(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music 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 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 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 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 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!