was described here how that is put together or where they get this from

[51:40] I don't know I have real difficulty conceiving of God having created these things so where is their point what is their point of origin I don't know but we've got a few minutes left and maybe you know can you tell us I'll put my ears in it most definitely is it is in the area where everything it is in the area where everything that is evil began to happen right there right there Byron I'm sorry well we do know that the Holy Spirit is omnipresent yet he was present on the day of Pentecost in a way that he wasn't present before he was present in the

[52:42] Old Testament the Holy Spirit is present today but he is not going to be present today in the same way that he will be after the church is gone because the church the body of Christ enjoys the presence of the Spirit of God in a way that has never been demonstrated before and because the Holy Spirit is omnipresent he will still be there is no place where he isn't and no time at which he isn't there but it could be that it could be that his involvement is virtually nil yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and you know we look at we look at things like this and this description and what these people who are going to be here then are going to be suffering and we say that is so terrible well it is but it is divine justice and and you know you know the reason that we have difficulty understanding the severity of this and not realizing the actual need for this is because there isn't a one of us here myself included who has any idea how horrible sin really is we don't know we don't know

[54:27] Romans talks about the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the greatest reason that we really can't get in gear with sin is because we are contaminated with it if we were holy if we were holy purely holy we would see sin as God sees it and do you know what the end result is going to be as you read on through this chapter nine that will continue next week the end result is not going to be oh God we were so wrong we're so sorry we repent we believe there's not going to be any of that these people on the receiving end of this are going to dig in their heels and clench their teeth and shake their fist at

[55:29] God and curse him there isn't going to be any repentance this is going to be a generation of humanity that will have reached the severity of hardness of the human heart of the evil Christ likened this generation that is going to experience these things to the generation of the inhabitants of Sodom it's just going to be on a much larger scale and the evil and the filth and the degradation that abounded there is going to be worldwide in scope and God is going to pour out his wrath upon it this will be the long suffering of God having come to an end and chapter 10 when we get there and King James says time shall be no more doesn't mean that at all and it doesn't say that in the original it says delay shall be no more it means no more time will be given it's all over the hammer's coming down no more delay no more long suffering he will have been there are people who are going to be become believers during this time but they of course they will be like they have been in every other generation that has ever lived

[57:16] There'll be a minority, a tiny minority. Yeah. Here in verse 20. Yeah, the rest of the men which were not killed by the plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, idols, and gold.

[57:37] This is, I'll tell you what, this is as hairy as it gets. This is really something. And guess what though?

[57:49] I just misspoke. What I meant to say is, this is as hairy as it has ever been to this point in Revelation.

[57:59] But it is going to be worse. Because guess what's coming after the trumpets? The bowls, or the vials. And it's going to be worse than this.

[58:12] And it will not be, it will not be demonic. It will be divine directly. This that we have been reading about is nothing more than the demonic turned loose and given a free hand by God.

[58:31] Okay? Demons are loose. Here is mankind. Do your worst. And that's exactly what they're going to do. But their worst does not compare with God's worst.

[58:46] And that's the bowls of wrath. Divine wrath that are coming. Some translate it vials, but bowls will be fine. They are bowls poured out upon the earth.

[58:57] And what is being poured out is the wrath and judgment of God. And I want you to think of it in this term. God's wrath and God's judgment is equal to God's grace.

[59:14] And God's grace is really something, isn't it? Well, so is his judgment.

[59:25] And the judgment is a result of the spurning of the grace. Sobering, sobering things to think about. This is what's coming. And not that we deserve to be excluded from it.

[59:41] We don't deserve to be excluded from it. But we have been made acceptable in the beloved. And we are exempt from it. Because we are in Christ.

[59:54] And that's the only reason. So let's pray. Father, these are such disturbing and sobering things we've been reading about.

[60:04] We can scarcely even imagine what is being described here. It is just so far removed from every venue with which we've ever had anything to do.

[60:18] That we just cannot conceive of a time like this coming upon the earth. And yet the basis upon which we believe it is predicated upon the basis in which we believe everything else that you've revealed in your word that has already come to pass just as you prophesied.

[60:36] So we pray that you will give us a sense of greater appreciation for who and what we are in Christ. And for the incredible privilege of having been beneficiaries and recipients of your grace rather than your wrath.

[60:52]  Thank you again for that old rugged cross and what it accomplished. In Christ's name. Amen.