This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
Come across someone I'm working with, a neighbor, a relative, a
friend, a hairdresser, a gas station, wherever we go, every
day that we're so busy, we run in and we run out and maybe we
say a quick prayer, maybe we give them a word of testimony,
but life is crazy. But if we can just slow down for
a couple minutes and think about the people that are still stuck
in these patterns, and that's the majority of human race,
think about what it might do if they believe in what's going to
happen in their lives to be protected from this kind of
thing that we studied about in Revelation today.
Many of us don't think that way. We think mostly of ourselves and
how our day is going to go. Pastor Clark's challenge a
moment ago is a good one for us. As you go about your day today,
begin to ask God for an opportunity to share the love of
Jesus with the people you encounter.
This is the heart of God and so you can be assured that he will
answer that prayer. He will provide opportunities
for you to share his love with the people you bump into in your
day-to-day life. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
Book of Revelation Chapter 9 with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. When we skip into Revelation
now, we start reading about what's happening in Chapter 9.
Sometimes you might be here or you might be in a church, and
you're saying, man, this God sounds so terrible and so angry
and so impatient, so unloving. Why would anybody want to know
him? Let's catch up in time.
This is around the corner, I believe, but there's been 2000
years of God's patience before these things begin to be poured
out in the human race. That's a God of incredible love
and patience. We wouldn't have that kind of
patience with people. Soon as someone cuts us off in
traffic, we're shaking at them, you know, and shaking our fists
and using sign language sometimes that we shouldn't be
using. And you know, and we're, we're
unmerciful. We're not patient, we're not
gracious, right? Someone does something to us to,
to embetter us right away. We cop an attitude and have a
wall up and don't want to have anything to do with certain
people the rest of our life because of some miniscule thing
they've done to us. And here we are like these
people in Romans, all the things that Paul declared that the
human heart was like, I know exists in me and exists in you
because we're human beings. And so now we we catch up with
these judgments in Revelation Chapter 9, and I'm just going to
read this chapter and then we'll catch up in 13 where we left off
last week. First one, then the 5th Angel
sounded. And this is the trumpet
judgments coming now. The seven seal judgments have
already transpired. We're into the trumpet judgments
now. The next judgments will be the
bowls of wrath. The judgments are getting
increasingly more intense and more violent in the sense of
trying to get the human race to still repent.
There's still time even in the midst of the tribulation, the
people who are left here on earth during the tribulation,
God is still working these things out in order for them to
finally look up and say, I give up.
I know I need you, Lord. And he says, I saw a star fall
from heaven, and the earth to him was given the key to the
bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit
and smoke rose out of the pit like the smoke of a great
furnace. So in the core of the earth,
somewhere all the demons that fell, all the angels that fell
from the throne and the Kingdom prior to creation are in a
holding pattern. They're locked up until this day
of judgment. They can't wait to get out and
and raise literal hell in the face of the earth havoc.
And so this person who is given the key to open this pit and
keep in mind that God has the whole universe under control.
It isn't that the devil's winning today and God might win
tomorrow. And there's this tension back
and forth. God is sovereign.
He's already accomplished his purpose.
When Christ said it is finished, it is finished.
The Bible says in Colossians that the power of Satan was
deactivated in the sense of what Christ did at the cross, but the
enemy still has capabilities. That's why it tells us in
Ephesians we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but
against principalities and powers, the rulers of darkness,
the angelic demonic beings who aren't in the abyss, who are out
flying around trying to create havoc in the world.
The demonic activity that is going on, principalities and
powers, the rulers of darkness and that dimension that we can't
see, but it's real. But then he's going to let these
other ones out of this pit. Some people wonder what, who is
this? A fallen Angel is a Satan
certainly isn't the emissary of the the most high God.
God, you know, allows the evil ones to do their work.
He doesn't sanction it, but he allows it.
He doesn't create it. He doesn't start it.
But you know, the mystery of life is that we have a free
will. Some people say, well, why
didn't God just create us perfect?
Well, in a way he did before the fall.
He created this immortal with a a nature that was pure and we
were creating the likeness and image of God.
But God didn't create robots. He wanted to create people who
would truly love him and want to follow him for who he is.
That's the mystery. And so Adam and Eve decide to
make the wrong choice. And because of that, the whole
human race has fallen into the condition that it is today.
And yet God in his mercy had planned even before the earth
was created, knowing that we were going to do that, that he
would send Jesus to die for us, to restore us back to the place
that we were before the fall. And you might say, well, why did
he create Satan? Or why is there a choice?
I don't know about you, but I'm glad that God has given me a
will and a choice because every day I make decisions.
I'm glad that I chose Cindy Alexander 39 years ago to be my
wife. I'm glad that I had a free will
to find the woman that God had for me in this life and special
no one other, no other woman but her for me and me for her.
Choosing where I want to live, where I want to worship,
choosing what I want to do with my resources, choosing what type
of work I want to have, a choosing how I want to spend my
days with my kids and my grandkids.
I mean, when you think about the think if you had none of that
and every day you just got up and you heard this voice, you're
going to do this whether you like it or not.
I mean, what kind of life would that be?
That would be a bondage. That would be a horrible
existence. But to have the freedom that God
has given us to choose. And yet in this situation here,
these demons are going to come out and it's going to be so
horrendous. If you remember in the Old
Testament, the judgments during the time of Moses delivering the
children of Israel out of bondage to Pharaoh, the locusts
were so numerous that people couldn't actually see where they
were going and they completely ate all the vegetation.
And this situation is going to be different to them as given
the power as a scorpions of the earth have power.
They were commanded not to harm the grass or the earth or any
green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have
the seal of God on their foreheads.
Now we studied several weeks ago about the 144,000, the special
chosen people of God during that tribulation, born again Jews who
are on fire for the Lord, like 144,000 Billy Grahams going all
over the earth to witness and to tell people you still can
repent, God's mercy is still available, you can still be
forgiven of your sin and God will be gracious to you.
And that's their job. Well, they're not going to be
touched by these scorpion like locust creatures.
They were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them
for five months. So anyone who doesn't have this
seal on their forehead is fair game to these demonic beings.
So that means all the unbelievers on the face of the
earth at this time. And this isn't God doing this to
the people. This is Satan and his demonic
crew going out to create torment and havoc on the face of the
earth to all those who don't know Christ.
Some people say whenever I die, I'm going to be down in hell
with my buddies and and Satan and everybody.
We're just going to have a good time and party forever.
It's not going to be that way. Satan hates our guts, the Bible
says. He's come to rob, to steal, to
kill and to destroy. It says their torment was like
the torment of a scorpion. And when it strikes a man and
those days, men will seek death and will not find it.
They will desire to die and death will flee from them.
It sounds like in this case, it's even going to be impossible
to take your life. It's going to be so horrible at
this time when you're on the earth, if you're an unbeliever,
you can't get away from these scorpions.
You can you think, well, I'm going to stay inside all day and
and I'll wait this out for the five months they won't get me.
Somehow they're going to be able to get in the windows, under the
under the doorway, whatever. So no matter where you are,
you're going to get stung and tortured by these things, just
not once. You get stung once, and that's
OK. It's going to be a continual
horrible torment to drive you to your knees.
But the enemy wants to destroy you, but he can't.
And you can't even find death at this time.
It says the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for
battle. On their heads were crowned
something like gold. And their faces were like the
faces of men. They had hair like women's hair,
and their teeth were like a lion's teeth.
And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the
sound of their wings was like the sound of Chariots, with many
horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions,
and there were stings in their tails.
Their power was to hurt men. Five months.
And they had his king over them. The Angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek his name is
Apollyon. That name means the Destroyer,
literally the destroyer, the New Testament Greek word Apollyon,
is the one who is destroying. And again, that ties with what
Jesus said about the devil. He comes to steal and to kill
and to rob and to destroy. And I'll tell you, he's trying
to destroy our lives every day. He's trying to destroy the
Church of Jesus Christ. And I'm so thankful it's not my
job or your job to build the Church of Christ.
Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell.
Hades will not prevail against it.
In verse 12, one woe is past. So you we think that's bad.
This situation with these scorpion like creatures in the
description, John says the apostle that they are like this.
In other words, he's seeing something that he's never seen
before in his life. He's trying to use descriptive
words to give us some kind of insight what these creatures are
like because again, it's like nothing he's ever seen before.
Some people believe that these will be fallen demonic beings
that are inhabiting whether it's an animal like creature or a
human creature. Some people, commentators
describe it as as perhaps men in certain types of suits with gas
masks and the the stinging aspect of this scorpion like
creature is really a chemical warfare, you know, that's coming
upon people. I mean, none of us are going to
know these things until they occur.
But these are descriptive terms that will one day come to pass.
And so John's saying this one was past.
Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.
This is where we'll pick up where we left off the last time
we were in this book. Then the six angels sounded and
I heard a voice from the four horns of the Golden All which is
before the throne of God, this altar and a wonderful picture
again of the throne room of heaven.
The 6th Angel sounds and I hear a voice from the four horns of
the golden golden altar, which is before God, saying to the 6th
Angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are
bound at the great river Euphrates.
So this altar is the altar of incense.
It stands before the throne of God.
And the incense, as I mentioned about a month ago, is the
representation of the prayers of the Saints.
Incense will be prevalent in the Kingdom of heaven.
The early church use incense all the time.
Someone asked me why we don't use incense.
I don't know. I don't know who said not use it
or who said, you know, some people use it, think it's magic,
and you know, other people use it as a understanding that
represents the prayers of the Saints.
But it really does. In God's Kingdom and in his
worship setting within the throne of God, there's incense.
And every time the incense is sensed before the throne of God,
it represents the prayers of the Saints being lifted up to the
throne of God. Matt Redmond had a neat song.
Let the prayers of the Saints be like sweet smelling incense to
your heart. Remember that song, beautiful
song. And so it represents that to
God. But the four horns represent the
the place where the blood was applied on the Day of Atonement
for the sake of the the nation of Israel.
And so a very clear picture again of the things that are
lost in our time that will be again prevalent in the in the
Kingdom when we get there. And so he's telling this Angel
to release these angels to release what is bound at the
great river Euphrates. So the four angels and 15 who
have been prepared for the hour and day and month, and these are
evil angels by the way, and year were released to kill 1/3 of
mankind. Now the number of the army, the
horseman, was 200 million. I heard the number of them, and
thus I saw the horses in the vision, those who sat on them in
breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur
yellow. And the heads of the horses were
like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke
and brimstone. By these 3 plagues, 1/3 of
mankind was killed by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone
which came out of their mouths. For their power is in their
mouth and in their tails. For their tails are like
serpents having heads and with them that do harm.
So we we see the intensity of of this battle and what's going to
come upon the face of the earth. 1/3 I I can't imagine that some
commentators, they, they look at China and the east and the river
Euphrates throughout biblical history was always recognized as
a central place of, of God's wrath and also of, of, of
miraculous occurrences. And Israel, you know, the, the
borders of the Holy Land, Euphrates flows near and you
have the original Babylonian Empire that was very significant
with the the river Euphrates. And we see in Revelation 1612
that this river will actually be dried up.
Why is it going to be dried up? The capacity to actually travel
by tank or by some kind of vehicle, horses or whatever, the
potential of 200 million. And there's no other nation that
could have the size of an army except that nation in the east
wiping out 1/3 of the human race.
The armies from Russia, Iran, China, India, if they were
marching to the Holy Land today, they can hardly avoid getting
there without crossing this river.
It's very, very significant. And so God's sovereign hand in
this situation of judgment, allowing this to occur for a
reason, is that many would end up coming to Him.
And you know, the Lord is all knowing.
He's omniscient. No one gets out of here without
a chance. No one can stand in the
judgement and say, well, I'm in hell because no one ever told
me, or I'm in hell because you weren't fair or didn't send a
missionary to me. It says in Romans, as I read,
that every human being knows by conscience that there is a
creator. And it's in that human being's
heart that God will give them the capacity to either turn and
believe or not to believe. That's the goodness of God.
And Paul said that hasn't the whole earth heard even in his
own day. He said truly, the gospel has
gone out and to the ends of the earth.
And so the third that is wiped out weren't part of what we
would see the Bible describing elect or those that God knows
before we're born whether we're going to come to him.
There's no mistakes. There's no confusion with God.
And when we stand before him, he's not going to look and say,
how in the world did you get here?
You weren't in the plan. I mean, we're all in his heart,
but he knows who's going to choose Him and who isn't going
to choose him. That's God's hand and His plan
and His wisdom. But it's interesting when we
look in this Book of Revelation where it gives us math formula
in verse 16, the number of the army, the horseman was 200
million. Some of your Bibles might say
200,000 * 1000 and that's 200 million.
A human army perhaps with weapons and gas masks.
My son-in-law has served in Iraq and say caught civil forces,
special forces and they had all kind of access to the most high
tech weaponry, so sophisticated what it can do.
And so you get those kind of things in the hands of the wrong
people. And the devastation that can
occur on the face of the earth is, is unbelievable.
We know right now that some of these rogue nations have access
to a chemical warfare and an atomic bombs.
It'll be very easy to to pull this kind of event off.
But we think about this situation and I don't know about
you, we study this stuff and it's just another Bible study on
a Sunday. I hope not.
I hope whenever you hear this stuff and read this it, it
compels your heart to start to be broken over people that don't
know Christ yet. People need the Lord, everybody
needs Christ and if they don't have him, what's going to happen
to them and could God perhaps use your life or mine to point
them in the direction of Jesus Christ As we conclude verse 20,
it says the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues
and this is this astounds me. They still didn't repent of the
work of their hands. They still didn't say there's a
real God and I'm in trouble and I need to deal with him.
A narcotics officer living a double life using drugs or
busting people and then using drugs.
He's at a house, he's talking to some people, asking some
questions, doing his job, just want to get done, go home,
forget about it. He's guilty all the time because
how he was living his life. He's getting ready to leave and
there's a drug dealer coming up and he knows what's going on.
The people he's talking to are getting nervous.
A drug dealer comes up, he senses the vibes there and he
starts walking away like nothings happening.
Well, this guy, in spite of his double life, he knew his job is
to deal with this drug dealer. So he went down to the car to
confront the guy. The officer had his heavy
sweatshirt on with his badge under his sweatshirt and his
gun, and he didn't have a chance to get to the gun as quick as
the drug dealer. The drug dealer pulled out his
gun, held it right up to his face, pulled the trigger, click.
Nothing went. Nothing happened.
Nothing went off. He jumped in the car, took off
and they found the car later. $13,000 in cash, ton of drugs
and the gun. Took the gun back to the crime
lab to test it. They held the gun up and shot
and six bullets went off. Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang.
He knew that God had spared his life.
He had grown up as a in a Christian home but always blew
the truth off. Didn't want to hear it.
At that point he knew God spared his life and that he needed to
turn his life over to Christ. He didn't understand, but he
knew he had to come clean. So he went.
He told his wife what had been happening in his life and then
he went to the Sheriff's Office and told them what happened.
Turned his badge in and went to Teen Challenge and got dried
out. And since 2004 he has been been
clean and his heart now is broken.
Just not for people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol,
but respectable sinners, people like us.
Maybe you've never used drugs, Maybe you don't abuse alcohol.
But you have other issues, don't you?
And I have them. We have unresolved anger, we
have bitterness, we have unforgiveness, we have lust, we
have greed. We have all kind of stuff.
It's the heart. The human heart's a cesspool,
right? And if you don't believe that,
just ask. God, search me.
O God, know your heart. Try me and know my thoughts and
see if there be any wicked way in me.
I guarantee you, pray that prayer.
There's never going to be a time that the Lord doesn't show you
some new things to let go of and repent of.
I mean, that's my daily life. But as we think about these
things, it isn't just a study on a Sunday, but it's like, what
can I do this week? What kind of divine appointment,
Lord, do you have for me to come across someone I'm working with,
a neighbor, a relative, a friend, a hairdresser, gas
station, wherever we go, every day that we're so busy, we run
in and we run out and maybe we say a quick prayer, maybe we
give them a word of testimony. But life is crazy.
But if we can just slow down for a couple minutes and think about
the people that are still stuck in these patterns, and that's
the majority of human race. Think about what it might do if
they believe in what's going to happen in their lives to be
protected from this kind of thing that we've studied about
in Revelation today. Ezekiel 1823, a beautiful verse,
the Lord speaking through Ezekiel the prophet.
Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says
the Lord of God, and not that he should turn from his ways and
live. That's God's heart.
Do I have any pleasure at all as I look at this 9th chapter?
God would say at all that the wicked should die.
God loves God is a God of love. He has no hatred in his heart,
says the Lord God. And not that he should turn from
his ways and live. And that's what we need guys in
the, in the city, in this community, in this county, and
every place that we go, every place that we live, people need
the Lord. And you just don't know what the
Lord's going to do when you sow seed.
And the, and the problem with us, we don't realize it's not
our job to save people. We can't save anybody, but we
sure can throw seed around. You know, God can control
everything. Can he control the
circumstances? So our, our heart as a church,
you know, is about outreach and, and how do we get this message
into the hearts and lives of people who are on their way to a
crisis eternity, Don't waste time.
Let Jesus have your life, don't be apathetic, don't be sleeping
at the wheel. As Paul said, awake your
righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of
God and he says I speak this to your shame and may we not be
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Amen.
This has been Living Waters of Grace with Pastor Clark.
We're going through the challenging and also intriguing
Book of Revelation. Whether you're a fan of reading
ahead in books of fiction, there's such a benefit to
reading ahead in the Bible to read about how it all ends.
But in an interesting turn of events, the Book of Revelation
is not really the end, but rather the beginning.
It's the end of life as we know it here on earth, but there's so
much to look forward to. But what comes after all?
The judgement of the earth and those who reject God.
There's a lot to work through, and it can be heartbreaking to
read through the intense judgements and wrath that will
come on those who hate God with all their might.
The thing is, God has given chance upon chance to these
people. They don't want it.
So the outcome is that there are judgements and consequences for
those who've rejected the good news and the gift of salvation
that's offered through Jesus's death and resurrection.
Are you one who has heard about these things but doesn't really
want it because you want to live life on your terms?
Trust me, living for Jesus is so much better.
That doesn't mean it will be easy, but as you listen and read
through Revelation with us, you'll come to a stark
realization that you don't want to be on earth when the
apocalypse happens. So check out Calvary Chapel
online.com to learn how to come to a saving grace through faith
that will allow you to be with Jesus for eternity.
We'd also love to meet you in person at Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh
St. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601.
This has been living waters of grace.