Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Revelation, chapter 9. Revelation chapter 9, beginning in verse 1. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth and 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 in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months. And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh 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 locusts 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. They had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 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. 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 hath his name Apollyon. One woe was passed, and behold, there come two woes more hereafter. I don't suppose that my sermon titles normally make very much of an impression, but this one is likely to do so. The Satanic Origins of the Islamic Heresy. As I was struggling over what to call this sermon, this seemed to me to be a dangerous title because of the group involved. By way of contrast, I remember some years ago, while I was still at university, an acquaintance of mine came and I was actually pulling out of a parking lot. He ran up to the car and knocked on the car window. I rolled down the window and he said, Dilday, I understand that you're a Calvinist. And I said, I am. And he said, I believe that's a lie straight out of the pit of hell. And my response was, well, it appears we have something to talk about. And of course, in truly Christian lands, this is the way typically things are handled. But what if you were to say a similar thing about Islam and an Islamic land? or even here in the presence of Muslims. It's likely to become quite dangerous indeed, and what a difference there is between true Christianity and Islam. But it seemed to me an unavoidable danger. If we are to adhere to the holy religion of the triune God, it will bring us into conflict with all of its opponents. That is the devil and all of his impostures. Made me think of the text from Ephesians. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And as Christians, we cannot avoid the fight. There is no sidestepping this wrestling match, wrestle we must. It is an aspect of our calling. This particular conflict, this particular war is an old one. It has now been in the world almost a millennium and a half. That is a long time. and the conflict has been pretty much the same throughout. Because the Muslim world, at least with respect to Western nations, was somewhat quiet for a couple of centuries, we are now suffering from something of corporate amnesia. But this war is an old one, and the dynamics have always been the same. When the Islamic powers have strength, this is the shape of the battle. And this is the shape of the conflict. And we ought not to imagine that things have changed. It is time for our generation to take its place in this old conflict because the conflict is being renewed. The slumbering giant of the East is awakening again and gathering strength. And it's time for our generation to take its place in this old conflict. It is an important time for the Christian to reacquaint himself with Islamic belief and theology, because we're coming back into contact with it in a way we really have not been for a couple of centuries. And a couple of centuries is a long time, enough time to become forgetful. The reformers and the men of the Second Reformation were not dull on these points. They did write very large books on Islamic theology, contrasting it with Christian theology. This was important for apologetic purposes, defending the faith, comforting the godly, showing them the difference between truth and error. How can we know what's right? How can we know what's wrong? But also for its evangelistic purpose. being ready to provide an answer or a reason for everyone who asks. If we are to do this, and if we're to do this well, the most important thing really is a thorough grounding in the truth. At this point, I do think many apologists go wrong. They think I need to study the error primarily. But you should know that a thorough grounding in the truth equips you to handle any error, even one that you have not heard about before, because its difference from the truth becomes immediately obvious, and you know what established that truth, and so that becomes immediately useful in handling any error. But it's helpful in a secondary sense to know something about Islam its history, its basic tenants. And so all of the sermons that we will be doing over the next, what will probably be a handful of months in Revelation chapter nine, will be practical sermons in that regard. So even when we're studying theology, remember the apologetic and evangelistic purpose that's behind all of these things. It's useful to know so that you can Have some practice and some exercise in contrasting the truth with these particular errors. One final note. Remember, when you bump into a Muslim, very much like when you bump into, say, a Western scientific materialist, remember that that particular person is not a set of abstract concepts. you are not, when you're dealing with that person, you are not dealing with Islam in the abstract. You're dealing with that person in the concrete. So you ought not necessarily to assume that they embrace all of the tenets of Islam. You ought not necessarily to assume that they've read the Quran. You don't know. Liberalism ate up Islamic theology in the West in much the same way that it ate up Christian theology. So remember Van Til's advice, buy him a cup of coffee, let him talk so that you can speak to the man, not just the set of abstractions, but his beliefs, his hopes, his fears, his problems in his family, and so on. You want to love the person and deal with the person, not just the set of abstractions. Now, the study of the Bible, even apart from Revelation chapter 9, would give us really everything that we need to know in order to address Islam adequately. But I do believe, as many have believed before me, that this chapter addresses Islam very directly in prophecy. And revelation is very helpful because remember part of what's being done for us is the spiritual realities that sometimes are hidden from our eyes or at least obscured. The curtain is now pulled back so that we can see them for what they are. And now we have the assurance of the omniscient God that we are seeing things rightly, that we are seeing things clearly. Here in the prophecy, we are instructed in the Islamic rise in the East, its progress in the Roman world, something of God's purpose for it. Remember our studies, now this reaches back a long time, I hope that you remember. God doesn't just permit evil in a bare fashion. But it is governed by a wise and powerful bounding, so that even it will accomplish his purposes. So this is certainly the wickedness of the devil and evil men. But he allows it to go so far as it's useful for his purposes and his glory, and the remainder of that wrath of men he restrains. So he has his purpose for it, something that is probably instructive for us in this day and age. And we learn something, we begin to focus on this this morning, we learn something of its origin and source. And that's not pretty. Its origin and source here is portrayed as being thoroughly satanic and demonic. This speaks very much against what I like to call the Oprah theology, doesn't it? The Oprah theology is basically that All spokes lead to the center of the wheel, that all of the different religions of the world are just so many expressions, differing expressions from different perspectives of the true religion that are all ultimately leading to God. This is not the teaching of the scriptures. And in spite of pretensions to the contrary, Islam is not a heaven sent religion of peace, but it is rather a hellish and demonic religion of the sword. It is in its Quran and it has ever been in its history. And beloved, those are just the sober facts. Those are just the sober facts. So revelation now opens for us the things that are hidden and belies all pretensions to the contrary. And here this morning we have the source of this heresy open to us. A little bit about my method as we go through Revelation chapter nine. In some ways, if I were to order my case logically, I would actually begin toward the ending of this prophecy, which is full of Arabian imagery, locusts, the battle horse, the hair of the men, which was like that of women, long hair wrapped in a turban or a crown. If I was to, if I was going to take it in a logical way, I'd begin towards the end of it and show you all of the Arabian imagery. So what is this destructive power getting into the early six hundreds? That's our timeframe that arises out of the East and visits. Whoa, upon a pseudo-Christianized Roman empire. And you do that, and the matters become very plain indeed. But I do want to maintain my verse-by-verse method and unfold the prophecy as it unfolds in its biblical order. So first of all, I just want to give you a prima facie case, not a thorough case. But I hope that right from the beginning, it will give my case some plausibility so that we can get started. If you want to reserve judgment until we get to the end, that's altogether fine. But just by way of prima facie case, the timeframe fits. Remember where we were as we left things at the end of chapter eight, we were in those final years of the 500s. The early years of the 600 is all of the Roman world is anticipating greater woes. You remember the, um, the Aver tartars were, uh, perched in a Lyricum. The Persians are pressuring the Eastern empire from the East. You have something like a, um, a vice grip, but the woe actually comes from a source that no one expected. The, um, the Arabian people were almost famously individualistic, not so much a sense of a national identity or identity as a people. They are wandering nomads, mostly in small groups, families, and so on. What nobody could have expected was that a religion would arise in their midst that would make them suddenly an army and a powerful army. One of great numbers, a locust plague, as it were, imagery that Arabia would be well familiar with, that suddenly a locust army arising out of the east. Second, I think we can be quite sure that the fifth trumpet deals with the Roman Empire in the east. I'll try to deal with that and defend that in a few moments. And as I've said, there are a good number of reformed interpreters before me. that have presented this case, I think quite persuasively. There's still a difference among reformed interpreters. I'll talk a little bit about that, but from Joseph Mead down to E.B. Eliot, there was a very powerful presentation of evidence that this indeed has to deal with the rise of the Islamic powers in the East, and first the Saracens, their first rise. So we will be testing the validity of my hypothesis as we go. And again, I know that this isn't the most direct method, but it does give me leave to continue with the text verse by verse, which I do desire. Again, as we come to our text in verse one, remember the general context. If you want to understand why God used the Islamic religion to punish the Roman Empire, you have to remember the reason for the trumpets. What was the reason for the trumpets? It was the idolatry and anti-Christianism of the Christian world, not just the West, but in the East. And the East, we'll come to some of the more particulars of this as we go, was every bit as bad as the West when it came to these sorts of things. In particular, You had the rise of the saint and martyr worship with all of the idolatry that attended that. Their saints, I mean, their shrines, their pictures, their particular services, their relics, their holy days, and so on. It's very interesting that God ended up judging the Eastern empire by means of a false religion that would tolerate none of this idolatry. And so in some ways it was a very fitting judgment for the East. Remember the trumpets, the first four. And remember the text itself gathers them as a distinctive unit. Remember the four trumpets. Then you get chapter eight, verse 13, looking forward to three more trumpets that are attached in some way, but also distinct in another way. They are characterized as three woes. different and worse than the first four. The first four trumpets dealt with God's judgment upon the Western Roman empire by means of the Germanic barbarians. The Eastern empire during that time was harassed, but never seriously threatened in spite of the fact that they had the same sins prevailing in their midst. God's justice sometimes seems to men to move slow, but remember the words of Peter, the Lord is not slow the way that some count slowness. He's got purposes both of judgment and mercy to fulfill by the passage of years. And so there's a brief interlude in chapter eight, verse 13. The apprehensions of men are growing. There's a sense that things have been bad, but they are getting ready to get worse. And it is so. The fifth trumpet sounds. The first woe opens. And the fifth angel sounded. And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth. And to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. Allow me to try to defend the Eastern context. The fifth trumpet by itself is not explicit or direct in this way, although it might be somewhat suggested to us by the fact that the Western empire has already been destroyed. So it might be somewhat suggested to us by the fact that Four trumpets took care of the last, and now these three trumpets, literarily, have been set apart, connected in some way, but also distinguished in some other ways. But there's something more immediate in the text that suggests this. Before getting into that, I do want to say that the Eastern context is important because it helps us limit some of the possible interpretations. There were some Reformed interpreters that think of this as being the rise of the Roman Antichrist. And so they think that the fallen star is actually the Roman bishop, probably Boniface III, who was the first, 15 to 20 years after Gregory's passing, to take to himself the title of universal bishop. So interestingly enough, that is happening in the West, even as the Islamic power is rising in the East. These things are happening. simultaneously. But remember, I've briefly alluded to the Arabian imagery, which is strongly suggestive of the East. We'll come to that more in later sermons. But if you look down at verse 13 in the sixth trumpet, I want to draw a comparison here that I do believe connects the fifth and the sixth trumpets as you read them. 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 Euphrates. So the Euphrates, remember each of the three divisions of the Roman empire, each had its river, the Rhine in the far West, the Danube in the Illyricum region, and then, the Euphrates for the East. And so here we have a reference to the Eastern frontier of the Roman empire, the Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year. And now notice this, for to slay the third part of men. This is connected to the fifth trumpet because it's an intensification of the same judgment. If you look back at verse 15, it was to slay, verse 15, to slay a third part of the men. If you look back at verse five, and to them, it was given that they should not kill them. Interestingly enough, the Greek vocabulary is all the same, just negated. So the fifth trumpet, the purpose is not to slay, but to vex. Now the purpose is to kill, So you see the intensification of the judgment. So first not to, this lets us see that we're dealing with the same body of people, the same region is very much in view. Do you follow that? And the people in view by the sixth trumpet are clearly the Eastern people, the people gathered around the Euphrates. So this helps us limit the interpretation, as I said. This helps us rule out Boniface III, which would be a really plausible interpretation. If you haven't limited the geography, this helps us also pair off, say, earlier Western heretics and so on. Time frame and geography help us to locate this. They become contact points to help us in the right interpretation of the prophecy. And now the words of verse one, the fifth angel sounded. Remember, and we must never lose sight, all of this is happening because of the indignation of the displaced high priest of the church, Jesus Christ. He was the one that was pouring out his wrath that resulted in the sounding of these trumpets. The sounding of these trumpets is the sound of the war of the Lord. Terrible to the Lord's enemies, to be sure. Terrible to those in Christian lands at this time that were involved in this anti-Christianism and idolatry, but a comfort to God's people. We've had some notice in here that, um, once again, those that had been sealed going all the way back to chapter seven, are protected in the midst of all of this and kept. So this is a comfort to God's people. Remember Numbers chapter 10, when the people of God hear the sounding of the Lord's trumpet of war, it was to remind them that the Lord is mindful of them and fights their battles for them. And so this sounding, which is so terrible to the Lord's enemy was a sound to a truly converted people. that even now the Lord is arising, He's taking up our cause, He is going to punish all of His and our enemies. I know that I keep repeating this, but we must remember this and apply this, since the sound of the trumpet, the Lord's war is in our land in a general way, and this fifth trumpet in a particular way is visiting us again. The Islamic power is rising out of the East. But this sound of war to us ought not to be a sound of terror, but a reminder that the Lord remembers us. He fights our wars for us. And our redemption today is closer than the day that we first believed. The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall. I don't remember if I put this in your outline, but the participle there is actually in the pluperfect. I saw a star having fallen from heaven onto the earth. Children, just so that you know what the tense, the significance of the tense is. You've got present tense. Those are verbs that are happening right now. You have the past or the perfect tense. something that happened in the past. And then you get the pluperfect, which is even further in the, in the past. So normally we would translate it like this. I kick in the present, I kicked in the past, but if I want to go even further, I say I hadn't kicked. And that puts me even further in the past. That's what the pluperfect is. The action of the star falling is being contemplated as a past completed action that has ongoing consequences. That's the significance of the pluperfect tense in Greek. Here, the King James translator simply translated as a present. However you cut it, it does have present implications, but more precisely, it's a past completed action with current consequences. The identity of the star. We've already been able to weed out some things. It's not one of the Western heretics, say Arius or Pelagius. Some interpreters have focused on them. That was in the West and that was much too early. It's not the Roman bishop. he's in the West in spite of the title of universal Bishop, it must fit both our timeframe and our Eastern context. And that really leaves two great candidates. Muhammad or the devil himself. And I might suggest a third, which it might, it might be both. There might be a blending or a compounding of the image. Some have defended the idea that this is a reference to Muhammad. Remember the general image of star throughout? Ecclesiastical powers or civil powers have been used. Muhammad's family had been involved, indeed they had the governorship of Mecca up until the time of Muhammad's birth. His family is then displaced. So you could see how the image of a falling star would be very suitable for him and for his family. Part of the quest of his life is to recover the ground that his family had lost, to take the government of Mecca again. And this is certainly plausible. He was, you remember their mantra about Allah and Muhammad, his prophet. He certainly was the one that spread this false teaching. He was its earthly fountainhead, as it were. But others have argued that this is the devil himself. This is an interpretation that goes all the way back to Joseph Mead. E.B. Eliot first took the Muhammad position, but by the fifth edition, he had reversed himself and took the position that this was the devil. And I do think that there's a lot of evidence to support this idea. First of all, remember the significance of the pluperfect. Satan had previously fallen from the pagan domination of the Roman Empire. Now I know we have to reach back a long way, but if you think all the way back to chapter six, this was very significant. The world changed forever. The domination of the pagan religions in the Western world would never be what it once was. And so this image of Satan, as it were, falling from the heavens is certainly a fitting one. He has fallen from his place of enthronement and power in the midst of the Roman powers, as it were, a star seated amongst the stars, as it were. Now we find him enraged and plotting wrath against those kingdoms. in which his dominion has been overthrown. There's a very similar image to this in Luke chapter 10 verse 18. You remember when Jesus sends out his missionaries preaching the gospel and they come back with stories of conversion and Jesus says, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. I do think that there's a slight difference in the image here. You've got lightning and a star, but there's still great similarity, right? The slight difference, but it's similar dynamic. And you have a different timeframe. I do think that the Lord Jesus here is referring to the ultimate fall of all of the satanic powers before the gospel. And this is, as it were, the first fruits of it. But you see the similarity and dynamic. The gospel went in, And the devil's throne was overthrown. He had been seated as it were in heavenly places, enthroned among the Roman celestial powers, their great governors and emperors and so on. But now he has been cast down to the earth. He is dispossessed. But the thing that really did it for me in thinking that this at the very least has to be true. And perhaps Muhammad himself is being included in this image, try to make, a defense of that as well in just a moment. But when you compare it with the succeeding context, I'm going to now anticipate something that I'm going to spend many, many hours defending later. But if you remember the scroll in the hand of God, you remember that it was portrayed as a large scroll with much writing on it on the front and on the back. And we talked about the significance. It's now many years ago. We're getting ready to get to part of the significance. You remember I mentioned the practice of the ancient people, how they would write their text on the front side of the scroll, but they would frequently write commentaries or notes on the backside corresponding to those same columns. So they'd flip the scroll over and then they would give commentary. I do think that that's very significant for the interpretation of the scroll. When you get to chapter 12, I believe you have a flip flipping of the scroll and commentary, upon the history that we've just considered from chapter six to chapter 11, but from a different perspective, you have probably noticed that up to this point, what has been primarily in view has been civil happenings with just passing or occasional references to the church. He's going to flip the scroll. You're going to get the same events in different images, but now with a very direct focus upon the church itself and how she is impacted by all of these things. Now, interestingly enough, before you leave this sequence of trumpets in chapter 11, the beast, which we take to be the Roman church and its Pope is referred to as the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit. Vocabulary we've seen before right here in this present text. So there the Roman beast is also portrayed as ascending out of this pit in much the same way that the locust plague and this thick darkness does. Who is it? that opened the pit to release the locust plague and the beast. When you look at the fuller image in Revelation chapter, Revelation chapters 12 and 13, it is the dragon, which is expressly interpreted for us as the devil. If you'll look with me just briefly at Revelation chapter 12, verse three, So in chapter 11, you get this passing reference to the beast. He's suddenly introduced as a character without any explanation. If you're a first time reader, you'd probably say, where did he come from? Which is why the scroll is flipped and there's some explanation about his, about his history. Um, but revelation chapter 12, verse three, The Roman Empire is being portrayed under its pagan character. So now we're going all the way back to chapter six. And there appeared another wonder in heaven. and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns and seven crowns upon his head." That seven heads, 10 horns, and the seven crowns upon the head, clear references to Rome. I'll defend that later. But here, this is pagan Rome. The devil enthroned in the midst of her, portrayed as being where? In the heavens, heavenly places. Eliot tries to make this even more poignant by calling it the draconic constellation. That might be going a bit far, but he's trying to harmonize the imagery of chapter 12 with the imagery that's before us in chapter nine. So you've got this great dragon up in the heavens, enthroned among the powers of the world and the Roman powers in particular. He comes into conflict with the church and he loses. as we can't look at it, it would just take too long to do all of all of it. But you remember he comes into conflict with the woman, Michael and his angels fight against the dragon. The dragon is not able to prevail. If you look down at verse eight and he prevailed, not neither was there place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth. Remember Revelation 9.1, cast out of heaven, star cast out of heaven down to the earth. Now, just to go on, the devil loses this conflict, but he doesn't give up. The first tactic is to try to overwhelm the woman with the floods out of his mouth. We'll talk about that later. Is that heresy? Possibly. Is that the barbarian invasions themselves? Possibly. We'll, we'll work on that later. But then there's a second tactic as you turn the page to chapter 13, the rise of the beast and the seeding of his power, the dragon's power to the beast. So in other words, this beast ascends out of the pit as he's described in chapter 11, but it's the devil having fallen from the heavens down to the earth that invests him as it were with his power and with his ability. You bring these images together. Who is it that opened the bottomless pit? to release these two great plagues upon mankind, both the locust plague and the beast. You would suspect that the agent falling from heaven to earth, characterized in the same way in both places, is the same, that it is the devil himself. But I do think that there's a further confirmation that we've not become fanciful or far-fetched. If you look at Revelation 9, verse 11, and that they, that is the locusts, 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 hath his name Apollyon. Who, little flock, is more fittingly called the angel of the abyss than the devil himself? Who, more fittingly called the destroyer, the significance of both of these names, than he whose mission it has come to seek whom he may devour. He has come not to give life or to build up, but to kill, steal and destroy. So who more fitting than the devil? It's altogether possible that this image has been purposefully construed to subsume both agents. both the devil and Muhammad, because it is somewhat fitting for the both of them. And you remember, if I might take you all the way back to the Garden of Eden, there is, as it were, a merging of the two agents. The devil himself has used a serpent, but you remember, God deals with them somewhat as a complex unity. And I wonder if we have a similar sort of thing here. He addresses the serpent, but we know ultimately that this does not have to do primarily with serpents and their anatomy. That becomes something of a memorial or a reminder of that ancient happening when God was dealing with the devil. So it's not unusual for when you have concurring agencies, like the devil and Muhammad, for them to be subsumed in a single image. or for them to be held in view in one single image. So I'll leave that for you to think about and to weigh the evidence. But I do think that at least this much is inescapable, especially when you add the image of the bottomless pit. This is satanic. This is demonic. And what is coming out of the bottomless pit is not good. Its origins are hellish. So that brings us to the last part of our verse. To him was given the key of the bottomless pit. What is this bottomless pit? Quite literally in the Greek, it's actually a more complex expression. It is the pit of the abyss. The image is almost like The abyss had been there, but now a shaft has been opened toward it, a well of the abyss, so that there might be a free communication or interchange between the abyss and the earth. So it's not just the abyss simply, it is the pit of the abyss has been opened, a well of communication and interchange between the infernal regions and the earth. When you do a study of the significance of the abyss in scripture, it actually has a lot of different meanings that are very closely related. I do think its primary meaning refers to the deep of creation. You remember the waters were portrayed as being a great deep. spirit of God brooded upon the waters. The idea of the deep or the abyss communicates the idea of almost unimaginable, unsearchable, unfathomable depths. There are some very low, low, low parts. And it further highlights the great miracle of the Lord bringing the dry land up out of those depths and separating the waters from, from the waters, because at first all was just ocean that seemed to be bottomless. I think, uh, by, by a very easy association, the abyss then came to be associated with the grave, you know, the person being put in the deep parts of the earth, as it were, And then finally it came to be associated again by another step of association with the habitation of condemned spirits. So I think by degrees it came to, other associations came to be attached to it. An association that I found very helpful. You remember in Luke chapter eight, the Lord Jesus cast the demons out of the man. You remember they besought him that he would not send them to go into the deep. Luke chapter eight, verse 31. The deep that they have in place there is the place of condemned spirits. They say it's not time for us to be sent there. But then they are sent into the pigs who go where? Into the water. But there's a clear differentiation. They didn't want to be sent to the place of condemned spirits. They actually end up being sent into the waters, as it were. So you see that this word, this one word, can take on all of these different associations, but they're not looking to escape the water. They're escaping, they're wishing to escape the place of punishment, which is what they ask him for at that place. By the time you come to Revelation, the association with the infernal regions is beyond doubt. Revelation chapter 20, beginning in verse one, and I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled. And after that, he may be loosed a little season. So, This locust plague, this darkness that arises in this locust plague that flies out of the darkness, this is hellish. In spite of pretensions to the contrary, that this is a revelation from heaven and supernatural and God sent, the Lord pulls back the veil here. This is evil. This is hellish evil. And what is the significance of the key? I do think that this refers to the Lord's providential dispensation that he is using Satan and or Muhammad probably and as agents to punish very much the way that he used the Babylonian empire. So the key is an example of him giving leave right on now and punish. but this Islamic rod will be thrown into the fire after the Lord uses it in much the same way that the Babylonian rod was later thrown into the fire. One other very interesting suggestion. This is fascinating. You're going to associate this with Roman Catholic theology, but the Islamic caliphs claimed that they held the key to open paradise and hell. And so you have a further association here with the Islamic leaders making this claim, except you remember the Lord will frequently show the spiritual reality here. They have been given a key, but only to make hell's mouth open and wider for the reception of more souls. But the Quran says, did not God give to his legate the power of heaven, which is above and the fire, which is beneath? With the key, did he not give him the title and power of a porter that he may open to those whom he shall have chosen? So the Quran notwithstanding, he's given no key to open heavenly places, just the infernal regions to send souls there and to receive false doctrine from that place. I wanted to take just one doctrine and very briefly, you could probably do it yourself at this point. Islam, far from being a heaven-sent religion of peace, is a satanic, hell-sent religion of temporal and eternal destruction and misery. So it has been revealed to be, and in its history, it has ever proven to be. You might not be fully convinced. I've brought a very direct Bible proof here. But you could probably all by yourself justify the same doctrine on broader biblical grounds. We really don't even need Revelation chapter nine. But I do think Revelation is chapter nine so that we will not be fooled by the rhetoric. I remember after 9-11 hearing our president, George Bush, Professor Christian, saying before the United States of America, This is not Islam. This is some extremists. Islam is a religion of peace. And I thought to myself, I hope he does not believe that. I understand the political rhetoric. I still don't think he should do it, but I hope that that's all it is. I hope that he doesn't believe that because if he believes that we're in trouble. We don't need some sort of simpering man wringing his hands hoping that the Muslims will be friendly if we make friendly. We need a Charles Martel. We need an Oliver Cromwell. We need a Christian man who understands the religious mind to deal with these people. And may the Lord raise up Christian governors and Christian generals who understand the religious mind and the religious motivation. to turn this godless and hellish heresy and false religion back to the pit from whence it came. But when we hear this rhetoric that this is, they are a religious and a spiritual people. And, you know, we hear the reports from Malcolm X that he went to the Middle East and he saw white, red, and brown all rolling out there. prayer mats and all of this, and it's a deeply spiritual sort of thing. When we hear them say that this is a religion of peace, this has never been a religion of peace. It is not a religion of peace in its foundational document. It has never acted like a religion of peace. If you have seen some of the pictures of them dragging our dead soldiers through their streets, chanting, Christian nations do not do these sorts of things. This is obvious, overt, demonic control. And yet the propaganda machine has sought to control us. And I'll tell you another thing. Allah is not God, and he's not the same God of the Christians under a different name. He is the angel of the pit. the devil himself. And so when they roll out their little rags and they fall down on their knees, they are worshiping the angel at the pit, the destroyer. the devil himself. And so you see, there can be no peace between these two kingdoms. Christianity has never been advanced by the power of the sword. I'm not suggesting we do that with the Islamic nations, but Christianity and it's over ever been good Christian doctrine for us both to witness and evangelize for the care of their souls, but also the magistrate bears the sword for the defense of our bodies. And so I hope that we are not deceived concerning the character of our enemies. If we think that giving them money and some better forms of government and smiling, cheerful faces is going to make them our friends, we've learned nothing from the scripture and we've learned nothing from history. We've simply given them better tools to fight us with. because they will come to fight us. They believe that Islam ought to overspread the entire world, the same way we believe Christianity ought to overspread the entire world. Guess what? Both of these things cannot happen. And there must be a conflict before this is over. But here is the good news. Satan could not have opened the pit, nor Muhammad, apart from Christ conferring the key. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords has even these satanic powers underneath his dominion. They are well in hand. He and looses their wrath for his own glory and to accomplish his purposes. But when it no longer serves his purpose, the rest of that wrath, he will restrain and this rod will be thrown in the fire and discarded as a thing no longer useful. to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So we need not be afraid. With that in mind, I thought that it might be useful to conclude with the singing of Psalm 46. God is our refuge and our strength, and straights of present age Therefore, although the earth remove, we will not be afraid. Let us rise and sing of the greatness of our God, the refuge he provides, and the strength that he demonstrates in his victories. To America, the beautiful.