Music
Good evening and Happy New Year. Thanks for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can get you a bulletin on the front.
We have our verse of the week. We're on verse 15 of Proverbs 31. So we're getting about that halfway mark. So continue to work on that passage. Those who can quote the entire passage are going to receive a prize. Has anybody already completed Proverbs 31? They've already got it quoted. All right. That's the guy right there. He's going to find a young lady. I can guarantee it. You know what I mean? He's on a mission.
Who's still working on it though? All right. Okay. Lots of people. Good. Okay. On the inside, we have our service time, soul winning times. And then down below, we have our church stats. Make sure if you had any other soul winning that you need to get reported or turned in for the last year or even for this year, get that turned in right away.
On the right, we have the list of our expecting ladies. And then we have our prayer list down below. We've been praying for brother Cameron for his leg. We've been praying for Miss Cooley's stepdad. We've been praying for brother Oz's brother. We've been praying for the name's grandmother. We've been praying for the Spurgeon's grandfather. We've been praying for Miss Negara. We've also been praying for Miss Warner's friend, Debbie.
And then the Nichols family has been asking prayer as well for some protection. So that's what we have for our bullets. And we'll go ahead and say a quick word of prayer now. Thank Heavenly Father for our church and for this evening and for this new year.
I pray that you just please be with all these ladies who are expecting that you just continue to bless them and their pregnancies. Please help them with their children's development.
I pray that you would just also bless our church family that has health issues, that you would give them healing. I pray that you would just help use our church this year to honor and glorify you and that we would be focused on serving you no matter what distractions may come. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
One other note. Evangelist Urbanic is planning on going to the Philippines pretty soon. He's going to be headed there on just a trip. I'm going at the same time, kind of a scouting trip next week. And so if you just at least keep us in your prayers. So I'm going to be out there.
He's going to actually be joining up with Pastor Stuckey in his church. He's been ordained, but his church is still Verity Baptist Church. So that might seem a little confusing to some people, but it is a separate church from the Verity Baptist Church in California, but it is still Verity Baptist Church.
And Pastor Stuckey's out there, and we're going to be having Evangelist Urbanic kind of team up with him and help him because he already has a couple church plants going in the Philippines. And then there's definitely a great need in the Philippines, a lot of different areas.
And so we're going to be really sensitive to whatever opportunities may arise, but definitely getting more hands on deck out there is going to be great.
Very excited for him and his family. They are planning on permanently moving out there, God willing, sometime in February, him and his whole family. And so definitely continue to pray for them. And hopefully that's going to all go really well.
Very excited to go out there and to visit some of the brethren in that part of the world. I guess this is their summer, so get away from the chillier weather and go to the land down under, right?
And so I'm excited to go out there. I'm actually going to be doing a couple pit stops. I'm going to be visiting Pastor Kevin Sepulveda in his church. It's New Life Baptist Church in Australia.
Australia actually has two churches, but I'm going to be visiting the North Church. It's a little bit north of Brisbane. It's in Sunshine Coast. So Australia is actually, it's interesting, it's just a giant country.
Like if you just took Australia and you just put on top of America, it like almost covers like all of America.
Also, what's also interesting about Australia is that almost everybody, like the vast majority of the population, all live within just a few miles of the coast.
So like it's basically just the coastlines of Australia that has the vast majority of its population.
And then to the east of Australia is a lot of little islands, kind of similar to how we have a Caribbean.
They kind of have their version of that with lots of the different little islands out there. So you got islands like Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, and that's just a few.
There's actually several little islands over there. I'm going to be trying to do, I've heard it's actually very receptive over there.
So I'm going to try and do one day of soul winning in that part as well, just to kind of scout that area.
And so going to try and make the best I can out of a short trip, just kind of go over there and see a lot of different things.
And so if you just be praying for me while I'm over there, pray for Evangelist Urbana, who's going to be traveling out there too, and then pray for their event.
I just wanted to give you that kind of update as far as the next little bit.
Brother Salvador Alvarez, his family moved down to Pure Words this week.
And so he's now down there permanently. And I had ordained him the last time I was down there as an evangelist.
And essentially he's just going to be in that temporary position of the evangelist towards the middle end of this year,
where we're hoping that Pure Words, God willing, will just be completely independent Baptist church.
And evangelist Alvarez will be the full time pastor there and leading that church.
And so I'm really excited about him being down there, him being down there.
A lot of things actually kind of work together really well. Seems like God's really been blessing Brother Alvarez and his family.
And so I'm very excited to see them down there.
I think it's going to be an amazing fit. He's a really diligent, hardworking guy that loves the Lord.
And so definitely keep them in your prayers as well. A lot of exciting things are happening.
I expect this year is going to be a big year. A lot of distractions out there, you know, in the world.
But, you know, we can stay focused on what we're doing and do a lot of great works for God while the whole world goes to hell, basically.
So don't want to give away Revelation chapter nine too much yet, but it doesn't look good, folks.
OK. All right. We'll go ahead and sing our third song. Holy, holy, holy.
So it's in our special handouts. If you have that. Holy, holy, holy.
Maybe you could share with a neighbor.
Holy, holy, holy. Everybody sing it out together on the first.
Oh, my God, three verses.
Bless the Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy.
Oh, saints.
Oh, for the casting down there.
Oh, holy, holy, holy.
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea
chair of him and seraphim falling down before thee
which were never more shall be
holy, holy, holy though the darkness hide thee
though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see
only thou art holy there is none beside thee
perfect in power and love and purity
holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea
holy, holy, holy merciful and mighty
God in three persons blessed Trinity
Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 9. That's Revelation chapter number 9.
Revelation chapter 9 the Bible reads
And the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven unto 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 locust upon the earth 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 neither any green thing neither any tree but only those men which have not the seal of God and 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 strikeeth a 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
and the shapes of the locust 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 the 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 running to battle and they had tails like unto scorpions and there were stings in their tails and their power was to hurt men five months
and they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek tongue had his name Apollon
one woe is past and behold there come two woes more hereafter and the six angels sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God
saying to the six angel which had the trumpet loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates and 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 and I heard the number of them
and thus I saw the horses and the vision and them that sat on them having breast plates of fire and of jacath and brimstone 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 fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths
for their power is in their mouth and in their tails for their tails were like unto serpents and had heads and with them they do hurt
and the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone of wood
which neither can see nor hear nor walk neither repented they of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornication nor of their thefts let us pray
Father God thank you so much for Steadfast Baptist Church and we thank you so much for our pastor and his family and I pray that you would give him wisdom and insight in this chapter tonight
and I pray that you would just limit distractions and help us walk out better Christians and help us to go home safely as we drive home and I ask these things in Jesus name Amen
So we're here in chapter 9 and we're in context in the seventh seal that's been opened by the lamb and then specifically within that seventh seal the Bible talks about seven different trumpets being sounded out
In chapter number 8 we saw the first four being unleashed and then it ended in a pretty ominous way. Look what it said in chapter 8 verse 13
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
So in the last chapter we see an angel in a pretty dramatic fashion saying whoa three separate times to represent the three trumpets that are going to sound at the end
I made a chart, I don't know if you still have it, but in that chart you'll notice there's the three whoas highlighted and identified on those last three trumpets
And in chapter number 9 we're going to talk about that first whoa that is unleashed. It says here in verse 1
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. Now it's interesting here that the Bible describes a star falling from heaven
Sometimes this could be pictured as a quote fallen angel. The Bible uses that same language in Revelation chapter number 12 when we talk about the devil and his angels
But I don't know that it's necessarily talking about this person in that manner as being a fallen angel. The word star can be referenced to a lot of different things
In Revelation chapter number 1 Jesus Christ had seven stars in his hand and those seven stars represented seven angels which are the seven angels of the churches
And I believe that the angel mentioned there is more like and under the definition of a messenger which is kind of represented of the pastors of those churches
So stars could be referenced to angels that have rebelled against God. They could be in reference to the angels of the churches. They could be also Jesus Christ is described as the bright morning star
So he's also described as a star. So I don't think that you have just a cookie cutter hey star means this every single time. It's a metaphor that could be used in multiple ways
One way to interpret this is just kind of the way in which this angel descends into earth. Kind of a star falling is a picture of like a shooting star or like a comet
And maybe it's just in the manner in which he comes from heaven is this kind of just intense you know extreme speed just like a star just shooting straight down from heaven
You know with great velocity with some kind of a ferocious behavior that's kind of maybe the symbolism that's given here as this star is falling. It's just coming straight down into the earth
And notice it's not just a star it's a metaphor because it says and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit
I also think if you kind of think about a few different aspects in chapter 12 and I'm not going there but if you've read Revelation in detail
You'll kind of notice that at about chapter 11 you kind of end and chapter 12 almost like starts over again and in chapter 12 it talks about the devil and his angels being cast out of heaven
Well from a timeline perspective that's already happened before we get to this particular point in time
So it doesn't really make sense that this guy would be a part of those bandits kind of seems like he's a separate guy
And also he's given a key so it almost shows that he has some level of authority or some kind of power that's been given unto him
Well who has the power to give this guy this key? Well go back to chapter 1 for a second and look at verse number 18
This is what the Bible says
Jesus Christ says that he has the keys of hell and of death
So you know who could give the key of hell to someone? The Lord Jesus Christ
Now notice that it says that the key was given to this star in chapter 9 of the bottomless pit
So that's just another euphemism or description of the same place that we know as hell
And it makes sense that it would be called a bottomless pit because of the fact that if you think about what even draws someone down
If you were to fall into a hole what caused you to go down is gravity
And we know that essentially gravity is the idea of being drawn towards the center of a large object
People don't necessarily understand everything about gravity
Scientists are still trying to understand gravity to the fullest extent
But it's very clear that things are drawn towards the surface of the earth
And that gravity even changes or is altered based on your trajectory
The further you go up into the sky the less gravity is going to have that same effect
You can even get so far away from the earth that you have what's considered like no gravity
People that go on spaceships or people that are on the International Space Station
They experience a state that's much different than what we experience here on the earth
Where on those space shuttles they're just kind of floating around
Other objects are floating around
And in fact the design of those space shuttles has to be very specific
Because of the fact that there is no gravity
Like simple tasks like using the bathroom gravity is a nice thing to have
When you're on a space shuttle and you need to use the bathroom
You don't want things just floating around
And so it's interesting that how gravity even works
But think about it this way
If you reach the absolute center of the earth itself
You can see how maybe gravity, there's a shift in how gravity itself works
And it's almost as if you just, there's nowhere to, you're falling
But there's nowhere to fall to because you're kind of already there
So in a sense it's almost like this bottomless pit
Because from all directions and all angles
You're falling in this pit and you can't even necessarily get out of it
It's kind of an interesting phenomenon
But that's how the Bible describes hell as a bottomless pit
You don't ever hit the bottom
Because you just, somehow it's just the center of the earth
And it's just kind of an interesting phenomenon that we have described in the Bible
This particular star or angel is given a key
What does he do in verse 2?
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
Now, I don't know
There's a lot to this chapter that I don't want to get dogmatic about
Or don't want to act like this is exactly how to interpret
Because frankly speaking this is super far into the future
And the Bible uses a lot of metaphors
So it's very hard to know what's for sure going to happen
But I have some ideas
And I just wanted to share some of my personal ideas and opinions
Of how some of these things could have worked
But think about it this way
If you literally had some kind of a comet
Or some kind of an actual star
That was coming with great velocity towards the earth
And it smashed into the earth so hard
That it literally went all the way through the crust
Into the actual core and mantle
What would be the result of that?
Well, you would be basically opening up that bottomless pit
And what would arise out of it?
Smoke and all kinds of volcanic activity
Because what is a volcano?
Volcanoes are simply, it's basically like a pimple
You know what I mean?
You know how we have pimples and then people pop them and stuff shoots out?
That's basically like a volcano
You have this particular protrusion of the earth
Yet it's a portal to what's underneath
And it kind of shoots out and gushes out
And in fact a lot of times you realize you reach the end of the pimple
When blood comes out
So that blood is kind of representative of what's actually underneath the surface of the skin
So that blood in a sense is kind of like what's represented as the lava and the fire
That is underneath the earth's crust
And many times that volcanic activity when it erupts
Yeah, you get some surface stuff
But then you also get that lava and fire that's also coming from underneath the earth
But imagine a comet or an actual star
Coming from heaven with such great velocity that it just smashed all the way through the earth's crust
It could open a portal to the quote, you know, mantle or to that portion of the earth's surface
And it's just gushing out, you know, smoke and fire and all this kind of stuff
So when we talk about these subjects
What's difficult to know is how much of this language is a metaphor
And how much of it's literal
How much of it's kind of a natural
And how much of it's like a supernatural thing
I kind of want to present both ideas is that, you know, there could be a mixture
But it could also be very naturalistic
It could be very supernatural what we're talking about here
But the Bible could be using this language in a metaphorical way
That it's just like this a literal kind of star came down
It smashes through the earth
Causes some kind of a portion of the earth to open up
And out of that comes smoke
Now here's where it gets really interesting though
Is it says, there arose a smoke out of the pit as a 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 upon them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power
So now you also have these locusts coming out of this particular bottomless pit
It's really hard to imagine how this could be naturalistic
I'm not saying it isn't
But it seems very likely this is a supernatural thing
And, you know, you kind of have to connect a few dots here
But when we get into chapter 11
It's going to talk about two witnesses
And how two witnesses were plaguing the earth with all kinds of different things
It could be perceived from the world's eye
That these two prophets are performing these specific miracles
Even though we kind of have hindsight
And we have the Bible
And we're looking down from heaven
And we notice that it happens to be that there's this angel
And there's these trumpets sounding
And all these different events that are happening
They may not see all that
And they're just perceiving like these two witnesses
Are in a sense causing these plagues and these issues to happen upon the earth
And that they're sending out these locusts
That would probably be viewed as at least still somewhat of a miracle though
Or a supernatural occurrence, right?
That they're causing plagues
Just like Moses did
When Moses was doing certain plagues to Egypt
At first you kind of notice how there's hesitancy for Egypt
To accept whether or not this is natural
Or this is God
But then it finally crosses that threshold
Where they're like telling Pharaoh
This is the finger of God
Sorry, like, yeah, we could kind of mimic some of these things
But it eventually crosses that threshold
Where it's like this is a supernatural power that's coming only from God
There's no other explanation
Okay, so it's possible too that there could be a mixture or confusion
As to how much of this is supernatural
How much of it is even kind of a naturalistic thing
Or also another explanation is that God sometimes just uses natural things in a supernatural way
Like he may use lice or locusts or whatever
That's still a natural thing
But their occurrence, frequency, quantity is a supernatural occurrence that God's using
Obviously blood's a natural thing
But for the Nile River to turn into blood wasn't very natural
Okay, so we don't know exactly how God is orchestrating these things
You know, we talked about in the previous chapters
How wormwood came and it poisoned the waters
Made them bitter
And it caused a lot of the water to turn into blood
You know, is that like all the water just turned into literal blood just as a miracle?
Or is it just that the waters got so contaminated
That literally every fish and every animal in the ocean
All died immediately
Rose to the surface and kind of spilled all their blood
And so just that top layer of the ocean is blood from all those animals that died
I don't know
It doesn't really matter entirely
But what we have to understand is that there's a lot of different ways that this could be true
And you know, some people mock like how could that be true
There's a lot of ways it could be true
There's a lot of ways to interpret these events
Also, you know, there's always that potential of Elon Musk and AI
And all these weird things that people are doing
That they create really creepy inventions in the end times
I mean, who knows what's gonna happen
I think it's all possible
You know, they're all possible scenarios
I kind of lean towards the idea
That this is perceived as a miracle from the two witnesses
And that these locusts are coming from them through God
Okay, so that's kind of
Cause when you read this in chapter 16
Seems like every time one of these things is unleashed
People are mad at God
Keep your finger here and go to chapter 16 for just a second
I wanted to show you
In chapter 16 it parallels with this particular timeline
And if you look at verse number 9
It says, and the fifth angel poured out his vial
Now we haven't really talked about the vials yet in detail
But the vials coordinate with the trumpets
In the sense that there's like the first trumpet, first vial
Second trumpet, second vial
So when you have the fifth trumpet
You have the fifth vial
So we're in the same timeline
And notice what it says
And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast
And his kingdom was full of darkness
And they gnawed their tongues for pain
And blasphemed the God of heaven
Because of their pains and their sores
And repented not of their deeds
So if you go back
Notice how they tie what's happening directly to God, don't they?
They're blaspheming God as a result of the punishments that are happening and being poured out
So in some way they can tell this is happening from God
When Moses was pouring out the wrath of God on Egypt
They knew it was coming from that God
Like he's saying this is from God, God's gonna do this, God's the one doing that
I'm sure that the two witnesses would be similar in the sense that they're saying
Hey, God's gonna plague you, here's what he's doing
And we have these locusts that are coming from hell basically
And it says in verse 3
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth
And none of 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
Neither any green thing, neither any tree
But only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads
This is interesting too
I really believe, you know, when I read this
That this is a real locust
Albeit it may not be a natural locust that we have today
But I don't think this is a metaphor for something
I think that it seems very likely
It's talking about some kind of a real locust
Based on a few hints
Notice that it says that they should not hurt the grass of the earth
Neither any green thing, neither any tree
Well, that's what locusts do
And in fact, when you read about locusts and previous plagues in the Bible
What do they typically do?
They eat all the green stuff
And that's a problem because then, you know who can't eat that green stuff?
The cattle and a lot of the animals
And then it causes famine, it causes a lot of issues
And so having locusts come in and just kill all the vegetation
Ends up destroying the food for animals and man
And it causes a lot of problems
But notice, these locusts are different
Because these locusts aren't hurting that
And they're not hurting the men that are sealed
That's what it says, they're not allowed to do that
Look at verse 5
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's striking a man
So these scorpions are coming out
And they're not allowed to hurt the vegetation, the grass, the trees
Or the 144,000 that were sealed
And they're not allowed to kill anybody
They're only allowed to just torment you
Boy, that just sounds awful
I mean it's just, you've seen all those movies where animals and bugs come and attack somebody and then they die
Death is almost like a mercy in that particular scenario
This is saying it's gonna hurt but just not enough to kill you
It's just so annoying that it's just gonna sting you
And I mean, scorpions are pretty intimidating
Looking little beasts with their little stingers
And I have never been stunned, praise God, I hope I never am
But I've heard that it hurts a lot
But I can't imagine just having just an infinite number of flying locusts that could just sting me at any time
And just having to constantly do that for five months
Just everywhere you go
I hate mosquitoes, okay
And mosquitoes hurt a little bit
Like it's not necessarily the worst pain you've ever had
But it's uncomfortable, it's not a good feeling
And especially later, the sore that you get from that mosquito bite
This is way worse than mosquitoes you've ever heard of in your life
And they're everywhere and they're just constantly tormenting men just regularly
Notice what the Bible said
It's so painful that men are gnawing their tongues
You know what that means?
That means that they're biting their tongue, it hurts so much
How much pain do you have to be to literally want to bite and hurt your own tongue?
Have you ever bit your own tongue? It hurts bad, doesn't it?
It's saying they're biting their tongue, it hurts so much
The pain, they're gnawing on it
It's just excruciating the life that they're living on this earth
This is that first woe
You can see why it's a woe
Man, is this really torturous
Man, is this really bad
You know, it's so funny to me
People will then be like, God's so loving
All the time
To every person, no matter what
Have you ever read this chapter?
Yes, God is love
Yes, God loved every single person
And he sent his son to die on the cross for them
But you know what God also is willing to do?
Send locust from hell on you
When you reject the gospel and you're not saved
And you're in the end times
Guess what's going to happen?
Locust from hell
The only people that escape
According to the text
Are the 144,000
I don't even know how this works
I think that it's up for some scrutiny here
But it seems like most likely some people will get saved
Even post rapture in this window
From maybe the 144,000 preaching
Or maybe the two witnesses preaching
But it doesn't even say that they
If they did get saved
That they're exempt from this, necessarily
So you know
Well I'll just get saved in the wrath
I don't want to do that
Okay
I don't
For sure there's got to be a little bit of time
Where no one's saved
Because there's a moment in time
Where all the saved get raptured
And then he just starts unleashing wrath on the earth
So there's at least some window of time
There's at least some portion of time
Where no one's even saved
I don't know how long that extends
I don't know how long that is
But you know at this point
The vast majority, if not almost everybody
Is not even saved
And they're just all being tormented
But even if you did get saved
It doesn't say that it's a relief
I'm just hoping that there's an exception
That's not written
For those handful of people that are saved
But what's modeled here
Is how the 144,000 are protected
Kind of like how the children of Israel
Were protected during the plagues of Egypt
How they're living in Goshen
Completely immune
From the wrath of God that's being poured out
But those that are not saved
The wrath is just coming upon them
To the uttermost
And so it's a very similar parallel
That we have here of these particular locus
Also the five months is interesting
Because when we talk about
The 70th week of Daniel
Daniel's 70th week
Or the final seven years
We understand that that midpoint
In the midst of the week
Is when the antichrist is revealed
And that's when he causes everyone
Small or great
To receive a mark
In their right hand or their forehead
And that they cannot buy or sell
Except or save they have that mark
And we understand that that's kind of the culmination
Or the high point
Of where we're going to have this great tribulation period
And then that great tribulation period
Will eventually be cut short
With the rapture
But what I want to point out is
A lot of people believe that that period of time
May be let's say 75 days
And I think that's an excellent theory
I think it makes a lot of sense
It fits a lot of Bible
There's a lot of proof text to that
But it doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible
It doesn't say 75 days
So we don't know 100%
But there's some more clues
Think about it this way
There's at least a five month period
Where people are being tormented from these locus
So you'd have to believe
That the rapture came at least
Five months before the end
And then we're going to learn about some other indications
We're going to have some other events here
That we're going to add up
So we'd realize like
At some point
The rapture has to happen
Before that three and a half years
Well it's definitely five months
There's a five month deal where it can't be in
It can't be in that last five months
Of that three and a half years
Because we have a five month period
Where people are being tormented with locus
But there's going to be even more than that
And I just wanted to kind of
Show that that's another proof text
That this window of time
Where we're kind of getting that from
Now it says in verse six
And in those days
Shall men seek death
And shall not find it
And shall desire to die
And death shall flee from them
This is even worse for them
Because
You know they want
A lot of people just want to die
In this period
Of great torment
And they just can't
It's not so much that they physically can't
It's just that
Death isn't easy
Or it's not coming
Think about Job
When he's really suffering
And he's got like
This plague on his body
And he's scraping the sores on his body
With a potsherd
That just sounds horrible
It's pretty obvious
From what Job says
That he wants to die
Like he wants to die
But Job's not going to kill himself
And he's not going to do anything
Hazardous enough to kill himself
But he just kind of wants to die
But it's just not happening
And I think that's what the text is trying to say
There's just going to be so many people
They're not going to kill themselves
But they just kind of wish
That they would just die naturally
You know sometimes when you get sick
Maybe it's just me
It's just the men right
When we get a cold
Or we get really sick
Have you ever felt like
I just kind of wouldn't mind
If I just died right now
You know
And women are always like
Wives are like
You're all so dramatic
But it's like okay
Well
I'll be honest
I've had that feeling
Okay
Maybe it's just me
Okay
I've had low moments
Painful moments
Or times
And nothing to compare
With what the Bible is saying here
Nothing to compare with
What many people have gone through
But even myself
Just having gone through
Light affliction in comparison
Have had that feeling of
Man
I wouldn't even mind
Just going to heaven right now
You know
Like just ceasing to live
Wouldn't even be that horrible
Right this minute
And it's kind of painting this idea
Of people that are in so much pain
They're in so much agony
They're in so much distress
They just wish they could die
Yet God's not allowing them to die
God's just letting them just continue
To just suffer
And just keep experiencing
This horrible pain
Because you know
Some of the
Some things that hurt in this life
Don't really last that long
Or you don't really experience it that much
Because of the fact that our bodies are frail
You only have certain nerve endings
Like I've talked about burning
You know burning can hurt
But the reality about being on fire
Or touching something really hot
Is you actually don't experience much pain
In those areas
It's the areas where the nerve endings
Didn't quite get burned off
Because if you were to touch something hot enough
Your nerve endings are instantly fried
There's no way for you to even feel pain
In that part of your body
What you actually feel pain from
Is whatever portion didn't get completely fried
Or didn't get completely destroyed
That's still capable of sending signals
To the brain
And telling it
This hurts
Wow
Fire is not fun
And many people that have been burned
What they've even said
Is that the moment
Wasn't necessarily as excruciating
As afterwards
When they're trying to heal from it
And just that pain of their skin
Having been marred
Or destroyed
Or whatever
Happened
They often say that that was way worse
Or I've even heard people talk about
You know they've had like a garment
That was on fire
And it kind of melted to their skin
And the doctors had to try and remove that
From their skin
You know right after that injury
Because you can't just let
Garments grow into your body
And they said that was way worse
Than the actual fire
So it's just
What I'm trying to get to
The point is though
Is there's a lot of times where pain
Is not realized
Because of adrenaline
Because of nerve endings
Being damaged
Or destroyed
So it's almost like God
Was thinking like
How can I cause you
Lots and lots of pain
But your adrenaline
And nerve endings
And all this stuff
Are going to stay intact
Oh I know
Locusts from hell
That are just going to constantly sting you
Over and over and over and over
And you're going to have sores from it
And you're going to have pus
And just all kinds of just
Horrible parts of your body
But you know what
You're not going to lose those nerves
You're not going to die
The adrenaline is going to run out really soon
And you're just going to have to sit there
And just suffer and suffer
And suffer and suffer
And you know God is brilliant
God is brilliant
He created our bodies
To enjoy pleasure
You know what
He also knows how to make it hurt
As much as humanly possible
Have you ever read Deuteronomy 28?
God explains how he's going to make you suffer
In the worst ways imaginable
He also created a place called hell
There is no punishment
Worse than hell
You cannot conceive
Dream up
Or think of
A possible scenario
Where you could create a punishment
Worse than hell itself
Hell is the worst punishment
Of course though
That's for a supernatural version
Of your soul and spirit
That doesn't actually lose its nerve endings
Here on earth
You know being tossed into lava
You just
It'd be over
Oh okay
Gone
So he's like
How can I torture you on earth
In that body
To where it's going to maximize suffering
Oh
Locusts that are going to sting you
With a scorpion tail
And you're not going to die from it
That's who the God of the Bible is
I don't like that God
Well you know what
You might get stung then
Okay
A lot
You know how you don't get stung
You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
Okay
You know it almost makes verses
Like the sting of death
Sound a little bit
Okay
Boy
Because you know what death
Often means
Hell
These are locusts from hell
And you got that sting from hell
Oh man
It's not what that verse means
I'm just using it
As kind of a funny
Kind of funny wording
But
There's a reason to get saved
Okay
And some people say
Oh you just wanted fire insurance
Yes I did
You just
You were afraid of going to hell
That's why you got the
The gift of salvation
Yes I did
You know Jesus Christ preached
About how horrible hell was
So that people would get saved
You know God made hell horrible
So that we would get saved
Imagine if hell wasn't bad
I mean already it's the worst thing imaginable
And plenty of people are choosing to go there
Think about it if it wasn't even bad
How many people would be excited to just go to hell
Or
People tell me this all the time
Like I'd rather rule in hell
There's no ruling
The ruler's already been decided
His name's a baton
We're gonna read about him in here
And you're not him
Okay
You're gonna be suffering
And you're never gonna want to wish
That you were there
It's not like a big rock concert
They think that hell's like this cool rock concert
Where you're hanging out with the devil
Talking about when
Your last LSD trip or something
It's like no
You're just screaming your head off
For all of eternity
And no one cares about you ever again
And you never get water ever again
Ever
No water
That's horrible
But you know there's other ways to be punished
On this earth
There's other torments
That God's gonna give people
And they don't get to die
Notice what it says
And death shall flee from them
He's just like
I'm gonna prolong your agony
And your pain
And your suffering
Think about this
When we read
From the previous chapter
Do you remember how when it started out
It just said there was silence in heaven for 30 minutes
There's a reason
This isn't nice
This isn't a pleasant topic
This isn't fun
There are people
If this happens in our lifetime
There will be people that you and I know
That this is happening to
Your co-workers
Your neighbors
Potentially even family members
I mean this is horrible to think about
But it's a reality
I mean think about it
You probably have a lot of people
I mean think about it
You probably have
That sweet little cousin
Suzy May or whoever
But she's not saved
She's gonna be going through this
If she doesn't get saved
Then it happens in her lifetime
There's gonna be
You know teenagers
And young kids
Young you know college kids
And elderly people
And just all kinds of people
Just constantly suffering
This horrible suffering
And they're just
You know
They're not saved
Look what it says in verse 7
In the shapes of the locust
Were like unto horses
Prepared unto battle
And on their heads
Were as it were
Crowns like gold
Notice how the language here
Is it says
As it were
So do they literally have a crown
No
It's just
He's just trying to give
A physical description
Of these particular creatures
Okay
It also had said that they
Were like unto horses
Prepared unto battle
It's not like the locust
Looks like a horse
But
If you've ever seen like
Pictures or movies
Of horses
That are prepared
In like an ancient battle
They typically have
A lot of armor on them
They have a lot of armor
Shielding
Maybe even like
Kind of clothed
A little bit
And so
That's what it's trying
To describe
Is that these locust
It's almost like their body
Has like shields
And they're kind of clothed
And that the
The upper portions
Of their head
Must have some kind of
Yellow or gold
And it's just kind of like
In a circle or something
Maybe
So just the head
It kind of looks like a crown
Even though it's not
A real crown
It's just the coloring
Of the shading
Of these particular locusts
Has it seem as if
They have this kind of
A gold crown on their head
It says in their faces
Whereas the faces of men
They don't really look like men
It's just trying to say
That they kind of generally
Have like eyes
And a nose
And a mouth
They just kind of have
Those features
As a particular locust
Saying
That they had hair
As the hair of women
Now this is an interesting
Verse here found in Revelation
But
You know
In order for this verse
To mean something
It means that men and women
Have different hair
Did you realize that?
Like to point out
The fact that
This has hair like women
Must mean
That there's a hair
That women have
Did you realize that?
Okay
Keep your finger here
And go to 1 Corinthians
Chapter 11 for a second
Now here's the thing
They don't actually look
Like a woman or something
That's not what it's saying
What is it trying to say?
Well
What kind of hair
Do women have?
Long
It's also not saying
Like their hair is beautiful
Or something
It's not like they have
A perm
Okay
Braids
Or something like that
What it's trying to indicate
Is that they have
Long hair
So they're just hairy
If it said they had
Hair like a man
It would just seem
Like it's kind of
Short
You know
Not really
Maybe coarse
Curly
A little bit at best
But probably
Very short
Fine hair
If it said
Hair like a man
Saying hair like a woman
Meaning this thing
Is kind of like
Hairy
And it's just got
A lot of hair
Just protruding
Off of its
Body
In some kind of a fashion
You know
Even horses
Some other animals
They have like a mane
And you know
They kind of have
Some longer hair
So
You know
These locusts
Have some kind of
At least a mane
Or something kind of
Going on
Where they have some
You know
A lot of hair
Protruding from them
Well
The Bible tells us
Very clearly
That women
Have long hair
Naturally
Not
This isn't
My opinion
This is what
The Bible just says
Just happens
Look what it says
In 1 Corinthians
11 verse 7 first
For a man
Indeed ought
Not to cover
His head
But
The woman
Is the glory
Of the man
So the Bible says
That God
Looks like a man
Or a man
Looks like God
But women
Don't
Okay
That somehow
There's a distinction
Between men and women
Physically speaking
And that God
Is identifying himself
With man
And that man
Is created
In God's image
But women
Are not
Did I make that up
Or is this
What the Bible
Is just saying
He is the image
And glory of God
But
The woman
Is the glory
Of the man
Making it sound like
Okay
You know what
There's a difference
Between
Men and women
Men are in his image
Women are in a specifically
Different image
Okay
You know that would make sense
If God has an image
You know this verse would not make sense
If God does not have an image
Like why would God require women
To look differently than men
If God has no image
This doesn't even make any sense at all
What makes sense
Is that God literally has an image
And that that image
Men look like
And women don't look like that
Okay
Now
Look at
A little bit further down in this chapter
I'm not gonna read the whole chapter
But look at verse 14
Does not even
Nature itself
Teach you
That if a man have long hair
It is a shame on him
You know what I'm saying
Fabio is a shame
You know what's also a shame
Every one of these fake looking Jesus Christs
Like the Jesus series
Or the
All of these movies that have a Jesus in it
He always has long hair
And you know what the Bible says
Not Pastor Shelley
This is the Bible
You know what it says
Does not even nature itself teach you
Saying that
I didn't even have to say it
It was just already obvious
That a guy with really long hair
Was embarrassing
It's an embarrassment
They look like dirty hippies
Okay
They look weird
It looks effeminate
And you know
Even even gross
Like more gross than that
Is if you were to ever confuse a guy
For a woman from behind
Hopefully that doesn't happen
Usually you can tell by the broad shoulders
Or something
But you know on a week
Just kind of a feminine looking dude
With long hair
And you're like
At target
You never know
You're just like
You're like
Eh
What is this
You know
That's embarrassing
It's embarrassing when you say
Hey ma'am
And it turns around
And you're like
Ah
Ma'am
Sorry
You know
It's like
Oh you misgendered me
Well because you look like a woman
Right
That's embarrassing
And it's embarrassing that in America
We are filled with men that have long hair
Go to Starbucks
Go to Target
Go to Portland
Go to a lot of places
Go to the non-denominational church
And look at the
Worship pastor
Look at the guy leading music
He probably has long hair
It's weird
That is not
I mean how do you reconcile that
When the Bible just clearly says
It's a shame
It's embarrassing
It's wrong
It's a sin
It's a sin for men to have long hair
Oh
I don't like this kind of preaching
Well cut your hair and then you can like it
Okay
You know that's what the Bible says
And look what it says in the next verse
But if a woman have long hair
It is a glory to her
For her hair is given her for a covering
So according to the Bible
Women have long hair
Men have short hair
That's what the Bible says
Oh that's Old Testament
This is New Testament
I don't even know
Like I really just
I'm baffled
How New Testament Christians
Just don't care about this chapter
Like all the excuses they usually have
It's just it really starts running out
I guess it's not in red letters right
Maybe that's what they use
I don't know
But it's like it's in black and white at least
In my Bible
That men are supposed to have
Short hair
That women are supposed to have long hair
And in fact
If they cut it short
You know what the Bible says about this
Verse 6
For if the woman be not covered
Let her also be shorn
But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven
Let her be covered
You know the Bible is saying
It's saying
You know if you would be embarrassed as a woman
To be bald
Then go ahead and just have long hair
It's saying it's just as embarrassing
To have short hair
Than to actually be literally bald
So it's saying
So go ahead and just cover yourself
And actually have long hair
Cause it's saying
If you're gonna have short hair
Then it'd be okay to be bald
But if it's not cool to be bald
Well then go ahead and put long hair on
That's what it's trying to say
Obviously
Women
In the Bible even
If they were taken captive
And they weren't a child of Israel
They were supposed to shave their hair
But that was like a punishment
Like a cleansing thing
That they were supposed to go through
A ritual they were supposed to go through
And it was a shame for them
And they were supposed to have to grow their hair out again
You know today
Sometimes women could have cancer
Or have an issue
And that's not their fault
I don't think there is
It's not a sin
If your hair literally falls out
But you know what
I would probably
Put a wig on
That family member
If that was the case
Just because it is kind of embarrassing
I've had teachers
When I went to school
Public school
That had cancer
And they had all their hair
Really fall out
And then they just wore a wig
But you know
They looked fine with a wig
And everything like that
And I felt bad for them
I would not say a woman is sinning
Because she has to wear a wig
But you know what
I would say it's a sin
When you're purposely cutting your hair
Shaving your head
You know
It's like a cool trendy thing now
For girls to like shave
Like part of their head
And have that like weird buzz cut
On one side
You know what
That's wicked
And if it's cool
Just shave one side
Just shave the whole thing honey
But you know what
You don't want to shave the whole thing
Because you know what
Women with bald heads
Look kind of ugly
I'm sorry
But that's just reality
They look
They kind of look like alien
Or something
Or like
There's something weird going on
And it's just like
It's weird how much hair
Can make a difference
But boy does it make a difference folks
And I remember
Even in middle school
One of the girls
That I had always grown up liking
She ended up
Cutting her hair really short
And it was just like
You're not even
Nearly as attractive
Like I don't know why
It is the way that it is
But it's just
Long hair is attractive on women
Short hair is not
That's why the lesbians
Cut their hair
Because they don't want to be
Attractive anymore
And they're not
When they cut their hair
It's gross
It's disgusting
Don't try to be like Ellen
Don't try to be like
Hillary Clinton
It's so annoying
Why is the baby boomer generation
Trying to dress
And look like Hillary Clinton
And you know
It's not necessarily proven
But there's a lot of rumors
That Hillary Clinton likes women
And it wouldn't shock me
If that was 100% true
I caught a lean like it is
But why are women trying to model
Themselves after her
In fact
She was like
I think one of the first women
To ever wear
Like a pantsuit
Into
Either Congress
Or some kind of position
In government
Some form of government
She was like
One of the first ladies
To ever cross dress
Cut her hair
I mean why are we
Modeling our women
After Hillary Clinton
It just doesn't make
Any kind of sense
And you're gonna say
What does this have to do
With revelation
Well you know what
It says that
These locusts have hair
Like women
But for Hillary Clinton
She doesn't get
What that means
But we as God's people
We're wise
And we know that women
Have long hair
And we know what this means
And you know what
The whole world's
Gonna learn
What women's hair is like
When these locusts
Are stinging
The fire out of them
And they're like
Oh man
They have
The Bible says
They have hair like women
That's what that means
That they're supposed
To have long hair
You know
Just get the long hair now
Go back to
Revelation chapter number 9
That was a short break
For you to get hair extensions
Or no I'm just kidding
You know it's just
It's sad that you
Even have to preach
That kind of stuff
It's sad that in America
Where everybody claims to be Christian
They don't even know
That that's even in the Bible
I mean how many Christians
Would you point that out to
And they'd be like
Oh that's
That's hateful or mean
Or I don't know
What you're talking about
It's like it's in the Bible
What do you do with that
There's some weird
Sex of Christianity
That think that that means
You have to wear a hat
Or something
Or like
They have their women
Wear a scarf or something
On their head
But that's not what the Bible
Said the covering was
The covering was their hair
It's really really clear
In the text
And these locusts
Are weird looking
Okay
They got this long hair
They're stinging people
It says
In verse number 8
And they had hair
As the hair of women
And their teeth
Were as the teeth of lions
So they also have
Some gnarly looking teeth
You know
Some sharp looking razor teeth
It says in verse 9
And they had breastplates
As it were
Breastplates of iron
And the sound of their wings
Was as the sound of chariots
Of many horses running
To battle
And they had tails
Like unto scorpions
And there were stings
In their tails
And their power
Was to hurt men
Five months
This just sounds horrible
I mean these guys
These these
Locusts
Are just stinging people
And they're kind of
Like a terrifying beast
Because notice
They look intimidating
They like look gross
And that they sound
Like a thundering
Sound of chariots
Just coming
I mean this is like
Every terrifying thing
Of like a horror movie
Or something
Or it's just like
Oh here comes
The locusts from hell
To just
Sting us
Forever
I mean this
This is what the world
Is going to be like
At some point
This is going to happen
I mean Hollywood
Couldn't even
Dream this stuff up
Better
It says in verse 11
They had a king
Over them
Which is the angel
Of the bottomless pit
Whose name
In the Hebrew tongue
Is a baton
But in the Greek tongue
Hath his name
Apollyon
So that's the first woe
Notice it says in verse 12
One woe is past
That was just one woe
Just one
One event
The specific angel
Or star
That's mentioned
Having opened this
Bottomless pit
Being the king
Over them
In the Hebrew tongue
Is a baton
And in the Greek tongue
Is Apollyon
People say that a
Baton
Kind of a similar wording
To just
Hell and death
So like a
Baton
Is just that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Etymology
Of that
Hebrew word
Is just kind of
Signifying
And identifying
Itself
With death
With hell
That's where this guy
Is getting this name
It's interesting to me
That the Bible itself
Gives you
Two names
In two very
Specific languages
Did you notice that?
Do you notice that
It didn't say
Like in French
And in German
Did you notice
Who noticed that?
and Mandarin. It didn't just arbitrarily give us a couple random just,
hey, I just want to tell you, this name in Arabic is this. It would be like, okay,
why is that? Nothing in the Bible is just accidental or incidental or
coincidental. You know, why do you think, let's just summarize for a second,
why do you think or theorize for a second, why do you think the Bible would
give us Hebrew and Greek? Hmm, maybe it's because the Old Testament was given to
us in Hebrew and the New Testament was given to us in Greek. Maybe that's why.
Maybe that's significant. And you know, did you realize that we're reading an
English Bible? We're reading an English Bible, and even in this
English Bible, you know what still rings through the text? Hebrew and Greek.
I didn't even put it there, and this isn't one place. There's a lot of
places where the New Testament and the Old Testament make an obvious point to
point out how we're talking about things in Hebrew or in Greek. How about
this, the jots and tittles mentioned in the New Testament? You know, why is it
bringing up jots and tittles? That's a Hebrew construct, and it's
interesting to me that it's bringing up jots and tittles when we have the
New Testament written in Greek literally. The New Testament was written in Greek,
and then it's bringing up jots and tittles. It's not bringing up some kind of a Greek
form of dotting i's or crossing t's. It's bringing up the Hebrew version.
Why? Because he was talking about the law. He was just saying how every
jot and tittle of the law, that that's not going to be erased, destroyed, or finished
until all things are fulfilled. Why would it bring up jots and tittles?
Because the law was written in Hebrew. Some people, they almost scoff at the idea that the
original Bible, the original language, was Hebrew. But that's just reality. That's just facts.
Facts are God gave the Bible originally in Hebrew. He gave the Old
Testament in Hebrew. He gave the law in Hebrew. He gave it to the Hebrews.
Then he ended up giving the New Testament in Greek. We have to realize that the Bible
was given and handed down to man in Hebrew and in Greek. When we talk about any doctrine
about the Bible itself, we have to acknowledge the Hebrew and the Greek. Some people want
to go super weird with their theology or with their doctrine, and they want to almost
ignore Hebrew and Greek as if it no longer exists or it doesn't matter anymore.
Obviously, I don't speak Hebrew. I don't speak Greek, and that's fine. I can learn
everything in the Bible. Praise God, I have an English translation telling you what
the Hebrew means and what the Greek means. I praise God that I have a New Testament
that tells me exactly what the Greek said. I don't have to know Greek to know what
God said. I have a King James Bible, and it tells me. But you know what? God also
still gave us the Greek, and I believe that God preserved both the Hebrew and the Greek,
and he's then preserved his word into many languages, including English. Of course,
it's hard to argue with the fact that the King James Bible isn't for sure the
greatest translation of all translations. It's the translation of all translations. Nothing
compares to it. In some ways, you could even say, depending on the context you put it in,
that the King James Bible itself is superior to the Greek and the Hebrew. In what way?
In the way that, you know, initially, with the Hebrew, you only had the Old Testament.
With the King James, I have both the Old and New. With the Greek, you only have
the New Testament. With the King James, I have both. Okay, so that's one way that
maybe you could argue it's superior, is that it's all in one book. Okay? Or you could
even argue that today, in today's context, the King James Bible is greater, especially
for us, because I couldn't really use the Greek and Hebrew very well. This is superior
for me, right? It's also superior for the vast majority of people on this planet
because most people speak English. Most people do not speak Hebrew or Greek. And additionally,
it's easier for somebody to understand one language than two. So in order to get the
original languages, you'd have to learn both Hebrew and Greek, whereas with the King
James Bible, you only have to know English in order to get all of the text. So there's
a lot of ways that you could even argue that the King James Bible itself is superior
to the originals. Now, this is what I would never say, though, is that any verse
of the King James Bible is superior to the original verse and the original language.
That's absurd. Okay? It's equivalent, right? It's on the same level as far as a verse
by verse. Or you could argue that in some ways the original maybe even had some level
of superiority, because I believe when you look at some of the poetry sections, like
you look at Psalm 119, if you understand how Psalm 119 was actually crafted, it's
a acrostic for their alphabet specifically. Acrostic is a poetry device where the first
letter is the same. So if you have a poem and you have like five stanzas or five
lines and every line starts with the same first letter, that's kind of like an acrostic.
Or if you're spelling a word, I believe that could also be a way that you have,
like, you use the term acrostic. But when we talk about Psalm 119, there's 22 letters
in the Hebrew alphabet, and Hebrews, I'm sorry, in that particular Psalm, it has
eight verses that start with their first letter. So that first eight verses, it all
starts, Aleph is the first letter in each one of those. And then when you get to
the second section of eight verses, they all start with their second letter, Bet.
And so you kind of have that B. And then it goes through all 22 letters that way where
it's just like A every single time. Well, in the King James Bible, they can't do that
because you're translating to a different language, so you're not going to be able
to start every single verse with the letter A and then B. Plus, here's the thing,
in English you have 26 letters in the alphabet, so it's not even going to necessarily
be a one for one. So what the King James translators did is they just tried to
translate the verse to mean the exact same thing, and it does mean the exact same
thing. But did we lose that acrostic poetry? Yes, we did. Am I going to then say somehow
that the translation of Psalm 119 is superior to that original acrostic masterpiece of literature?
Absolutely no! That's insane, folks! That is insane! Okay? And there's a reason why
God in the New Testament itself is pointing out, hey, this is his name in Hebrew, and
this is his name in Greek. You know what name he didn't want to tell us it in? English.
Okay, it's not like we have to now figure out a name for him in English, too.
We don't even do that. We just transliterate his name, okay? We're just saying his
Hebrew name, we're just saying his Greek name, we're just borrowing words. That's
what the English translators did anyways, they just borrowed words like croissant and
fiancé and all these, taco, whatever. Or maybe taco, they borrow from us, I don't
know, right? Who knows anymore. But it's just insane and absurd when people start
taking doctrine to a point where it undermines what the text says itself, okay? And yeah,
I believe that the King James Bible is God's word preserved, it's inspired. I
believe that there's no error in it, and that we can trust every single verse,
every single line, and every single word. And so I believe it, wholeheartedly. I've
always believed in the Bible generally, and then over time I recognize and realize, hey,
the King James is his preserved Bible. This is the real one we should be using.
The modern versions change the text, rip things out, and I don't think there's
anything wrong with learning Greek and Hebrew, but you don't have to. It's not like
when you get the Psalm 119 and you read it in Hebrew, you can be like, whoa, that was
a completely different meaning. You're going to get the exact same meaning. It's
just cool that it was done in the way that it was done. The fashion that it
was done is really unique. It's a masterpiece. It's really cool. You would have to love
it. It's God's word, right? And I don't prefer a baton over a polyon. It's
the same guy, right? This also shows that God's word can be translated into multiple
languages, and it's the same, right? Here's the name in Hebrew, here's the name in Greek. It doesn't really matter. It's the same guy.
If we put it in English, same guy. This is where it also gets weird when people start
having this sacred name movement where they say, you worship the wrong God. It's not
Jesus. It's Yeshua, or Yehoshua, or Yehoshua, or whatever weird way. You know, it's interesting how the
sacred name, they can't even agree with each other, okay? If you did too much research on this, you'll
realize there's like eight or nine different sects of the sacred name
movement, and they all have their form of Yehoshua. It's like, you're not even
saved. You don't have the Yehoshua. It's like, look, his name is Jesus. Look, if you're
Greek, then say Jesus. If you're Hispanic, say Jesus. But if you're English, speak
English and say Jesus. Well, there wasn't a J back there. I don't care if there was or wasn't. His
name is Jesus. And you know what? In heaven, we already read this, but there's going to be
people singing praise onto Jesus in every nation, every tongue. And you know what name I'm
going to say when I'm in heaven? Jesus. You know, Sam Gipp thinks he's going to be saying
Emmanuel. I don't even know if he's saved. He might just be saying, from all the scorpions or, you know,
scorpion tail locusts, just kidding him or whatever. But you know what? I'm going to be saying the name of Jesus, okay? That's our
Lord and Savior. And you know, I just think it's an interesting tidbit here. It doesn't really have a lot to do
necessarily with Revelation chapter nine, but it's good to point these things out. Let's look at verse number 12 again.
One woe is past, and behold, there come two woes more hereafter. Notice it says hereafter. It also says this, one woe is past. Aren't we establishing a
timeline? So it doesn't sound like that these woes are commingled or overlapping, necessarily. One woe is past, and this is the stuff that's going to happen
hereafter. This is why I think that's significant. Look at what it says in verse number 13.
Notice another timeline that's given. It's given, there's an hour, day, month, and year. So in fact, if you were to add that up together, now we have a 13-month plus
cycle plus that five-month cycle. That's 18 months. It's actually over 18 months, just these two woes if you were going to combine them on a timeline perspective.
So that also fits with the idea of that rapture happening pretty early in the second half of that seven-year period of time, okay? So when we kind of look at all
these evidences, they actually start fitting together a lot better. It really doesn't seem to be possible that God could allow that Great Tribulation period to go
over 18 months or something, or over a couple-year period, because you're going to start running into these timelines eventually. I still think the 75 days makes perfect
sense, but this seems to indicate that it's really not that much time into that second period. Now, here we have kind of a longer period, 13-month period, okay?
It says, and the number of the army of the horsemen were 200,000, and I heard the number of them. That's 200 million.
A thousand times a thousand is a million. A million times 200 is 200 million. Now, this is a significant number. I looked it up.
The total number of soldiers in World War II, this is just an estimate, was 126 million. Now, it says that almost every country was involved.
So almost every single country sent troops at some point or deployed troops or used troops in World War II.
It's suggested that that total was only 126 million. Think about this. This is one army that's being gathered together in this particular portion of Scripture that's 200 million men.
That's a lot. In World War II, approximately 72 million people died, is the official estimate. Some people say it was as low as 40, some people say it was as high as 90.
But about 70 million soldiers died in World War II. This is talking about 200 million.
Now, this was also interesting. How many soldiers are in active duty right now? I looked at the world's largest army of active duty.
And again, this is just based on Wikipedia, a few years data. Maybe this is shifted in the most recent year or two.
But just based on more recent data, China has approximately 2.1 million active soldiers. In total, if you combine all the reserves, it's about 4 million.
India is the second at 1.4 active and 5 million total if you add all the reserves.
The United States is 1.3 and then 2 million if you add in all the reserves.
That is a small number when you think about the fact that we're talking about a 200 million man army.
We're saying China itself or India, two of the greatest population centers, currently their soldiers are only at 4 or 5 million.
So we're talking about a lot of people here. That's just an interesting anecdote. I want to keep reading here.
It says,
For their tails were like unto serpents and had heads, and with them they do hurt.
Now, this portion of the scripture is difficult to understand what we're talking about.
I've always heard it when I grew up in church. This is like tanks and helicopters and stuff like that.
He's just trying to give the best description of what he saw, having never seen any kind of machinery like this.
You can envision certain planes and tanks and some of these things even being painted.
Sometimes they're painted to look like animals or beasts or something like that.
I think that's a possibility. I also lean towards it not being that it really is horses.
A couple things. Notice that it said in verse 17,
Unless I saw the horses in the vision, and then that sat on them.
You don't really sit on a tank or sit on a helicopter.
You're kind of sitting in them and a lot of times disguised inside of them. You're not really noticing them.
So it almost indicates maybe they're on it.
Additionally, in this particular portion of scripture, the Euphrates has to be dried up in order for this army of kings from the east to travel.
Keep your finger and go to Revelation 16. I just want to show you that quick point.
And we're almost finished here. But it says in Revelation chapter 16, notice it says in verse 12,
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up,
that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
It also says in this portion of scripture that unclean spirits come out of the false prophet, dragon, and the beast,
and they are basically convincing all these kings to come into a battle, and this battle is called the Battle of Armageddon.
Who are they warring against? They're warring against Christ, supposedly.
But I'm thinking Christ is in heaven. How does that work?
I kind of think what might be happening is that they're all gathering against the two witnesses.
Because the two witnesses are the representation of Christ, so they're kind of fighting them.
And towards the end, if you actually understand, we're really getting close to the end anyways,
they end up finally overcoming them and killing them at some portion of the scripture.
So maybe that's what it is. It's like these two witnesses are terrorizing the whole earth through the plagues of God, right?
And that's what the Bible literally says.
And so the false prophet and the beast convince all the armies of the entire world,
come on, gather with us, we've got to fight them, and they literally just get the whole world's army together
to then war and fight against these two witnesses, and in fact they even win.
They win and they actually celebrate and give gifts to everybody, and they're all excited that they killed these two witnesses.
We're going to get into more detail of that later.
I'm just trying to kind of tie a few of these things for us when we get to that portion of scripture.
Go back if you went to Revelation chapter 9 here, and we'll finish, but...
I think it's possible these could be literal horses.
Because if you're going to take 200 million people and mobilize them, you don't have enough tanks, necessarily.
You don't have enough aircraft and all that.
And you're going to be traveling a really difficult terrain.
To travel from China all the way to the Middle East is a difficult journey on foot.
You know, why horses are even considered a great mode of transportation is because they can handle uneven terrain very well.
You know, a horse can go up mountains, it can go down valleys, it can go through a lot of difficult terrain,
whereas a tank, cars, all this kind of stuff, it can't necessarily off-road as well as a horse.
A horse can literally travel on virtually anything.
Now, to some degree these horses seem like supernatural beasts, so I don't know how that works.
I don't know if they're just supernatural beasts that are given to them, if this is, again, like an Elon Musk China invention.
You know, the Bible talks about, you know, how we're not supposed to mingle, seed, and like certain things aren't supposed to breed with other things.
Maybe it's not so much that it's saying like it's impossible, saying you shouldn't be doing that.
Because when you do start mingling all of these animal things, you start getting stuff like this.
Horses that can literally breathe fire and do all kinds of weird stuff.
And some people are like, that seems so far-fetched.
But there are literal bugs and all kinds of different creatures on this earth that can ignite and shoot, you know, little sprays of fire.
I mean, fireflies are igniting things.
I think there's some kind of a bug that actually stores a little bit of gas.
And it can like kind of release the gas and then strike its like foot on its body.
And since it has like a sharp claw and its body's kind of sharp, it actually causes enough friction to cause a spark.
And it's just like a lighter.
A lighter, you're just releasing a little bit of the gas and then it gets that little spark and then you get a flame.
So that would be similar to how that particular beetle, I think there's some kind of like a fire beetle or something, you can look it up.
But there's a certain creature that can literally kind of ignite itself a little bit like that.
That's another theory as to how people believe about fire breathing dragons.
The Bible talks about the fiery flying serpent.
And, you know, it's reasonable to believe that in times past there were creatures that literally breathed fire.
I mean, it's a very common myth.
It's something that almost everybody in Europe talked about, wrote about, China wrote about it.
If you actually read an apocryphal book, which I'm not suggesting put a lot of stock in this, but there's an apocryphal book called Bell and the Dragon.
Who's heard of this?
Okay, a few people.
Bell and the Dragon is a story about Daniel being a captive in, you know, Chaldea.
And essentially they had a dragon that they had captured from somewhere and no one could destroy it.
But what he did is he basically took certain pieces of hay and he like covered them in pitch, I think is what it says.
Some kind of a pitch, some kind of a flammable substance.
And then maybe honey as well or something and fed it to the dragon.
And then I guess when the dragon hiccups or whatever, you know, he basically destroyed himself because that flammable stuff in his stomach caught fire or whatever and he died.
Did that really happen?
Did that really happen? I have no idea.
But it's just interesting that there's just so many people that wrote about these particular creatures.
There's tons of towns that are named after dragons and all this different stuff.
And most of the time a lot of, you know, demonic things or satanic things are just perversions of reality.
So it's likely that there could have really been dragon type creatures or structures that could breathe fire.
Could scientists today harness some of that DNA or genetics and be able to create some kind of a creature in China?
I mean if there's anywhere in the world that's going to create a massive weird creature, China kind of seems like the place, don't you think?
To then create these weird beasts and then have a bunch of people get on them to march over to fight.
Maybe it's tanks, maybe it's supernatural beasts, I don't know.
But I do think that there's a lot of different options here.
It doesn't really matter. Here's how the chapter concludes.
And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues,
Yet 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 of wood,
Which neither can see nor hear nor walk,
Neither repented they of their murderers, nor of their sorceries, nor of the fornication, nor of their thefts.
I want to go to one more verse. Go to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and we'll finish there.
Notice that even after all of these supernatural events, after tons of punishment, people don't get saved.
It kind of destroys the idea of Catholic purgatory, where people need to kind of be punished for a little while so then they get cleaned up.
Notice these people getting punished don't get cleaned up, do they?
They don't end up making a change because what actually causes someone to give up sin or to make a change is an inward cleansing, not an outward cleansing.
And because these people aren't getting saved, they're not going to make that change.
Unsaved people aren't going to be righteous. They're just going to be wicked.
And so no matter how much punishment they get, they're not going to change.
You know, people created prison to reform people.
But here's the thing, prison's a horrible way of reforming people.
It's not biblical and it doesn't reform people.
There's some people that can't be reformed, they need to be destroyed.
Like the example of hell.
God doesn't reform every single person.
There's some people that can't be fixed.
It's the slinky that's been bent.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight.
And you know what that means? Fags are going to hell.
That's what it means.
This is what the text says, but you know, hell isn't going to straighten them out.
And these people didn't get straightened out.
These people didn't give up their sin.
You know, the Hindu didn't get saved.
You know who also didn't get saved? All the Jews.
It's not like all the Jews are now going to get saved.
Nope.
They didn't repent and neither did the Hindu and neither did the Buddhist and neither did the Catholic
and neither did any of these false religions.
They're still doing their false religion.
Not accepting the God of the Bible.
And I think this is kind of the powerful point.
Is that some people think you have to jump through hoops to get someone saved.
But that's not true.
Because even if you did jump through the hoops, the people that are going to get saved are going to get saved and the people that aren't, aren't.
You know what gets someone saved?
The gospel of Jesus Christ.
You know, when the Lazarus is in heaven and that rich man is looking up, he talks to Abraham there and he's telling Abraham, like, hey, can't you save my brethren or something?
And he's like, well, they have Moses.
And he's like, nay, Father Abraham, if someone rose from the dead.
And he's like, even if one rose from the dead, they still wouldn't believe it.
They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.
You know, we think that, oh, we have to do some miracle, we have to do something extreme or someone needs some crazy thing to happen in their life.
You know, some people are waiting, they think, well, if they hit rock bottom, then they'll get saved.
These people have hit literal rock bottom.
They've hit hell bottom.
They're being stung by locusts repeatedly.
And they're still not getting saved.
You know why?
Because the only thing that saves somebody is the simple gospel of Jesus Christ.
And if you think that your family member is going to have such a bad life that they're going to want to get saved, you're wrong.
Bad lives don't save people.
You know what saves people? The gospel of Jesus Christ.
And you know, if there's a person in your life that you're giving the gospel to them, that's the only method of getting saved.
If they're not getting saved and you're like, what do I do?
There isn't another option.
Now, I'm not saying give up on them.
I'm just saying stick with the gospel.
And you know, don't think that there's some magical formula to get people saved or that you have to do some hoop jumping or they have to go through some horrible experience.
No, no, no. It's just the gospel that saves them.
And notice what the Bible even says about this subject in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
I want to show you in verse 9.
It's talking about the antichrist, even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness and them that perish,
because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
Why was it that all these people didn't get saved?
It's because they didn't receive the message.
They didn't receive the gospel.
What's the love of the truth? That's the gospel.
They received not the truth.
Verse 11, and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Notice why they didn't get saved?
Because they didn't believe.
What would have gotten them saved?
Believing.
And so we need to focus on the idea of getting people to believe the gospel.
You know, these people, unfortunately, it's not like, oh well if they saw Jesus then they'd believe.
They'd crucify him.
They're literally gathering together in an army to fight Jesus.
You really think you're going to believe in him?
It's so absurd.
It's not that they don't know who Jesus is, they hate Jesus.
You know, that's why God's going to put them in hell.
Because they don't want to believe the truth, they don't want to receive the truth.
And so it's our job as Christians to do one thing, distribute truth.
Just be a simple messenger.
I don't have to do anything fancy, I don't have to perform a miracle, I don't have to do a trick for you.
I don't have to raise somebody from the dead.
I don't have to ask you if your harm hurts.
And, you know, from a scale of one to ten and then try to pray and see if it gets better.
I can just preach the simple gospel of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and try to get you to believe that.
Because that's the only thing that will save you.
And if you won't get saved from that, you won't get saved.
We need to believe and commit ourselves to the gospel of Jesus Christ and realize that is the only cure for this problem.
And we can feel bad for these people, I do.
But if you feel bad for what's happening to them, then you're going to go soul winning now.
Otherwise you didn't really feel bad for them.
Let us love our cousins and our friends and our uncles and our aunts and our moms and our dads and our neighbors
and the strangers out there by giving them the simple gospel of Jesus Christ
so they can be escaped from these horrible punishments.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us the simple gospel,
for allowing us to have an opportunity to escape such horrible wrath and evil.
I pray that when we see these plagues that are being poured out, written in the scripture,
that we believe them, that we understand the seriousness of your wrath,
and that we would try to warn people by preaching the simple gospel.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Alright, in closing, let's go to song number 405.
Song number 405, The Banner of the Cross.
Song number 405.
Everybody sing it out together on the first.
There's a royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the King.
As it in sign fell, we lifted up today while those ransomed ones we see.
Marching on, marching on.
Marching on, for Christ crowned everything but loss.
And to crown Him King, to toil and sing,
Heed the banner of the cross.
Though the flow may rage and gather as the flood,
Let the standard be displayed.
And beneath its folds as soldiers of the Lord,
For the truth is not this way.
Marching on, marching on,
For Christ crowned everything but loss.
And to crown Him King, to toil and sing,
Heed the banner of the cross.
Over land and sea, wherever men may dwell,
Make the glorious tidings known.
Of the crimson banner, now the story tell,
While the Lord shall claim His own.
Marching on, marching on,
For Christ crowned everything but loss.
And to crown Him King, to toil and sing,
Heed the banner of the cross.
When the glory dawns, His drawing very near,
His days cling day by day.
Then before our King the Lord will disappear,
And the cross the world shall sway.
Marching on, marching on,
For Christ crowned everything but loss.
And to crown Him King, to toil and sing,
Heed the banner of the cross.
Thank you for watching!