We're going to be reading about the enemy, the spiritual enemy, that is unseen in Revelation 9, 1 through 12, which we have been called to engage. This is on page 19 of your bulletins. 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 the 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. And they will want to die, but death will run away from them. Now the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle, 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 were 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 things. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and I pray that as I preach it, I would do so faithfully. You would help us to understand it and to grow in our ability to war the good warfare that you have called us to. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well, this is a passage that has been terribly tortured by premills, awmills, postmills, full preterists, and even by our own camp of post-millennial partial preterists. There are some who see no symbolism whatsoever in the passage. There are others on the other extreme who see this as a symbol of a symbol of something else. And yet almost all of them completely ignore the time sequence that we have been very carefully documenting. They take the trumpets out of order. So what I'm going to do today as I'm going to try to lay the groundwork for when this happened and what on earth is going on in this chapter. And then next week, Lord willing, I'm going to get into the specifics of demonology because I believe that is the main purpose of this passage is to introduce us to the spiritual enemies that we're going to be engaged in at some point in our lives. And so we need to understand a little bit about the enemy. But first of all, let me try to slice through the viewpoints out there by giving one sample interpretation from each of two extremes. First of all, the non-symbolic approach. In one sermon, I poked fun at Hal Lindsey for saying that these locusts reminded him of cobra helicopters, and that's what he thinks they are. But let me give you a different, and perhaps for some people at least, a much more convincing dispensationalist interpretation. And I want you to keep in mind, dispensationalists are brothers in the Lord. I love them. But they're dead wrong on this, and their theology really has, I think, led the church astray in many ways. But I think we need to love them, but love them enough to disagree with them and try to challenge their theology. In any case, this view takes this passage as literally as possible and ends up admitting that there is probably some demonic behind the scenes, but that the passage is primarily talking about literal bioengineered locusts. Not all dispensationalists hold to this, but it is a very popular viewpoint. Let me just quickly give you their exegesis as we go phrase by phrase through the passage. The second phrase in verse 1 says, and I saw a star that had fallen out of the sky to the earth. Now the claim is that for first century John, seeing a nuclear bomb falling out of the sky would have looked like a falling star, like a meteorite. The next sentence says, and to him was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. The driver of the aircraft that will drop this supposedly future bomb is going to be sending many people to their deaths. And so there's a sense in which he is opening hell to millions of souls. Millions of souls are going to be going there. Verse two says, so he opened the shaft of the abyss. Now the claim is that dropping this nuclear bomb metaphorically is being described as all hell breaking loose. Now you'll notice that they're not literal on that part of the interpretation. You really can't be. and still have literal locusts. Verse 2 continues, 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. This then would be the resulting mushroom cloud from the detonated nuclear bomb. Verse 3, and locusts exited from the smoke into the earth and And to them was given a capability just like the scorpions of the earth have capability. Now they say that this will either be random genetic mutation that has occurred on the outskirts of the bombs periphery where radiation has occurred. And thus they're coming out of the cloud. Or others say, because it says to them was given a capability, it might be a very deliberate genetic modification by scientists. Now, those who think it will be a deliberate modification through gene splicing point to the fact that these locusts seem to have genes from locusts, scorpions and other creatures. Now, I know it doesn't say in the text that they all have spliced genes, but how else would you explain this? happening to locusts, it's pretty obvious. So the purpose statement and the grammar is attributed to the scientists who give this new terrifying biological weapon its capabilities. Verse four, and they were told not to harm the grass of the earth nor any green plant or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Now, since locusts normally only eat plants, green plants, It's very obvious. These ones don't eat green plants. It's very obvious that there had to have been massive genetic manipulation that has been going on. That much is clear. These locusts only seem interested in human flesh. Now to those who object and say, how on earth is locusts going to know the difference between a person who's an unbeliever and a person who's sealed with God? They say, Oh, that's easy. Uh, the, the, the, the, the ones who came to Christ during the first part of the tribulation got raptured out in a mid trip, uh, rapture. So there was a pre trip rapture. There's a mid trip rapture. Now there's no believers left on planet earth. So these are the only people that could possibly be hurt by these locusts. That's pretty obvious so far, right? And when the unbelievers are hurt by these genetically modified insects, they will experience such pain and suffering that they will wish that they were dead. It is the ultimate biological weapon. They say that verses 7 through 10 give a description of these genetically modified locusts and show that they have genes from quite a number of creatures, including humans, lions, horses, and scorpions. And when verse 11 says that there is a king over them, it is either Satan who has motivated the scientists to produce this weapon, that's the viewpoint of some, or it's referring to the head scientist or messenger of the king who ordered these biological weapons because the word Angelos in the Greek can refer to either angels or to human messengers. So there you have it, a supposedly literal interpretation that avoids the confusion and the subjectivity that is rife in the historicist interpretations. They say it's a much better alternative than the historicists have presented. So I think you probably already feel much better. We've got this chapter covered, right? Well, the problem is this interpretation violates the chronology of this passage, which forces us to sometime in the fall of 8066. Second, it really isn't as literal as they claim it to be. My interpretation is far more literal than theirs is. The star is called a hymn. Well, what kind of stars are called hymn? Well, earlier in the book, we saw it could be either an angel that's unseen or it can be a messenger like an elder. It can be either one. Well, this hymn is given a key to the literal abyss, which elsewhere is called hell. So we would expect that this hymn is an angel and indeed angels are called stars in Job. But this passage is not just metaphorically saying that all hell will break loose. It's not just a metaphor. Hell is literally opened up and numerous demons that had previously been bound there have been released. And furthermore, there is no mention of a rapture of those with a seal on their foreheads. The 144,000 who were sealed on their forehead in chapter 7 still seem to be alive in chapter 14. And actually right here in verse 4, you look at it, it sure implies that they're still alive right now. Furthermore, the king of these locusts is not a scientist or a human ruler. Verse 11 explicitly calls him an angel of the abyss. Now what kind of angels live in the abyss? Not scientists, well actually a lot of scientists probably are going there. But the angel of the abyss would be a fallen angel, right? Or a demon. And this appears to have been a particularly dangerous demonic king who was let loose by Satan. Now if a fallen angel is the king of the abyss and the king of the locusts, I think it's more natural to take the locusts as demons as well. Furthermore, the name Abaddon is a name of a destructive demon consigned to the pit in the Old Testament. And I've given you some scriptures on that. And the Greek Septuagint that translates those passages, translates the Hebrew Abaddon with our Greek word Apollyon. That's actually Apollon in the Greek, but that's what we get the English Apollyon from. And even their view that this takes place in the future does not take the text seriously. We've already seen that the fourth trumpet ended on October 15 of AD 66, but I want you to notice the second half of verse, chapter eight, verse 13, It's pronouncing woes. It says, quote, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound, they were about to sound on October 15 of 80, 66. And on my interpretation, they do. So this is not as literal an interpretation as people make it out to be. If you really want to be literal, you should say it's talking about literal demons, not genetically modified insects. I mean, what kind of insect can live for five months without eating any green plants? And they say, well, I ate flesh. No, you look at the passage. There's no indication they ate the flesh of humans. Those humans don't die. They're not even allowed to die for five months. But on the opposite side of the spectrum are the historicists, and you'll find those in pre-mill camp, awe mill camp, post-mill camp as well. And they admit that the locusts are a symbol of something demonic. So far, so good. I totally agree with that. But they go on to say that the demonic is a symbol of the Muslim invasions of Christendom in the seventh century. Not so good. And the reason this violates rules of interpretation is you've got a symbol of a symbol. So for them the locust is a symbol of a demon, and then you've got the demons as a symbol of the Muslim invasions. Well, you can't do that. That takes symbology way too far. In the Bible, Symbols always, always, always have a correspondence to something literal that's happening in history. The rocks smitten in the wilderness had a reference to the smiting of Christ in history. So you're not going to find a symbol symbolizing another symbol, which symbolizes something else down the road. Now the historicists also ignore the chronology that we've given, but my main hermeneutical problem with their with their approach is that there is no necessary connection between the original symbol and what the commentator says the symbol means. And it leads to incredibly squishy subjectivity in interpretation. Let me just illustrate how squishy it really is. In the early days of historicism, the historicists said that these demonic locusts symbolized the Roman Catholic Benedictine orders that arose in AD 530. When that didn't work, they applied it to the Muslim hordes that invaded Europe in the 600s, in the 7th century. And you think, now wait a shake, how did they jump from benedictine monks within the church to Muslim hordes outside the church? That is quite different, but it gets worse. When that did not work timing wise, they applied it to the Dominican orders in the 1200s, and then others applied it to the Jesuits in the 1500s. And the Roman Catholics returned the favor by applying it to the Lutherans. See, on their approach, there is nothing in the text itself that would give you a clue as to which people the symbol of the symbol symbolized. It's a faulty approach. In chapter one, verse one, we saw that John had warned us he was gonna be talking about literal historical events, and he was going to be using symbols to describe those literal historical events. So what I'm wanting to look at right now is what is the symbol and what is the literal historical event. Is this a literal locust plague that symbolizes demons? Well, that actually could be a credible theory, a plausible theory, if it were not for the fact that several things inside the text argue against it. The first is that our timing is shortly after October 15, and the locust plagues didn't come until the springtime. There wouldn't be any literal locust plague to symbolize what was happening. The second clue is that these locusts don't eat any green plants. And that is all that locusts, real literal locusts, eat. Thirdly, Proverbs 30 verse 27 says that literal locusts do not have a king. Yet this locust swarm does have a king in verse 11, and the king's name is Destroyer. In the Hebrew, his name is Abaddon. In the Greek, it's Apollyon. And there are other indicators in the text that this can't be a literal plague of insects. That would have been the simplest explanation, actually, but it just doesn't work. So what other symbol is an option? And the answer is that Titus's army was filled with symbols that directly pointed to these demonic beings. They worshiped these beings. They prayed to these gods, they called them, to give them victory in their battles. And that's why they used the symbols. Every one of their shields would have a symbol and their standard bearers would hold a symbol in front of them. Now we call them demons, they call them gods. The symbols in Titus's army that he brought up from Egypt are addressed in verses 1 through 12, and the demonic symbols in Vespasian's army perfectly point to and describe the demons in the Euphrates River in verses 13 through 21. You see, as soon as the previous legate, and I probably should define my terms, I was encouraged last week, you throw out all these terms and names. A legate was sort of like a governor, but he also was in charge of the army in the area. As soon as the previous legate that we had looked at, Cestius Gallus, was defeated on October 15, a messenger was sent to Nero, and that took 16 days. And since these demons are later said to have ushered forth from the beast's mouth, the unleashing of these demons would have to take place on October 31, when Nero authorized Vespasian and his son Titus to fight against Israel. And when you take that interpretation, it just beautifully, perfectly meshes with all of the other timing indicators that you find in the secular histories, including the amount of time it took for Titus to get to Egypt, gather all of the troops, and bring them to Israel. My calculations of all of the timing indicators in Josephus indicate that Titus's armies did not start killing in Israel for five months. When I worked my calculations forwards, it was 150 days, which is exactly five lunar months of 30 days each. And so to cross check, I looked at another date, and it's a little bit more difficult to calculate backwards, but I worked backwards and it came to 153 days, which is three days more. So it wouldn't be five lunar months, it would be five solar months. But either way, it's five months. So in terms of timing, the defeat of Cestius took place on October 15. That's the last verse of chapter 8. Then Chapter eight, verse 13 says that on that date, on October 15, the other angels are about to sound. They don't sound right then, but they're about to sound. Well, 16 days later, they do sound. That is imminent. That is about to, right? And the first angel sounds on October 31, as soon as Nero received the message. So if you've been marking in your Bibles, verse one is Deus 24, or in our calendar, October 31. So the chronology of chapters 5 through 11 really does mesh beautifully. Lord willing, I'll give you a lesson on demonology next week, but today let me demonstrate the tight, tight connection between the symbols in Titus' armies and this horde of demons. And we've got several clues, I'm just going to give you the key ones. First of all, these locusts are said to come out of the abyss. Greek word is abusos, and there is a play on words here. The word abusos can refer to the Mediterranean Ocean, and I've given you several scriptures that show that. And the word abusos can also refer to hell, and I've given you several scriptures that give examples of that. So since the word Abusos can refer to either the 15th legion from Egypt could come by way of the sea while the demons that were symbolized would literally be unleashed from hell. Okay. So while the symbols are coming out of an Abusos, the literal demons that are symbolized are also coming out of an Abusos. And we'll see in a bit that they had Apollyon as their patron God. They called upon Apollyon's forces to aid them into destruction. And I think that the language that John uses is just amazing in how perfectly it accounts for both the symbol and the thing symbolized. Let's go through them. Most important one is the locust. That was the mascot or the emblem of the 15th legion that Titus brought from Alexandria. This was because the locust was sacred to Apollo, the god of destruction. And Apollo was the patron god of that legion. That legio was called Apollinaris, or lover of Apollo. In Athens, there is a statue of Apollo with the name Apollo Parnopias. or Apollo of the Locusts. Okay, Apollo is just the Latin form of the Greek Apollyon, exactly the same god. We're talking about the same thing. So Apollo was the god of war and of destruction, and I think what an appropriate title for Titus' legion. In any case, not only did the 15th legion wear the emblem of the locust, their armor in many ways looked like the thorax of a locust. So the shield looks like locust, their armor looks like locust, and historians make references to Titus' soldiers being an army of locusts. And I'll give you some examples. Hegesipphus says that they ravaged the land like locusts. When the book of Hermas speaks of the troops that invaded Israel under Titus, it referred to them as fiery locusts coming out of the beast or Rome. Here they're coming out of something fiery as well. But Hermas says, behold, I see a great beast, and he's referring to Rome there, and out of its mouth, fiery locusts went forth. This beast came out so fiercely as if it could demolish the city at a blow. This beast is the emblem of the wrath about to come. So he identified the beast as the demon in charge of Rome and Nero as well. And the locust is coming out of the mouth of the beast or out of Nero. So whether you take it as the head demon that inhabited Nero or Nero himself, that's kind of a confirming interpretation in the early church. Likewise, the Babylonian Talmud speaks of Titus' invasion with his legion as, quote, the destruction of Jerusalem through locusts and through the son of a locust. So they refer to Titus as being the son of a locust and his armies as being locusts. Well, Vespasian used to be in charge of the 15th Legion and he was Titus' father. So very literally, Titus is the son of a locust and he's leading an army of locusts to destroy Jerusalem. And I think this would have immediately been instantaneously obvious to anyone who witnessed those Roman armies coming into Israel. We're always asking the question, what would the original audience have thought? What would they, what would have come into their minds? And I think they would have thought that this was the locust plague in symbolic form. Just imagine tens of thousands of infantry with shields, with a locust on the front, marching toward Jerusalem, and you got thousands of cavalry with images of scorpions on them. And then you've got horses with these, I gave you an example of the armor. So the horse has an image of a lion on top of him. And you've got standard bearers who are wearing the pelt of a lion with the teeth coming down. And I'll go through some of the other images in a moment. But they would have just thought, yeah, That is exactly Titus' army. But the point is that the descriptions of these locusts have so many parallels with the Roman army that there are actually some commentaries out there who say that the only thing that this chapter is referring to is the armies of Rome. That's the kind of parallelism they say. I think that that is to confuse the sign with the thing symbolized. The symbol that came was the symbols of the Roman army. That is true. But the main and the most fearful enemies that their symbolism was clearly pointing to was the demon Apollyon. and all of his demonic locust spirits. It's so important that we not confuse the sign with the thing symbolized. In this case, God is emphasizing the demonic hordes that were converging upon Israel. Actually, I believe they were rushing ahead of Titus's army so that they could afflict and prepare the people for five months before Titus finally arrived there. It took his army five months, but that gave these demons five months to work upon Israel. Now let's just fill out the symbolism in Titus's army a little bit more. When you keep reading in verses 7 through 10, you see that these locusts had a description that amounts to a composite listing of features from several creatures, a scorpion, a horse, a woman, and a lion. What's with that? Well, those were the emblems of the various parts of legions and cavalries that played a supporting role to the 15th legion. 15th legion's mascot was a locust, but the other legions had their own mascots and they were patterned after the symbols of the zodiac. The two signs of the second legion were the scorpion and the capricorn, both of which resemble features that are in this chapter. The emblem of the 10th Legion was a horse and a boar. Well, this passage doesn't say anything about the boar, but it definitely says that they resemble horses galloping. The 15th Legion had a locust and a griffin, and the griffin was, I don't know if I included a griffin in your pictures there, but it's a mixture between a lion and an eagle. Now, to date, nobody has been able to discover what the emblem was of the 22nd Legion, but every legion had a Roman god and a demonic, animal-like symbol associated with it. So the composite description here is a perfect composite of the demonic emblems of the armies that accompanied Titus's 15th legion, Apollinaris. Now what about the long hair like women? Well, that too could be a reference to the zodiac symbol of Virgo or the Virgin. Now in early Rome, that constellation was often called Coma Berenices or the hair of Bernice. Bernice's hair. And some commentators believe that is the reference to the long hair that is here. Others attribute it to the long horse hair that the Romans wore, the legions wore on top of their helmets. Sometimes you see those pictures standing straight up. Other carvings of them, you see the horse hair going way down their back and being braided like a woman's hair. So that's a second possibility. Third possibility is that this could refer to Titus' light cavalry who were the Maori horsemen. Now these incredibly fast attack cavalry are always, I've looked at all of the engravings, they're always pictured as men with long hair, sometimes dreadlocks that were going down. Chilton points out that the demonic armies in the Old Testament have a word for a demon that literally means hairy one. Or John could have just been merging all four of those things in his mind. I'm not going to be dogmatic on the women's long hair. Now next week I'm going to comment on how demons try to bring confusion to God's order, natural order. And homosexuality is one of the ways that they do so. Quite a number of commentaries see the demonic impulse between homosexuality and the transgender movement in these symbols. I'm not going to get into that today, but I think there's a remarkable connection. If you look at the demonic that's behind what's going on in America today, you will see the parallels, big time. Anyway, the composite shape of the locus appears to many commentators to be the symbolism attached to Titus' infantry and cavalry that came up from Egypt. And if that's the case, which I am 100% convinced that it is. If that is the case, then those symbols that he marched with pointed to the literal demonic forces that were behind Titus's army in the first 12 verses. And the symbols in verses 13 through 21 are the demonic totems and symbols that accompanied Vespasian's armies and were summoning and depending upon the demonic that were behind his armies. That's in verses 13 through 21. And the demonic prince in the first half of the chapter is described in verse 11. It says having his King over them, the angel of the abyss, his name in Hebrew is Abaddon while in Greek he has the name Apollyon. I believe the evidence points to the fact that this had been such a dangerous, violent, vicious demon that it had previously been bound by God into the pit. So here's a situation where Jesus is letting out a dangerous demon. Why would he do that? He's releasing him, or at least allowing Satan to release him. Unleashing demons upon humans is a part of Christ's judgments on nations. And you'll see that in a number of scriptures. It's one of the reasons our nation has become so demonized in my generation. It's so irrational, the things that they are doing. But back to this demon, this is the demon that possessed Titus and who gave Titus demonic powers. Now at some point I'll share with you some of the unbelievably demonic things that Titus did. But his father Vespasian had some of the same demonic powers. He became the new legate in Syria, replaced Cestius, and he headed all of the armies of Israel. So there's another demon who takes over Vespasian's life in the second part of the chapter. And all of that is to say that there really is a tight, tight connection between the human rulers with armies and the demonic rulers with armies. And it has always been the case. It's one of the reasons why Christians who join the military, any of the branches of the military, Their churches better be praying their tails off for these soldiers because they are in a vulnerable position. Satan always goes after the power centers of a country. If you elect somebody to Washington, D.C., or you elect somebody to Lincoln, Satan's gonna go after them, just like Kintner, really, recently. They're gonna try to make Christians fall, so you've got to have a prayer cover if you're going into the military. The perverted things that happened in America's military You know, some of the Muslims that we had captured. Some of those things, people even wonder, why did I do that? Well, the demonic explains it. There's constantly demonic that Christians have to pray against. Now back to the symbols. It's interesting that the coins in the histories show both Vespasian and Titus being pictured and being described by these demonic powers in glowing terms. The Romans thought, this is great, wow. Titus has miraculous power, so does Vespasian. He's able to heal people, he's able to do all of these different kinds of miracles that the book will later talk about. They thought it was great. Now we are given a glimpse behind the scenes and we realize, oh, these gods are not great. These are ugly, vicious demons that are controlling those armies. In any case, Vespasian was acclaimed as Zeus while he was still in Israel. And Vespasian's son, Titus, was proclaimed as Apollo, the son of Zeus. The Greek dictionary says that Apollyon is simply the Greek spelling. Apollo is the Latin spelling of the same god. And by the way, I think I maybe already mentioned it, the Old Testament Septuagint translates the demonic power Abaddon as Apollyon. I've put a coin from later on in Titus' life actually that presents him as Apollo, so you can see an example of that. At least I think I put it in the bulletin. I was scrambling yesterday. But I believe these coins presented him as Apollo only because he was possessed by Apollo. He was possessed by a demon. And there's a great deal of evidence, even in the secular histories, that he was a possessed man. Now, next week we're going to be focusing on the demonic realities behind those symbols. But I've just been trying to tease apart for you, what is symbol? What is the literal history? Well, we've seen that the symbol are the symbols that were in the Roman army, symbols of the demonic. And it was the scorpion, the locust, the lions, you know, all of these things. And what is the meaning of those symbols? Well, it's pointing to literal demons that were behind those armies. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the horrible demonic forces of Satan. Now, before I wrap up today, I do want to show why even partial preterists who agree with everything that I have just said, about this reflecting the symbols of Titus and his 15th legion are wrong on the timing. And it is a key stumbling block to many people who read their commentaries. They're convinced that a lot of what the partial preterists write makes sense But this is one of several places in the book of Revelation where partial preterists have made a mistake, and it keeps people from buying into the system. And that's why I say it has to be addressed. I'm not addressing it because I don't respect these people. We're still in the infancy of even studying the book of Revelation, so I may even make mistakes over time. But we do have to address these things and keep refining them. So here's the problem. These partial preterists recognize the symbolism I just gave, but because of the reference to five months, they place it out of order. Too frequently they mix up the trumpets because of thought associations that they've taken from secular histories. And I can understand that. Again, we're still in the infancy of applying this book. I'm not going to take a lot of time on this because I think these theories can be dispatched fairly quickly. But Chilton believes that the five months mentioned in verse 5 and again in verse 10 maybe the five months that Gessius Florus afflicted the Israelites. Now you may remember that Gessius Florus was the procurator, just another kind of ruler, procurator over Judea. And there is no doubt about the fact that he was evil. He stirred up trouble. He hired gangs to deliberately rob people and create distress and even revolutionary kinds of actions out there. He just tormented the population. You might wonder, why would he do that? Well, he was trying to aggravate the Jews into fighting back so that he would have an excuse to pound them. He hated Israel. He did everything in his power to ensure that war would come, that Israel would be smacked down. So Chilton says, this five-month period may refer in part to the actions of Gessius Florus, the procurator of Judea, who for a five-month period, beginning in May of 66, with the slaughter of 3,600 peaceful citizens, terrorized the Jews, deliberately seeking to incite them to rebellion. I have three problems with that interpretation. The first is it puts this trumpet out of order. In fact, it jettisons this chapter nine way back to chapter seven under the sixth seal. I mean, that by itself, uh, is, uh, as far as I'm concerned, a fatal blow against this theory. Uh, there has been a seamless historical progression all the way through from chapter five to chapter 11. And chapter eight, verse 13, just look at that. You don't even have to know all of the sequence. Chapter eight, verse 13 makes it so crystal clear that chapter nine has to come next. Historically, you cannot jump backwards. The second problem I have with that theory is that it really wasn't a five-month period of time. Now, for the sake of the argument, I'm not going to get into that. Let's just assume that it was. There's still huge problems, even if you count it five months. The third problem I have with it is that thousands were killed by Flores between May and September of 66. Literally hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by Gentiles in riots. And Gentiles were killed by Jews in those same rites. It simply does not fit the language of verse 5. Take a look at verse 5 again. Verse 5 says, it was designated to them, locusts, not to kill them, men, but to torment them five months. Whoever these locusts are, they're not allowed to kill men yet. Later, yes, but not during these five months. For the next five months, they can only bring enormous spiritual pain and torment. Verse 6 reinforces this. It says, So we're looking for a period of demonization where neither Romans nor demons are engaged in killing. yet people are so miserable that they wish that they were dead. If you look at the debates on the website, you will see that this is one of the biggest objections that futurists have to our partial preterism, okay? There were massive numbers of deaths from May to September of 1866. That contradicts the description of verses 5 and 6. But exactly the same objections can be made against the majority view amongst the full preterists and the partial preterists. Most full Praderists and partial Praderists don't take Chilton's view that it's five months from May to September of 1866. Instead, they attribute the five months to the five-month siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. Now, I'll admit it was pretty close to five months. I did the calculations just nine days short, so we'll give them that. It went from April 13 of AD 70 to September 1, but the chronology is messed up. Instead of shooting this chapter backwards to chapter 7, it shoots it all the way to near the end of chapter 11, to the last five months of the siege, the war against Jerusalem. But the grammar and time sequence of these chapters absolutely will not allow for that. Secondly, there were more deaths during that five-month siege than during the entire previous war. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died. They were crucified at the hands of Romans. They were tortured and killed by the various demonically possessed factions, Jewish factions. They died of disease and starvation. It was a Holocaust. There were so many people that were dead that some of the houses were filled up with dead, and they were stacking them like cordwood As high as people's heads along many of the streets, that simply cannot fit the language of verses 5 and 6. So I can see why futurists reject this interpretation. I've always rejected it myself. It does not account for all of the details. Yet another partial preterist theory that violates trumpet sequence, dating hints, time frame, and the language of verses 5 and 6 is Griffith's view that this refers to the five months between the emperors Otho and Vespasian in AD 69 when multitudes were killed. Now, that does sort of fit in nicely with some of the language of the second half of the chapter, but not the first half, not the five months. There shouldn't be a ton of deaths during the five months, but there were literally millions who died in 1869. Millions of Romans, not just Jews, of Romans. And that's where he places the five months. The second half of the chapter speaks of one-third of mankind dying, but not the first half. In any case, his interpretation forces you to merge the fifth and the sixth trumpets. That's his main problem. So where does it fit in? Well the first half of chapter 9 fits in immediately after chapter 8 or you would expect it to fit in. Chapter 8 ends on October 15. We know from Josephus it took 16 days to get the message to Nero which brings us to October 31 when the beast authorizes the release of new reinforcements from hell. These demons stream to Israel and for the next 5 months to the very day, exactly 150 days, they were able to torment the Israelites but not kill them. Roman killings from Titus' armies don't resume till March 21. So it perfectly fits the first 12 verses of this chapter. From October 31 to March 21, there was a lull in killings as the Jewish factions feverishly sought to prepare for the coming war and as the Romans traveled and prepared themselves for war. So it was the one time, the only time, when there was not mass killing. And for sure, Titus's armies did not engage in killing during this time. It fits perfectly. But it also explains the huge increase in demonic activity that started in November and lasted through to the end of the war. It was a time of irrational behavior, incredible anguish, fear, transvestitism, homosexual rape, robbery, pillaging, demonic torment. Now, I'll speak about the demonic next week, but I don't want you to leave this building depressed this morning. So I'm going to end with four encouraging take-homes. These are applications you can take home with you. First of all, let me remind you of how perfectly every piece of the puzzle has been falling into place in this book. Nothing forced. It's just a perfect progression. It is not an impossible book to understand. In chapter 1 verse 3, God pronounced great blessings on those who read, those who hear the words of this prophecy, and those who keep the things which are written in it. God wants you to know all of the details of this book. And he adds, for the time is near. And that's the second thing that I want to encourage you with. You can trust every detail of the Bible. Liberals scoff at Revelation as if it is a failed prophecy. They say, hey, God promised that these things would be near, at hand, soon, about to happen, and it's 2,000 years later. And Christians, they fall right into the trap of the liberals and they say, well, yeah, these things are all still off in our future, but Soon can mean a long time sometimes. And about to happen, that's a relative term. And I say, no. And God says something is going to happen soon. It happens soon. And we're now just within a year of John having written this book. That is very soon. OK, third. So that second application, you got that right. We can trust every detail of the Bible. That's cool. Third, we need not fear demons or human armies. If God is for us, who can be against us? And there are hints in this book, quite a few hints actually, in this chapter that He is for us. God completely protects His own in verses 5, 6, and 10. He knows how to do so. He puts a seal on their foreheads that the demons can see, and they know they better not touch that person. God puts a hedge around the believers just like He put a hedge around Job. You know, Satan complained, I can't get at Job. You know, you test him, let me at him. These evil armies are subject to God's sovereign control, and that can be seen in the first verse. So the first angel trumpeted. It was not until one of God's good angels sounded the blast of his war trumpet, summoning his angels, okay, we're now in the next stage of the battle. It was not until then that that demon had permission to unleash more demons on Israel or to move Titus' armies to go on the move. Satan doesn't have freedom to do just anything that he wants. He has to have permission. Satan may be alive, but he is certainly not well on planet Earth. He is bound. He is losing ground. He may be a roaring lion, but he is a roaring lion on a leash, and he can only travel so far. And you might ask, okay, well, that's true of Satan, but what about human soldiers? Well, the same is true of them. The armies behind Titus could not do a single thing until God allowed them to do it. We already saw that was true of Cestius's army in the previous chapter, and it'll continue to be true in the upcoming chapters. Jesus is king, and until he opens the seal, there is no permission that God's enemies have to move. You don't need to be worried and stressed out about who's going to win the next election. You be faithful to do what God has called you to do, and you can trust God. Yeah, there may be disasters, but you don't need to worry about it because God is in sovereign control of all of those things. Jesus ensures that Satan plays according to the rules of his, God's, chessboard of life. Now Satan may wish that he could cheat, but he cannot pull anything over Christ's eyes. And despite the fact that hundreds of millions of demons converge on Israel, God's people were protected. Like Job, we have a hedge around us that demons cannot pass through. And as I said at the beginning of this service, the only way that demons can get at us is if we give them a foothold, is if we give them legal ground through our unconfessed and unrepentant of sin. That's like cutting a hole in the fence so that they can crawl through. But if you are sealed and washed in the blood, you need not fear. And like the first century saints, chapter 12 could be true of you where it says they overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. You can be an overcomer. That's what the testimony of 1 John is, that everyone who was born of God can overcome Satan in the world. 1 John 5.18 guarantees every born-again believer can overcome Satan if they guard their hearts. Now the last encouragement that I want to give to you is to witness and share the gospel with your unbelieving friends and relatives. Unbelievers can be so easily manipulated and used by Satan. Jesus said to unbelievers, you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you will do. It's one of the reasons, by the way, that I never, never, never vote for an unbeliever into political office. Because it doesn't matter how conservative they are, they're a pawn in Satan's hand. He can turn them, change them any time that he wants to. They have absolutely no protection from Satan. It's pointless to vote for a conservative unbeliever. They're pawns. But here is the cool thing that we can encourage our hearts on. Satan is a pawn in Christ's hand. He is upon in Christ's hand. God allows judgments such as this book describes to lead people to repentance. Take a look at the opportunity of repentance that God gives them in verses 20 through 21. It shows God's mercy and grace. 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, 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 theft. But that's the goal of these judgments, to lead to repentance. But how can they repent unless they hear the gospel? So that'd be my last application today. Witness. Share the gospel with your unbelieving friends. And may you be encouraged to be on the right side of Christ's global war for planet Earth that this book talks about. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that greater are you than he who is in the world. Yes, Satan can sometimes be a fearful enemy and he rages against everything that we do. But we thank you that you have built a hedge round about us and that we need not fear the enemy. Help us to stay close to you, to not wander into the pit bull's yard and get mauled. but Father, to be wise in the way in which we engage in warfare. Please bless this, your people, with a world-conquering faith, a Satan-conquering faith. In Jesus' name.