Revelation is an enigma, a puzzle in the human psyche. I am drawn to its largeness and promise. I want to read the comforting passages. I also find myself hating it at the half-way
mark. It is difficult to endure reading
about all these judgments. I expect you
feel the same way. I rather wonder about
that. I have served eight other churches
as Pastor. In most of them I have begun
to preach Revelation, and gotten no farther than the fourth chapter, before
moving on to the next church field. You
never know what you're going to uncover with The Revelation! It seems like it can bite you sometimes!
We must guard against losing hope during these difficult scenes of
judgment. They are not pretty, but, as
with all Scripture, the judgments are profitable for our instruction in
righteousness[1].
This morning our study continues with a view of the dark side, much worse
than Darth Vader and George Lucas' Evil Empire.
This is the Prince of Darkness, Apollyon; this is the Evil Angel, Satan.
The Day When Darkness is Unleashed on the Earth
Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. When he opened it, smoke poured out as though from a huge furnace, and the sunlight and air turned dark from the smoke. Then locusts came from the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power to sting like scorpions. Revelation 9:1-3
Satan is the star that is kicked out of heaven…again. This time he has a key to the
pit (abyss). His immediate response is
what Satan's response has always been
-- He heads for his hole in the ground.
Why is the key necessary? God has
had this particularly nasty group of fallen angels under lock and key since
before the flood.
For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. 2 Peter 2:4
In this last day, the earth is going to see the venom of hell released, such as hasn't been seen since God destroyed everything with a
flood. At this point in the Tribulation,
God determines that it is time to allow Satan his moment to gather all the
forces of darkness. John describes the
appearance of these creatures, let loose from the pit, as locusts. A swarm of locusts could very well be
described as a cloud of smoke. Vance Havner used to say about the forces of
darkness that, like every other creepy,
crawling critter, they scatter when the light hits 'em. Some Eastern varieties of locust have
been known to travel in a swarm 100 feet deep, by 4 miles long. In the Bible the locust is always a ready
symbol for destruction and devastation.
Joel (Chap 1 & 2) used this little
creature to picture the devastation of these last times. One preacher quipped: These woes mark the deepest darkness
and the most painful intensity of the Great Tribulation Period....These will be
the blackest days in human history.[2] Evil’s darkness will be allowed
to roam nearly unchecked on planet earth.
It will be worse than the pain of a thousand epidemic plagues, scores of
demonic Hitlers, or Stalin-like ethnic purges, driven by famine, murder, and
all manner of brutality, unleashed like a flood of locusts to cut a path
throughout humanity.
The Devastation of Evil’s Darkness
They were told not to harm the grass or plants or trees, but only the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were told not to kill them but to torture them for five months with pain like the pain of a scorpion sting. In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them! Revelation 9:4-6
Physical locusts simply eat everything in sight. In 1951 the regions of Iraq, Iran and Jordan
were overrun by locusts. The swarm ate
every green thing there was. What was a
lush and fertile paradise, became a barren desert within hours. Some 200,000 people died in the wake of the
desolate famine that followed.
But this devastation isn’t about little flying bugs eating the crops; the
real target is destruction of the souls of humans who have refused the gift of
Christ’s salvation.
The spiritual application of this passage hardly needs to be made. The darkness of sin ruins everything in
sight. It was sin that gave us murder
and all sorts of mayhem on the earth. Sin
originated sickness and death, and according to apostle James, when sin is finished,
death is the natural result.[3]
However, in these final days, death will be a release men will not
find. In some way life will be prolonged
through a torturous period, where the scorpion-like sting of these locusts
(whether it be literal or figurative), will not be directed at plant life. Rather it is humans without God’s protection who
will be the sufferers. Friend, literal
or symbolic interpretation aside, this will be literally hell on
earth.
The Desire of Evil’s Darkness
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces. They had hair like women’s hair and teeth like the teeth of a lion. They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle. They had tails that stung like scorpions, and for five months they had the power to torment people. Revelation 9:7-10
There is a certain attractiveness about darkness. But sin is a bait, ever hiding the hook. Satan's plan is going to look pretty good… at
first.
In our day the whole world seems to have turned to sensuality. Sex sells everything from booze to
vacations. It buys everything from cheap
thrills to political office. There is
always something attractive about the darkness – at first! Sin always
looks as if it will be fun. It always
promises big, but pays off counterfeit!
Just as these locusts look good (hair
as women), yet have the tails of scorpions – so sin presents us with
something desirable, but will eventually sting.
My cousin Rick is a year older than me.
When we were pre-teens my mom and dad took us camping. An Ohio campground was like Eden, complete
with a gentle river and plenty of woods; it was a young boy's delight. We donned our swimsuits, and swam all
afternoon near the dam. Now, that dam
had a cement chute that was at a very gentle slope. We got on it like a slide and plunged down to
the water below; we didn't stop for hours.
Climb up, slide down...all afternoon.
It sure was fun! However, neither
of us were aware of the sting in the end.
As we walked back to the campsite, neither of us could figure out why
passersby would snicker at the two of us.
When we arrived back at the campsite, my parents pointed out that that
rough cement on the dam's chute had worn away the seat of our swimsuits. Sting in the end, indeed!
Well, something that is attractive, but has teeth like a lion, is nothing
more than the wolf preparing for Little Red Riding Hood to walk by. The darkness always arouses some sort of
desire. An advertisement in a news
magazine showed a picture of people who hurled snowballs during a professional football
game. Thousands of snowballs were thrown
onto the field, injuring both players and spectators. According to the report, 15 fans were arrested, and some 175 ejected from the stadium. Officials say the incident was disturbing
because many ejected fans hold responsible jobs: teachers, lawyers,
stockbrokers and fire fighters.[4]
Beloved, if reasonably normal people can get that caught up over a football game, how much more can Satan
motivate to the kind of ugliness we read about these locusts of evil’s darkness?
Darkness has been unleashed on the earth with
its devastation and desire.
And, finally, we see what it produces:
The Dividend of Evil’s Darkness
Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer. Revelation 9:11
Abaddon is Hebrew, and Apollyon is Greek, but both names describe the
character of the one who occupies the pit…destroyer. The ultimate
result of everything Satan touches is destruction. Jesus said so:
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. John 10:10
There are many people today who do not believe in Satan. People say, Show me... Somehow,
because you cannot see him, that means to some that he does not exist, apart
from the media version of pitchfork and horned guy in the red suit.
·
Beloved, they couldn't SEE bacteria in 17th century (1666) London.
That did not stop a third of the population from dying of bubonic
plague.
·
You cannot SEE electricity or protons – that doesn't turn off the lights.
·
You cannot SEE neurons working their way through your head – but it doesn't mean you're
not thinking – unless you still
believe there is no Satan!
Today we are typically too well informed to be taken-in by such superstition. We have been well-educated, perhaps beyond our
intelligence. Many people read a passage like this and go
away with their innate skepticism intact and reinforced. Satan?
Don’t be ridiculous!
The problem is Satan accomplishes exactly what he desires with that kind
of attitude. When we underestimate the
reality of Satanic influence, we make that influence strong. That is playing with fire! There are many examples of this in our
society.
In the 1970’s I watched the Phil Donohue show where he was interviewing a
preacher. The subject turned to
hell. Donohue asked if the preacher
believed in a burning place of punishment, the devil, and people winding up
there for eternity. I do, said the preacher. Well, sorry, said Phil, I don’t. The preacher said, that’s ok;
you WILL.
We are living in a society that refuses to pay attention to God, and we
are reaping the dividend of darkness with violence, hatred, plague, war, and
every other kind of mayhem. The Great
Tribulation cannot be far off! Apollyon,
the evil angel, who is the King of the Darkness, and her cloud of locusts is
certainly not far off! This world is
being prepared for the Great Tribulation.
Everything that is on the news today is leading towards this world
accepting Satan's man, the Antichrist as a one world ruler. It is going to be so natural for folks to
accept the supernatural evil as being quite acceptable. Annually there are hundreds, even thousands
of books published on prophecy, spiritism, ghosts, and the like. TV is saturated with the supernatural and
so-called para-normal. Where is it all
going? I’m not a prophet, so I can’t say
with authority, but I can tell you from whence it comes – the pit, the
abyss. Beloved, it smells like
smoke!
What is in store for everyone who rejects the seal of Christ on his forehead? Listen to the words of another generation...from a preacher of John Wesley’s day.
Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan who preached a sermon to his congregation entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This sermon ignited a great awakening in America. Many thousands came to Christ during that period. Why? Because Edwards painted the picture of Evil’s Darkness, and it brought conviction. It brought so much conviction some ran to the altar before the preacher even finished his sermon.
Listen to what Jonathan Edwards preached that day. It’s a little long, but imagine this is
1741. It is a dark day for peace and
righteousness. There is brutality and
murder every day, and you and I are sitting, listening to a sermon in a Presbyterian
church. :
The use of this awful subject may be for
awakening unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that you have heard is the case of every
one out of Christ. That world of misery,
that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing
flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you
have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of, there is nothing
between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God
that holds you up….The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on
the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and
it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without
any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being
made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change
of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that
were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in
sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are
in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many
things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of
religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing
but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in
everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of
what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone
from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them;
for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of
it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those
things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air
and empty shadows. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one
holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is
dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you
as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes
than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more
abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You
have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince;
and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire
every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell
the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you
closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you
have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand
has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to
hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by
your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is
nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment
drop down into hell.[5]
This is so
ominous, and so true in prophecy’s unravelling; but there is also redemption
lurking in the wings. Somewhere in the overwhelming
morass of evil’s darkness, the love of God is waiting to be revealed as salvation’s
glory. Our confession of faith states
that when Jesus Christ died, he descended into Hell to preach liberty to the
captives. We love that part about those
faithful before the cross being set free.
But we often miss the rest of the story about why Jesus went there. It was to pay our penalty for sin that Jesus
descended into the abyss and lifted the light on Satan’s evil darkness. Jesus experienced every bit of our judicial
punishment we earned with our sin. It is
part of the completed work of Christ’s atoning on the cross and after. And the darkness of Hell only serves to be a
background for how brightly that light shines.
If you tend to notice how dark our world is, and wonder how God could
allow such mayhem and madness, remember that darkness is the absence of
light. It only serves to remind us what
we’re missing. Behind what we see as
darkness is the dawn of Christ’s coming.
Darkness will give way to light one glorious day!
Darkness is
like the worm that inhabits my little garden.
The worm eats my trees and causes my rosebushes to wilt. But the
worm will have a metamorphosis one day. As
a transformed worm, now a beautiful Monarch butterfly, he cross-pollinates all
my flowering bushes, making my trees fertile and healthy.
This speaks
graphically as the metamorphosis that occurs when a human soul is surrendered to
the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ.
That soul is no longer dead in sin, it begins to live. Usefulness
is born like a cross-pollinated field of flowers, fruits, and all the other
beauty God designed.
The darkness
we now see is having its day, and Satan laughs loud along with the rest of the
unbelieving world. Jesus descended INTO
the darkness the first time He came; the next time He comes He will descend ON
the darkness with all the legions of Heaven’s host.
Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved!
Title Image: Pixabay.com
Unless noted, Scripture from The New Living Translation
[1]
See 2
Timothy 3:16
[2]J.
Vernon McGee, Through the Bible With J.
Vernon McGee, Vol 5
(Pasadena, Thru The Bible Radio, 1983), 966
[3] These
desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives
birth to death. James 1:15
[4]USA Today, (12-28-95), 1a
[5] Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God…sermon by Jonathan Edwards
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