The title of my sermon this morning is things that are really scary.
Things that are really scary.
Now let me start out by saying that even though tomorrow is Halloween, I do not celebrate
Halloween.
I don't like Halloween.
And the reason that I don't participate in Halloween is because of the fact that, you
know, the Bible says that whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on
these things.
And to me, Halloween is just a glorification of that which is evil, wicked, satanic.
And so I don't like going around my neighborhood this time of month and seeing all of the dead
bodies hanging and the body parts and all the demonic pictures and the killer clowns
and the ghouls and goblins and witches and ghosts, you know, to me that stuff should
just stand out as the Christian to just blatantly evil, wicked, ungodly.
I don't want anything to do with it.
But I will say this, you know, we do have an event going on at our church tomorrow night,
the chili cook-off.
Now there's nothing demonic about the chili cook-off.
No one's going to be wearing a costume.
No one's going to be, you know, trick or treating for candy or, you know, carving scary faces
into a pumpkin or anything like that.
And you know, I've noticed this thing lately where people have this strange idea that it's
wrong for a church to have an activity on October 31st.
They said the only churches that are right with God are the ones who are doing nothing
on that day.
You must do nothing.
Now this is so foolish and ridiculous.
I can't even wrap my mind around how you could say that providing an alternative activity
is bad.
Because if you don't have anything to do on Halloween, then the new believers amongst
us, people who've only been saved for a few months or weeks or, you know, they could be
tempted to go to some ungodly Halloween party and drink and do other sinful things and participate
in this occultic, demonic type of stuff.
You know, what in the world is wrong with providing an alternative activity that has
nothing to do with Halloween?
It's not a Halloween party.
It's a chili cook-off.
There's chili, there's cornbread, there's chips, et cetera.
Otherwise, if you just stay home and do nothing, you're going to have a bazillion people coming
to your door and knocking on your door.
It's going to be irritating.
It's awkward if you go hide somewhere with all the lights out trying to pretend that
you're not home or just keep coming to the door and tell them, hey, I don't do Halloween
and just go through that speech.
It's foolish and ridiculous.
But, you know, I've noticed that these same type of people that are against the church
having an activity on October 31st are the same type.
They're kind of these pompous holier-than-thou types where basically they never want to help
anybody.
So here's what they say.
Well, everybody should just be godly enough to just not do Halloween and just stay home
and do nothing.
Well, here's the thing.
That's great if you've been saved for years or decades, you're going to have the character
to do nothing.
But here's the thing.
At our church, Faithful Word Baptist Church, we're actually a soul-winning church.
We actually win people the Lord on a weekly basis.
We constantly have new people coming in, people who have been saved for a week, two weeks,
a month, two months, a year, two years.
And, you know, if I could do something to help those people go to a more wholesome activity
than to go out and commit some sin on Halloween, you know, I want to help people.
And there's nothing wicked or pagan about the day October 31st.
I mean, what if that was your birthday?
Does that mean that you're just born under a bad sign or something and you're just an
evil seed?
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
And October 31st belongs to the Lord just as much as any other day on the calendar.
And so, you know, we're having a chili cook-off.
And these same holier-than-thou, never-want-to-help-anybody types who are against it, they're the same
ones who say, hey, when you go soul-winning, don't pray with people.
Don't lead them in prayer.
Make them do it themselves.
Or hey, if they want to get saved, they have to get up in the middle of a public service
and come down an aisle to get saved.
You know, God forbid we'd actually walk up to them and make it easy for them by talking
to them and showing them for the Bible how to be saved and leading them in prayer.
You know, anyway, that was kind of a public service announcement.
I wanted to get that off my chest.
But you know, sometimes around Halloween, I like to just point out things that are really
scary.
Sometimes I preach a sermon on hell.
I'm not preaching on hell this morning.
But I'm going to preach about some things that are really scary.
And the reason I say that is that Halloween is all about scaring you.
And they show you all the zombies and the ghouls and the devils and so forth.
But you know, the Bible is really clear on something, that we should not fear man.
And we should not fear the devil.
We should not fear all of these phantoms.
The only, the only person that we are supposed to fear is the Lord.
If you look at the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, whenever fear is mentioned, if it talks about
fearing the Lord, that's a good thing.
And if it talks about fearing anyone or anything else, he's telling you fear not.
Don't be fearful.
In fact, being fearful is one of the sins that's listed in Revelation 21 aid.
The fearful, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, whoremongers, etc.
So I want to talk about some things that are really scary.
Because zombies aren't scary.
There's no zombie apocalypse coming, children.
There's no ghouls and phantoms that are going to come and do all these.
Now of course, demons really exist, but they're a spiritual entity.
They're not a physical entity that's going to come in and do all these.
There's no monster under your bed.
There's no monster in the closet.
And there are no skeletons that walk around of their own accord and all of these things.
You know, a lot of this is just a bunch of fake garbage.
The part of it that's real, the fact that there really are witches, sorcerers, and demons,
I have no fear of them.
Because greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.
And the Bible says, Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul,
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
We are not to fear these ghouls that the world wants to get us all riled up about and fearful
about.
We're to fear the Lord.
Let me tell you something.
What the Lord can do to you is really scary.
God is a lot more scary than any of these other phantoms that we see all over our neighborhoods
and so forth.
Look at Psalm chapter 2 verse 7.
The Bible reads, I will declare the decree.
The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son.
This day have I begotten thee, of course, speaking of Jesus Christ.
Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts
of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with the rod of iron.
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings.
Be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear.
Now some people would try to downplay that fear and say, well, that's not really fear
as we think of fear.
It's just respect.
Okay, look at the next phrase.
Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
Trembling is when you're scared, I mean, you're shaking.
And he says that the fear that you have for the Lord is fear and trembling.
You'll see those things together often in scripture.
Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the sun lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but
a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Go to 2 Kings chapter 2.
The Bible's saying you don't even want to make Jesus Christ just a little bit mad.
And look, we're talking about the Son of God here.
A lot of people try to make this distinction between the Father and the Son where they'll
try to say that the Father is sort of the mean branch of the family and that the Son
is the one who's sort of calming him down and the Son loves us, the Father's angry.
But you know, the Bible says the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish but have everlasting life.
So we have the love and compassion of God the Father and we have the fierce wrath of
the Son.
Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath, the Son of God,
Jesus, is kindled but a little.
But blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Let me show you some really scary things in the Bible today.
Let me take you on a little tour, not of a haunted house with a bunch of fake puppets
and robots and scary sounds, but let me show you some things in the Bible that are really
scary.
2 Kings 2, verse 23, the Bible reads, And he went up from thence unto Bethel.
And as he was going up by the way, this is Elisha, there came forth little children out
of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head!
Go up, thou bald head!
And he turned back and looked on them and cursed them in the name of the Lord.
And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children
of them.
And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.
That's a pretty scary story.
You know what we ought to be scared of today instead of a bunch of ghouls and goblins?
You ought to be scared to blaspheme the Lord, to make fun of the Lord, to make fun of the
Bible, to make fun of the preacher and the man of God, to mock him and ridicule him.
That's what we ought to be afraid of.
And we ought to teach our children to be afraid of that.
And we ought to be afraid that we're such bad parents that we would actually raise children
that would be so irreverent and blasphemous that they would do these type of things.
I mean one thing that stands out about this story is, what are 42 plus children doing
just roaming around with no adult?
I mean it must have been some kind of a school field trip or something, right?
I mean when do you see, look, 42 plus, because it says that the bears tore up 42 of them,
that means a lot of them could have gotten away, right?
I mean the 42 are the ones who were torn.
Now I don't know how many of those died, you know, I mean I don't know how many of them
just got torn or some kind of a claw or a bite or something.
I'm sure that if 40 and 2 children got torn by these bears, I'm sure many of them died.
Because when a bear starts tearing you up, I mean that's very serious.
You know, you've probably heard or read or seen about bear attacks and so forth.
This is something that's really scary.
This is something that God can actually do.
God can actually kill you or cause a wild animal to come tear you up.
Not some phantom, but a real animal.
Go to Amos chapter 9, Amos chapter 9.
The Bible says in Amos chapter 9 verse 2,
Though they dig into hell, then shall my hand take them,
and though they climb up to heaven, then shall I bring them down,
and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel,
I will search and take them out thence, and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom
of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.
And though they go into captivity before their enemies,
thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them,
and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good.
You know, that's pretty scary when God's commanding a serpent to bite you.
When God's commanding bears to tear you up.
When God's commanding the sword to slay you.
When God sets his eyes upon you for evil and not for good.
That's pretty scary.
You say, oh, you're preaching the Old Testament.
Okay.
I'm not going to say anything else from the Old Testament for the whole rest of the sermon.
Let's go to Hebrews chapter 10.
We're never going to touch the Old Testament for the rest of the sermon, and now things
are about to get really scary.
We're going to get scarier in the New Testament than in the Old Testament.
Go to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25.
While you're turning there, I'll read.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.
Verse 26.
For if we sin willfully after that we've received the knowledge of the truth.
There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
But thank God in the New Testament, God has really lightened up.
I mean, back then, if somebody despised Moses' law, they died without mercy.
Under two or three witnesses.
I mean, thank God that we're living in the age of grace, and that God isn't like He was
back in the Old Testament where He really clouded up and rained on people.
Well, I mean, that's why Jesus came, right?
To just completely eliminate God's wrath, just completely eliminate any judgment or
punishment or anger on God's part, and just bring in a peace, love, dope era of New Testament?
That's not what it says.
By the way, Hebrews is a great book that emphasizes the correlation between the Old
Testament and the New Testament, and he kind of brings the Jews up to speed with the differences
in the New Testament.
But he says in verse 29, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought
worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and accounted the blood of the covenant
wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.
For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith
the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Go to chapter 12, verse 24.
Chapter 12, verse 24.
You want to talk about something scary?
It's when God sets His face on you for evil and not for good.
It's when you fall into the hands of the living God.
The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 24, and to Jesus, Jesus, the mediator of the
new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
So who is the mediator of the new covenant, Jesus, and who is speaking better things than
that of Abel?
Well, that blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel, that's the
blood of Jesus, right?
Look at the next verse.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.
So we're talking about Jesus Christ.
For if they escape not, talking about Old Testament examples, if they escape not who
refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him
that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he's promised, you know, that was too mean.
No, he says, but now he has promised, yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but
also heaven.
And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken as
of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Wherefore we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may
serve God acceptively with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
Not was a consuming fire, he is a consuming fire.
And yeah, we have grace, but we should still serve God acceptively with reverence and godly
fear.
Go to Revelation chapter 8, Revelation chapter number 8.
Now of course the Bible is crystal clear.
Of course I'm preaching to a saved crowd this morning.
You know, 90 some percent of people here I'm sure know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
The church, the whole purpose of church is it's a gathering of born again baptized believers.
And if I were to ask for a raise of hand, who knows, 100% sure that if you died today
you'd go to heaven.
Go ahead and put up your hand right now.
Look around.
Okay.
We're talking to people that are saved.
They know they're saved.
I'm not going to make this whole sermon about salvation, but I will just say, just in case
somebody who's not saved misunderstands me, that once you're saved there's nothing you
could ever do to lose your salvation.
Let me just make that real clear.
Once you're saved you're always saved.
Once you're saved you have eternal life.
You shall never perish.
No one can pluck you out of God's hand.
Nothing can separate you from the love of God.
You're sealed unto the day of redemption.
There's no question about that, but you know what?
Even if you're saved, a bear can still tear you.
Even if you're saved, a serpent can still bite you.
Even if you're saved, you can still mess up your life on this earth.
You could still contract an STD.
You could still get in a drunk driving car accident.
You could still be arrested and go to prison.
You could still have chastisement and discipline come upon you.
You're not going to go to hell once you're saved.
You're not going to face the wrath of God on this earth if you're saved, but God still
will punish and chastise.
The Bible says, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews 10 was directed toward the saved when he said, God shall judge his people.
It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Now Hebrews chapter 12 was directed toward somewhat to the unsaved people refusing the
blood of Christ and so forth.
When we get into Revelation here, we're getting into judgments on the unsaved here in Revelation
chapter 8.
This is nothing that Christians have to be afraid of or worry about.
In Revelation chapter 8 and chapter 9, we have God pouring out his wrath on this earth.
This is after the rapture has taken place, after we've been caught up together to be
with the Lord, to meet the Lord in the air, at the sun and moon being darkened and so
forth.
That's already happened.
In Revelation chapter 8 and chapter 9, these are judgments on the unsaved, but listen,
these are some scary judgments.
These are some scary things.
Thank God those of us that are saved don't have to worry about these judgments, but let
me tell you something.
Those that are not saved should be very afraid of these judgments.
They should be scared to death.
Instead of being scared of a bunch of ghouls and goblins and ghosts and skeletons, this
is what they ought to fear.
This is what they ought to be afraid of.
What God is going to do to this earth someday when he brings his wrath upon it in earnest.
And by the way, it's the wrath of the Lamb, the Bible says.
The wrath of the Lamb, Jesus himself.
Revelation chapter 8 verse 6, the Bible says, and the seven angels which had the seven trumpets
prepared themselves to sound.
The first angel sounded and there followed.
Hail and fire mingled with blood and they were cast upon the earth and the third part
of trees was burnt up and all green grass was burnt up.
Now stop and think about the type of fire that it would take to burn up all the grass
and a third of the trees.
Now if you stop and think about it, trees are a lot more robust and resilient than grasses.
I guarantee you that if a third part of the trees is burned up and all the grass is burned
up, that tells me that the entire world is affected, the whole world, right?
Because otherwise how could all the grass be burned up unless the whole world is pelted
with fire and brimstone, is pelted with hail and fire mingled with blood.
The only reason that two thirds of the trees survive is because those are just trees that
are robust enough to survive fire and hail and so forth.
See when there's a forest fire, there are going to be some trees that survive that fire
and obviously it doesn't take much to burn up grass but it takes a lot to burn up a big
giant robust tree and of course the grass grows back almost immediately.
That's why later in the book of Revelation some of that grass is back and you see some
of that grass.
But the Bible is saying here that there's going to be fire and brimstone, hail and fire
mingled with blood rained upon this earth just like it was in Sodom and Gomorrah.
He's not going to make a full end though but he's going to pelt this earth in fire
from the sky and the whole place is going to be on fire.
Think about the buildings that are going to burn.
I mean think about the devastation.
That would be pretty scary, you know, trying to take refuge from something like that.
Says in verse 8, the second angel sounded and as it were a great mountain burning with
fire was cast into the sea and the third part of the sea became blood and the third part
of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died and the third part of the ships
were destroyed and the third angel sounded and there fell a great star from heaven burning
as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains
of waters and the name of the stars called wormwood and the third part of the waters
became wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.
What if a third of the fresh water on the planet became poisonous, became as wormwood
and people are dying trying to just get a drink of water and they're dying from drinking
poisonous water.
This is pretty scary.
It's interesting and I actually, you know, I don't repeat things without first fact checking
them and I actually fact checked this and I spoke with many people and I looked it up
and I fact checked it that literally the word Chernobyl literally is Ukrainian for wormwood.
I looked it up in a bunch of different encyclopedias, lexicons, I talked to people, I verified that.
That's pretty interesting when you think about it and here's a possible theory on this.
Why there's that foreshadowing because that's kind of interesting that nuclear plant Chernobyl
that melted down, ended up contaminating the whole area, the whole region of Europe with
that radioactive poison.
Why it happened to just be called wormwood basically in the native language because if
you think about it, we had that great earthquake in Japan a few years ago and that Fukushima
power plant melted down and it started spewing out all that radioactive junk into the environment
and they were even saying it's blowing across the ocean to the United States.
People around there were testing for all kinds of problems from the radiation and so forth.
Now every nuclear power plant has a storage facility for the nuclear waste and I'm not
an expert on this but I know something about it and I've talked to people that were experts
about it.
This nuclear power plant is storing all this radioactive waste from the byproduct of producing
power through nuclear energy and this stuff is radioactive and toxic for thousands of
years.
It takes like thousands of years to stabilize.
So they have to store, they can't just dump it out, they can't dump it in the ocean, they
pollute the whole environment.
They can't dump it anywhere.
They have to contain it.
At Fukushima, they had all these containers where they're storing this radioactive stuff
and they have electricity that is keeping it cooled.
They have a cooling system powered by electricity and they're keeping that stuff cooled, they're
keeping it stabilized.
What happened at Fukushima is there's an earthquake and then a tidal wave came in, a tsunami,
and it flooded the power plant and it ended up knocking out some of that power source
to where this radioactive nuclear waste was no longer being kept, contained, and cooled
so it started to just, you know, seethe and come a lot, you know, boiling or whatever
and it started melting even through the floor, even just to melt straight down.
But then it gets down into the earth, it gets into the groundwater, it gets out, it gets
into the air, it gets into the water, it gets...
Okay, now, the Bible teaches in Revelation that when God pours out his wrath on this
earth, he's actually going to be bringing earthquakes that are unlike any earthquake
the world has ever seen.
So mighty an earthquake and so great.
Repeatedly, God sends major earthquakes that just shake the whole earth, as he talked about
in Hebrews, shaking earth and heaven, even when the sky is rolled back as a scroll that
is rolled together.
Well, think about that.
That means that there are going to be Fukushima's melting down all over this planet.
I mean, if an earthquake in Japan did that to that nuclear power plant, what's an earthquake
like that in California going to do?
What's an earthquake like that going to do all over the world where we have all these
nuclear plants?
Now, everywhere doesn't have a nuclear plant but there are a lot of nuclear plants as well.
So just here's a theory.
I'm not saying this dogmatically but when the Bible says here, if you look down at your
Bible there, in verse 10, and the third angel sounded and there fell a great star from heaven,
burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the
fountains of waters and the name of the star is called Wormwood and the third part of the
waters became Wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.
What if that's saying that this great meteor, because when the Bible talks about a star
falling, it's often like what we would call a shooting star, like a meteor crashing into
the earth.
What if this meteor crashed into the earth which was going to create earthquakes and
then these nuclear power plants all start dumping all that radioactive garbage and it
all comes destabilized and let's say in a third of the world where these nuclear power
plants are and where they're melting down, all the water in those areas gets corrupted
with these radioactive particles of cesium and radioactive iodine and all these different
things and that it would make one third of the water bitter where we kill people.
So it'd be like he's turning a third of the water into Chernobyl, turning it into a Fukushima
type nightmare where the water is filled with radioactive garbage where you would drink
it and it would make you sick.
Think about people who have cancer and they do a radiation therapy and they get exposed
to small amounts of this stuff and how it makes them sick and they're vomiting and their
hair is falling out.
I mean imagine if one third of the water supply in the world with people who are drinking
it, it's like they're going into radiation therapy, chemotherapy and many of them are
dying but what about the ones that aren't dying?
They're still going to be vomiting and their hair is going to be falling out.
I mean that's pretty scary.
That's pretty scary stuff.
This is way more scarier than the haunted house down the street.
It says in verse 12, the fourth angel sounded and the third part of the sun was smitten
and the third part of the moon and the third part of the stars that the third part of them
was darkened and the days show not for a third part of it in the night likewise and I beheld
and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, whoa,
whoa, whoa to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet
of the three angels which are yet to sound.
Look at chapter 9 verse 1 and the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven
under the earth and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit and he opened the
bottomless pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace
and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit and there came out
of the smoke locusts upon the earth and under 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.
There we have the grass grown back years later.
Neither any green thing, neither any tree but only those men which have not the seal
of God in their foreheads and 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 strike at the man and in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall
desire to die and death shall flee from them.
I mean people are gonna wish that they were dead but they just won't have the guts to
commit suicide or they won't be able to find a convenient way to commit suicide but they
are gonna wish that they could die.
They would wish that someone would put them out of their misery.
That's pretty scary.
Who here has been struck by a scorpion?
Put up your hand nice and high.
Wow, good night.
That's all?
I thought we live in Arizona here.
What's going on?
More than half of my family has been stung by a scorpion.
Thank God I've never been stung by a scorpion to this day but I'd say about two thirds of
my family has because we had a time when a lot of scorpions were coming to our house
but we ended up killing them all off.
Thank God.
I think they're all gone.
They're very hard to get rid of.
Poisons don't work on them.
We tried a knife, an axe, a poison.
You couldn't get rid of the scorpions with normal pesticides or pest control.
You have to actually go and just physically kill them one by one because we tried everything
and it wouldn't work.
Finally, I just started going out every night and just hunting them with a black light because
they shine in a black light and a paint stir stick from Lowe's was the tool that I used.
I went out and I killed the first night because we got infested with them.
I went out the first night, I killed 42 or so.
The next night it was like 20, the next night it was like 10, the next night it was like
five and then you got to wait until the next generation because they've laid the eggs or
whatever they do.
Then you got to go and kill them all and keep killing them.
Let me tell you something.
When a scorpion strikes you, it can be pretty serious.
People can end up in the hospital but it's definitely painful.
It definitely hurts when you get struck by a scorpion.
The Bible says here that I was hoping more people would be able to relate to this.
I know two-thirds of my family can relate to this, but the torment of these locusts
is going to be like the torment of a scorpion when he strike at the man.
I know that there are even some scorpions in other parts of the world that are more
deadly than the scorpions that we have here in Arizona, the bark scorpion.
It says in verse seven, the shape of the locusts.
The locusts, by the way, locusts is a flying grasshopper.
We don't always have them here in Arizona but every few years we will get the locust
here because they are migrating grasshoppers.
They are here some years and some years there aren't.
I remember several years ago we had the locusts come through.
I remember I was at a gas station down near Casa Grande.
These things are flying.
There are a lot of them, just a horde of these flying locusts traveling through the area.
He said the shapes of these locusts, so they're like a flying grasshopper like insect, were
like unto horses prepared unto battle and on their heads were as it were crowns like
gold and their faces were as the faces of men and they had hair as the hair of women
and their teeth were as the teeth of lions and they had breast plates as it were breast
plates of iron and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses
riding about.
Now, of course, this is not literal because he says it was like, like, like, as, as, as.
He's just comparing basically that their head, it's like they had a gold crown on their head
meaning that they have some kind of a hard, sharp appendage on top of their head or that
their breast plate is like a breast plate of iron.
It's like an exoskeleton basically that's, that's so hard that you'd step on it and it's
not dead, right, because it's like iron clad because when you try, have you ever dealt
with a bug that was so strong you keep stepping on it, it just won't die?
Who's been there?
Yeah, and you're like, what in the world?
You're crushing it and it's just still there, still alive, still intact.
This is going to be like that even worse.
I mean, you're going to be stomping on the, I mean, hopefully you're not, good night,
but people are going to be stomping on this thing.
Those of you that aren't saved, if you, if this happens in your lifetime, you'd be crushing
them and stomping them and they're just still there, just ah.
Now their torment is as the torment of a scorpion, so it's not like a scorpion tail that they're
using though, it, you know, they're probably going to bite you because they have these
lion-like mouths, but it's going to feel like a scorpion sting, but they're biting you with
these lion-like mouths and it says, and when it says that hair is the hair of women, it's
saying because women have long hair.
So it's going to be this hairy, iron clad, just lion teethed, face like a man, meaning
like you could look into its face and see like ah, you know, like some kind of an expression
there.
I mean that's a pretty scary, but I haven't seen any Halloween decorations of this.
You know, I haven't seen any of these things hanging from somebody's porch, any of these
demonic, locust, scorpion, you know, whatevers, but this is something that's really scary
in the Bible.
And they had breast plates and so forth and their sound was as chariots of horses running
about when they flapped their wings.
And they had tails like unto scorpions and there were stings in their tails and their
power was to hurt men five months.
So this is the double whammy, you're getting bit and stung, both.
And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name is
the Hebrew tongue Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
One woe is past.
I mean, you'd think that's the grand finale.
That's it.
That's the climax, right?
I mean, certainly that's the final judgment.
No, no, no.
One woe is past.
And behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
And the sixth angel sounded.
And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying
to the sixth angel, which has the trumpet, lose the four angels, which are bound the
great river Euphrates, and the four angels were loose, which were prepared for an hour
and a day and a month and a year for to slay the third part of men.
They're going to kill one third of people on the planet.
And the number of the army of the horsemen were 200,000 thousand, that's 200 million.
And I heard the number of them.
And thus I saw the horses in the vision and then that sat on them having breastplates
of fire and adjacent and brimstone.
And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions and out of their mouth 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 for their powers in their mouth and in their tail.
So this is another mouth tail beast that's going to destroy you.
But the other one was little, right?
Like the locust.
This is something that's getting into your house.
It's getting into your closet.
It's getting into your bed.
It's getting in to the small places in your car or anywhere.
But now we have a great gigantic creature, okay, these horses with lion-like heads with
fire smoke and brimstone coming out of their mouths.
But then just into the bargain, they have tails like serpents.
So their tail has the ability to also bite you.
They had tails that were likened to serpents, look at verse 19, and had heads.
So imagine this beast has a tail with a head on the end of its tail.
It's like another head, a small head.
And with them they do hurt.
And the rest of the men, the two-thirds that are not killed by these plagues, yet repented
not of the works of their hands.
Now look, when we look at this stuff that they did not repent of, this should tell us
right here, this is what God's mad about.
Because even though he sends these judgments, they still didn't repent of this stuff.
So that shows us one aspect of what was making God so mad that he sent these horrific judgments.
It says they repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship devils.
And idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which neither can see nor
hear nor walk.
Now listen, the Bible teaches that the things that the Gentiles offer in sacrifice unto
idols, they offer unto devils.
And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
So the Bible is saying here that when people worship idols, they're actually worshipping
devils is what they're worshipping.
And we might think of idolatry as not a big deal when we see the Buddha statues or when
we see all the different Hindu gods and all this idolatry and these different faces and
images and statues.
But I mean that's one of the first things God brings up, how he's bringing all this
wrath and pain and suffering and destruction, and they're still with the graven images,
still with the gold, the silver, the stones, the wood.
And by the way, listen to me, these bunch of Catholic saints, these carved images, those
are devils is what they are, because let me tell you where they came from.
They didn't come from real saints, real Christians, real godly people.
Before the Catholic church even existed, there was a Roman pagan religion.
And the Roman pagan religion had a god for everything.
They've got the god of the forest, they've got the god of the ocean, they've got the
god of the rivers, they've got the god of the harvest, the goddess of love, the goddess
of war, the goddess of fortune, they've got the god of the valley, and they've got the
god of the hill, and the god of the bush, and the god of the fishermen, and the god
of carpenters, and the god for plumbers, or maybe not, okay, there's no god of plumbing.
But anyway, they have all these, they're like a god for everything, right?
And even in India today, they still do this with the Hindus, they've got this god, that
god, this goddess, that goddess.
So what happened is, when the Roman empire converted to this apostate, fake Christianity
under Constantine, they took all those gods and goddesses and they repackaged them into
the saints.
So now you've got the saint of hunting, the saint of fishing.
In Catholicism, there's a saint for everything.
Here's a saint for the forest, here's a saint for the desert, here's a saint for the river,
here's a saint for the tundra.
I mean, you've got saints upon saints.
In fact, they have these different saint days for every day of the year.
365 days a year, there's a saint for every day.
But they're not real.
They're gods and goddesses of paganism that have been around for thousands of years, there's
nothing new under the sun.
And when they're praying, oh, saint so-and-so of the forest, they're praying to the same
demon with their little statue, same demon that their ancestors were praying to in the
Roman pagan Babylon religion.
So we need to flee idolatry, the Bible says.
Flee.
He said to flee fornication, but you know what?
We should also flee idolatry.
We should abstain from idols.
We should not make unto us any graven image, any graven image.
And you know what?
Even if you're making a graven image of Jesus or Mary or whatever, that's all idolatry.
We're not supposed to make any graven image.
We're not supposed to bow down ourselves to them and pray unto them and they bow in front
of that Jesus, they bow in front of that, and it's not Jesus, it's some long-haired
dude.
No one knows what Jesus looked like.
They bow down to Mary, they bow down to some long-haired hippie, they bow down to the saint
of this and the saint of that, and they bow down to Buddha.
And listen, I've seen Christians who have a Buddha in their house, get that out of your
house.
Oh, well, it's just an innocent, it's just culture, it's a culture of the devil.
Get rid of Buddha.
Get that fat slob out of your house and get rid of these.
And look, I've gone to people's houses and they have like, they go to vacation in some
island and they bring back some scary-looking tiki or something.
Get the tiki mask or they come back with some scary-looking statue.
Man, get rid of that junk.
God doesn't like that stuff.
But not only did they not repent of their idols and devils that they worship, but look
at verse 21.
Neither repented they of their murders.
That's another thing that's got God mad, the murder.
And by the way, abortions, murder, newsflash.
And one-fourth of American women have done it.
He said, murder, nor of their sorceries, that's witchcraft, incantations, nor of their fornication.
Sounds like God's pretty mad about fornication too, you young people that don't think you
have to wait until you're married to go to bed together.
And then he says, nor of their thefts.
Even stealing gets God angry and his wrath is poured out on sin.
We need to take these things seriously.
Quickly, I'm almost done, but go to Revelation 16.
These are some pretty scary things.
You know what's pretty scary?
It's pretty scary if you have idols in your house.
Pretty scary that Buddha that's on your desk.
It's pretty scary that tiki mask that's on the wall.
It's pretty scary all your statues of the saints that you're lighting a candle to.
It's pretty scary that your children are blasphemous and disrespectful to where they would mock
the man of God.
It's pretty scary that you would make a mockery of God or his word or the man of God.
It's pretty scary when you think about how God feels about stealing, how God feels about
fornication, how God feels about sorcery and witchcraft, idolatry, all these things.
God is the one that ought to be feared.
Let's not take his glory.
He doesn't like to share his glory with another.
Don't make the devil out like he's so scary.
The devil's nothing compared to the Lord.
He's the terrible God, the Bible says.
He's the one that we should fear and tremble.
We don't fear and tremble before the devil.
We should just resist the devil and stay away from him and just try to have nothing to do
with him.
Revelation 16, 1, And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels,
Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
And the first went and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and
grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast and upon them which worshipped
his image.
You know what I always picture here?
I picture like meth addicts.
You know how meth addicts get covered in sores?
I always picture that the people who took the mark of the beast after God begins to
pour out his wrath, it's like they all start getting sores like a meth addict.
That's pretty scary.
And you know what?
That also ought to scare you not to use meth!
Hello, is anybody home?
I mean do you want to look like that?
Where they're covered in sores and their teeth are all falling out and everything?
The noisome and grievous sore.
Go to verse 3, And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as
the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea.
And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they
became blood.
And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and wast
and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to
drink for they are worthy.
And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous
are thy judgments.
You know, do people even read the Bible anymore, I wonder, in this country, Christians?
Because when they come at you with just, oh the Bible's all about love, oh the Bible's
just love, it's just all about love.
Do you guys just not read the Bible, I want to say to people?
Yeah, there's love in the Bible, but what about all this?
This hasn't been a real loving sermon.
And we, well, is there any shortage of scripture in this morning's sermon?
Let's see, we're reading like two chapters cover to cover together.
Revelation 8, Revelation 9, or most of chapter 8, all of chapter 9.
We're into chapter 16 now.
We read a whole bunch of, I mean look, this is the Bible.
This is the word of God.
Say, well I don't like it, it's too negative.
Oh, okay, well then go to the Buddhist temple down the street and bow down to that fat statue
and enjoy your judgment when you get here.
What do you mean you don't like it?
It's God's word.
It's the Bible, it's the truth.
You just wonder, do Christians, they're just disconnected from this.
And preachers get up and they preach, hey, we've got to live by faith, you know, like
I preached yesterday at the wedding.
Hey, God's going to bless us, let's live by faith.
And everybody loves you.
Then you start preaching about people being given blood to drink.
And everybody flips out and gets mad and says, you're preaching hate.
And nobody likes to drink blood.
Even these weird cultures where they'll drink blood, because they're heathen.
And listen, a blood drinking culture is a heathen culture.
Christians should not drink blood.
But when you go, or eat blood, exactly.
No blood tacos on your Mexico vacation.
But you know, drinking blood is wicked.
Eating blood is wicked.
Even the cultures that do it, they don't do it by itself, folks.
Because I was reading a book that Garrett gave me about Kenya.
And when they drank the blood, you remember, they had to mix it with a lot of milk, just
to be able to get it down.
Just to be able to get it down, they do like milk mixed.
Milk's good for getting a lot of stuff down.
Milk will cover a multitude of sins.
I love milk.
Milk does a body good.
But here's the thing.
Even the taco, you know, it's a little sprinkling.
Nobody wants to just straight up, in lieu of water, in lieu of milk, they have nothing
else to drink.
The only drink is just this blood's for you.
Nobody wants to drink that.
That's disgusting.
And it's pretty scary.
I said it's scary to imagine being in a situation where you have no water, and you're so thirsty,
it's been days since you've had anything to drink, and you're just staring at a glass
of blood, wondering if you have the nerve to drink it, to survive.
That's pretty scary.
That's scarier than anything that Halloween has to offer.
And by the way, last time I checked, Revelation 16 is the New Testament.
And last time I checked, the title of the book is The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Jesus' name.
Well, but Jesus taught it was all love and marijuana and whatever.
No, no, no.
Actually, this is what Jesus taught, because it's The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
And you know, this was supposed to be read in the seven churches of Asia.
We should probably read it in the seven churches of Arizona while we're at it.
Oh, why are you preaching on Revelation?
Look, when was the last time people you think went to the average mainstream independent
fundamental Baptist church and heard a sermon on Sunday morning out of Revelation 8, Revelation
9, or Revelation 16?
In your average Baptist church in America, when was the last time you think that happened?
Probably never.
Almost never.
Probably in 1% of churches would they preach this on a Sunday morning.
But yet Jesus said, bless is he that heareth this message.
He said, send this to the seven churches in Asia.
It's good for Asia.
It's good for Arizona.
It's good for Alabama.
It's good for Arkansas.
It's good for Albania.
It's good for everywhere.
It says in verse number 8, and the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the heat, and
power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
And men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God, which had power
over these plagues.
And they repented not to give him glory.
And you know what?
That's global warming right there.
When it gets so hot that men are scorched with great heat.
And people right now, they're scared of global warming.
The same people who dismiss the word of God are scared of global warming, right?
The Algores of this world.
And they're scared of it, like, oh man, we're not going to have a planet left anymore if
we don't get global warming.
No, you're not going to have a planet left if you don't repent and give God glory.
That's where the scorching with great heat is going to happen, Al Gore.
I mean, I can just see Al Gore just melting in the heat, just like, I was right, I tried
to tell you.
Because he's still not repenting to give God glory.
Think about it.
I mean, that's just assuming that Al Gore survives this long.
But when the sun is scorching with great heat, there have been all these cataclysms,
all these judgments.
He's not going to be like, oh man, why didn't I trust Jesus Christ as my savior?
Why didn't I believe on Jesus Christ?
I could have had eternal life and been saved.
He's just going to be like, I told you, you didn't listen to my inconvenient truth.
And he's just scorched and melted.
He's still not going to give God glory.
Look, though thou shouldest bray a fool like wheat in a mortar with a pestle, yet will
not his foolishness depart from him.
Of course, we have the fifth vial where it's so dark, people are gnawing their tongues
for pain, probably from the other stuff that's been happening.
They still repented not of their deeds at the end of verse 11.
Verse 12, Euphrates is dried up.
Three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth
of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet, and they go out and work miracles
and deceive the whole world to gather them.
Verse 14, at the end there, to the battle of the great day of God almighty, behold I
come as a thief.
Blessed is he that watches and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see
his shame.
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon, and
the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there came a great voice out
of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done.
And there were voices and thunders and lightnings, and there was an earthquake.
And this is at the very end, this is after everything else, trumpets and vials done.
He says there was an earthquake, a great earthquake, such as was not, since men were upon the earth,
so mighty an earthquake and so great.
There have already been multiple earthquakes in Revelation at this point.
This is the worst one, just at the very end, the coup de gras, you know, then he gets into
the destruction of Babylon, you know, that's a whole other sermon.
So anyway, what's the title of the sermon this morning?
Things that are really scary.
You know what's really scary, unsaved person?
Going to hell when you die.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
You know what's really scary, unsaved person?
It's going to hell.
It's being here on this earth, where it becomes like a hell on earth, where you wish
you would die.
That's really scary.
Drinking blood's scary.
Locusts from hell are scary.
All these beasts are scary.
You say, well, it's too perturbing for children.
Well, you know what, sorry, I'd rather have my children hearing this right now at all
ages than down in the Sunday school class, singing somewhere in outer space, learning
a version of Noah's Ark where nobody drowns, where it's just all about the animals, the
glorified floating zoo.
It's like a floating casino or something, floating zoo.
Maybe they can get the fear of God in them, and it's funny that people think it's fine
to bring their toddler down to the haunted house.
I mean, there's some demonic guy in my neighborhood that decorates his house just insane for Halloween.
Who's seen it in my neighborhood?
Who does what I'm talking about?
It's crazy.
I see people bringing a toddler and a baby, like, look, look at this, all the corpses
and all the demons.
They bring kids out trick or treating at all ages, and they glorify the devil.
You know what?
By saying that we should fear the devil, that's a glorification of the devil.
When we make him seem all scary, let's make God seem scary and powerful.
Maybe you can fear him, and maybe you can figure out how to get on his good side, and
then you can read Psalm 23 and 1 Corinthians 13 and all those wonderful chapters, and you're
actually on that side of the equation.
But you know what?
There are two kinds of people in this world.
There are the Psalm 23, 1 Corinthians 13, John 14 people.
That's the saved.
And then there's the Revelation 8, Revelation 9, Revelation 16 people.
That's the unsaved.
Right?
I mean, it just depends on which side of God you're on.
Well, look, thank God we're on his good side if we believe in Christ.
But even if we're saved, it's still scary to think about the chastisement and discipline
that could come on us.
Things that are really scary is what we're talking about this morning.
And I'm just getting it out of my system today because tomorrow I'm not celebrating Halloween.
Tomorrow I'm going to eat chili and cornbread and corn chips and bean dip.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the fact that Jesus Christ has delivered us from the
wrath to come.
And we thank you so much that we will never even set foot in hell for five seconds, Lord,
because you've passed us from death unto life.
And we have everlasting life and shall not perish, Lord.
Thank you so much for salvation, but woe, woe, woe unto the inhabitants of this earth,
Lord, who have not trusted you as their Savior.
Help us to go out with a tear in the eye and Bible in hand and preach the Gospel to
every creature and get as many people saved as we possibly can.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, my wife forgot to ring the bell the first time, so we did break our attendance
record this morning.
We always ring the bell whenever we break the attendance record.
What was the, how many do we have this morning?
301.
All right, very good.
So we, uh, anytime we break the record, we normally have ice cream after the service.
Today we're going to have cake after the service, right?
Is that right?
Cake or ice cream.
So we're giving you more choices today.
But anyway, just so you know, I know it's a little bit tight in here on space.
In the next three to four weeks, we're knocking out all these walls and blasting into a whole
new part of the auditorium.
So we're going to, we're going to keep growing here, God willing.
And so 301, praise the Lord.