The Great Tribulation: Revelation 9 - Revelation: The Apocalypse

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

But the reality is this that if you're walking in the spirit, you're sealed by the blood of Jesus and you're protected from the enemy.

Isn't that exciting?

And you're actually seated in the heavenly, and you have command over demonic power.

That's why, in your home, if you're seeing a bunch of stuff flying around, and it's the enemy at work in your kids or in your marriage or in your job, you have spiritual authority to tell it to lead.

You have spiritual authority to claim the blood of Jesus over your home and the blood of Jesus over your kids, but you gotta say it, folks.

Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the book of Revelation.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We are in the book of Revelation, where it's the great tribulation period, the seven-year tribulation period.

And what we're gonna read today is really depressing in one sense.

So I want to give you a caveat to Revelation 9, and that is this that I believe strongly from scripture and personal experience and my theology has room for this, that during the time of the coming of the Lord in the last days, it will be the worst of times, and it will be the best of times.

And what I mean by that is what you're gonna see in Revelation 9 is an unleashing of demonic powers that when this occurs, when this begins to happen, you won't know by visual what's going on.

You'll see only the consequences.

What we're seeing here in Revelation 9 is what's happening behind the scenes.

So John is seeing what's happening in the fourth dimension, what we will be experiencing in the three-dimensional world.

Okay, so I've already talked about the rapture.

I don't believe we're gonna be here for this, but many are gonna be getting saved during this period.

As I've said before, pray for the rapture, pray for the rapture before the tribulation, but prepare as if it's not going to occur.

So either way, this stuff that's happening is going to be both this devastation of the releasing of demonic powers on the face of the earth, but the releasing of God's signs and wonders and power like the church has never seen before.

So it's going to be the best of times and the worst of times.

So we were in December, we went through Revelation 8.

We were in 7 and 8, the opening of the seven seals, the blaring of the seven trumpets.

As we come into Revelation 9, a fourth of the world has been killed, a third of the shipping and the living things have been killed, a third of the light has been extinguished, the temperatures are plummeting, and oxygen is depleted.

Now, why is God allowing this to happen?

God is giving the earth the opportunity to repent.

And God does that in our lives.

He's doing it in people you're praying for right now.

Maybe some of you took that booklet, the little How to Experience God in a personal way booklet this weekend.

You shared it with someone.

You shared that with some.

God's giving them the opportunity to come to Him, and His mercy and His grace is patient toward the sinner to come to Christ.

And that's why Peter wrote these words.

So during this period in Revelation 9 and 10, and we're going to get into the two witnesses who do signs and wonders in Jerusalem, and and uh and fire comes from heaven.

I mean, it's gonna be an incredibly uh phenomenal, exciting, powerful signs and wonders time.

So turn your Bibles to Revelation 9, and we're looking at the fifth angel with the trumpet.

Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth, to him who was given the key to the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit.

So, so you know, someone might have caught on CNN or something, this this star-looking thing that falls to the earth.

Maybe it's a meteorite, maybe it's not.

They're trying to figure this out, and then there's this smoke that comes.

That's what the earth sees, but what you're seeing here is what actually is happening.

Verse 2.

And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace.

So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.

Then out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth.

And to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power.

They were commanded not, this is important, they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree.

Guess the only oxygen we have now, because a third of it's been destroyed already, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months.

Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.

In those days, men will seek death and will not find it.

They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

So Satan is being released.

Demonic powers are being released upon the earth.

I want to note three things here, three principles that I see here about the sovereignty of God.

This is huge.

This is huge for our lives today, men and women.

Number one, Satan doesn't have the key to the bottomless pit.

Did you catch that?

He does not have the key to the bottomless pit.

Satan does not have the keys of sin and death.

Now I'm going to go out on a little controversial limb here and just say, I don't believe you're going to die one minute too early or one minute too late with God's timing in your life because the keys of sin and death have been taken from Satan.

In matter of fact, Revelation 1.8 says, Jesus says, I have the keys of Hades and of death.

So he has those keys.

And I and if you've heard me teach at the Good Friday service before, I've done teachings at different times about what happened during the three days from the crucifixion of Christ to the resurrection of Christ.

And I've shared with you that I believe a lot that I share on that issue.

Maybe this is a good year to do it again.

I don't remember if I did it last year or not, but when we talk about that three-day period, we know of the saints of old rising from the dead and coming back into Jerusalem.

I believe it's at that point that Jesus entered into paradise because he told the uh the thief on the cross, you will be with me, what?

Today in paradise.

He entered into paradise, and paradise at that time was made up of Hades and paradise.

Now it was reconstituted after that day.

But at that point, I believe Jesus came up to Satan and said, I want the keys.

And he took the keys of sin and death away from Satan.

So he doesn't have the keys, so God's got the keys.

Number two, God gives the keys to Satan.

So he lets him have the keys to open the bottomless pit because God never opens a door that he doesn't want open, listen, for his purposes.

God opens doors for his purposes.

And then number three, God gives power to the release demons, but there's a limit.

Listen to this.

There's a limit to their power.

They can't touch the Jesus disciples.

They can't touch those who do not have the mark of the beast.

So they can't touch you.

And here's what it says in Ephesians 1:13.

Ephesians 1:13

Listen, this is really important.

In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth.

The gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

So, men and women, you have a seal over you, you have protection over you from the enemy.

And as long as you're contending for the kingdom of God and you're contending in the power of the Spirit, demons are repulsed by you.

They're not attracted to you.

Now, there's going to be attacks, there's times of oppression.

I believe there can even be times of demonization if you let an area of your life come under the control of demonic powers.

That's a whole nother section that I covered on my war series.

But the reality is this that if you're walking in the Spirit, you're sealed by the blood of Jesus and you're protected from the enemy.

Isn't that exciting?

And you're actually seated in the heavenlies and you have command over demonic powers.

That's why in your home, if you're seeing a bunch of stuff flying around and it's the enemy at work in your kids or in your marriage or in your job, you have spiritual authority to tell it to leave.

You have spiritual authority to claim the blood of Jesus over your home and the blood of Jesus over your kids, but you gotta say it, folks.

It's not just given, it's there, but you've got to claim it, you've got to contend for it, and you need to speak it out.

And sometimes I've had to do it, sometimes, I mean tons of times.

I've had to say, Spirit of darkness, get out of here.

Get out of my home.

Liz and I've prayed that dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of times, over our family, over our marriage, and over our personal life, because we're sealed by the Holy Spirit and we're seated at the right hand, and all principalities and powers are underneath our feet.

You have that kind of authority.

So this is a glimpse into the authority, and it gives us this uh final chapter of the book that's saying, look, when all hell is literally being is breaking loose, it's terrorism on steroids.

It's terrorism on steroids, you are protected and you are sealed by the blood of the Lamb.

And there's a limit to demonic power.

Don't forget that.

There's a limit to demonic power.

Now, if you're not walking and if you're not walking with the Lord today, and if you're in a place where you're rebelling against God, but you're sealed, you you know Christ, I'm telling you, you are still opening yourself up to influence from the enemy that could devastate your life.

And so get right with God.

Repent.

Come back to Him.

The shape of the locust was like horses prepared for battle, verse 7.

On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like faces of men.

This is really spooky stuff.

I mean, this is like I mean, like a horror movie or something.

They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth.

Seriously, it was kind of like a vampire movie or something going on.

And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle.

They had tails like scorpions, there were stingers in their tails.

Their power was to hurt men for five months, and they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

One woe is past, behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.

So this is definitely terrorism on steroids.

So these flying beasts going around, they're like scorpions, and for five months, is anybody here allergic to bee stings or hornet and stuff?

Okay, I am.

And so I remember one time we were on a picnic uh in North Carolina, coming back from my grandparents' house, and I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And we, I used to hate I so love living in Colorado, man.

There's like hardly any bees here.

When people talk about bees here, I'm like, honey, you don't even know what you're talking about.

You need to go down to where I come from.

But there was, but there were these yellow jackets everywhere.

And these yellow jackets, what they do is they hang around trash cans and stuff in picnic areas.

I remember saying to my dad so many times, why are we eating in a picnic area?

Because it's a stupid area to eat because all the stuff, look at them, they're all around that that trash can.

So this was one of those days, and I think it was like eight years old, and I go to bite it, and three yellow jackets land on it while I'm, you know, I was talking.

I was always talking.

So I was talking to my parents, I think that's the only thing I can think of, and I took a bite and I felt buzzing in my mouth, and sting, sting, sting.

Three stings, man.

And here's what's so bad about the whole situation.

We're going to see this family called the Wheelers.

I still remember that because they had two really good-looking uh daughters that were older than me, and I wanted to be cool.

Well, I was cool, all right.

I had a mouth that was like four times the size it was before, and I remember just sitting there and it looked like an idiot.

So, so can you imagine for five months hornet stings, bee stings, on those who have the mark of the beast, they they can't get away from it.

There's a sound, there's a sound like chariots in the air.

And if you've ever been around any kind of hornets, hornets' nest, it can sound kind of like that.

I think that's what they're that's what he's trying to describe.

And they're stinging you and they're constantly on you, um, and you can't get away from it because God is trying to get his people to repent.

I mean, he they can get the seal.

They could go to church on Sunday, the churches that are still left, and give their heart to Christ, get the seal of the Holy Spirit, and they'd quit stinging them.

And so it's it's it's one thing after another, and this is what the destroyer does, because it's exactly what a polion means.

A polyon means destruction, Abaddon means destroyer.

And this is a revealing of what's already happening around us even today, that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

So his goal for every one of us in this room, saint or sinner, is that you would commit suicide.

That's the goal of Satan is to completely destroy your life.

And we're gonna see at the end of this chapter what the five major areas are that he destroys our life with.

In the last days, but even today.

I believe there's a release.

Now we can't see.

Men and women, we can't see.

We right here we won't be able to, we'll only see the repercussions.

We won't see the inside scoop.

We'll be able to read scripture and read about it, and we'll know what's going on, but we can't see into the fourth dimension what's happening.

But I do believe there's been a release of demons on the face of the earth over the last 20 years.

There's been a fresh release in the Middle East.

There's a fresh release in our country right now happening that the enemy's at work at.

And so God calls us to a new, listen, everybody, a new level of vigilance.

You have got to be violent about your sin.

You have got to be violent about holiness in your life because there is a there is increased levels of demonic activity that you're going to be tempted by.

And that's why verse 13 is so important.

Verse 13 is so so key here.

Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.

I mean, when we go and when when the the men and women, the young people of the Acts School are fasting and praying, and before the altar of the Lord here on earth, in prayer with incense to the Lord, crying out, that's what's happening here in heaven.

There's this crying out.

In other words, when we have the 24-hour war room, when we do our noonday prayer on Wednesday, when these young people are at the act school interceding and calling out, many of you in your homes are interceding and calling out, you're lining yourself up with what's happening in heaven right now, but we get a glimpse into this, and here's what's happening, I believe, is that how many of us have asked why in our prayers?

Why me?

Why did the child die?

Why did I have to have that background?

Why did I have to have parents like that?

Why did I lose my job?

All those whys before the altar are gonna be answered in this day.

Because as things begin to unfold, the God of justice is on the move.

And the Lord is gonna come and he's gonna release his justice on the face of the earth.

And he is even giving the worst of sinners a chance to repent here.

He's giving them a chance to come and commit themselves completely to the Lord and repent.

Saying to the sixth angel had the trumpet, verse 14, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates, so the four angels who have been prepared for this hour and day and month and year will release to kill a third of mankind.

Man, when I mean talking about sovereignty of God, God evidently has the hour, the day, the month, and the year of when all this is gonna occur.

Quit worrying about it.

It's covered, it's good.

It's already in the computer, it's already there.

He's got it covered.

He knows you don't know, but he knows when it's gonna occur, and it's gonna come out of this river of Euphrates.

This river of Euphrates.

It's at the Euphrates River that the Garden of Eden was.

It was at the Euphrates River where Adam and Eve first sinned.

It was at the Euphrates River that Noah built the ark.

It was at the Euphrates River where Cain killed Abel.

It was in Joshua 24, it says, our fathers worshiped idols on the other side of the Euphrates River.

And on the other side of the Euphrates River from Israel today is where there's over 1,200 gods just in the nation of India alone.

The Euphrates River in Scripture represents a beginning and an ending.

It always represents a beginning and an ending.

What about you?

What about us, church?

What's God saying this year that you need to stop?

That you need to throw in the Euphrates River.

You need to just throw that away.

Quit doing that.

And you need to resurrect something fresh in your life, fresh habits.

You got to contend for something new in your life.

You have a Euphrates River.

Every one of you in this room probably has something that's a Euphrates River divide.

Now, when they're talking about Caesar, they talk about the Rubicon, crossing the Rubicon.

Well, in the Bible, they talk about crossing the Euphrates.

Crossing the Euphrates.

What's God saying to you this year that, you know, you've had enough of?

She got tired of it.

Got tired of anger and decided to give it to the Lord and contend for a new level of patience and a new gentleness in her life.

What's God got you going through?

What does he want to heal?

Because he can.

He can heal.

He's waiting on you to give it to him.

He's waiting on you to give it to him.

Verse 16.

Now the number of the army of the horsemen was 200 million.

The number of the army of the horsemen was 200 million.

I heard the number of them.

What is this?

Well, there's a lot of different ideas about it, but I'll tell you what I think.

I think it's demonic powers being released.

Dominions and principalities of the fourth dimension.

Vast armies of demons released upon the face of the earth.

You guys remember the story of Elisha at Dothan?

Remember he's got a servant with him, and I mean they're surrounded by armies, and he's all freaking out and he's and he's scared.

And then I wish I could do this.

But Elisha had the anointing and he said, Lord, would you just show him what's really going on?

And then he looks out and he, what does he see?

He sees the armies of God.

He's like, hey, it's gonna be okay.

He sees the armies of God.

He can see into the fourth dimension.

God took the scales off Elisha's servant at Dothan, and he could see the angels of God ready and prepared to do battle for the Lord.

And so these are demonic powers released upon the face of the earth.

And again, God's giving mankind a chance to repent.

200 million with four great demon generals over them.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision.

Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulphur yellow.

And the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.

By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed.

By the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.

For their power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they do harm.

So you know, it's got kind of a Stephen Spielberg movie being enacted every time you wake up in the morning.

This stuff's going on all over the globe.

There's a number of interpretations of this.

One is that people, some have said they believe this is Ezekiel 38 and 39.

I don't believe it is.

The weaponry is completely different.

Some say the 200 million are locusts, but the locusts are not allowed to take life, and these demons are allowed to take a third of life.

So again, I'm going back to these demons of death.

Some have said that this passage correlates with Revelation 16 and the comings of the kings of the East.

And that comes from a 1965 article that was written about the Chinese army that said they had 200 million men.

But I don't believe that's the armies of the East.

We're going to come to that later.

I think it's just Satan being unveiled.

Satan is being released, demons are being released, God's giving permission to demons one last time to give the earth a chance to repent.

Now let me just say this.

When I look around at the youth culture that we're a part of and the music that's being produced probably over the last 50 years, of which much of it's really, really good, but the music of culture is so so important.

The kind of music your kids listen to is so important.

Karl Marx said this give me the music and poetry of a nation, and I will have their hearts and minds.

The kind of demonic music that's out there right now, messing with the hearts and minds of our kids, is in many cases demonic.

When I look at rap music that speaks of murder, killing of police, and abuse of women, I have a real hard time with that, folks.

I don't care how gifted or talented that guy is and whether he can break dance with his mother, I don't care.

Demonic.

When I was coming up and I was a new believer, and I was a rock and roll freaking college student.

And the kind of stuff that I was listening to was influencing my sexual behavior and my thought patterns.

Folks, there is demonic power in music, and I just want to encourage you that there's also godly, wonderful, spirit-filled, and spirit-anointed power in music.

I mean, this book of Revelation is all about music.

It's like every page we turn to in here, there's music going on in worship to the Lord.

And so music is from the Lord, but it's been kidnapped in many cases by the enemy.

So God is unmasking Satan here, and these demons are being released upon the earth.

Verse 20.

But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent.

So opportunity after opportunity, they do not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk, and they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

So repentance was their choice.

God's still loving them, He's giving them opportunity to repent.

He hasn't come back yet.

Chance after chance, and they're choosing not to repent, they're going their own way.

What I see here, church, is Satan's strategies unveiled.

Satan's strategies unveiled.

The five fastest routes to destruction.

I see right here, God giving us a glimpse into the five fastest routes to destruction in Satan's strategies, and they are alive and well today.

And here's the first one is idolatry.

He speaks of idols.

What is idols?

Well, I don't have a bootsadon in my home.

I don't have a post with a sequence on it or a little god that I've carved on top.

That's not what he's talking about with idolatry.

I mean, he is speaking of that here, but he's speaking deeper than it.

Tim Keller, in his book, Counterfeit Gods, gives us a great definition for idolatry.

It is anything more important to you than God.

Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God.

Anything you seek to give you what only God can give you.

An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, if I have that, then I'll feel my life has meaning.

Then I'll know I have value, and then I'll feel significant and secure.

It's about, really, it's about worship.

It could be your spouse.

It could be a house.

It could be your job.

It could be a vision that you have for your life.

If that vision for your life, in your job, or making money, or becoming wealthy or rich, is more important in your life than God, that's become an idol.

And you need to repent of that.

Secondly, he speaks of murder.

He speaks of murder.

America leads the free world in murder.

Number three, he speaks of sorceries.

What does that word mean?

Mean you're into some cult or something?

Actually, the Greek word here is pharmacoon.

Pharmacoon.

P-H-A-R-A.

Pharmakoon, which means where we get the word pharmaceutical.

Drugs.

America also leads the free world in the use of drugs.

If you're involved in smoking crack, if you're doing pot, if you're addicted to drugs, if you're regularly taking drugs to medicate something in your life that only God can medicate, you're messing around with sorcery, folks.

That can be demonic.

And demons work through drugs.

Number four, sexual immorality.

If you're messing around with porn, if you're messing around with someone who's not your wife, if you as a young person are not married yet and you're having premarital sex, you're moving into sexual immorality and that can become a demonic stronghold.

Then fifthly, thefts.

And we think of people stealing from each other's, but it but if we're embezzling money, if we're cheating on our taxes, if you're cheating God, if you're cheating God and you're giving, that's theft.

I mean, it's one thing to, you know, cheat your employer, but cheating God, but that's not that's not really where you want to be.

That's not a good place.

I want everything God has for me.

How about you?

And so he speaks here of these five areas that will be pronounced in greater and deeper and larger measure in the last days that are occurring even today.

Well, look in your Bibles at Revelation 22, 17.

I love this passage.

Very end of the book.

And the spirit and the bride.

The spirit and the bride.

So the spirit, listen, the spirit and the church says to humankind, come and let him who hears say, come, and let him who thirst come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

Men and women, come.

Come to the water of life.

Come today.

Are you thirsty?

If you're not, get thirsty this week.

Like my grandpa used to do on the ranch.

He had a salt lick.

And he put the salt lick right in the middle of the cows, and the cows would lick the salt because of the chemicals and the enzymes and the vitamins in the salt, but then it would make them thirsty, and they'd go to the ponds and they'd drink water because they needed both.

You need a salt lick this week.

If you're not thirsty.

And here's what the salt lick of the kingdom is: God make me thirsty.

Just start asking him.

1 John 5, 14 and 15 says, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

If we hear us, we know that we have what we've right we've asked of him.

You think it's not God's will that you come?

It's right here.

It's the end of the story.

And I don't want to get it at the end.

I want to get it at the beginning.

I want to cross that river of Euphrates in my life and leave some of that stuff behind, you know, from last year and move on and get thirsty, but I can't make myself thirsty.

God has to make me thirsty.

And so to ask him, Lord, make me thirsty.

You know, he doesn't say make me hungry.

You know, you can go 40 days without food, but you can only go three days without water.

He says, make me thirsty.

And some of you are anemic, some of you are anorexic spiritually because you're not thirsty enough.

You're not asking God for more.

And then as you ask him, he's going to give you more and more of a passion for the things of the kingdom.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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