Hordes - Revelation 9:13-21
Revelation 9:13-21 · Vern Peterman · Jun 28, 2009
Revelation (2009), No. 26
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926137376477

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

Okay, Revelation 9, 13 through 21, title fours. This is continuing in the trumpet judgments. We're now getting to the last part of the trumpet judgments. And by the way, let's ask a question here. As we ask this question, What if someone were to say, you know, boy, this is almost unbelievable, how come God is so mean? How would you respond to that? I can't. How much evil do you want in heaven? Okay, we'll answer that. How much evil do you want in heaven? Questions might be one way to address it.

What else? How else would you address some comment or question like that? Yes? No? Let's ask this question. How serious is sin? Is this kind of a minor irritation? Exceedingly. Yeah. It is a huge problem. God's righteous, he can't stand sin. And God's kind of righteous, more or less righteous, absolutely righteous, infinitely righteous and holy. And sin is a big, big problem. Here's something else.

God has, at his own expense, expressed to mankind is mercy and His grace, which is also infinite, right? And what has man done with it? I don't want it. It doesn't matter to me. Yeah, I don't want it. And so part of it is the sin issue, but then God essentially dealt with it on His side. But even that expression, which is an expression of God's mercy and God's grace, man just casts away, rejects. So essentially it is an utter rejection of all of God's character. It is not simply a, you know, hey these guys, they're not too much worse than anybody else, right? No. This is an expression of rejection of all of what God is and who He is in His basic, infinite, eternal character. So, anyway, I think that's a key question to ask here. Morning!

So in verse 13 of chapter 9, Revelation, Then the six angels sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, Now, this passage mentions the golden altar. Back in Revelation chapter 8, we heard that before. At that time, we didn't take a close look at it. We'll do that this time. And by the requirements of the law given to Israel, though the altar is golden in appearance, actually bronze is the material, the golden in appearance. It was in fact a rather bloody place and that's why we have this picture up here. Imagine these guys, they had this bronze altar. It had these horns at the corners as it was spelled out in the Old Testament.

But what are they doing all day on this altar? What's happening on this altar all day in the temple? Sacrifices all day. It's a bloody place. Now, let me ask you this. Here's all of Israel on Passover. Did they kind of spread it out over a few weeks in order to kind of make it easy? No. What do they do? They celebrate it all at one time. So here's all Israel. And then they go to the priests all in one day. And typically it was all pressed into the afternoon. And slaughtered all the lambs for all the people that are all gathered all at once.

So it's actually a very messy place. Messy place to be. Yeah. Temperature in the summertime is about 110. Yeah, and this was out in the sun by the way. Yeah. Okay. And he got the fire going. And by the way, they weren't allowed to let the fire go out. And so, I mean, it's hot. It's really quite a job. This is no easy task.

So here we have this mention of the Golden Altar. Scripture has several references. You see them in the middle of the first page there. These references to the Golden Altar. It was a key part of the temple sacrificial system that the Lord specified for the Jews. It was a place that they conducted and presented their sacrifices to the Lord. And the sacrifices were of all kinds. Of course, annually you have this Passover. But all sorts of sacrifices, and they had different feasts they were supposed to carry out.

A total of seven spelled out in the Law of Moses. They have these different feasts that they have, plus other events. What did Joseph and Mary do after Jesus was born? They went to the temple, right? And they couldn't afford a large sacrifice, so here's some birds. But again, for all kinds of events, baby's born, you've got another sacrifice. This happened, that happened, you got another sacrifice. So sacrifices all the time. All the time. They're very busy with this.

Book of Revelation has two places where it talks about the Golden Altar. We've previously covered, but didn't address in any detail, Revelation 8.3 at the bottom of page 1. Another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer and much incense was given to him so he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. So what we see here in the heavenly scene is a heavenly equivalent of what is described there in the temple. This golden altar.

OK. It's called a golden altar in both places. In one place it's called before the throne, and in another place it's before God. Is there a difference? No. No. It's the same thing, isn't it? Before the throne and before God is the same thing. Same message. Right there, before God, in His presence.

But there's more to take note of here. The altar is noted here in Revelation 9.13 as having four horns. It might seem like a really big deal to us, but the horns of the altar are specifically described in their use detailed in Old Testament law. A horn in the Jewish picture of things symbolized power. That's why the horns at the corner. Power. In the book of Daniel, and we don't make reference to it here, it's one of the places where horns come up repeatedly as a picture of power.

We have reference here in Luke 1.69 and Revelation 5.6, Psalm 8.2, the power of God and the power of Christ. So the mention of the horns in this passage is not incidental. Horns represent the power of God Himself. Horns are the presence of God Himself. Why? Because God is powerful.

So it makes good sense. The other is this perpetual fire on the altar. Just like we show here in the picture, they had to keep it going all the time. Later on, we're aware of a rotating set of responsibilities between the different tribes and sub-tribes when different people would have to get together with their tribe and cut wood to keep the temple supply. Here's an interesting for instance.

One of the things that would have to happen with David, here he is a young capable man, right? No, I'm sorry. Joseph, husband of Mary. Here's Joseph, husband of Mary, in New Testament times, and he's of what tribe? The tribe of David. So here is Joseph of the tribe of David, so he has to go to the area of Bethlehem to get with the rest of his tribe at the assigned time every year, and cut the wood. in order to keep the temple going because it was stated in the law, you will not let the fire go out and you have to keep it supplied. So that was the way that they ultimately set up to do it, was to have the assigned wood cutting. for the temple.

And so here for the Jews, Leviticus 6, 12 and 13, the fire on the altar should be kept burning on it. It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning. He shall lay out the burnt offering on it and offer up smoke and the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. Fire should be kept burning continually on the altar. It is not to go out. By whose effort was the fire maintained?

Ultimately, the priest was to burn the wood on the altar and later on, they ended up developing this tradition of different parts of the various tribes had assignments for, okay, your month, it's your turn to cut the wood, right? And so they would set up a schedule like that so that the different tribes would contribute and then the priest would take the wood that was delivered and put it on the altar and keep it going all the time. Never to let it go out.

Yes. Well, they can't because there's no temple. Yeah, in the temple, they had to do that. When the temple was destroyed, there was no place to burn it. Yeah, it's right here. It's Leviticus 6, 12 and 13. Yeah, you've got to do it. You have to do it. But now, there's no temple.

They don't know who the priests are. So they've got an issue there and it will take another temple and it will take figuring out who are the qualified priests to do that. And who knows, they may even have woodcutting reconstituted by the tribes. So how do they do their sacrifices now? They do not. And the rabbis justify it by substituting prayer for sacrifice. Yeah, good question.

Well, because the priest had to be of the tribe of Levi, right? They had to be of the tribe of Levi. And so you had to have qualified men. As a matter of fact, one of the kings, early in Isaiah's ministry, got himself into big trouble by running in there. He's descended from David, right? That's not of the tribe of Levi. He runs in there as the king, thinking that he can do this priestly thing. and the Lord judged him.

It was a bad scene. Right now, because the records were destroyed when the Romans destroyed the temple, right? Right now, the only clue they have, did you ever hear anybody whose last name was Levi or Levitt or Cohen? That's priest. So there's some clues, but it may be a tough one. And so that's something to be sorted out. Because right now, with all the records lost, you can't be as certain as you once could. And even during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, there's record of them excluding certain people for not having quite the right lineage. So, yeah, it's sticky. It's sticky. Because they have a difficult time being sure. Yes.

If you can believe channel six and discovery channel, aren't they doing a lot of DNA work with. Yeah, there's a lot that's being done in the last decade or so with DNA work that's starting to pick up who's related to who and who's descended from who and they're drawing lots of conclusions even about Jews and you know which who's really a Jew and all those things.

And also the priests came from Levi and the kings came from Judah, right? The kings were descended from Judah through David, except for Benjamin. Excuse me, of the tribe of Benjamin, Saul. Yeah. Okay, so there were two different tribes involved. Yeah, in other words, if you look at it, the kings, other than Saul from the tribe of Benjamin, the kings were all descended from David except for the northern kingdom, which had like nine different dynasties. But for the southern kingdom, which was the valid kingdom, it was, other than Saul, descended from David. So they're going to need something to prove the priest too, or the king, right? Well, who is the king? Jesus. And do we have record that he is the king?

Yes, we do in the New Testament. Even in the book of Hebrews, it says it is evident that Christ is descended. It is evident, present tense, that Christ is descended from Judah, from David. It is evident, present tense. At the time, you could check on the records.

Yes, that's right. But we also have genealogies in the New Testament of Christ. I was just wondering in heaven, is there going to be fire on this altar that John is looking at? Yes. And here's Isaiah chapter 6. Remember, Isaiah says, woe is me, I'm the man of unclean lips, and what does one of the seraphim do but bring a hot cold? Yeah. So here on the heavenly altar is this indication of fire. Now, here's the amazing point. The Jews have a fire that must be maintained by man, and it must not go out.

The church has one reference to something similar, and that's in 1 Thessalonians 5.19.

That's the bottom part of your text box on page 2. 1 Thessalonians 5.19. Do not put out the Spirit's fire. Who maintains the Spirit's fire? The Spirit.

What's our job? Is it our job to maintain the fire? Yes or no? To maintain it. Yeah, our place is not to maintain it, but not to quench it or put it out. It's a very interesting thing. God is responsible in the church for maintaining this fire of the Holy Spirit. in us, unlike the law where it was man's responsibility, under grace it's God's responsibility. Our place is don't mess with it. Don't mess with it. So real interesting the contrast there.

You folks are an altar. You folks are a temple. Isn't that cool? And it's God's responsibility to maintain the fire. Ours is just to not mess with it. Alright, let's look at page 3 here. Here's the New Testament. Paul's writing to that church there in Thessalonica. We talked about it's the Lord's job to keep the fire going. We're just not supposed to mess with it.

Now, let's look at another application of the altar. The altar for the Jews. This is from Leviticus 3, 5-8. And Aram's sons, descended from the tribe of Levi, right? Offer it up in smoke on the altar on the burnt offering, which is on the wood that is on the fire. It is an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. But if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord is from the flock, he shall offer it, male or female, without defect."

Why the without defect? Perfection. And why is that important? That's right. These sacrifices are picturing Christ, and so that lamb must not be one with blemish. Because Christ is the spotless lamb. So here's John the Baptist introducing Christ, and what does he say twice in the first chapter of John? Behold the Lamb of God, this one without defect. If he is going to offer a lamb for his offering, then he shall offer it before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand on the head of the offering, slay it before the tent of the meeting, and Aaron's son shall sprinkle the blood around the altar." Okay, do we have an altar in the church? Is there one up here? No. Where's the altar? Where is it? Can you point to it? Look at this. Here's Romans 12.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies. You're the sacrifice, right? A living and holy sacrifice. Acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Who does the presenting? We do. In order to be qualified to do the presenting, what do you have to be? Well, that's the sacrifice. But you're a priest, yeah. You're a priest, so you are qualified as a believer, as a priest, and you're the sacrifice too. How about that? You do the presenting, so you're a priest. You're also the sacrifice.

But it's a sacrifice that doesn't get killed. It's a living sacrifice. It may seem that way, yes. But the real conflict is the tendency for us to crawl off. That's the conflict. Acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. That's your spiritual service of worship. We, a lot of times, we get wrapped up in, what's worship? Here it is, folks. You're the priest. You're the sacrifice. You're the altar. Yes, the Lord is not asking us to go and present ourselves as the old man. The old man has nothing to offer. But as the new man, as who you are in Christ, who you are with Christ in you, that's the person he's talking to here. Okay. Now, verse 14, it's the bottom of page 3.

The one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, released the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. 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, remember last week we spent a lot of time studying angels and it was in preparation for looking at these demonic creatures who had come out of the abyss for five months. This week's passage also addresses these demonic, angelic creatures. In Revelation chapter 9, we're not told who is behind the voice that calls for the four angels to be released, but the voice directs the angel who had blown the sixth trumpet to release the four angels who had been bound at the River Euphrates.

So, first of all, let's take a look at this thing. What is the Great River Euphrates? This Euphrates River is mentioned 30 times in Scripture. from Genesis 2 to Revelation 16, so we're not at the last time, but we're close. It's called great not just for its size, although it's a biggie, but because of its ancient and future significance. It first of all has a proximity in relation to the Garden of Eden, so its connection to things in Scripture is ancient.

It runs through Shinar, the area of the Tower of Babel, showing up there again in Genesis. It runs past the pagan city of Ur, originally the hometown of Abraham. It runs through Babylonian, Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Parthian Empires. The Parthian Empire was the one east of the Roman Empire into the New Testament times.

So for millennia, thousands of years, this river has great significance. Its significance is not dubbed. It'll be the starting place, or the start place of the Sixth Trumpet Judgment, that river. We've got troops over there now, around that river, right? This river is called great, not just because of its size, but because of its tremendous spiritual and historical significance. After this time that we're going to see here, the Bible never mentions it again.

And we can see that in chapter 16. The evidence is convincing that these four angels are not angels on God's side, but like the ones that we saw last week, they are instead evil angels that carry out God's plan because God is sovereign. In that regard, they are similar to Satan and the fallen angels that we saw in last week's passage. What are some of the reasons why these four angels would not be just angels that are on God's side? What does it say about the four angels initially? They're what?

Bound. Angels on God's side. That doesn't seem to make sense for angels on God's side to be bound. These are bound and actually the Greek tense there is they are and have been bound. So it's not like a short-term binding. It's like they've been waiting there for a long time. So they've been bound up until this time and for some period of time they've been bound. Interesting. Let's talk about binding angels. Here the angels are bound and they're to be released for this time of destruction. Can you think of another angel that has been or will be bound?

Satan. And when is that going to happen? During the millennial kingdom, a thousand years, Satan will be bound. It explicitly says Satan will be bound. Not stated explicitly, but it may also be, I think it's likely, that other angelic beings under his direction will also be bound. Not stated, so that's speculation, but I think it's probably a reasonable speculation.

Are we to go about trying to bind Satan? Is that our job? I see heads shaking. Why not? Ever heard anybody try to do it? Yeah, people on TV. It's funny, if it's on the television, they're especially prone to do that. What are they trying to do? They're trying to show that they have power. But anyway, it says in Jude that you are not supposed to argue with angels, not even Michael. That's right, argued over Moses' body. Both 2 Peter and Jude warn seriously about reviling angelic majesties, even those that are evil.

It is not our place to do. What is our place to do? Resist. We don't need to bind Satan. Besides that, Satan can't do anything that God doesn't give him permission to do anyway. So we don't need to run around afraid of Him. If somebody binds Him, I don't know who lets Him loose. If that's supposed to be our job. Think of all the different people who go around the world binding Satan. How does he ever get loose?

The reality is that this doesn't happen. And we don't need to worry about it. There will be a time when Satan is bound on the Lord and we'll see that it gets done. And it won't be our job and we won't have to mess with it. He'll have his time and he'll be bound and that's not our problem. It's not ours to deal with. Now, let's look at page 5.

You've got a chart there that shows spiritual categories of angels. One-third are evil angels in alliance with Satan. There was a period of time when the angels as created beings, all created at one time, We're given a window of opportunity to choose for or against the Lord. As we will see when we get to chapter 12 of Revelation, one-third of them decided to side with Satan. It takes some spiritual insanity to do that, but nonetheless that's what they did. Two-thirds are good angels that are in alliance with the Lord. And that number doesn't appear like it will ever change. Those who chose against the Lord do not appear to have any opportunity to be redeemed. Their fate is fixed.

And as a matter of fact, they seem to know it. In Matthew, where the guy who had the legion of demons within him, first thing they see Jesus and they say, you're not ready to start torturing us, are you? They're afraid of it. They know what's happening. They know what's coming. And they're afraid. They're fearful of it. So they're not ignorant. They know they've got a certain amount of time and when they're done, they're done.

They know what their destiny is. So then you have These good angels, there are those who are held in the abyss, Tartaros, except for the tribulation period, the five months release, and it's possible that these angels that are bound are part of that group, but then there are those that are loose on the earth, like the ones that were in that demoniac, the one who said, you know, the demon said, we are a legion, we are many. Okay? Yes.

And the last part where it says, so they were released so that they could kill one third of mankind. They, those four, are responsible for doing that? Well, we'll see how that works its way out because we've got more description here. So we'll see how that gets carried out.

These bound angels, we've got a little bracket in there. It's the same word for bound for Satan. So it's an interesting thing that word binding is the same. It's a perfect passive, which means that they've been completely bound in the past. It wasn't their own doing or something that they volunteered for. They were bound outside of themselves. Okay, let's take a look at verse 6, and this will begin to answer your question.

The number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them. Interesting. John is very explicit about that, isn't he? He didn't just say, you know, I think it's around 200 million. He did what? He heard actually the number maybe being pronounced.

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 of hyacinth and brimstone and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions and out of the mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. So like the scorpion locust creatures before, these things are some wild hybrid. And a third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone was proceeded out of their mouth. 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. What's interesting is you start thinking of these creatures. Here is an army of creatures. apparently with demonic power. They have an admittedly odd description.

When we think of wars and battles, frequently we're finding that wars and battles are fought over somebody trying to take over another territory or something of that sort. And so battles get fought and then the other side is defending against the attack. And that's our usual scenario for You know, typical human wars. These creatures don't seem to have territorial takeover as an issue.

What are they doing? They're there just to do what? Just to kill. That's all they're doing. And they kill with one means and then another and then another. But they're not to take over territory, although they do seem to be generally geographically around this Euphrates River. But they're just there to kill.

So it's a very strange thing. It's also one of the things that I think points to a demonic source and that is that this isn't just a human army. Some people have tried to chalk this up to some human army and, you know, it's going to be this group or that group. It's not the description here. This is something very odd in character, more of a hybrid creature and not trying to take over this or take over that or get revenge for this or that, just kill. Just kills.

There are similarities to the Parthians. The Parthians was an empire. Let me get you some maps here. Here's the Parthian Empire, which is just east of and has a point of contact there with the Roman Empire. So the Parthians were there during New Testament times. For a short period of time in 40 BC, they actually came in and took Jerusalem for a short period of time. So they liberated the Jews for a brief period of time from the Romans. And then the Romans pushed them back out.

Yes. And Nineveh is one of the primary cities within that empire, right? Yes, it's an area that included the old Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian empires. And it covers an area that now is not entirely defined by any current country, but it includes at least a portion of Iraq. And goes on into Iran and some other areas. So here's this Parthian Empire. There are similarities between what's described here, but also dissimilarities.

Here is the remains of a painting of a Parthian warrior king. One of the things that you'll see is, of course, archery is a big thing. This is actually a hunting picture. You see him, he shot deer and there's a back end of a lion on the bottom. What do you see underneath the horse? Snake. Here's this guy, he rules over the wild creatures. I guess that's it. And then on this one here, this is a Parthian, you have it on your handout. This is a Parthian warrior from an earlier drawing and it's a pretty good one.

They would dress up the front end of the horse like a lion and they would dress up the tail like a snake. But here's the wild thing is that they would do a great deal of their shooting while riding backwards. And that's what you see in this picture. They would shoot arrows riding backwards. And while the horse was moving, and they were very, very good at it.

And at first the Romans had a terrible time because the Romans didn't understand if they're riding away from you, they're not retreating. You get that? If they're riding away from you, they're not retreating. What would the Romans think? These guys are riding away, they're retreating, right? So what do you do? You drop your heavy shield cover and you start running after them. Oh, big mistake. Big mistake. Because then they turn around, do a loop, and then ride away from you and shoot at you again, right? And then it's disastrous because you drop your shield cover and you've lost it.

So it's funny, there's a part of this picture of these Parthian warriors that's in this description and then some other things that are beyond anything that the Parthians ever had. Okay, looking on to page 7, the rest of mankind who are 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 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 their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts." What you have is huge civil unrest, and lots of involvement in idolatry, And what we have here are the sorceries. The word for sorceries is Pharmacia, where we get our word Pharmacy. Give me drugs. This is terrible. Give me drugs. Only this isn't medical use of drugs. This is just I want drugs for the sake of whatever experience I can get or pain relief or whatever they want there.

One of the things to clarify here is the text box in the middle of page 7, I think, addresses it. The English word for repent often conveys the idea of sorrow or contrition. I feel really bad for what I've done, right? But the Greek word has the idea of change the mind. Change the mind. There may or may not be feelings associated with it, but there's definitely a change of mind. It focuses more on changing the thought and then the behavior as a result of that as a fundamental change in values.

Values about God indicates that we make a decision decisively. Repenting is not a vow that we'll never do it again. Repenting is not a determination to do better next time. Repenting is not a promise to serve the Lord. We're not promise keepers. Repenting is not a guilt complex where we feel really bad about sins.

By the way, how many of you feel the Lord really, really wants you to feel extremely guilty? Good. He doesn't. That's not his intent. Repenting is not a legalistic way of trying to get God's approval by our best efforts. What's interesting is that the Jews had patterns of did not repent. Did not repent.

We show that in Jeremiah, even in Matthew 11, in the passages in the text box in the bottom of the page there. Notice that these people didn't repent of, I'm looking at the bullets on the top of page 8, they didn't repent of the works of their own hands, the stuff that they did and do, They were insistent on a religion that came of their own creation.

I'll worship it as long as I get to make it. If it involves religion, then their thinking was, I've got to do something. It was also a religion of doing. I've got to make it in order to worship it, and I've got to do something. The idea of programs today is nothing new. Yeah, do, do, do, right? We end up having the holiness as the do-ness, and that from human beings as the source.

The next bullet down, Leviticus 17.7, Deuteronomy and Psalms there, all describe idol worship as worship of demons. Paul also agrees with that, as does John there.

So mankind will be willfully religious, demonic and idolatrous. Isn't that amazing what they will go to? Willfully religious, demonic and idolatrous, but not repentant at all. One more thing, let's take a look at page 9. Mankind will be totally morally decadent.

Murders, and by the way, murder is plural in the Greek. It won't be just a murder here and there and the rate will go up. It'll just be, wow, lots. Murder will be rampant. Killing another human being will be acceptable. Sorcery is also plural. It's actually sorceries. The Greek word pharmakion or pharmakon, a drug incantation or enchantment using drugs. It was used in John's time in magical arts, in witchcraft and in demonism. So that word shows up twice actually in the Book of Revelation. Immorality, the Greek word is pornea. We get our word pornography from that.

Rampant sexual abuse and unspeakable sexual perversions. Left and right. All the time. Everywhere. Thefts. Plural. Complete moral breakdown where mankind will steal and cheat at every turn. It will be raunchy. Raunchy. Where do these come from? The devil made me do it. There will be demons involved. Is that really where it comes from? Well, we'll talk about that next service. I heard this week on TV a passage which fits well.

It's 2 Thessalonians 2.11.

For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. Yes. The Lord will send the influence at the same time He is sending out these 144,000 to be constant spokesman, untouchable by all these different things. He will have two witnesses, the first half of the Revelation, who will be speaking out the truth. There will be a gospel angel going about in the atmosphere where people can hear and see. In the midst of all that, there will also be the opportunity to follow what is false. Most will follow what's false. They will set aside the 144,000. They will set aside the two witnesses. They will set aside the gospel angel.

All present during the tribulation period. and say, I want to do the idolatry. I want to follow the demons. I want to take the drugs. I want to do the murders. I want to do the thefts. I want to do the sexual perversion. Yeah. And that's the charisma of the Antichrist, right? Yeah. Because that's what Paul's talking about in 2 Thessalonians, the man of lawlessness.

You see, essentially, really what's happening is, a lot of people worry, are things getting better, getting worse? A lot of what's happening is polarization. What's drawing your heart? Where is your heart being drawn and what is it being drawn by? So really, a lot of what's going on is people are being polarized. You're either being drawn to the Lord and what He has to offer, or you're being drawn away. And if being drawn away is what you want, it's there.

It's available. The works of the flesh, that's the last part there in the text box on the bottom of page 9. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, Impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. Just about everything on the list fits what will be happening during the tribulation period. Rampant flesh. Rampant flesh. That's the description of what you see there. It'll be an intense outburst. Rampant flesh.

Okay. Let's see. Something last Sunday that Pat brought up is something I'd like to address, because you made a statement of something I've heard again and again, and I think it's good to clarify if you don't mind. And that is, you said, God cannot look upon sin, right? How many of you have heard that before? Yeah, I have, yeah.

And that is true God cannot look upon sin without responding. God cannot look upon sin without taking action. God cannot look upon sin and be dispassionate. That's the full picture of it. Twice in Genesis chapter 6, where it's just before the flood, It says that God saw that the thoughts of men were only evil continually. So God can look upon sin, but does God just say, oh well, boys will be boys? No. And so what it really says is that God cannot look upon sin and be dispassionate. God cannot look upon sin and not act. So what does God do?

He puts grace and mercy there. And in Noah's time, how is grace and mercy expressed? Yeah, here's Noah, who for 120 years is a preacher of righteousness, as the New Testament calls him. So first of all, they got the gospel continuously preached to him for 120 years after the Lord says it's time to do this thing in. So they get the gospel preached to them for 120 years, and then here's Noah and his sons building this ark, and all who go on the ark are preserved, and there was the opportunity for others to go on the ark. Nobody took them up on it, but that's their problem. For a little bit. So that was an instance then. Let's ask the question.

Right now, what is the Lord's expression of mercy and grace? Yeah, the Lord's expression of mercy and grace is through Christ, to us, and here's this amazing thing. being saved, salvation, is absolutely free. What's the wages of sin? Death. Now, if you want life, that's free. But if you want death, well, you've got to work for it. That's wages. So life is free. You can't even pay for it. You can't pay it back. You don't owe God something because there's no way you could pay it back. It's absolutely free. So if it's life you want, that's absolutely free. But if it's death you want, you're going to have to work for every little bit of it. The wages of sin is death. So which one do you want? Radical contrast.

But why would God make salvation available at his own expense? He is a God who cannot look upon sin dispassionately. He is a God who cannot look upon sin without acting. For those who refuse His mercy and His grace, there is judgment. That's what we're seeing during this tribulation period. It's a specific period of time where the world en masse, by and large, rejects His mercy and His grace. And therefore, because he cannot look upon sin and be dispassionate, he cannot look upon sin without acting, having rejected his mercy and grace for the most part, they now see God's wrath. But only because they've rejected the mercy and the grace. God can't look upon sin and be dispassionate. God can't look upon sin and not act. He will act First offering is mercy and grace, but if that's rejected, then is wrath.

So I thank you for bringing that up because it offered an opportunity to clarify that, at least I hope that is clarified. So, we are sinners. Well, let me look at this. We were sinners by nature. We were sinners by nature. But what are we by nature now? Where are you?

In Christ. Yeah, in Christ. Christ is in you. You are this new person, Paul writes to the church. We'll see it when we get into the place in Corinthians. And we saw it in Galatians. Those two places, you're a new creature. You're a new creation. And so while sinners describes what we were before, we are now believers who while in this fleshly body do sometimes sin. But even that, the sin is not going to go into eternity. Ascend one up. Ascend one up. Even that, He will deal with it.

Is that the same thing as saying that the Lord looks at us and sees us in Christ? Yeah, that's right. In other words, when He looks at us, we are in Christ. And that's why Paul keeps hammering the point home. You're in Christ. You've been united with Christ. You've been united with Him in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating in the heavenlies. He does not look at us and see a sinner. He says, I see a person who's been identified with Christ in those five ways. I see a person. Here's Paul later on in Ephesians.

He's going to say, you guys have to stop your stealing. And you guys have got to quit your foul language. And you guys have to quit being cruel to one another. But before we get there, I need to tell you, you're seated in the heavenlies. Before we get there, I need to tell you, I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Ain't that great stuff? That's wonderful stuff. And a lot of people get the mistaken idea that we're supposed to go around all guilty and everything. No guilt! It's all gone! Here's Paul, Romans 8, right? Now, were those people perfect? No. In their daily condition, they had all sorts of problems, and he had to write several chapters to talk to them about it. First part of Romans chapter 8. There is therefore now a little bit of condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None! Zip! Nada! Yahoo!

That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's wonderful stuff. So anyway, thank you for asking that question because it brings up a marvelous point. God looks upon sin, and He must deal with it. Fortunately for us, He's made this grace and mercy totally available to us, completely free.

It doesn't cost us a cent, and the amount that He paid is so huge we can never pay it back anyway. The amount of guilt that he wants us to carry around in our pockets and our heads and, you know, hanging on our ears and everywhere else is zip. Nothing nada. Nada de. Isn't that great? It's wonderful stuff.

Satan likes it though. Yeah, Satan is the one that wants Christians to feel guilty. Yeah, he would like that. But the Lord says, sorry, it doesn't stick. It doesn't stick with me. So, that's a big difference, yeah. And another thing, when you talk about the identification, the burial and then the resurrection.

Yeah. I used to always think that, you know, when you receive life back, that it's actually the bios life. life. There's Bios and there's Zoe. And Zoe is the eternal life. So if we truly identify with Christ's death, and we identify with His resurrection, then we're receiving the eternal life and not the fleshly life. Yeah, the fleshly, earthly life is the one thing. We're being offered eternal life. That Bios life died. And the old man with it. Yeah. Yes, right?

I wonder if we should say here that one of the big deceptions of our sin nature is to take this trample on God's grace. Instead of letting the fire of the Holy Spirit show us His grace, show us His mercy. All we see is, I can get away with this. The sin nature always operates under a distortion. But isn't that what happened back in the garden? Let's see if we can distort things.

And so the sin nature wants to distort grace. The sin nature wants to distort guilt. Which is part of the passage in the Great Peace Explorer that says we are being renewed in the spirit of the Holy Spirit. To see his grace, to see his mercy throughout.

It's not a matter of trampling on grace or, oh heavens, we have grace, let's just go ahead and sin so there's lots of grace. It's not consistent. It's who we are because of the grace is radically different and not consistent with continuing to presume upon grace. Trampling grace, as you put it.

We've run out of time, so let's pray and let the Lord cover the rest of things here. Lord, we thank you for the wonderful, precious teachings that we have as we look at the passage here that describes what is indeed going to be a horrible brief time an awful time for a great many. We do want to look at it and just be amazed by your grace. It is those who are damaged by this judgment who have rejected, spat upon, so to speak, your grace, trampled upon it utterly and ultimately. Lord, we just thank you for your indeed amazing grace that we who are in Christ Jesus have no condemnation in who we are in you. We just pray in Jesus name, thanking you. Amen.