Hordes Rev, 9:13-21
Revelation 9:13-21 · Vern Peterman · May 5, 2002
Revelation (2001-03), No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262242456905

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

In Revelation 9, 13-21, we get into a fascinating passage. We've been going through the three sets of seven. You have the seal judgments, seven seal judgments. Next, the seven trumpet judgments. And then lastly, the bowl judgments. This is the sixth of the seven trumpet judgments.

So we're kind of in the middle, roughly speaking. And as we look at this here, I think you'll find some fascinating insights that come out of this passage. Let's start off just reading the first few verses just to kind of refresh our memory and keep our context. Verse 13.

Then the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. One saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. and the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released so that they would kill a third of mankind. Now we've heard mentioned before of this golden altar in the heavens.

That was just last chapter, chapter 8. Remember chapter 8? In Revelation chapter 8 it came up and at that time we didn't pay particular attention to the golden altar But I'd like us to do a little differently this morning. We're going to focus on that a little bit more. It'll be the last time it's mentioned in the book of Revelation, and it has some depth and significance I don't want us to pass over.

First thing is just to kind of get an idea of what does this golden altar look like. Here is an artist's rendering to give you some sense of what that golden altar looks like. Now, this is not the golden altar in heaven per se, but this is an artist's rendering based on what scripture says as well as other writings in the temple when there was a temple set in Jerusalem. And we see the altar is golden and in fact it's actually a pretty bloody place.

And the reason is there's sacrifices of animals constantly being done on this altar. The priest actually had tough duty because they had to lay the animals on the altar and the altar had a fire burning on it constantly and they had to slaughter the animal and spread the blood around on the altar. So this was not easy duty. They had a tough job.

But it was a place of presenting sacrifices before the Lord in the Lord's presence. That was what the altar was about. And we find the golden altar referred to several times in the Old Testament and even again in the book of Hebrews. It was a part of the temple sacrificial system that the Lord had specified. It wasn't something they'd added on from the very beginning. It was God's plan and intent that this golden altar be there. It was the place that they conducted and presented their sacrifices to the Lord. It was a place of presentation.

Then what we find, and we've seen one of these already as I mentioned in chapter 8, but now here we are in the second place The golden altar is mentioned again, and notice here in verse 8, the golden altar which was before the throne, and now we're in the next chapter, the golden altar which was before God. Essentially saying, God is on His throne. It's the throne indicating that's the place of power, it's the place of sovereignty, it's the place of majesty. Basically saying the same thing in those two references. Now, there's more for us to take note of here.

The altar is mentioned in Revelation 9.13 as having four horns. Four horns, that sounds kind of strange. There's a reason for it, though. You see, to the Jewish mind, the horn symbolized power. The horns were also something that was not just a later add-on, it was something that was specified in the Old Testament. But to the Jew, when he thought of horns, and you'll see the word showing up, especially in the book of Daniel, you'll see it showing up as a symbol of power pretty consistently through Scripture, especially in prophetic texts. So these horns, when they're used in this reference, they're employed in Scripture as an emblem of the power of God or the power of Christ.

There's significance. It's not a word we should just pass over. Now, we should also not pass over some of the meanings of the altar, even as it applies to Christians. When you saw that picture, you thought, what does it have to do with me? No. Scripture, even in the New Testament, continues to apply some things, and I'd like us to take a look at those. For one thing, the altar was to have a perpetual fire.

If we look at that, this Old Testament passage here in Leviticus, Leviticus is where it lays out to the priests, here's what you're supposed to do, right? First God says to keep the fire going all the time, and He says it's not to go out. Then He gives them specific directions on how to keep the fire going, and then He says, keep the fire going, it's not to go out. You might get the impression He wants to keep the fire going and doesn't want it to go out, right? It's very deliberate in this passage. And now we turn to the New Testament and Paul's writing to the church of Thessalonica and what does he write? Do not put out the Spirit's fire. Some of your translations will say don't quench the Holy Spirit.

Same meaning. What was directed in the Old Testament as a physical reality is now directed to us as the church as a spiritual reality with some contrasts. The fire, in the Old Testament, was a responsibility of the priest to keep going. The fire of the Holy Spirit is God's job to keep going.

It's just up to us not to put it out. Don't quench it. The Holy Spirit's fire in us, the Holy Spirit's working in us, is something that God is going to do unless we suppress it. It's God's accomplishment. We don't have to crank it up. Some churches get that backwards. They feel like they have to crank up the Holy Spirit. Every time they gather, they sing songs about it. We don't need to do that. It's God's job to keep the fire going. All we have to do is say, we're not going to put it out. We're not going to suppress what the Lord is doing through the Holy Spirit.

There's another part of it. On this altar, they put sacrifices. And here's the description in Leviticus again, about you take this lamb, male or female, it's to be without blemish, you take that and you set it up on the altar and you slaughter the lamb and you take the blood and you spread it around the altar. Sprinkle it around the altar. This is the job of the priest. The lamb was sacrificed and killed in order for that to take place. But what does Paul's appeal in the book of Romans? Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

You see that? We've got some amazing contrast here. We're presenting our own bodies. What does that make us? We're the priests. Only guess what? We put the sacrifice on the altar, and it doesn't get slaughtered. It's a living sacrifice, but we're to stay there.

Okay? It's amazing. The same thing is referred to, but the spiritual service of worship is not for us to go there and slaughter the sacrifice, but for us to continue being this living sacrifice laid upon the altar. Isn't that amazing? So anyway, this word altar is not something we ought to just drop.

But it's brought up here, now for the last time, we'll see it in Revelation referenced specifically. But it's got multiple places, and we've just looked at a couple of them, where it's referenced in the New Testament and has significance. Okay. Now the next thing you see showing up in this passage, this river Euphrates. This river Euphrates is mentioned numerous times in Scripture, about 30 times. Adam and Eve were set there in the garden. Tower of Babel was built near there. That's where Abraham came from. Ur of the Chaldees, where he first came from, was right along the river. The Great Empire, several of them, were set within this drainage area. The starting place for this that we're reading about, the Sixth Trumpet Judgment, is here on the Euphrates River, and we're going to see it again in the Sixth Bowl Judgment. Interesting pattern, huh? It's the sixth judgment in the trumpets and the bowls that it shows up. Interestingly, after that, the Bible never mentions it again. It never shows up. So we'll read about it once more and never hear about it again in the whole rest of the book of Revelation or the Bible after that point.

Now, we turn to the question, what's these four angels about? We've got the four angels. They're mentioned earlier in there. What's this four angels about? Well, the question I have is, What's this about bound angels? This word bound in the New Testament is only used two places here in the book of Revelation. And this is the first one. The second one, the same word is used for binding Satan when he is bound and set aside for a thousand years during the millennium. It's the only place that it shows up.

And that's a part of the pattern that indicates what's the character of these angels. Angels who are on God's side don't get bound. We just don't see that pattern. This binding is specifically for those angels who long ago have decided to side away from the Lord and to be in Satan's hierarchy. The other thing that comes out of this, this is in the perfect passive participle, it means it's completely bound in the past. It's a done deal. It's already happened. It's already been accomplished. It's been set aside entirely.

Something else to take a look at here. You have on your handout a chart very similar to this. And I don't expect you to necessarily read this. Some of the smaller print may be harder. But you've got the handout to take a look at. Of all the angels, there are good angels. And as we noted last week, about two-thirds of them are in that category. There are those who are evil fallen angels, those who have sided with Satan. Those angels, as we talked about last week, have no opportunity for salvation.

They've made an eternal choice. The truth is, we make an eternal choice here too, don't we? We make an eternal choice, just like they do, but it's of a different character. We are fallen creatures that have an opportunity for salvation. These were unfallen creatures who made an eternal choice and have no opportunity, so far as we have any knowledge, of reversing that.

God has uniquely shown us mercy and His grace. So here are these creatures. Basically there are those who are permanently confined in the lake of fire. There seems to be a group here that are temporarily confined and then released during this time in chapter 9. And those are the ones that we see represented here partly by the four angels and then by the other beasts that we'll see described here in a minute.

Something else about Revelation 9.15 that stands out. Here are these four bound angels. These bound angels did not bind themselves. That would be kind of strange, wouldn't it? But they didn't bind themselves. This wasn't of their own doing. And the release is not of their own doing either.

What stands out in here, here's the Greek, it says, who had been prepared, these items are in blue, are in the passive voice. The preparing is not their doing. The preparation had been done to them. Everything that was happening here is something that is not a result of these angels getting ready. It is a preparation that was done to them. Their binding was something that was done to them. They were subject to what's going on here, not initiating it. Not out of their own decision. But this verse is telling us volumes about the sovereignty of God. God is in charge. He is the one making decisions. And He's looking ahead to things.

Now let me ask you, is this going to be an awful event that we're about to read? Yes. It's going to be an awful event. And yet, God knows about it in advance. I think that's something for us to keep in mind. Sure, this is the tribulation. We're not going to go through this. But, just another instance, the Lord is quite aware of what's taking place. This isn't some sort of a, oh heavens, this is awful, I wonder how that happened. God knows what's happening, okay? He's aware of what's taking place.

Now, this judgment is going to kill a third of mankind. If we were to take today's population numbers, somewhere around 2 billion people. That's a lot of people. This one judgment is massive. It's huge. Just to kind of give you some point of comparison, it took up until about the time of the Civil War for the earth population after Noah's flood to come up to a billion people. Since then, we've come up to about six plus. So we've had a tremendous growth.

Every minute that the Lord tarries this number, because we're only given a fraction to work with, this number gets bigger. Something else. Remember the previous judgment, people are stung by these locusts with the scorpion tails, and they cannot die. They will wish that they could die and cannot. In this judgment, a third of those who wish they could die will get their wish. Just a little too late to relieve the scorpion sting. But they'll get their wish. Now, let's start in verse 16.

The number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them. And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them. The riders had breastplates the color of fire and hyacinth and of brimstone, and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm."

Now, the army that is associated with these four evil angels are like those that we read about last week. They're coming from the bottomless pit. These are demonic creatures, and John says that he heard the number of them. Now, we saw and read in chapter 7. The last time we used that phrase, I heard the number of them, that was with the 144,000 Jews that the Lord had as servants, and He actually put a seal of protection on their foreheads. in order to preserve them through these various judgments. Now he says again, I heard the number of them.

I get the impression from reading that this number isn't just some sort of a guess then, that this is some specific number. The fact that he heard it means that the number came from a being in heaven. And so this isn't just some sort of shot in the dark, I guess it's about this number. he actually heard the number pronounced from heaven as to what was taking place. This is a specific number laid out, not a guess, but something, a heavenly being spelled out for him particularly. Now, most English translations are going to give this as 200 million. The actual Greek says 20,000 times 10,000. Lays it out that way.

What's interesting is that they're not described as being opposed to any human army. You notice that? Nobody's opposing them. There's no human army, and they're not described as taking territory. Don't usually human armies want to go and take territory? They want to gain something for the battle. Usually it's land, unless it's some resource or something. You don't see any of that here. It's not a matter of taking. What is the purpose?

These creatures are just out to kill. Nothing else. They're not there to take anything, to gain anything. They're just there to kill. And that's their intent. That is exactly what they want to do. That's all that's being accomplished here. They kill and kill and kill for no gain and no end. But it's fitting because their father is the devil, who is a murderer from the beginning. It fits their nature. Because that is exactly what the top of the hierarchy has as his nature. Satan himself.

John describes them with some interesting similarities to, believe it or not, the Parthian Empire, which is an empire that's east of the Roman Empire. And we don't hear much about it. We hear a lot about the Roman Empire. The Parthian Empire was just off to the east, and in truth, the Romans and the Parthians had various conflicts over time. Early on, the Parthian Empire and the Romans were in battle with each other, and the line kind of moved over time. But in general, this is kind of where it laid. The interesting thing is, the Parthians actually came in and took Jerusalem in 40 BC, And of course, the Romans didn't like that, right?

So what did they do? They said, we've got to put somebody there who will hold the line against the Parthians. And who they put in there was Herod. You've heard of Herod. This is the one that ordered the soldiers to go in and slaughter the babies in Bethlehem. So that's the connection here. The Parthians were the ones who came actually down into Jerusalem. And the Romans drove them out and said, OK, let's put Herod in there to kind of hold the line against these Parthians. But there's something else here.

The Parthian soldiers, they were famous for being riders of horses. And one of the things we brought out a few weeks back is the Parthians were also famous for shooting backwards on their horses. And the Romans learned the hard way that you don't chase these guys.

What happened was this. The Parthians would ride down and pretend to come in contact with the Roman army. The Romans would start fighting, and the Parthians would ride their horses up the hill. The Romans would chase them up the hill, all the while the Parthians were shooting backwards. They were very good archers, shooting backwards on a horse.

In this case, they show the guy turning around, and in actual fact, we actually know that some of them had sat backwards on the horse, and just shot like this as the horse rode up the hill. They lost two Roman legions before they figured out, don't chase these guys up the hill. These guys were nasty. But that's not all.

This is a Parthian warrior king, and admittedly a part of this drawing is missing, but it's a current drawing of the time done to commemorate this warrior king. But there's a couple of interesting things for us to note having to do with the passage we're looking at. And one of the things to look at, and hopefully you can see it well enough here, the Parthians would take the tails of the horses and they would tie them up so that the tails look like snakes.

What's right here below this? A snake. So you see that image. Now what we see is here is this image coming forth, only instead of being symbolic, it's real. Something else in this drawing is a little truncated. Off to the side you see the tail end of a lion. What you see in this passage described as the lion is the front end. The horse has a lion's front end.

Now, while this is interesting in terms of how it's like the Parthians, what is potent here is something the Parthians didn't have with this fire and brimstone coming out of the mouth of the horses. That's unlike the Parthians, okay? So there's some real differences here.

So what we see in this passage, here is this incredibly potent army that both at the front and the back end is dangerous. And they have the ability to cast out this fire and brimstone, and their numbers are massive. 200 million. Huge number of these massive, this massive army of dangerous creatures with no intent but to kill.

They don't want anything. And something else, we have no indication that any of them are lost. You can't fight these things. That's another reason, I think, why there's no description of any army opposing them. You can't fight them. They are invincible. There's no indication their number is diminished. There's no indication that any but humans were slaughtered.

Amazing, isn't it? Pretty ghastly, too. Now, something I want to cover. Some folks have said, well, this is some kind of an army of tanks. I don't think so. One reason is because 200 million tanks is a little bit beyond human ability to generate. And the other thing is, it has as its head these evil creatures. And they're spiritual beings. So I think this is a demonic army. And that fits. It also fits with the numbers that we saw in the last plague, which was also demonic. And the indications, for example, locusts These locusts came in swarms, and we know that locust swarms, where there are major locust swarms, are typically hundreds of millions. So this fits the order of magnitude in terms of the number of beings that are carrying this out. Okay, let's look at verse 20 and then 21.

The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands. So as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts."

What an amazing ending. Let's take a look at it. Now, we've seen already, by this time, not just millions, billions of people have been killed if today's numbers are to be used as a gauge. The response by those who remain is really absolutely amazing. You would think that by now they would start to think, you know, maybe I better give some consideration to this. Maybe I better think about this.

And what is astounding is they don't. We see very little evidence that people are responding. Instead, what we see them doing is headlong in reaction against the God who is obviously bringing about these horrible judgments. They don't get it. These guys are spiritually dense.

Now, the word repent is brought up here. And what's interesting here, I think we need to come back to it. We've looked at this some weeks back, but I want to come back to it here just because I think it's critical. And you also have this on your handout if I'm not mistaken. on side two there, repent. What is it?

The English word we oftentimes think of sorrow or contrition. That's kind of what comes to mind when we think of our word in English. But that's not the Greek word that is behind what we've translated. So it's important to make the distinction. Let's take a look at that. So this Greek idea instead focuses on a total change of thought and behavior based on a fundamental change of values. Something basic has changed, not just, oh man, I feel bad about it. There is a basic change that's gone on by recognizing what is valuable.

That's the Greek idea of repentance. The bottom line is, put it in context, it was saying these people did not have a total and ultimate change in values. That's what he's saying in not repenting. They didn't understand what's important. That's the key. It's important, as much as understanding what repentance is, to understand what it is not.

It's not a vow, we'll never do that again. It's not a determination, I'm going to do better next time. Not that. It's not a promise, we're going to serve the Lord. Sound familiar? It's not crawling your way back to God. It's not a guilt complex. Boy, I feel really, really bad. It's not that. It's not a legalistic way. Boy, I'm gonna really set up a good set of rules this time. That's not it either. It's not our best efforts. Boy, I'm gonna really try hard. Give it your best shot. Give it the old college try? No, that's not it. Not it.

But notice the pattern here. We have a couple places in the Old Testament, excuse me, one in the Old Testament, one in the New, where that phrase, did not repent, shows up. The first one shows up there in Jeremiah, and this is among the Jews, and they did not repent of their ways. And now we come into the book of Matthew, and here's Jesus, and he had done miracles among these people, and told them the truth, and they did not repent. So this is a pattern among the Jews.

Now, what we're seeing that's different in this passage, this isn't just a problem with the Jews. What we're seeing in this passage, and we're going to see it again in chapter 16, it's a global problem. This isn't just the Jews. This is a global, worldwide problem. Again, to use today's numbers, if one-third are killed, We've got six billion people. We lost two billion. The remaining four billion are all committed to not repenting.

That's their stance. They're not going to repent. And we're going to see that again, amazingly, after even more judgments come down. These people are really spiritually dumb. They haven't got the point. They don't recognize what's going on. Now, notice what these people did not repent of. Because the details are here. They didn't repent of the works of their own hands.

You see that? They insisted on a religion of their own creation. It seems like a human tendency, no matter what happens, is, I gotta do something. And especially, it must be extra good if I made it. Okay? It must be extra good if I made it. That's kind of the human mentality, isn't it? I've got to worship something, and if I've got to worship something, then I've got to make it with my own hands. Then it's really good.

Leviticus 7.17, Deuteronomy 2.17, and Psalm 106.37 all describe idol worship as the worship of demons. And that's exactly what we see here. It's demon worship.

Even that last reference, Psalm 106.37, it says that parents sacrifice their children in the worship of demons. Isn't that awful? It's a terrible thing. And I see no reason to think that what's going to happen here is anything different. It's just more of the same. More of the same. Now, these people are amazing. The demon locusts sting them mercilessly for five months. The demons savagely kill one-third of mankind. What does the remaining two-thirds do? They worship demons.

Now what kind of sense does that make? It doesn't, does it? It's bizarre. But that's the decay, the corrosion in men's thinking. This is the direction mankind goes without the Lord. Mankind, as we see, will be willfully religious, demonic, and idolatrous. Religious. Being religious is nice, right? No. They will be willfully religious, they will be willfully demonic, and willfully idolatrous.

And these are patterns that we see already spelled out. These are things that are of the nature of man. Romans chapter 1 describes the exact same thing. if I have my facts right, Hal and Lindy got to see some of that over in China. The fact is that this is the spiritual degradation of mankind. This is the nature of man without the Lord. Now, that isn't where it ends though. There's also along with it some terrific moral decadence.

What we're going to see next here along with this, they'll have murders. And notice that the murders are described in plural and they're done without any hesitation or apparent remorse. Taking another human life during the tribulation period will be done without a second thought. Without a second thought. You want to take somebody's life? Go for it. It'd be like eating breakfast. Okay? Without a second thought.

The Greek word We see next there translated sorcery, made reference to earlier, is pharmakon. Basically it means drugs. That's where we get our word pharmacy today. Drugs were used however in John's time, especially in Ephesus, that was kind of the capital, for magical arts, for witchcraft, and varieties of demonic influence.

So this is a really awful thing. This isn't going down to the pharmacy and picking up something that will help cure you. This is purely for decadence. This is moral decadence to the ultimate. And that's all there is to it. Now, what it tells us is during the tribulation period, the populace will be overrun with illicit drug use. It will be characteristic of them. The next thing, immorality which is composed of sexual abuse and perversion will be rampant. It will be everywhere at anyone's expense. All over the place.

Theft will be taking place at every turn. Stealing for drugs. Killing for drugs. Killing in the name of demonic power. These evils will be interwoven with each other. A person in the tribulation period won't mind doing one and then the next, this one to support the next one. If I got a kill to get my drugs, I'll kill. If I got a kill in order to cover up the immoral thing that I did, I'll do that too. These all tie together. The decadence is not singular. It's multiple. And it's intertwined and interwoven between them.

One of the things that you may notice, some of these words have shown up before. Other passages of scripture. Do you see that? Both Christ and Paul use some of these very same words, and these are the ones that I've highlighted in the blue there. Murder, immorality, theft, illicit drug use, those come from the heart of man. And I think that's important for us to note. Jesus particularly makes note of it here, but it shows up in Paul's writing as well.

We can't chalk this all up to the demons. You see that? We can't chalk it all up to the demons because the problem is with man. Mankind, from the heart, has an issue, has a problem before demons even come onto the scene. The problem is there. The demons are just multiplying it.

Now, we should make note, however, because You notice this was written during the church age, and this was actually written to the church. So we need to take an important side trip here, because here are some things that are mentioned here as being rampant during the tribulation period, but it is an issue now. It is an issue even now while we're here among the church age. Among those who have placed their faith in Christ for salvation. Paul has a solution for dealing with this. And his solution is not law. His solution isn't sitting there training your habits. His solution isn't, well, go out and fight and attack Satan. His solution instead is walk by the Spirit.

You see, it's an either or thing. This is not going to be exhibited in the Christian if the Christian is walking in the Spirit. The Lord isn't playing tug-of-war. on a percentage basis with this. At any one point in time, either the spirit is in control of the believer, or the flesh is. But it's not some percentage of each. So this is the Lord's appeal to us, because these issues are not just issues for the tribulation, they're issues for now. And the believer is in a position where by walking in the Spirit, they totally cut off the expression of the flesh. Completely. Not on a percentage basis, entirely.

Now, we know here what our defense against the flesh is, don't we? We're also told at the end of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 6, what our defense is against Satan and demonic enemies. There isn't any defense, however, against the tribulation period. except placing one's faith in Christ for salvation. That's the only defense.

But as we recognize this, whatever enemies or issues we've got, the Lord has given us a solution, hasn't he? He's given us a solution for dealing with this. What we find characteristic of people in the world there in the end of Revelation chapter 9, the Lord has made us so that we are not subject to those. same kinds of horrible, awful expressions of the flesh. Now, as we look ahead, because we've got actually quite a bit of Revelation to go through, I kind of want to do a foreview, looking ahead to some of the things we'll be looking at in the weeks ahead.

In chapter 10, there'll be John interacting with an angel. John will be eating a scroll. How about that? Chapter 11, You're going to look at the two witnesses. That's always been a big speculative item. Who are these two witnesses? Who are these guys?

And the seventh trumpet judgment will come out then. Chapter 12 will be the drama of Satan and Israel. And that's real relevant to what we see in our newspapers, isn't it? We see some of that early on, but the tribulation period will be the focus of that. What's going on now is just preparatory. Next, in chapter 13, there'll be the one world government and the beast. We'll be taking a look at that in detail.

And by the way, I think that's a real valuable thing for us to take a look at, because on the one hand, we could be unaware of it, and that wouldn't be good. On the other hand, believers need to make sure that they're not falling into the trap of being exceedingly fearful. Because scripture lays it out. God's sovereign. He knows what He's doing.

Okay, next thing is chapter 14. We're going to see the 144,000 again. There will also be a gospel angel and a reaper. Not a good one, as we'll see. Chapter 15, we're going to be looking at a brief heavenly scene there in that chapter. In chapter 16, there will be six bowls of wrath all in one chapter, including this battle of Armageddon that we see mentioned. In 17 and 18, we're going to see Babylon destroyed. The doom of Babylon. And one of the questions will be, who is the whore of Babylon? One of the questions we'll be looking at there. Chapter 19, Christ returns with the saints. That's us. So that'll be one you'll want to particularly take some interest in.

Chapter 20 will be the millennium judgments and then the end. Not the end the end, but the wrap-up, if you will, of things on earth prior to the new heavens and the new earth. And then chapter 21 and 22, the new heavens and the new earth and on into eternity.

So we've got a ways to go in front of us here, but I just want to kind of take some foreview and look at where we're headed with this. Keeping in mind as we look at this whole thing that we're being told about this in advance. And like we said many months ago, believe it or not it was September when we started this, we said many months ago, this book is written as the only book in the Bible that starts off with a promise of blessing for those who read it. So that's a neat thing. And so we want to look ahead at these chapters with keeping that in mind.

Okay? Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks that Though we look at the horrors that are indeed to come upon the world, that in placing our faith and trust in You, Lord, that we don't have to look forward to that ourselves personally. But we do pray, Lord, as we look at the applications that come out of that for us as believers, just pray that You would teach us, Lord, May we understand and grow in the knowledge of the truth of your word, and grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.