Morning Sermon

December 16, 2007

Hell on Earth

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We are descending farther and farther into the heart of this great book of prophecy, and I hope that are able to keep going without losing your way. The judgment of God is being announced, a judgment I believe is first of all pronounced against the nation of Israel for their rejection of the Messiah, but with the realization that that judgment inflicted in history in the year 70 AD also serves intentionally as a sign and representation of the great judgment that shall come at the end of the age.

Actually, much of what we read this morning in chapter 9 accurately predicts and is specifically fulfilled in the events of the Jewish wars leading up to that final destruction, the years of AD 66-70 which began with a five month reign of terror by Gessius Florus, the Roman procurator of Judea. During those five months in the summer of 66, he terrorized the Jews in a deliberate attempt to incite them to rebellion. He was successful, the Jews revolted, and according to the historian Josephus, the Jewish wars began at that time. To utilize a statement that would be profanity if I uttered it casually, all hell broke loose in Jerusalem during that time.

It was a situation which is well described in by John. v.1-6

And so we come to what John introduces as,

I. THE FIRST WOE. Actually, it is the fifth trumpet, and please recall that there are repeated series of judgments announced in this book that I believe are intended to be seen in parallel. That is, they are three different cycles all more or less describing the same judgments. The seven seals. Then the seven trumpets. Then the seven bowls. The seventh seal actually describes these trumpet calls of judgment. And with these last three trumpets, we have particular expressions of God's judgment called woes.

8:13 "And I looked, and I heard an [eagle] flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"

Then after this first woe we read, v.12

So what was it? v.1-2

The blast of the fifth trumpet declared that the angel of the church would give,

A. The key to the bottomless pit. And he would give it to "a star fallen from heaven to the earth."

So who is what? First, the star fallen from heaven. I believe here we have a description of Satan himself. Consider,

Luke 10:18 And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

Jesus said that, while he was on earth. So it has already happened in conjunction with the mission of the disciples and apostles in the building of the church. Satan is cast out. And we read in,

Rev. 12:9 "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. 12 "Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."

Notice that God is doing this. God is giving the key of the bottomless pit to Satan, as an act of judgment upon those who had rebelled against him and rejected the Lord Jesus. The bottomless pit is the abyss, a word that has reference to the farthest extreme from heaven. The word is used in Scripture to describe something as far away and far removed as possible, such as the deepest parts of the sea or the opposite of the highest mountains. The word could mean the prison of demons or the realm of the dead. The overall idea is clear. God is allowing all the demons of hell to cover the land as a demonstration of his own just judgment. The key is given to Satan to open the Abyss and to let them out.

To see how Jesus uses this image to prophecy judgment upon the nation of Israel, turn with me to,

Mat. 12:41 "The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. 42 "The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. 43 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 "Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 "Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation."

Did you catch that last line? Jesus is saying to the generation of those who would reject him, the wicked generation, that the evil spirits would come upon. And so the prophecy of Revelation 8. God gives to Satan the key to the bottomless pit let out those evil spirits. So it is that what would come upon the nation under the judgment of God is nothing less than,

B. The plagues of hell. First, smoke. v.2 v.3-6

The locusts here are symbolic, destroying not the vegetation of the land but the inhabitants themselves. But only those who were not sealed in Christ. Only those who were not claimed by Jesus as his own true people, those 144,000 whom we studied in Chapter 7.

And notice how terrible is the judgment, that the curse inflicted was one of torment and torture, but not death, such that the people would actually long for death rather than endure the tribulation of those days.

Why five months? That was the natural life cycle of the locust, from May through September, and it quite naturally could have reference to the actual reign of terror I mentioned the outset, a five-month campaign by Gessius Florus in the summer of 66 calculated to stir up the Jews unto rebellion. It was a terrible, terrible time, beginning with the slaughter of 3,600 peaceful citizens of Jerusalem in May.

The trials would be severe, as we read in, v.7-10

One author describes the final days of this judgment of God upon the nation of Israel with these words: "the loss of all ability to reason, the frenzied mobs attacking one another, the deluded multitudes following after the most transparently false prophets, the crazed and desperate chase after food, the mass murders, executions, and suicides, the fathers slaughtering their own families and the mothers eating their own children. Satan and the host of hell simply swarmed throughout the land of Israel and consumed the apostates."

I should note that this sort of language is very similar to the language used in the Old Testament prophets regarding the nation who would invade Israel. For example,

Joel 2:4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like swift steeds, so they run. 5 With a noise like chariots Over mountaintops they leap, Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, Like a strong people set in battle array. 6 Before them the people writhe in pain; All faces are drained of color. 7 They run like mighty men, They climb the wall like men of war; Every one marches in formation, And they do not break ranks. 8 They do not push one another; Every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, They are not cut down. 9 They run to and fro in the city, They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter at the windows like a thief. 10 The earth quakes before them, The heavens tremble; The sun and moon grow dark, And the stars diminish their brightness.11 The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?"

Such are the plagues of hell, ruled by their King, named the Destroyer. In Hebrew, that is "Abaddon" and in Greek, "Apollyon." The destroyer. The place of destruction. The personification of death itself. Surely this is hell on earth. v.11

Yet it is only the first woe. Two more are still coming, and those shall be even worse. v.12

II. THE SECOND WOE. The sixth trumpet.

v.13 "Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet."

The altar with four horns was the altar of incense, which had four hornlike projections at each corner. The altar was used for the purification offering, in which the altar was purified so that the incense could be offered with the assurance that God would hear their prayers. That would have been readily understood by John's Jewish readers.

And so here in Revelation 9, God commands that the angels be released at the great River Euphrates. v.14

So what is happening? First of all, you must understand that the Euphrates River forms the northern boundary of Palestine, and it was across this river that all the invaders of the land would come, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persian invaders. They would come from the north, across the Euphrates in order to conquer the people of the Jews. And so for God to order the release of those four angels at the River Euphrates, the reality is that,

A. A vast army is released. Released to enter, judge and destroy Israel. So this great army is accomplishing God's plan and purpose, it is under his direction and control, although the army itself is plainly demonic and pagan in character.

And so these angels, these messengers, do the bidding of God, a sovereign God who uses both demons and heathen to accomplish his holy purposes. v.15

And so they were. v.16

Putting a number on that expression really misses the point, which is the vast and virtually innumerable host of solders. Somewhat literally, the words are "myriads upon myriads." Or "a double myriad of myriads." And a myriad was already an unnumbered quantity, perhaps something like our use of infinity. So it is a myriad times a myriad, but that even doubled.

If you assign the number 10,000 to a myriad, multiply it by 10,000 and then double it, that's where the translation 200,000,000 comes from, and the plain point is that the number cannot actually be counted. So vast shall be the destroyers who come upon Israel.

And look at what they accomplished. v.17-19

One commentator notes, "The picture is meant to be inconceivable, horrifying, and even revolting. For these creatures are not of the earth. Fire and sulphur belong to hell, just as the smoke is characteristic of the pit. Only monsters from beneath belch out such things."

David Chilton adds, "Thus, to sum up the idea: An innumerable army is advancing upon Jerusalem from the Euphrates, the origin of Israel's traditional enemies; it is a fierce, hostile, demonic force sent by God in answer to His people's prayers for vengeance. In short, this army is the fulfillment of all the warnings in the law and the prophets of an avenging horde sent to punish the Covenant-breakers. The horrors described in Deuteronomy 28 were to be visited upon this evil generation. Moses had declared..."

Deut. 28:34 "So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see."

That's what happened.

B. Vengeance is inflicted upon covenant breakers. Let me read just a little more of that curse of the covenant as defined in,

Deut. 28:34 "So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35 "The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 "The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods--wood and stone. 37 "And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. 38 "You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. 39 "You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 "You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. 41 "You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42 "Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. 43 "The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 "He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. 45 "Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 "And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. 47 "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 "therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 "The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 "a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 "And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you."

I believe Revelation 9 predicts the fulfillment of that threat, and that it was fulfilled in the events of history surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. But as I've stressed in weeks before, that judgment then still serves as picture and a warning of the judgment yet to come at the end of this age. Then it will be a final, complete, universal, and cosmic judgment upon all covenant breakers who have rebelled against the Lord.

And so the warning of these trumpets ought to be sounded in our day, just as John sounded them in his generation. The warnings, then and now, are nothing other than,

III. A CALL TO REPENTANCE. That's what the pronouncement of God's wrath is all about in this day of salvation. Repent!

I read earlier from the description of the locust plague in Joel 2, ending with the words of verse 11: "The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?"

Listen to the very next verse.

Joel 2:12 "Now, therefore," says the LORD, "Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." 13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm. 14 Who knows if He will turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him."

That is my call and my application this morning, even in preaching of this great and terrible judgment of God. "Repent." "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning."

And let it be a turning of the heart, let it be a repentance of the heart not just an outward show of remorse. "So rend your heart, and not your garments." Tearing of clothes was an OT expression of repentance, and the prophet is clear. External forms are not enough. A broken heart is the appropriate expression of repentance.

Remember what David wrote in Psalm 51. After praying, Ps. 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me," he declared so plainly,

Ps. 51:15 "O Lord, open my lips, And my mouth shall show forth Your praise. 16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart-- These, O God, You will not despise."

A broken and contrite heart. That is the sacrifice of worship with which God is well pleased. A broken and contrite heart.

Paul writes to the Corinthians this way,

2 Cor. 7:9 "Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. 10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 11 For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter."

That's repentance. And that is the calling of God upon us today, the godly sorrow of a broken heart, a heart crushed by the awareness of sin. A sorrow that produces a zeal for godly obedience, in the sorrow of having sinned against the love and grace of our God and father.

So don't go through this chapter without that personal application. Don't read about God's judgment without feeling the sorrowful weight of your own sins, that you might turn away from them. Thankfully, by the promise of the gospel, those sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west, and let that grace now, like a fetter, bind your wandering heart to Jesus.

Sadly, tragically, the announcement of God's judgment and the call of repentance often leads to,

A. The hardening of sin. So it is here in,

v.20a "But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands."

A third of mankind was killed, and those remaining hardened their hearts! How grievous. Even in the face of the most terrible judgments, there is no repentance. Neither God's wrath nor his goodness could turn them over from their error.

Therefore we read, John 3:19 "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

And what are those deeds? What is the darkness which men love more than God? Two things. Two things very much related, the second deriving from the first. First,

B. The sin of idolatry. The sin of worshiping other gods. False gods. Man-made gods, imagined gods, false gods. v.20

Notice how that list of idols has reference to us today, as well. Idols of gold and silver, riches and wealth. Useless objects of affection and devotion, the god of mammon. The idol of covetousness and materialism. And this is what we know about such idols:

Ps. 115:5 "They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see; 6 They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell; 7 They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk; Nor do they mutter through their throat. 8 Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them."

They are empty. Useless. Worthless.

And they lead to,

C. The sin of immorality. Notice how the identification of these sins corresponds to the moral law of God, summarized in the ten commandments. v.21

The judgment was predicted. And it was experienced. And still there was no repentance. The judgment of God was inevitable. For the nation of Israel, it was just around the corner.

And so it is today. Let me end with a final application from Peter.

2 Peter 3:7 "But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

2 Peter 3:11 "Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation."

In other words, respond to this declaration of God's judgment with repentance for your own sins, the godly sorrow of a repentance that causes you to be diligent to be blameless before God.

Surely the glorious message of the gospel is that this judgment, this curse of the covenant, shall not come upon those who are united by faith to Jesus Christ. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1) Yet in the context of this pronounced judgment of God, let that promise of the gospel drive you repentance, for then and then only shall the salvation of the Lord be yours.

Joel 2:13 "So [whatever the sin might be in your own life,] rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm."

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