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Reading from Revelation 9 verses
1 through 12, which is on page 17 of your outlines. So the fifth angel trumpeted
and I saw a star that had fallen out of the sky to the earth and
to him was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. So he opened
the shaft of the abyss and smoke went up out of the shaft, like
the smoke of a burning furnace and the sun and the air were
darkened because of the smoke from the shaft. And locusts exited
from the smoke into the earth, and to them was given a capability
just like the scorpions of the earth have capability. And they
were told not to harm the grass of the earth, nor any green plant,
nor any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal
of God on their foreheads. And it was designated to them,
not to kill them, but to torment them five months. And their torment
is like the torment of a scorpion whenever it strikes a person.
And in those days, the people will seek death, but not find
it. They will want to die, but death will run away from them.
Now, the appearance of the locus was like horses prepared for
battle. And something like a golden crown
was on the locus, And something like a golden crown
was on their heads and their faces were like human faces.
They had hair like a woman's and their teeth was like a lion's.
They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the noise of their
wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing
into battle. and they have tails like scorpions
and stingers precisely in those tails. They have the capability
to hurt the populace five months, having as king over them the
angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon,
while in Greek he has the name Apollyon. The first woe is past,
but two woes are still coming after these. Father God, we thank
you for the privilege that we have of even having your word
in our hands. It is our desire to honor your
word, to live it out, to understand not only the enemy, but the power
of your grace to overcome the enemy. And I pray that you would
give me the ability to clearly articulate and communicate the
truths you have placed upon my heart. In Jesus' name I pray,
amen. You may be seated. Well this is my third sermon
on the fifth trumpet, and I'm spending more time on it for
two reasons. The first reason is that this
trumpet is frequently taken out of order by various schools of
eschatology, and in the first sermon I pointed out there really
is no need to do that. It fits the order of events perfectly. because the symbols of the demons
were the symbols of the armies that Titus brought up from Egypt. And those armies were commissioned
on October 31, but it took five months before the armies were
able to engage Israel in battle, and that's exactly what verses
5 and 10 say. These demons behind Titus's armies
could torment for five months, but they could not kill. Now
the reason, the second reason that I am spending more time
on this is that demonology is often neglected in Reformed circles,
and it's really unfortunate The Puritan spoke about it a great
deal and they taught their people how to engage in spiritual battle,
but you just do not find much discussion of this and reform
circles today. So last week I laid the groundwork
for a theology of demonology by expanding on every word and
phrase of verse one. And today we're picking up at
verse two. And verses two through four give
us hints, not only at the vast numbers of demons that exist
in Satan's armies, but also of the massive hits that they were
taken, uh, in the first century. Uh, point a can be a little bit
intimidating, unnerving point B, I think should be a very encouraging,
uh, point. Let me make a statement to you
about the unnerving point a. The church worldwide is surrounded
by billions, if not trillions, even hundreds of trillions of
demons who would like nothing better than to see us done in
with. And the reason I come up with
a figure of trillions of demons is simply by logical deduction. I want you to look at a few scriptures
with me. We're not gonna be preaching on the sixth trumpet, but if
you look down at verse 16, This verse gives the number of demons
that were stationed at the Euphrates and had up to this time been
prevented from traveling outside that region. So that was just
the demons in a very restricted locale. In the New King James
it says, Now, the number of the army of the horsemen was 200
million. I heard the number of them. When
I get to the preaching on this trumpet, I'll be pointing out
that the word two does not actually occur in two-thirds of the Greek
manuscripts, and it is missing from 100% of the ecclesiastical
text, the F35 manuscripts. The vast bulk of them have 100
million. But either way, 200 million,
100 million is a vast number of demons to be stationed at
the Euphrates River. Elsewhere, we discover that there
were demonic armies stationed in every country of the world.
For example, in Daniel chapter 10, it mentions a prince, a demonic
prince who was over Persia. And when you study how long he
was able to resist Michael the archangel and all of the myriad
good angels that he had fighting with him, it is pretty clear
that there must have been a vast demonic presence in Persia. That
same chapter now speaks of a demonic prince of Greece in verse 20,
who presumably is in charge of his own armies of fallen angels.
Isaiah 14 describes the demonic powers over Babylon. Ezekiel
28 describes the demonic ruler over Tyre. Revelation 6 describes
various demonic cherubim angels that had power in the empire
of Rome, each of whom had different jurisdictions. Revelation 13
will describe a demonic prince that had authority over Israel. When I preached on Acts 16, I
showed how Paul bound the python spirit that was over the whole
region of Greece and Macedonia. And we're gonna return to that
passage in a little bit because the demonic king of verse 11
of our passage here is exactly the same God that Paul had to
deal with in Acts chapter 16, Apollo. But the point I'm making
right now is that every country has its demonic hordes unless
those hordes have been bound in the pit. And if one region
at the Euphrates had 100 million demons that could be spared to
be poured out upon Israel, How many demons remained in Euphrates
and how many demons were there in other countries? We don't
know for sure the number. We don't know whether it would
be legitimate to multiply 100 million times the number of countries
in the world. I doubt that that is accurate
because that does appear to be just one grouping of demons at
the Euphrates. I believe it was attached to
Vespasian's army in that region. But just that one verse all by
itself would seem to most authors to indicate that demons at least
number in the billions. But I want you to take a look
at verses two through three where we have a metaphor of a locust
plague coming up out of the pit. So he opened the shaft of the
abyss and smoke went up out of the shaft like the smoke of a
burning furnace and the sun and air were darkened because of
the smoke from the shaft and locusts exited from the smoke
into the earth. Now I'm not gonna get into whether
people were actually able to see literal smoke. It may be. Some people think that this was
one of the volcanoes. and the ashen smoke was the historical
symbol representing the vast numbers of demons that are likened
to a locust plague. I'm not going to get into that,
but almost all commentaries agree that the darkening of the sky
was a locust metaphor of how many demons were arising. It's such a massive number of
demons that it darkens the sky. When I was in fifth grade in
Ethiopia, there was a massive locust plague that flew through
the boarding school where we were at. It completely darkened
the sky. It was almost like night. and
it stripped every green thing off of the ground. It even ruined,
they ruined the paint off of the buildings and the wood that
was there. I was very curious as a kid.
I ran out, I thought this was really cool. Ran right back in
very quickly because I was getting all scratched up. So that was
the kind of locust plague that many times afflicted the world. That was the kind of locust plague
that people feared. How many locusts would be in
a plague like that? Well, if we contrast that with
some of the milder infestations that have happened recently,
it'll give you a little bit of a picture. Recently, Egypt had
a tiny locust infestation of 30 million locusts. And they
said it hardly impacted anything at all. So that was not a big
locust plague. In 2005, there was a locust plague
of billions of locusts in Australia. That was a little worse, but
not nearly as bad as the many locust plagues that have hit
various countries over the past generations, even in my lifetime.
And I did a little bit of research, and I found that to actually
darken the sky would require trillions, if not hundreds of
trillions, of locusts. The book, The Locust Effect,
describes one such locust infestation in the Midwest that was particularly
damaging. It says, in 1875, trillions of
locusts weighing 27 million tons. Now, let's just stop and think
about that figure a bit. A ton is 2,000 pounds. So you
get 27 million tons. You multiply 27 million times 2,000. You come
up with 54 trillion pounds of locusts. Now, I don't know how many locusts
it takes to make up a pound, but we're talking very literally,
multiplied hundreds of trillions of locusts. So let me read that
statement again. In 1875, trillions of locusts weighing 27 million
tons swarmed over nearly 200,000 square miles across the American
Midwest. an area greater than California,
and ate everything, every day consuming the equivalent of what
two and a half million men would eat. The locusts ate fence posts
and the paint and siding from houses. They ate the wool off
the backs of live sheep and the clothes left outside on clothes
lines. When families hurriedly threw
blankets over their gardens, the locusts defoured the blankets
and then gorged themselves in the plants. Settlers watched
their cows and other livestock die without grain or feed to
provide them. The point is that to have a locust
plague that actually darkens the sky, you're talking about
multiplied trillions of demons in one army alone, the army of
Apollyon. Now when you add to that the
army that's listed in verse 16 and the armies of other countries,
then the Puritan claim that there are hundreds of trillions of
demons does not seem exaggerated at all. Now sadly, most Reformed
Christians act as if demons don't even exist in their day-to-day
thinking and their day-to-day living. But if you've read much
of the Puritan writer, William Gurnall, who wrote the big book,
Christian Complete Armor, I think most of you have at least volume
one of that. If you've read very much in there, you realize that
it's absolutely imperative that we take on three enemies, the
world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, how many of you are really,
really good at fighting the world, at fighting your own flesh, but
you've never even given a second thought to fighting against demons? It's actually a foolish stance
to take because if we are not making advancements against them,
if we're not fighting against them, the likelihood is that
they are making an impact in our lives. And it's worthwhile
doing an inventory in our families and saying, you know, is there
any evidence that Satan has made an impact upon our family? What
actions should we take? In verse four, We see that these
demons could not touch the believers who were sealed on their foreheads
by God. It says, and they were told not
to harm the grass of the earth, so obviously it's not a literal
locust plague, nor any green plant, nor any tree, but only
those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
Now, who had the seal of God on their foreheads? Earlier we
saw it wasn't every believer. It was believers who were completely
devoted to God's cause, who hated sin, and who clung to righteousness. And the same was true of those
who were sealed in Ezekiel chapter nine. In verse four of Ezekiel
nine, God gave this command to the angel in that chapter. The
Lord said to him, go through the midst of the city, through
the midst of Jerusalem, put a mark on the foreheads of the men who
sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it. So the
only ones sealed in that chapter were the ones who hated the iniquity
in their society. They loved God's righteousness.
They were passionate for him. This is what first John 5, 18
says. We know that whoever is born
of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God
guards himself and the wicked one does not touch him. And we're
gonna be spending some Sundays examining this chapter's demonology
so that we can get a better handle of what it means to guard ourselves
so that Satan cannot touch us. If we're not guarding ourselves,
if we don't understand his strategies, if we're not fighting against
his strategies, we're going to be in trouble. Satan has plenty
of demons to spare to harass Christians and to try to make
the church of Jesus Christ ineffective week by week. I need to be restored
to the Lord's table because I feel the incredible oppression of
demonic. opposition. A lot of Christians aren't even
aware that there's demons, you know, that are messing with our
lives and yet those demons can tempt us. They can move our hearts
just like they move David's heart in 1st Chronicles chapter 21
verse 1 to number Israel. He didn't even realize he was
being swayed, was being moved by Satan in that chapter, but
he was. Demons can turn couples against
each other. They can move people to gossip.
They can bring bitterness between people. And you wonder, you look
at it and you wonder, why is there even bitterness here? It's
an irrational thing that can occur. Many conflicts occur within
families because they are not recognizing the right enemy.
They think their enemy is flesh and blood, you know, and it's
not. It's the demonic, and they've not gone to the Lord in prayer
and in spiritual warfare. In Matthew 13, it indicates demons
can be involved in even a little thing like snatching the word
of God out of your hearts as soon as the preacher preaches
that word. And that's Matthew chapter 13. Those demons do not
want the word to take root, so they will worm their way into
our minds to make them wander, or be lazy, or be critical, or
be uncaring. Demons really could care less
if you are academic and very diligent in your studies on other
subjects, so long as you are not academic and diligent in
your study of the scriptures. If he can keep you shallow in
your understanding of Christianity, you're not going to be as much
of a threat to him as you would be otherwise. And so there's
a reason why Paul admonishes us in Ephesians chapter 6 to
continually put on the whole armor of God and continually
resist Satan. Any Christian worth his salt
is daily battling with demons. The armies of demons are real,
they are numerous, and they are powerful, and to ignore them
is foolishness on a high order. In any case, most commentators
take this metaphor of a locust plague as a picture of billions
of demons at a minimum, and perhaps trillions and even hundreds of
trillions. We don't know the exact number.
We just know that there's a lot of them. There's just an awful
lot of demons out there. Now, one of the encouraging things
later on is we're gonna see there are twice as many good angels
as there are fallen angels. But let me give you more encouraging
news. This is your next point. At some
point in history, these demons had been bound in the pit. That means they can be bound
in history. Let me repeat that. They can
be bound in history. And we ought to study what it
takes to bind Satan's army. What did it take to bind certain
demons at the Euphrates so that they could not infest other countries? What did it take to bind them
there? What did it take to bind these demons previously in the
pit so that they would not be able to come up? Verse 2 says,
so he opened the shaft of the abyss, so there was an unlocking
of the prison going on. Verse 3, and the locusts exited
from the smoke into the earth. Now we'll be seeing a similar
future binding of Satan in Revelation, sometime future to us, but before
the thousand years and a similar unleashing of Satan and his demons
out of the pit at the end of history. In other words, at the
end of a thousand years. There will be so many enemies
unleashed from the abyss, it'll be like the sand upon the seashore. I've recently, you may be curious
about this, but I've recently been finally convinced by Francis
Nigel Lee and B.B. Warfield and a number of other
scholars that I've been studying that there will be no final apostasy
in history. I used to scoff at that position
thinking just reading it on face value, Revelation 20, surely
that has to indicate that there's going to be a great falling away
at the end of history. And it was a big hurdle for me
to get over. But Francis Nigel Lee points
out that the tares and all of the enemies of God's kingdom
are going to be resurrected after the thousand years. And these
countless citizens of hell, both the resurrected unbelievers and
the demons who are unleashed from hell, both of them will
gather together to make one last attack upon God's people. But
before they can achieve anything, the saints will also be resurrected,
and they will join in judging those nations, including the
extinct nations of Gog and Magog. They'll be there. And there are
scriptures that indicate that 100% of Gog and Magog are in
hell right now. They were completely wiped out
in Old Testament times. Now, when we get to Revelation
20, we're gonna be looking at some very, very interesting language
in the Greek, which indicate that those Those enemies are
not then living on the earth. They come up out of the earth,
out of Hades. So he's not talking about an
apostasy of living people, but Satan deceiving people who have
been newly resurrected into thinking that they can have a successful
rebellion. Well, I won't deal with that
controversy anymore today, but I thought you might want to have
a heads up of where that's heading. The main point that I want to
make this morning though is on almost every interpretation of
Revelation, there are demons who get bound more than once
in history. And there are demons who get
unleashed from the pit more than once in history. That's the key
point. I believe there are multiple
bindings of the demons as the gospel goes forth, multiple releasings
of demons from the pit as nations apostatize. The final binding
of all demons is still future to us and the final releasing
of all demons out of the pit along with all of the, what the
scripture speaks of is the nations that are now dwelling in hell.
That's still future to us too. So what is this binding and loosing?
And we're gonna get into that in much more detail when we get
to Revelation 20, but there's a hint of it right here in this
chapter. If you look at verse 11, it calls the demon king who
came up out of the pit, Apollyon. On my first sermon on this trumpet,
we saw that that is simply the Greek spelling of the Latin God,
Apollo. Okay, it's the same being. Now for first century readers
who are familiar with the book of Acts, this would immediately
have caught their eyes because the apostle Paul had to confront
Apollo in Acts chapter 16. He cast Apollo out of a person
and this demon had been influencing the whole region. He was actually
the God who was over Macedonia and over Greece and so Paul dealt
with, uh, with him and gauged in what we call high level confrontation
of territorial spirits. So the first conclusion you can
come to is Apollo was obviously not in the pit in acts chapter
16. He's very much hanging around.
He's causing a great deal of trouble for the church. Um, FF
Bruce, William Hendrickson and other authors point out that
the Greek and act 16 is crystal clear that the slave girl who
made their masters so much money was possessed by the demon spirit
Python, which is another name for Apollo. And I pointed out
in that sermon that Apollo was a demon who had the whole of
Greece and Macedonia in a stronghold grip. Well, as a direct result
of Paul's head-on conflict with Apollo, that whole region was
opened up to the gospel in a powerful way. And Apollo and his demons
were either consigned to the pit on that day or in subsequent
church history, but that binding had to have occurred sometime
between Acts 16 and our chapter. Now, of course, we saw that it
wasn't the first high-level confrontation of the demonic kingdom that had
happened in the book of Acts. In that sermon, I pointed out
that Peter's confrontation of the sorcerer Simon Magus in Acts
chapter 8 was a head-on confrontation with the demon who was over the
whole region of Samaria. The second high-level confrontation
was in Acts 13, where Paul had a successful win against Elymas
the sorcerer. And as a result, the civil magistrate,
Sergius Paulus, who had been in bondage to that spirit, was
freed up. And it freed up that whole region
again to the gospel. The third example was the confrontation
of Apollo in Acts 16, opening up Greece and Macedonia. And
the fourth example was in chapter 19, where Paul dealt a lower
level demon a major blow in the city of Ephesus. And back then,
I just encourage you to review. I'm not gonna review what I said
on that chapter there, but I do give some cautions, because there
has been some unbalance in demonology that's gone on. But just because
some have gone to extremes in what you might think of as hyper
charismatic circles does not mean we should ignore this kind
of confrontation. I think they are onto something
and we need to study this out. It was certainly something that
was done historically by the church. Well, if Apollo was bound
in 8050 or sometime thereafter, that means that he has been in
prison in the abyss for upwards of 16 years. And there were other
demons that Christ and the apostles consigned to the pit. This was
an absolutely essential part of spiritual warfare to make
breakthroughs in new regions that had not yet had the gospel.
And when pioneer missionaries have failed to do this, you can
see them historically. They have worked for decades
and decades with zero results. because they've neglected this
strategy of warfare. So the period of history between
8030 and 8070 becomes a paradigm for the church on how to take
over the world once again. But what do a lot of reformed
people do? They say, oh yeah, miracles that happened in the
first century and the casting out of demons. That's just a
first century phenomenon. It has nothing whatsoever to
do with us. They don't treat it as a paradigm. They hold to
what we call a radical form of cessationism. And I believe it
has made the modern church rather powerless in their missions. In any case, when I say that
80, 30 through 70 gives us a paradigm on how to take over the world
once again, let me remind you of the extent to which the world
had already been taken over prior to the Great Tribulation. If
you did not hear that sermon, you might be skeptical that the
gospel had really gone that far. So let me just at least give
you some hints, some of the scriptures that we looked at. In that previous sermon, we had
looked at the fact that there were hundreds of millions of
Christians that had come to Christ in every part of the planet as
a result of the early church's aggressive spiritual warfare
and evangelism. And then the great tribulation
of 80, 62 through 68 saw most of those Christians killed. Now
people focus on the killings, but you can't kill a lot of Christians
unless there was a lot of Christians that were converted, right? So
it was a massive success. And then you had the great tribulation
happening that almost wiped out the church. So in one sense,
the church had to start all over again. And we're going to be
seeing in a later chapter that the 144,000 were sealed on their
foreheads, were virgins dedicated to God, were a key part of the
initial re-advancement of the church after AD 70. But when
you study the early church fathers like Athanasius and and many
others, you see that they used exactly the same spiritual principles
of warfare that the pre-AD 70 church had used. They obeyed
Christ's call to first bind the strongman of a region and then
to plunder his house. You can't plunder the house,
which would be evangelism discipleship, till you first bound the strongman
of that region. It was doing that that made the
church able to convert people from every part of the globe
by 8066. Now let me just give you a few scriptures in case
you didn't hear that sermon. Colossians 1.6 says that by the
time he wrote Colossians, the gospel had gone to the whole
world and was bringing forth fruit. Colossians 1.23 says that
the gospel had already been, quote, preached to every creature
under heaven. You might say, there's just no
way. That can't possibly be. Well, go argue with Paul. He's
inspired. I'm going to believe him. If
he says it was preached to every sentient creature under heaven,
I'm going to believe what he had to say. Paul claimed in Romans
1-8 that the faith is spoken of throughout the entire world.
And Romans 10, 18 says that it has gone out to all the earth,
to the ends of the world. Romans 16, 26 says that the gospel
had been obeyed in every part of the world and in all nations. Well, that means it has been
successful. There's been incredible success
of the gospel in the first century. How were they able to have that
kind of success? Well, I believe part of the answer is that they
engaged in the kind of spiritual warfare that is recorded for
us in the book of Revelation. This book is in part, it's many
things, but it's in part, book of Revelation is in part a spiritual
war manual. It teaches us how to war against
Satan. And I believe that their spiritual
warfare against these demonic hordes stands as a model for
us today. We are either pushing Satan's
kingdom back behind the gates of Hades. That's where these
demons were locked, right? We're either pushing them back
behind its gates of Hades or those gates of Hades are being
opened up and demons are marching against us, but there is no in
between. The church is having very little
success in America because we are not taking seriously one
of those battle fronts, which is the demonic. It's obvious
that in the past few decades, hordes of demons have been unleashed
upon America. But back to the encouraging news.
What are the hits that Satan took, that his kingdom took?
I believe Act 16 would be one of them. Somehow the church managed
to bind Apollo and his massive army to the pit sometime before
October 31 of AD 66. That's encouraging. It shows
it's possible. Zechariah 13 says this is what
the gospel does. It says it's going to eventually
cleanse the land, the earth, the whole planet of all demons.
It's prophesying that's going to happen, so that should be
a part of our strategy. But why does God unleash these
demons on October 31 of 8066? Why, when the church has made
so much success in getting rid of demons, why would God unleash
them? That doesn't make sense, does
it? Why doesn't he just leave them in hell? Well, there are
two reasons. In the last sermon, I dealt with the first reason,
and that is that demons are unleashed as a judgment on a nation that
refuses to submit to God's laws. God does not allow backslidden
nations to continue to enjoy the fruits of previous Christian
generations forever. No, there's a cost to apostasy.
There comes a time when a nation has given Satan legal ground
for the demonic to be at work. And we saw also that this was
the period of the great apostasy, the great falling away within
the church. And the apostles were very troubled
by all of the false teachers and the apostasy that was happening
in their own lifetime. So anytime there's apostasy,
the demonic gains ground. And I'm gonna address that in
the next point. But the second reason God allows
the presence of demons is given in chapter 12. It gives Christians
the opportunity to learn spiritual warfare, and it tests the church
so as to divide between the chaff and the wheat. The demonic is
increasing in America, but rather than crying about it, we ought
to just learn what it takes to be involved in spiritual warfare.
And I think Judges 3, 1 through 4, perfectly describes the second
reason. It says this. Now these are the
nations which the Lord left that he might test Israel by them,
that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. This
was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might
be taught to know war, at least those who would not formerly
known it. Namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites,
the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwell in Mount Lebanon from
Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. And they were left
that he might test Israel by them to know whether they would
obey the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded
their fathers by the hand of Moses. So he's giving two reasons
for leaving enemies in the land. to train believers in war and
to divide between the men and the boys. Okay. When it comes
to spiritual warfare, basically that's what he's saying. It separates
between those who are going to be radically following God's
word and those who are going to be operating in terms of the
wisdom of the world. But I do want to end with that
first reason. It is implied in verse three
when it says, and to them was given a capability just like
the scorpions of the earth have capability. Now, on another sermon,
we'll be getting into the physical manifestations that are very
similar to actually being stung by a scorpion. We'll look at
that later. But I want to focus on that word capability because
Pickering has mistranslated it. It's the Greek word exousia.
And the dictionary gives seven definitions for that word, none
of which means capability, and all of which deal with the legal
sphere, the legal framework. He translated it that way, probably
because he didn't see how the normal definitions would fit
for a literal locust. But here's the dictionary definitions.
First of all, the legal right to choose, control, or dispose
of property. Second, the ability to control
or govern, or the jurisdiction to control or govern. Third,
authority. Fourth, official power exercised
by a legal office. Fifth, ruling authority. Sixth,
the sphere in which authority is exercised. And seventh, the
means of exercising authority. You'll notice how every one of
those definitions deals with the legal sphere or authority. So literally, this should be
translated, and to them was given authority just as the scorpions
of the earth have authority. Now Pickering will respond. But
scorpions don't have authority. None of those legal definitions
for exousia really fits a literal scorpion. Let's go through them.
They don't have the legal right to control or dispose of property
since they don't own property. They don't have the ability to
govern since scorpions don't have a king, don't control or
govern territory. They don't have authority. They
don't have official office. They are not ruling authorities.
They don't have a sphere in which that authority is exercised,
and they don't have the means of exercising authority. A literal
locust simply does not fit any definition of the word exousia. But I think the answer is not
to change the definition of the word. Stick with the definition
of the word. Let's translate it literally
as power or authority or legal ground. And instead of applying
it to literal scorpions, I mean, we've not been dealing with literal
locusts, right? Instead of applying it to literal
scorpions, let's take that phrase to be referring to demonic scorpions
that God had allowed to continue on the earth as contrasted with
scorpions who were bound in the pit. The scorpions of the abyss
were those whose authority has been taken away. Scorpions of
the earth are those demons who had not had their authority taken
away because they remained on the earth. So you've got two
kinds of demons, those of the abyss, those of the earth. Scorpions
of the abyss, scorpions of the earth. Do demons have authority
given to them by God and authority taken away from them by God?
Well, yes, they do. In Luke 4, 6, Satan claimed that
he had authority over the nations. He was willing to give all of
that authority to Jesus if Jesus would only bow down and worship
him. And Jesus' response was to quote the scripture saying
we're to worship God alone. From whom alone comes all authority? From God alone. Now, some people
say, well, Satan's claim to have authority over all the nations
was a false claim. Was it a false claim? No, it
was not. Acts 26, 18 says that every time
a person is converted, he is turned from what? From darkness
to light and from the authority, the exousia of Satan to God. It clearly states that Satan
has authority. And we're rescued from that authority.
1 Peter 3 verse 22 speaks of demonic authorities and powers
being subjected to Jesus after the resurrection. Well, Jesus
didn't have much of a victory if they didn't have any authority
for him to win over them. Ephesians 2, 2 speaks of Satan
being the prince of the exousia of the air, the spirit who now
works in the sons of disobedience. Ephesians 6, 12, for we do not
wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, and that's actually the word exousias. or authorities
against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual
hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. You see, the reason I'm
going through all of these scriptures is we need to understand that
there is a kingdom of darkness with various levels of jurisdiction
and authority. Now, in a future sermon, I may
get into how that kingdom is structured, but Colossians 1.13
says, we've been delivered from the exousias of darkness. But that implies that unbelievers
are still under Satan's exousias. Colossians 2.15 says Jesus disarmed
principalities and exousias triumphing over them in his resurrection.
And yet, even though they're legally defeated, we still see
those exousias exercising some authority. We already saw in
Revelation 6, verse 8, that the two demons, Thanatos and Hades,
were given some authority by Christ to do four things, to
kill with a sword, with hunger, with death, and with the beasts
of the field. So it's obvious that earlier Jesus had not allowed
those demons to exercise that authority. They had no authority
to do those things. Now he's giving them the authority to
do those four things. Why does he do that? Revelation
13 verse 2, it says that Satan gave the beast power, a throne,
and great authority. It doesn't say Satan thought
he gave him great authority. No, God himself says he had great
authority and he gave the beast great authority. Well, that means
Satan has some jurisdictional authority. And I could go on
with other scriptures. So simple logic indicates that when Apollo
and his minions were confined to the pit, they lost exousia,
however you want to translate that. When they were released
from the pit, they were once again granted limited authority
like other scorpions still on the earth had. And we saw that
demons on the earth were called scorpions in scripture. I'll
just remind you of a couple of scriptures. Ezekiel 2.6, God
tells Ezekiel that he was surrounded by scorpions, but to not be dismayed
by their words or their looks. In Luke 10.19, Jesus said, behold,
I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and
over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means
hurt you. So here's the bottom line. These
demonic scorpion locusts were 100% deprived of their authority
in the pit sometime after 50 AD. When they were released,
they were given limited power, limited authority to torment
men who did not have the seal on their foreheads for five months,
but not to kill anybody. Authority is expanded later to
be able to kill, but the point is God is still sovereign. He
has authority over everything, but he gives demons authority
in certain circumstances if they meet certain conditions. Okay,
there is a legal framework within which Satan and his demons have
to operate. The killing would start after
five months, so authorities expanded at that time. We'll get to that
in a later sermon, but I do want you to just take a peek at verses
20 through 21. The reason their authority is
expanded is because of lack of repentance. It says, 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,
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. Repentance and cleansing in the
blood of Christ is the key to relief from the demonic. But
the inverse is also true. Rome's lack of repentance gave
demons continuing authority, actually it's not just continuing
authority, gave demons increasing authority to infect them and
influence them. And what is true on a national
level is also true on an individual level. Why were the trillions
of demons that were unleashed on the Middle East, on Israel,
not able to touch the 144,000? Well, we won't get into it. I'll
just list very, very quickly. But in chapter 14, he gives the
answers. First, they were redeemed. 4.
They know God intimately, 3. They guard their mouths, 5. They lead a blameless life, 5
in the majority text. They are sold out of the Lamb,
4. They are sexually pure. In other words, they've given
no legal ground for the wicked one to be able to touch them.
Satan has zero exousia, zero authority to be able to infest
their lives at all. because they have not given him
that legal ground. Now there are things that do
give legal ground for Satan to keep working in even a believer's
life. One of those things is a failure
to confess your sins and to forsake them, to repent of them. Verses
20 through 21, I think are pretty clear on that, but there's many
other illustrations in scripture. You look in Hosea. And you wonder,
why did these people do such irrational things in Hosea? And he says, well, just give
one example. He said it was the demons behind
the idols that they worshipped. Now they said, we're worshipping
Jehovah. But they worshiped idols. And he said there were demons
behind those idols. He called them demons of harlotry. You can look up the scriptures.
And it was those demons of harlotry that moved all of Israel to engage
in harlotry. It was just a massive thing that
had begun to happen. But it started with idolatry.
Failure to humble ourselves before God and man concerning our sins
makes us powerless before the attacks of demons. And this is
why James admonishes us to confess our sins to one another and to
pray for one another that we might be healed. When we hide
our sins, we're exalting ourselves. When we confess our sins, we're
humbling ourselves and God exalts us. He gives more power and more
grace to those who are humble. And so James says that if we're
cleansed in the blood of Christ, we can resist the devil and he
has to flee from us. Ephesians 4, 26 through 27 says
that when we let the sun go down on a wrath, in other words, when
we have not confessed our sins and repented of them, which involves
a turnaround saying, I hate my son, I'm going to turn away from
it. I want to do something about it. When we do, when we continue
to harbor anger, it gives a foothold or some translated an opportunity
for the devil to be at work in our lives. Why? because we've
given him legal ground, and God gives Satan authority to attack
us. And actually, that passage says
that anything that grieves the Holy Spirit deprives us of the
Holy Spirit's authority over demons, which makes perfect sense.
How did Jesus cast out demons? It says very clearly, he cast
out demons by the exousias of the Holy Spirit, the authority
of the Holy Spirit. So if we've grieved the Holy
Spirit, We lose the Holy Spirit's authority over demons. We can't
get anywhere with demons. It just makes total logical sense. Luke 10 verse 19 says, Behold,
I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and
over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means
hurt you. Okay, God gives us that authority,
but God can take away that authority when we're not walking cleansed,
we're not walking right with him. So we must take into consideration
the whole legal framework within which demons operate. And that's
what is implied in that verse, he gave them authority. Same
authority that the demons on the earth had. Anyway, that's
how I wanna end my sermon this morning. If you want a summary
paradigm of how to live victorious over the demonic, take 1 John
5, 18 through 21 seriously. It was just the last four verses
of the book of 1 John. They show you how if you have
certain conditions in place, the wicked one cannot touch you.
That's what we want, right? We want to be completely impervious
to demonic attacks, just like the 144,000 were completely impervious
to the demonic attacks in verse 4. In 1 John 5, 19, it says,
the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. But that
doesn't need to be true of you. It became true one day of David. Remember I mentioned 1 Chronicles
21, it says Satan moved David. He was under the sway of, David
was under the sway of Satan, and he started numbering Israel.
Now he didn't realize that he was under the sway of the devil,
but when he became cleansed in the blood of Christ, he was no
longer under the sway of the wicked one. But it is a danger
that can happen to Christians. First condition, last four verses
give three conditions. First condition is break off
all idolatry from your life. That's in verse 21. He was writing
to Jewish Christians who probably were shocked when he said, little
children, keep yourselves from idols. They said, we've never
worshipped an idol in our lives. They were thinking of wood, you
know, wood idols, gold idols, silver idols. Yeah, they hadn't
worshipped idols in that gross sense that verse 20 talks about,
but idols can be mental. Idols can be social. Idols can
be political, ecclesiastical. There are all kinds of idols.
In fact, Calvin says our hearts are basically idol factories.
So if John could make as one of the conditions of maintaining
our authority over Satan, little children, keep yourselves from
idols. We need to take idolatry seriously
as well. Idolatry can You know, involve
the entertainment that you're involved in. Your car can be
an idol. Your family can be an idol. Anything
that captivates you in a way that keeps you from being sold
out to Christ is likely an idol. The second condition that John
insists upon is that we must break off all habits of sin.
Verse 18 says, we know that whoever is born of God does not keep
on sinning. There is a habitual pattern there,
but he who has been born of God guards himself and the wicked
one does not touch him. That doesn't mean you're going
to be sinless. But it does mean you will not be lackadaisical
about your sin. You'll be guarding your heart.
You're going to be quick to repent of the sin. You're going to be
quick to put it under the blood of Christ. You refuse to allow it
to become a habit. The third condition needed if
we're to maintain authority over demons is to develop a deep and
personal walk with God every day. Verse 20 says, and we know
that the son of God has come and has given us an understanding
that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true
in his son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. God is the only source of authority
over the enemy. So it's imperative that you walk
in the spirit. Now, God will sometimes allow
demons to have access to our lives to test whether we will
meet these three conditions. Verse three says to them was
given authority, not one wit of authority will be granted
to demons. If we walk in the spirit and
do not indulge in the lusts of the flesh. So my prayer is that
God would give each one of you an increasing understanding of
the enemy and his strategies. You know, Paul said, we're not
ignorant of his strategy. I don't think we can say the
same today. The church of Corinth was not ignorant of his strategies.
May we not be ignorant of his strategies. May we understand
the enemy and have an increasing faith that greater is he who
was in you than he who was in the world. God bless you. Amen. Father, thank you for this, your
word that describes some of the legal framework that is involved
in binding the hand of demons from being able to influence
our lives, sometimes even binding them to the pit and the legal
ground that is involved in some of the defeats that we experience.
And I pray that you would open the eyes of our understanding
to be able to walk in this in a way where day by day we experience
the victory that 1 John talks about. We end out this service
in singing the psalm and just pray that you would grant to
us, Father, the faith that David had, that even though he was
surrounded by millions of enemies, not just human, but demonic enemies
as well, that he was able to sleep. He was able to sleep the
day before that great battle, knowing that if you are for us,
who can be against us. And so we pray this in Christ's
name, amen.
Fifth Trumpet, Part 3
Series Revelation
This sermon continues to open up the subject of demonology.
| Sermon ID | 124188353610 |
| Duration | 52:26 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 9:1-12 |
| Language | English |
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