Reading from the next section of Revelation 9 verses 13 through 21. Hear the Word of God. So the sixth angel trumpeted, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. So the four angels were released. They had been prepared for the hour and the day and month and year so that they might kill a third of mankind. And the number of the mounted troops was 100 million. I heard their number. And in the vision, I saw the horses like this. Those who rode them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like lion's heads. 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 that came out of their mouths. For the capability of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails are like snakes having heads, and with them they do harm. Yet the rest of the people, those who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as to stop worshiping the demons, even the idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornications or their thefts. Amen Father we thank you for your word. I pray that as we dig into it You would help us to understand it and to apply it in a way consistent And that honors and glorifies you we pray this in Jesus name. Amen You may be seated Well, we've finally come to the sixth trumpet, and I do need to speak again about chronology and timing issues. And I think you will find this first major point at least mildly interesting. Chronology is not the favorite subject for some people, but I think this will be a little bit different. And I do want to make a comment about my tendency in the past to give you the modern Gregorian equivalence. I think that's probably been a mistake because when you read in the literature, it does get confusing because there are so many different presuppositions that go into how to convert it. I think they're very accurate conversions that I've been giving. And I've done it to make it easier for you, but I think it might cause more confusion than not. I'm going to try to stick to the Hebrew calendar that was used by John. and by the Hebrew historians of the first century, because when you do that, there is an absolute mathematical precision. I believe there's a precision with the Gregorian dates too, but there's just too many assumptions that go into that. So from here on in, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be probably just referring to the Hebrew dates. If you want the Gregorian dates, Josh and Tobias have been working on this massive timeline And I've put up a whole boatload of new dates on there. But we're going to be trying to give you dates for almost every passage that's in the Book of Revelation. And hopefully it'll work out. But anyway, let's dive into the outline. Point number one says, the sequence. Revelation has a very precise chronology. Now, we have been seeing that point by point in chapters five through nine. We can see it again here. But because it is constantly denied in the commentaries, I've got to constantly affirm it. Verse 13 says, then. Now, you'll see in the bulletin here it says, so. But it's exactly the same grammar as was translated by the same version, then, then, then, earlier. And that word indicates a sequence. And while some might want to diminish the time sequence here and translate it as so or and, just look at the previous verse. If you've got your Bibles, look at the previous verse. I don't see how that is possible. Verse 12 says, one woe is passed, behold still two more woes are coming after these things. Well those two more woes are the next two trumpets, right? So trumpet five is passed, it's finished, and the next Two woes are still yet to come. So I don't know how so many people can gloss over time sequences like this, including, by the way, many partial preterists, our own camp. It's very, very important to note. Then comes John's statement in verse 15. So the four angels were released. They had been prepared for the hour and the day and month and years so that they might kill a third of mankind. And I want you to especially notice that phrase. prepared for the hour and the day and month and year. John's chronology follows the Hebrew calendar, and the more I have studied the chronology of the events, the more I have been astonished at the details involved in trying to figure these things out. What makes it especially complicated when you're trying to convert their days, which begin at 6 p.m. Ours don't. So you got confusion there. And then you convert their lunar calendar to our solar calendar. And there is assumptions that go into that as well, depending on if you have intercalations. It can sometimes make your head spin. It's one of the reasons why I'm so thankful that I've got a calendar program that's taken all of that into account. and does the calculations automatically for me. Now I have spent countless hours looking at all of the different viewpoints out there, poring over the last few years, over the writings and the mathematical calculations of the calendar experts, and you can understand why differences of opinion do arise. So I'm planning to stick to the Hebrew, the Roman, the Seleucid dates of the ancient historians. And when you do that, you see that there is just a perfect match with the calendar program. Now without boring you to tears, which I don't plan to do, I can't really show you the awe, the wonder, the spectacular nature of the timing of this book. There are so many cool things in this book that I hope to get into writing at some point. I can't just bring them into the end of the sermons, but at least somebody's going to be interested in them, like I will. But I want to at least give you a sneak peek, a little bit of an insight on some of the cool things that I have seen as a result of doing these calculations. And I'm going to go back to Pentecost, which is chapter 8. And actually, I'll go back to the first Pentecost in A.D. 30. And I want to show you some hints on why that is such a pivotal date and why it's a pivotal date in the book of Revelation. My calendar program shows that it is exactly 77,777 weeks from Moses burning bush to Pentecost. Now what is significant of that? Well both were commissions to leaders to form a New Covenant community. But what an amazing number, 77,777. Here's a second weird coincidence. It was exactly 77,777 700 weeks from the dedication of the tabernacle where the Holy Spirit, remember, came down, fire came down out of heaven, and the Holy Spirit manifested himself with his people in that first tabernacle under Moses until the time that at Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, the Spirit came down and manifested himself with his people as well. Exactly 77,700 weeks. Why the even number? Well, the number seven is the number of completion and perfection. Third, that was an exact number of Jubilee cycles. Jubilee cycle was 50 years, had prophetic significance of bringing liberty. Fourth, Acts 2 was exactly seven weeks from Christ's death. Okay, that number seven keeps cropping up. And I'll skip over a whole bunch of other pretty cool correlations that relate to Pentecost. And since we're focused on the war of Jerusalem, let me point out some things that are just too exact to be mere coincidences. Is it by accident that the AD 70 temple was burned on Ab 9, that's a Hebrew month, Ab 9, the exact same day that Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple of Solomon? And even more strange, is it an accident that it is exactly 240,000 days from that first temple destruction to this temple destruction? Exactly 240,000 days, not one day more or less. That's just too weird to be a mere coincidence. Is it an accident that this also happened to be 77,770 weeks after Moses died? Is it by accident that the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem in AD 70, exactly 40 years to the very day that Jesus was crucified on Ab 14 or Nisan 14, two different names for the same Hebrew month. Is it an accident that this very day was a lunar eclipse? No, it was symbolizing Israel's lights going out, the end of a nation. And you can verify all of this stuff You know, on other programs and NASA, I've been on NASA's site way too much. But they've got a lot of cool lunar cycle charts. Is it by accident that Cestius blew his trumpets of war on the very day that the first angel blew his heavenly trumpets of war? No. The Feast of Trumpets was God's warning of judgment for Israel, and that brief war was the last opportunity that any people had to be able to flee from Jerusalem. And Eusebius says all of the Christians took warning. By the way, the Feast of Trumpets always occurs on Tishri 1. which according to Psalm 81 verses 3 through 4 was always a new moon. Okay, so there's a prophetic significance to all of these things. Is it by accident that the second angelic trumpet corresponds with the next festival trumpet blast at the Feast of Tabernacles? Is it by accident that the third angelic trumpet corresponds with the next festival trumpet blast the Day of Atonement? No. There are no accidents. I've got kind of a chart that outlines all of these different festivals and shows that they had a prophetic significance of the ending of the old covenant and the ending of the old covenant temple. There is only one festival yet to be fulfilled, and that is the Feast of Purim, which points to the salvation of Israel in the future and even greater blessings being brought to the Gentiles. But no temple, no temple at that point. all of the previous festivals had to be fulfilled while the temple was still standing. Is it by accident that from Moses' first reading in Deuteronomy, after the 40 years and the last unbeliever from the wilderness generation had died, from that time to the time that Titus sells the survivors into slavery, again after 40 years, is exactly 77,777 weeks. I mean, wow, there is that same number coming up again. Coincidence? I think not. I think not. Is it by accident that Jerusalem fell in a jubilee year? I think not. These are not coincidences. God is following a pattern that showcases his sovereignty and his mercy to those who have eyes to see. And so it's not simply a throwaway phrase, the way many commentaries treat the phrase I just read, when verse 15 speaks of the timing of these events being down to the very day and hour. And we're going to be digging into some really cool stuff on the 1260 days and the 42 months when we get into chapter 11. But having said that, I do want to point out that there is a structure that needs to be noted in the sixth trumpet if we want to be exact in our interpretation. Most commentators treat chapter 10 verse 1 through chapter 11 verse 14 as two interludes. Now, it is true. They are two interludes. but they are still during the time of the sixth trumpet. And you can see that by the phrase that's given in chapter 11, verse 14. The second woe has passed, behold, the third woe is coming quickly. They are still part of that sixth trumpet. So the explanation for the odd structure is pretty simple. In verses 13 through 21, this is very important to understand, these verses we just read, In our chapter, God gives an overview of the entire sixth trumpet from 67 through 70 AD. It's kind of an introductory summary of what's going to be happening. Then He gives these two interludes, chapter 10 and chapter 11. He outlines two other things that are going to occur. during that period of the Sixth Trumpet. So you can treat these verses kind of as an introduction. And by the way, that's the only way that you're going to be able to explain the killing of one-third of mankind. To my knowledge, one-third of mankind did not die in AD 67. You have to calculate all the way up to the beginning parts of AD 70. By the time we get to 69, the year of the four emperors, there's civil war, there's massive numbers of Romans and other nationalities who die from civil war and famine and plague and other means. And so verses 13 through 21 are going to be covering the next three years right up to the time right before the seventh trumpet. And then chapters 10 through 11 are going to deal with two topical things that happen in the same time period. So does that all make sense? Just in terms of a structure, I want you to see where we're going on this. This is a key stumbling block for some people, so it's very important that we understand this. Now the next point says that God is sovereign over this war that Vespasian brings, and of course we've been seeing John's been harping on that point all through all of these visions, hasn't he? God is sovereign. We even saw his sovereignty in the the weird number correlations that I've been giving to you, but you can clearly see it again in the first phrase of verse 13. So the sixth angel trumpeted. Now we have been seeing that the armies of heaven are far more critical to world history than human armies are. far more critical. I was reading again in Josephus this past week and just blown away again by some of this history. There were three times where Josephus almost died. Two of those times he was so surrounded by a mass of Jewish soldiers that even the Romans thought it was a miracle that he was able to fight his way through those crowds out to safety again, that the Jews thought it was a miracle. They didn't know how in the world he should have been dead. Now Titus attributes the escape to his gods. Josephus attributes the escape to Jehovah. But it's clear that heaven's armies are guiding this war from the beginning to the end of it. And you could get that just by reading the secular histories. It's a weird war. It's just astonishing. But it's good to be reminded we have angels involved in these battles. But it's more than just angels. The kingdom of heaven as directed by Jesus Christ is impacting the earth and that is symbolized by the second clause in verse 13. And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. What is the golden altar? Well, he's defined it as the altar of incense in chapter 8 verse 3. Just take a look at that. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne." Now the Jews, they knew exactly what that was all about because they went to that all the time in their understanding their theology. But even for us who were not present at that temple, he's defined exactly what he means. The golden altar is the altar of incense that symbolizes the prayers of the saints. So this voice of Jesus Christ that is directing the armies of heaven is a direct result of the prayers of the church on earth. Is prayer important? Absolutely, yes it is. I don't know how you could explain it to be more important than some of the symbols like this in the book of Revelation. Now it mentions four horns of the golden altar, and anyone who is familiar with the temple rituals would know this is just an incredibly marvelous, powerful symbol of the mercy of God, the horns of the altar. See what would happen is there would be a bull or a lamb that would be slain out in the outer court on the altar, but some of the blood would be taken and they would go into this a holy place, and they would smear some of the blood on the horns of this altar. And what that represented was that our prayers can have no impact without the the atonement of Christ and without His prayers. And there can be no mercy apart from the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's a wonderful symbol. It may have seemed like the whole world was falling apart and yet God was answering the church's prayers and He was being merciful to the church. Now sometimes judgments against God's enemies are mercies to the church. and I think we need to see them as that. Don't think that God has failed you if he starts taking down statist governments in the next, you know, few years or decades and we enter into financially tough times. But I do want to spend a little bit more time on prayer because these chapters really have become a turning point for the church. The church has undergone incredible persecution. That persecution ended at this point It ended because Israel now was so preoccupied with defending itself against Rome, it doesn't have any energy, doesn't have any time to persecute Christians anymore. And so starting in chapter 8 verses 1 through 6, the prayers of the saints have been ascending continually before the golden altar of God. And chapter 8 says, the seven trumpets started sounding as a result of those prayers. And here he is saying those same prayers that are leading to the judgments that are outlined in this chapter. Without prayer, we have no victory. It's just as simple as that. Why don't you turn with me to Psalm 76. I think this Psalm is such a vivid reminder of what must happen to the church worldwide if we are to see the enemies of the church coming under judgment, and if we are to see the church emerging once again as a world-conquering force. Psalm 76, indicates it's going to require God-centered prayer. In Judah God is known. His name is great in Israel. In Salem also is His tabernacle and His dwelling place in Zion. There He broke the arrows of the bow, the shield and sword of battle, Selah. Now Selah means, let's pause a bit and think about that, and we should. We should think, what was that tabernacle? Well, Jesus defines the tabernacle as being the house of prayer for all nations. Par excellence, that was what was supposed to define the temple. It was supposed to be a place of prayer. But I want you to notice that it was in that tabernacle where God's people are gathered for prayer that the definitive differences in Israel's battles were made. The victory was not simply achieved out there on the battlefield. It was in this house of prayer that God broke the arrows of the bow and the shield and the sword of battle. But then Asaph goes on to say that these prayers must be God-centered, not comfort-centered. Our prayers must be passionate for the kingdom. Consider God to be far more glorious than our comfort, than the prey, the plunder that we might get than winning the battle. So verse 4 continues. You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. The stout-hearted were plundered. They have sunk into their sleep, and none of the mighty men have found the use of their hands. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse were cast into a dead sleep. You yourself are to be feared, and who may stand in your presence when once you are angry? You caused judgment to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and was still when God arose to judgment to deliver all the oppressed of the earth. Selah. Surely, the wrath of man shall praise you. Can God use the wrath of man, the wrath of the ungodly, to defeat their own kingdom? Absolutely, yes, he can. That's what he did in the book of Revelation. He turned the wrath of the Jews that had been burning hot against Christians, and he turned it against the Romans. And he turned the wrath of the Romans that had been persecuting the Christians, and he turned it against the Jews. And so these two enemies of Christianity were undoing each other. But even after the war, God continued to glorify himself with both Roman and Jewish persecutions. So verse 10 again, surely the wrath of man shall praise you with a remainder of wrath you shall gird yourself, make vows to the Lord your God and pay them. Let all who are around him bring presents to him who ought to be feared. He shall cut off the spirit of princes. He is awesome to the kings of the earth. See, that's the kind of faith that Revelation was designed to inspire in God's people. Revelation was designed to help us to look at the events that are around us with new eyes. And then verse 14 of Revelation 9 gives yet another encouragement. that shows how God's heavenly armies are more powerful than Satan's armies. If you are a glass half-empty kind of a person, you're probably looking at that and saying, oh man, they're unleashing these hundred million, you know, all of these demons. What are we gonna do? This is gonna be absolutely horrible. But if you're a glass half-full type of a person, you're gonna look at that and say, wow, those demons have been bound a long time and they couldn't do a single thing if it didn't suit God's purposes. And now God's using them against His enemies. And it's something that shows you that God's angels are far more powerful than their angels. Think about it. Here's four angels. No, here's one angel that unleashes, is that the right word? Unleashes, unleashes the four demonic princes and their millions That ought to inspire awe in us of the valor of our angels rather than making fear about the power of their angels. Next, the word Euphrates is also significant for first century Jews. It conjures up numerous Old Testament passages of where the enemies almost always were coming from in the Old Testament. They came from up north. They came from the Euphrates, and I got a whole bunch of scriptures on that. And so this has made some commentators, normally it's futurists, but some partial preterists as well, they've said, well, this must then be referring to 100 million human soldiers, or if you take the minority text, 200 million human soldiers coming from the Euphrates River. After all, in the Old Testament, if you look at any time they came from the Euphrates from the north, it's humans that came from the Euphrates, right? But we're going to be seeing everything about these mounted enemies demonstrates that they're demons, not simply men. Now, it's not exclusive of the human armies. The two are tied together. They're somehow connected. But the focus is on demons. And so just as verses 1 through 12 show the images in Titus' armies that pointed to the demons that they worshiped, These were images on Vespasian's legions that pointed to the demons that they worshipped. So let's take a look at those demons, at those images on Vespasian's four legions, and that they are images that can be seen from a number of proofs. First of all, look at verse 17. It says, and in the vision I saw the horses. Visions are characteristically symbolic. Second, the comparative article hos, which means like or as, not identical to, but like or as, occurs ten times in this chapter. The adjective homoios, which means like, is used four times. And the noun homoyoma, which means similar to or the likeness of, occurs one time. All of those words are pointed to the fact you cannot take these horses as literal horses and literal riders. I mean, literal horses don't have tails like snakes that can bite the heads of snakes on them. These are clearly symbols of demons. And if you look at the front side, the map of the siege, you'll see the specific legions used by Titus and Vespasian. The four new legions, okay, there's two legions that Titus brought up. The four new legions that Vespasian brought up were four, Scythia, five, Macedonia, six, Farada, and 10, and they joined then with 12 and 15. And there were parts of some other armies that were present as well. But if you analyze the symbols of those armies that came up, it makes perfect sense. First of all, verse 17 says that the horses had heads like lions. Well, the two symbols of Legio 5 were the eagle and the lion, and you can see a coin minted in honor of that legion with an eagle and a lion on it. Legio 12 from the Euphrates also had an image of the lion on their standards. Now in this case, it was a flying lion. And interestingly, the cavalry assigned with these units had their horses wear head armor shaped like a lion's head. And I found a surviving specimen of that in your outlines. So horses literally, literally wore that symbol of a lion on their heads. So did the standard bearers. They had a lion, a head on their head. The symbol of Legio IV was a flying horse. So what's going on here is the Roman legions, they're trying to imitate the demons that they worship as closely as they can, because they want those demons to give them victory. They want them to protect them. Now, what about the fire that came out of their mouths and the tails like a serpent? Well, most commentaries only focus on the fact that the Romans torched everything, you know, Jerusalem and the temple. But the imagery of the armies themselves connects them with the smoke and the fire. For example, the Chimera God, an example of which I've put into your outlines, has a head like a lion and a tail like a snake with the tip of the tail being the snake's head. So you can see the picture there. Now, the chimera actually had different shapes. I've just found one there, but these are a collage of images. According to ancient legend, the chimera was reputed to breathe fire out of its mouth. Now, modern people, they look at that, and we just scoff. We think that's ridiculous. But these guys took it seriously. They worshipped. They feared these demons. But fire and smoke issuing forth may also be connected with two of the gods represented by two of Vespasian's legions, the gods Zeus and Neptune. The 10th legion's god, Neptune, worked very closely with Apollo, the demonic king mentioned in verse 11, and the main animal associated with him was horses, and both of those gods had lightning and fire associated with them. In fact, the 12th legion's symbol was the lightning bolt. to connect them with that. I think I missed that image in your outlines. The shield of Legio V Macedonia was fire and smoke. And I've given you an image of that on one of their shields. And I want you to note just on that shield the red, the yellow, and the blue. And it's actually on all of the armor there. Verse 17 says, those who rode them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. And I've given you three pictures that show those were the typical colors of the legions. It's just common knowledge. The location of Legio 6 was up until recently unknown. That's why on that image you've got question marks up there. But recent archaeological evidence places them in the Megiddo Valley, exactly where Revelation 16, verse 16 places them. So that summarizes the four legions from the Euphrates, how they symbolized the demons that they worshiped, and those gods or demons had up until now been bound at the Euphrates. It's a composite description, just like verses 1 through 12 was a composite description as well. So what's happened at this point is Titus has been traveling from Egypt and Vespasian has been traveling from the Euphrates region north, And they line up here in the spring and begin an aggressive campaign of war. Now let me give you one more point before we quit, and that's seen in verse 15. So the four angels were released. They had been prepared for the hour and the day and month and year, and here comes the phrase we haven't dealt with yet, so that they might kill a third of mankind. Now most partial preterist commentaries try to get around that statement because it just seems too exaggerated to them. Was a third of mankind really killed at this time? If you read the premillennial arguments against our position, this is claimed to be a slam dunk argument that partial preterism simply cannot be true. And I'm not at all satisfied with the answers that partial preterists have given to date. So I think it's a serious issue that deserves at least a few minutes of consideration. Let me first of all discard some lame arguments that you'll find in the partial preterist camp. Mulholland suggests that all humanity is divided up into three groups of unequal size. You've got a group of people sealed by God. You've got a group of people judged by God. Then you've got a group of people neither sealed nor judged, but they're given opportunity to repent. And he says it's not a third of mankind as a whole that is judged, but it's a third of one of those three groups. But I don't think that that's what the language here says. It says it's a third of mankind, not one of three very unequal groups. So I'm not satisfied with that explanation. Others in our camp apply this to the men of Israel only. And you can translate, instead of mankind, a third of the men. And technically, it's possible, but it doesn't fit two facts. And this is something, again, that premillennialists just hammer on us, at least in the last year or two. They've been hammering on us. First, far more than a third of the Jews were killed. So it doesn't fit that point. Second, it doesn't seem to fit the context of idolatry of literal idols in verses 20 through 21. Jews simply didn't worship idols of silver, gold, wood, stone, bronze, you know, that didn't speak. They didn't worship those. So it seems much better to take this as mankind in general within the Roman empire or just mankind throughout the globe. Now, we have almost no ideas of how many people lived, let alone how many people died in China and North America and other places like that in the first century. So I have no way of saying whether there was deaths out there. I suspect not. But let me give you four arguments as to why this is most probably related to the world of the Roman Empire. First of all, in the parallel section in chapter 16, verse 14, the demons from the Euphrates, and it's the same demons here, the demons go out of the beast's mouth. Who's the beast? Nero. So he's talking about Rome. He's not talking about China or North America. Second, he speaks of the kings at the Euphrates, not the kings of China or North America, the kings at Euphrates, So that's the second connection that would seem to indicate it's Gentiles and goes beyond Jews. But Euphrates is still within the Roman Empire. Okay, so it excludes China. Third, he uses the Greek term oikoumenes, which is defined in the dictionary as usually applying to the Roman Empire or the world as an administrative unit under Rome. And then last, it speaks of them coming to the land of Israel to wage war at Megiddo. Rome came to Megiddo China did not. OK? And our passage also speaks of the demons coming from the Euphrates. And that was the place where Vespasian's four legions were that he's rounding up, as well as many of the auxiliary armies. They came from the region of the Euphrates. And so the point of going through this is I think it's very important to realize that this judgment is not just upon Israel. These demons are unleashed upon the entire Roman Empire, and I'll give you evidence for that in a bit. It's a covenant judgment upon both. But it still brings up the question, did one third of mankind in the Roman Empire die between the years of AD 67 and 70? And I say, yes. Now, futurists will say, absolutely not. There is no evidence whatsoever that there were that many deaths. People like Tim LaHaye have recently gone on a frontal attack against partial preterism. And this is one of their arguments. Well, I beg to differ with them. I think there is evidence. Now, part of the problem is that secular scholars are all over the map on what the population of the empire might be. And so your critics can cherry pick what numbers they want. I've read numerous papers and books studying the demography of that period. Now, if Gibbon's estimates for the population of the Roman Empire was correct in the first century, and he's probably got the highest, he says there was 120 million people in the Roman Empire. Well, if he is right, far more than a third were killed. But others have estimated the Roman population before those times as 83 million, Mauro de Jones, 70 to 90 million, Michael Grant, 70 million, Balak and Stein, 50 to 60 million, Finlay, 50 million, Duncan, Jones, and McMullen, and 39 million, McEvedy. Well, if you're all over the map like that, it's almost impossible to use demography to prove fulfillment or non-fulfillment. Now most people say that Rome probably had about 55 million people, somewhere in that range. But if any of the first four estimates are correct on the size of the population, then liberals have no basis for questioning the inerrancy of Scripture. God said that a third would die, and that's good enough for me, okay? But because pre-Mills have recently been bringing this verse up as an objection to partial preterism, I do want to deal with it for just a few more minutes and demonstrate there was massive amounts of death that looks to me very much like it was right in the 33% range. And my chief source of information is Tacitus, a Roman historian who lived during this time. When you read through his five volumes that cover 68 through 70 AD, they were titled The Histories, not his Annals, but The Histories, you see language that describes absolute carnage during this period of time. And the carnage was not just against the barbarians that had revolted. That was bad enough. But the civil wars had legions fighting against legions and decimating their numbers. Tacitus speaks of vast numbers of Roman soldiers being slain. Nor were ordinary citizens exempt. Cremona was massacred as were other regions. Now you might wonder, well, how come you don't see a lot of this in the modern history books? And I've got a hunch as to why this is the case. I think that many of these establishment scholars doubt the figures that are given by Suetonius and Tacitus and some of these other people because they idolize Rome. They think of Rome as the ideal state that we ought to imitate. And they also downplay any major significant numbers. It's just skepticism. They have no basis for their doubts. For example, on the diminished size of the city of Rome that I just referenced, Whitney Oates says, on the face of it, this seems impossible. Despite the fact that the city had suffered severely from disease and pestilence, we have no warrant to conclude that the city had decreased in size by over more than half. We are forced, therefore, to reject such an interpretation. And my response, looking at all the evidence, is why? Why are you forced to reject that? Why do so many scholars dismiss the genocides recorded by historians as being real genocides? And again, it's only a hunch, but my hunch is they idolize Rome. For the past 1,000 years, actually longer than that, scholars have only had praise for Greece and Rome. Those two empires have been kind of a model for the modern. So if ancient historians say that Julius Caesar, and they did, if they say that Julius Caesar killed a million Gauls in one conflict and he enslaved another million, it sounds too much like genocide. And a lot of people just discount that. They think, well, that's just hyperbole. So they come up with their own figures of 30,000 or something. When Josephus says that one and a half million Jews were killed in Israel, the scholars say, that just can't be. And I'm thinking, well, on what basis can that just not be? But they discount it and they say, well, maybe 30,000 were killed. They always bring the numbers of the ancient historians way down. Why? Because it looks like genocide. And it was genocide that Rome was engaged in. Even Christians have idolized Greece and Rome, but Rome and Greece were demonic to the core, and there is no good reason to respect or honor those empires. And I like the way Nick Fields pops this illusion in his 2014 history book that just, by the way, covers AD 69 in the Roman Empire. That's all it deals with. He says, historians generally like to encourage us to remember Rome as a glorious font of Western civilization. I find it difficult to agree with this proposal. Rather than be dazzled by its so-called glory, Rome is better seen as that immense monument of human arrogance. So from here on, abandon any notions about the glory that was Rome or the noble legacy it ostensibly left us. And I say amen. By the time you get to the end of his book, you are sickened by Rome. You have no respect for Rome. Rome was barbaric in its treatment of people, and it depopulated a third of the empire. Now, who all died? I'm going to just try to add up the numbers for you here. Christians continued to die for more than a year, all the way up till Nero died on June 9 of 68. As I mentioned in a previous sermon, the church was almost exterminated, and as much as the church had advanced around the world, to be exterminated would have had a huge impact upon the population. Now, if the Roman Empire was 55 million, as most establishment, we'll just take the establishment figure, it was probably higher, but if it was 55 million, And if Christians numbered in the multiplied millions, as we have already established, then we are racking up some significant percentages here. OK, let's assume a conservative figure of 5 million Christians. Well, that would be almost 10% of the total population. That'd be less if the higher figures were assumed to be correct. But if the higher figures are assumed to be correct, automatically a third is proved to be dead. So we're taking the lower conservative numbers and say, if that's true, then there is approximately 10% of the empire that's been done in at this point. Jews are the next category to add to this Holocaust. They continue to be killed throughout the empire up until early 74. In fact, the lowest figure of Jews killed throughout the empire that is even remotely credible is 4 million Jews, which some establishment scholars have been recently citing. But several scholars have demonstrated it's actually much closer to the 7 million mark. of Jews that were killed, okay? If the Roman population was higher, then the figure would go up as well, because the Jews comprised approximately 15% of the entire population, 10% in the West, 20% in the East. The Jewish deaths alone would have comprised over 10% of the population. Now you need to add the Christians to that, so we're hovering around the 20% mark already. The German Batavians were slaughtered in their uprising, and other barbarian uprisings were brutally suppressed. It's impossible to read through the five volumes of Tacitus' The Histories without becoming aware of massive human loss, which, by the way, Fields points out, was typical of Rome's armies. Life did not mean much to them. Then there were the Roman legions fighting against each other. fighting against other Roman legions in the civil wars in AD 69. The best of the best were up against each other and they showed no mercy to the legions and the auxiliary armies that supported the wrong or the losing emperor. Remember that AD 69 was the year of the four emperors and there was civil war through that whole period of time. Now the Batavians themselves were an incredibly powerful army. They single-handedly, without the help of anybody else, completely decimated two Roman legions, and two other Roman legions joined with them, thinking, okay, we're going to support the Batavians. Well, the Batavians lost, which means we got four Roman legions that are in deep trouble. Tacitus doesn't give us an exact number of Roman legionnaires that were lost, but he speaks of, quote-unquote, vast numbers of Roman soldiers who died. whatever vast numbers adds up to. He also describes huge areas of territory where the bodies of the Roman soldiers were piled high. There's at least some percentage that's going to be added. I don't know if it's half a percent, 1%, 2%, but we're edging above 20%. But noncombatant Roman civilians also died all through the year 69, the year of the four emperors. Tacitus' account really turns your stomach when you see how the Roman soldiers barbarized and treated fellow Roman citizens that they were fighting against. By the way, you read some of the early Americans when they're talking about politics. They cite these kinds of statistics and tacitus saying, this is why we never want to have a standing army in America because a standing army can be unleashed upon its own population. All you have to do is look at the war between the states and you see the carnage that's produced when a standing army fights against its own Now I'm just going to give you a tiny paragraph from Fields' history book on the year 8069 to give you a tiny glimpse. He talks about what happened to one town for siding with the wrong emperor. Now they'd already lost many lives in the fight, in the conflict, but Fields describes what happened to the citizens after the surrender had happened. He said, in any war, the civilian caught up in the conflict suffers the most, and the inhabitants of this affluent town were to be no exception. Despite a show of surrender, they fell victim to indiscriminate looting, rape, and butchery, the most frightful forms of soldier license, the last vices of war. A holocaust of death and destruction cleaned the entire town. The Flavians were now completely out of control. They roamed unchecked through the town, raping and murdering, looting and destroying, and then they slept drunken on wine and lust and blood. Such was the rape of Cremona. And by the way, the statements that Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and others give of the crazy, crazy behavior of the Romans during this period of time seems to indicate they were demon possessed. Remember we saw in the previous verses that those demons were unleashed upon the Jews and we saw the crazy behavior. Josephus says they're either insane or they're demon-possessed. One or the other, we say, yeah, well, the text tells us they were demon-possessed. But it's the same kind of wild behavior, insane. Mob activities, suicides, mass killings, torture, all kinds of crazy behavior that indicates, yes, this judgment was upon the entire empire. And we've not even touched on those killed by plagues and fires during this time. R. Bagnell and B. Fryer have poured over 300 census returns filed in Egypt during the first three centuries since the birth of Jesus, they tried to come up with demographic tables, mortality rates for Romans, and their conclusion was that life expectancy from birth for Roman females was between 20 and 30 years, and for males was between 22 and 25 years. Well, if that was true, something devastating must have been happening during this time. The huge numbers of widows and orphans that we read about you know, after this war. All by itself, that ought to indicate something massive has happened. So even though we do not have slam dunk numbers, neither do those who question this verse being fulfilled. And certainly there is abundant evidence of mass death that I think shows very credibly an approximation of the 33% mark. And when we get to chapter 11, I'll give you evidence of a tidal wave that covered the region of Lycia and a great deal of Egypt. Tidal waves usually come as a result of earthquakes. We'll be looking at the earthquake. But to cover much of Egypt and to cover all of Lycia, that must have brought enormous amounts of death. Cathy just doesn't tell us how many died. But you've got to add figures like that to the death toll. I'll give you just one more example of statistics that we have. Though the evidence is disputed, and I want to say that. it could be interpreted different ways. There is evidence that the city of Rome declined in its population tremendously between AD 14 and 200 going from 1,250,000 in AD 14 to 570,000 around AD 200. that would be a reduction of the size of the city by 55% in less than 200 years. Now, we don't know how many of those died, if any of them died, during these next three years, but those are the kinds of statistics that the skeptics have got to take account for. And I think they point strongly in favor of the partial preterist argument. And to those who are still skeptical, I would point to the fact that there was a far worse reduction of the population under later emperors that nobody contests. It's impossible to contest because it's so well documented. So if that's the case, to dismiss this smaller number of one-third as being ridiculous when they do not have a shred of concrete evidence is simply skepticism. It is not an argument. Tacitus is definitely on our side on this debate. And that's all I'm going to say more on that question. But do let me end with five concluding applications. First, we've seen you can absolutely trust the numbers and the statistics of the Bible. The calendar statistics alone ought to make you realize that the Bible is inspired in the narrative, even if you weren't convinced of that already. But we can trust the Bible completely and implicitly. Second, God is never late. We sometimes think he is, even this past week as I've been snowed under with presbytery work and other things. It's this temptation. Kathy was commenting on that to me. Phil, you're being a little bit nervous, fearful here. God is never late, and we've got to keep reminding ourselves of that. The saints in chapter six who were praying for judgment the previous year may have thought that he was late, but he was not. God was prepared down to the hour, day, month, and year. We can trust Him to be there when we need Him. Third, we cannot trust civil governments to do what they have promised to do, especially if they are led by unbelievers. Book of Revelation makes it unmistakably clear that civil leaders can be easily moved by demons. Even if they want to fulfill their promises, they are limited in what they can do, which means, fourthly, that we should not entrust too much power to civil governments. Now, the Apostle John will more fully address that issue in the second half of the book, which describes civil governments as what? As beasts. And what are those beasts? They're demonic beasts. They're demonic. In doing that, he's just following the book of Daniel, which describes the demonic King Nebuchadnezzar as having, get this, quote, the heart of a beast, unquote. Daniel 4, verse 16, and the beast that Babylon was described as being like, was a winged lion. It was their god. It was their demon, right? That was the beast. It was their demon. So for this government to be described as that beast was to be described as that demon. The demon holds sway over Nebuchadnezzar. And Daniel 7 verse 24 describes the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar in these words. The first beast was like a lion and had eagle's wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it." So that shows the Christianization of Babylon where it's becoming rational. Once Nebuchadnezzar was converted, his empire is no longer described as a beast. In other words, no longer is it demonic. The only other government in Daniel not treated as bestial and demonic was the kingdom that Messiah was prophesied to establish. What's the point? The point is we should desire Christians in office. Whatever good intentions an unbelieving politician might have, 1 John 5, 19, read it, it says, he's under the sway of the wicked one. The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. He can't touch believers who guard themselves, but he's under the sway of the wicked one. This was a truism in early America. They would quote David's statement, he who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. Listen to what the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Jay, Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christian rulers for their rulers. When you once take the demonic into consideration, voting for an unbeliever does not make sense. Now just think about it. If even a compromised Christian like David can be moved by Satan in 1 Chronicles 20 something verse 1, wherever the census was, I think it's 21 verse 1. If even he could be moved by that census, think of what Satan can do in moving other politicians. My last application is that we should bring our prayers before the throne of grace and seek God's mercy for His church. These kinds of culture battles will ultimately be won by spiritual warfare alone. And when we're praying, I think it's good to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is righteousness exalting every nation in the earth. That's the image that's given in the last chapters of this book. It's converted nations. And so pray, make wise use of the golden altar of incense. Amen. Father, we thank you for the warnings, for the encouragements, and for the descriptions that are given in your Word for our spiritual warfare. And I pray that we would take them seriously, that the Church of Jesus Christ would be stirred up to recognize that of the increase of Christ's kingdom and of peace, there is no end, and that as Christians refuse their duty, their region, yes, may have the candlestick plucked up, but other regions will follow in the battle. And, Father, may we join ourselves to the church militant and see victory after victory as we lay claim to Your provisions that are given in Your Word. We pray this in Jesus' name.