This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day five together of our look through Revelation chapter 9. We're going
to look at verses 16 down through 21 today, and we're going to see what's
happening in human hearts. But before that, there is more of a description of
what John saw that day as he was given a revelation of what's going to happen.

In verses 16 to 19, remember, there is this judgment that's coming upon mankind,
and one-third are going to be killed as they face this judgment. There are more
details about that in verses 16 to 19. Those verses say, "The number of the
mounted troops was two hundred million.

I heard their number. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this.
Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur.

The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths
came fire, smoke, and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues
of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the
horses was in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails were like snakes,
having heads with which they inflict injury.

" Wow, what a picture of what's going to happen. There are these two hundred
million troops, and there's this picture of a plague that's going to come upon
mankind. That's how the deaths are going to happen, and there is the picture of
the infliction of injury by these ugly creatures.

There's fire and smoke and sulfur. One-third are killed. That means by this time
that half of those who are on the earth have lost their lives.

A quarter of the population of the earth is killed in the fourth seal that we
looked at earlier, and here another third is killed. So about half are gone, and
the Bible says that the means for doing this in these verses is these two
hundred million troops. I heard their number.

Now we like to know what's happening, and so we sometimes skip right past the
sadness of the fact that half the earth is gone, and we try to figure out who
are the two hundred million. How is it going to happen? Don't skip past the fact
that half the earth is gone.

Now we talked yesterday about why God has allowed this to happen, but there's
still great sadness in our hearts that this has happened. I want everyone to
know Christ. I want everyone to escape this judgment, but sadly there are some
who will not come to know him, who will not escape this judgment.

The judgment is going to come by a means, and the means is these two hundred
million, this great army. What does that mean? Well, in this case there is
interpretation and there is speculation, as we talked about last week together.

Interpretation, there are two different interpretations of what this means that
have been around for two thousand years. One is that they're a great human army
that God uses as an instrument of judgment. Another interpretation that's been
around for two thousand years is they're a demonic army.

They mirror the locusts in some way, and that they're released first to torture,
and now they're released to kill and destroy. There have been good, strong
believers over the centuries who have believed both. That is interpretation.

Now speculation would be not only that it would be a human army, but what human
army it would be. There's been speculation recently that it's the army of China.
You may have read this.

Why? Because China has the biggest army in the world. So of course you would
speculate that if God's going to use a human army as his instrument of judgment,
that's the army that it could be.

Could that speculation be right? Of course it could. Could that speculation be
wrong?

Well, of course it could. Should we look to the existence of a possible Chinese
army as a proof of the Bible? Of course we shouldn't.

That's what bothers me as we read through Revelation, that somehow we look to
some proof we find in some news clipping, and that says to us, "Well, the Bible
must be true. " I don't care what news clipping you read or don't read. The
Bible is true.

And judgment is going to come upon this world at the end of time. Whether it's
through God using a human army or through God allowing demonic forces,
judgment's going to come upon the world. There's this time of judgment.

Don't get so caught up in speculation that you miss the Revelation. Can you
imagine that any human being could speculate and guess everything that's going
to happen in the book of Revelation? Could you even imagine that happening?

That's not going to happen. We're going to be very surprised at the end at some
of the people that were right in their speculations, and we're going to be
surprised at the end at some of the people that were wrong in their
speculations. It is not our speculations that we worship.

It is God that we worship. And there's going to come this time of judgment. And
God wants us to understand more than anything what happens at the end of this
chapter.

He wants us to understand how human hearts are responding to all of this. Listen
to verses 20 to 21. "The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues
still did not repent of the work of their hands.

They did not stop worshipping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone,
and wood, idols that cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their
murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality, or their thefts. " There's
the picture. They still did not repent.

It shows that these were not believers, these two-thirds, because if they were
believers, they would have already repented. But it also shows that they were
given a continued opportunity to repent. They still did not repent.

That means they were given an opportunity to repent in these events. They can
still come to Christ in this moment, but they don't take that opportunity. I
believe this is talking about the whole of mankind.

I believe that there are a few who will take that opportunity, but it will be so
few. How will most everyone respond? Three ways.

They'll be rebelliously unrepentant. They'll be religiously demonic and
idolatrous, and they'll be morally decadent. That's what's pictured for us here.

They will choose to still not repent and depend on the work of my hands. They
will choose to worship demons. When it talks about silver and bronze and stone,
that's materialism.

We think of demons in the Old Testament as a little idol that was put on a
shelf. No, the demonic forces that we worship today are all about materialism,
the things that we can do, we can make for ourselves. And they're going to be
morally decadent, murders and sexual immorality and thefts and magic arts.

Remember last week we talked about the book of Exodus? What we're seeing here is
the same as what happened in Egypt. It's the same story again, just on a
worldwide scale.

While God's people are being set free in the book of Revelation, while our
inheritance is being given back to us, because that's what this book is all
about, at the same moment those who are not God's people, they are hardening
their hearts against him. Those who have their hearts too tied to this world
won't be able to let go of it in the end. If you're going to picture it, it's
like holding on to the rail of the Titanic while it's going down, gripping it as
if that rail, that ship somehow is going to be your salvation.

That's the picture that's here. They're holding on tighter and tighter as the
ship is going down. And as all the world falls apart around them, they tighten
their grip on the world rather than loosening their grip on the world, rather
than trusting God for salvation.

That's what's happening here. Now, in my heart and your heart, there are two
immediate responses to this. We want to pray for the salvation of those who
don't know Christ, that they'll come to know him.

They'll find in him the hope that they need. We began that prayer yesterday. We
want to continue that prayer today.

It is God's desire that none should perish, God's desire that all should come to
him, and we can pray for that. We should pray that all would come to him, but we
should also pray for specific people that we know would come to know him. And as
you pray those prayers, we've seen in the book of Revelation, those prayers go
straight to heaven to be in the presence of God, a sweet aroma before God.

There's a second response here, I think, and that's to be honest about
ourselves. The truth is we live in this world, and we can get caught up in this
world. We happen to live, most of us who are listening to this, in a place where
we're not persecuted very much.

So it's pretty easy to get caught up in worldly things. We're believers in
Christ, and we know that when the end comes, we're going to be with him. We're
spending eternity with God in heaven, but how about right now?

As you hear this Revelation, this story of what's going to happen at the end of
the world, does it cause worldly things to have just a little bit less of a grip
on you? That's one of the things that should happen in my life as a believer as
I read through this book. We start to realize more and more I am not a citizen
of this earth.

By the way, I don't want to be a citizen of this earth. I am a citizen of heaven
because of what Jesus has done. That's where I'm headed.

Revelation reveals to us that this world, it is a shaky place. It's going to be
lost in the end. But if that's all you get out of the book of Revelation, you've
missed the point entirely.

That's only half the truth, the lesser half of the truth. Revelation also shows
us that there is an unshakable place that we're looking forward to. Heaven is an
eternal place.

Heaven is a place of hope, and you and I have our future assured before him
there in heaven. Anyone who comes to him can have that future assured with him
in eternity. As I realize that, it causes worldly things to have a little bit
less of a grip on me.

And I think that's what God wants to happen in our hearts as we read the truth
of what's going to happen in the end. Let's pray together. Father, I admit it.

I can get caught up in this world. I know it's going to fall apart someday. I
know it doesn't promise me anything, but I can still get caught up in this
world.

I come to you and I pray, not out of fear, but out of hope. I pray that I would
have a new sense of trust in you. Trust that one day I'm going to leave this
place, but I'm looking forward to a new security with you for eternity.

Lord, you've told us in your word, everything's going to fall apart in this
world, but you're not going to fall apart. And we are people who trust in you.
We have a hope in you no matter what happens.

Lord, today I stand on that hope. I grasp that hope. And as I do so, I pray that
I would loosen my grip on other things that sometimes, even as your child, I
tend to trust in sometimes.

Help me to trust in you. In Jesus' name, I pray this, amen. Next week as we
continue our study in Revelation, Revelation 10, the focus is going to shift
back to heaven.

It's going to shift back to the power of God's word in our lives.