His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Today on His Perfect Love, the unleashing of evil on a Christ-rejecting world.

Guest (Male): This is His perfect love. It's what real love looks like. This is His perfect love.

Guest (Male): Hi there. Welcome again to His Perfect Love online at hisperfectlove.org. We'll be joined by Pastor Matt Vanderboegh in a moment who today picks up where we left off in Revelation. At this point in the tribulation period, people are now subject to supernatural tormenting of demonic spirits. It will last for 5 months and be so bad that people will want to die but can't. God is still giving mankind an opportunity to repent and believe. Here's Pastor Matt to tell us all about it.

Matt VanderVen: This is His perfect love. I'm I'm going to have a little bit of an introduction sort of this chapter because we are going to be moving into the three well, the section of the scriptures in Revelation called the three woes. We talked a little bit about it last week. So, we we've come as far as again chapter 9 verse 1. We left off with Jesus's Revelation telling us about the fourth angel that was pronouncing three woes. He was communicating obviously a severity and the last three trumpet judgments that are to come. You know, Jesus warned that even more deadly judgments were on the horizon.

They were about to fall and he was trying to get their attention. He wanted those that were clinging sort of to the domain of Satan, this world, the Egypt of past, if I can say it that way. He wanted to say sort of wake up. What is it going to take for you to figure out what's coming and what's already come, right? It's the great tribulation. So, certainly we understand it's a warning, the angel that blew that trumpet, that fourth trumpet, and then the three woes that are coming. But it also was a herald to bring forth God's mercy in the foreground.

Okay, so the next judgment hasn't fallen yet, right? But I believe it's an echo that there's still time to repent and believe. And I think that's one of the things that's incredibly important because I I really believe God is is truly saying that today as well. I don't think that is something he's waiting for the great tribulation to say. I think he's still saying friends, wake up. The time is now. Salvation is today. But something that's also very sobering about that is those who hear the warning and they fail to heed it. The angel's words are going to echo in their empty hearts for eternity to come.

Just think about that, right? And for this reason, the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets are are again referred to as the woes. Now, we're going to be going into this fifth trumpet here this morning. So, what are we going to learn today, right? What where where's the Lord going to take us? This fifth trumpet known as the first woe, it's going to result in a terrifying plague of basically demonic locusts, unlike anything you and I have ever seen on this earth. Those that are living at that time will have no frame of reference to anything like that.

Uh the attack, the torture, and that's exactly what it says torment, the word in the Greek, and it lead it's a literal translation that fits to the English purposely and perfectly. It means torture. And just let that think think about that for and that's for the unsaved. And that torture is going to last 5 months. 5 months. Now, this plague is going to begin with a star that's falling from heaven. The star is most likely a fallen angel. And some of you may say well, no, it's a star. I thought we take a literal interpretation of scripture.

We do, but God also gives us some words in the Greek here to help us understand that this isn't actually just a star. He actually uses past tense. He uses grammatical things to cue to you and I who he's communicating this star to be. I believe it's certainly a fallen angel or specifically I believe it's Lucifer himself, Satan. And we are going to read that he is given, right? In verse 1, it doesn't take long. He's going to we're going to be told that he's given the key to the bottomless pit. He's going to open this bottomless pit.

He's going to release this horde of locusts with the power of that of a scorpion, okay? Now, a scorpion doesn't kill, does it? The toxin in the poison in the scorpion don't kill, but boy boy, if you've ever bitten by a scorpion or talked somebody who has anguish, torment, pain, pus, red the whole thing. I mean, it brings a real visual to the mind. Now, it's interesting because I I grew up and I saw locusts. There was a tree behind my house in the backyard, so I used to see locusts at certain times of year.

And so as I look at this passage, I remember climbing up to my tree fort and I would sit up there and I could see some of the locusts that would gather. And it's interesting because every locust I've ever seen or maybe locust some of you from the Midwest or different areas, you know that locusts normally can devour plant life very very quickly. When they come in storms, they can wipe out, you know, entire acres and acres of plant life. But these locusts cuz they're not locusts the way we understand it. And that's another key to it here.

They're not going to touch the plant life at all. Remember a third of the trees have been destroyed. The grass has been destroyed. There's still something to forage and eat. They're not going after that. Rather they head straight for those people who are not sealed on their foreheads by God. So, the 144,000 plus any that do get saved in the great tribulation. So, for 5 months these locusts are going to torment people whose agony is so great that they're going to rush to die. They're going to want to die and death's going to elude them.

Then the locusts are not allowed to kill anyone, but only to torture them. Uh these demonic locusts were also told in verse 11 they're going to have a king. And that he's going to be the one that is over the what I believe are the fallen angels in the bottomless pit, the abyss. In Hebrew, he's given a name of Abaddon, in the Greek Apollyon, meaning both connoting destroyer, one who destroys. The locusts themselves are described sort of in these unusual terms as we're going to read. You look at verse 7 even right now. It says horses prepared for battle.

Have you ever seen a locust that, you know, has armor on, looks like it's a it's prepared for No. They wear something like crowns of gold and their faces are vaguely human. They have hair like woman's hair, teeth like lion's teeth. They have something like an iron breastplate. They their wings sound like thundering of many horses and chariots that run in the battle verse 9. They have scorpions kind of like their tails verse 10. This description has many different interpretation in this vision. Some people have said well, maybe God is trying to communicate uh through John and John didn't know how to explain it.

Maybe this is a helicopter or maybe this is sort of this barbarian warriors or some type of satanically empowered army. Or actually maybe these are creatures from right from the pit of hell. You know, we we don't know for sure until it's going to it happens. We'll be looking down from the mezzanines, but there's so much rebellion going on today. You know, as we read this, I can't help thinking it's similar to what God has done in the past. It 's not like I have to look to the future to see and nor to you to see God carry out judgment like this.

I started thinking about it and I think well, what about Israel's sin? And remember that in the wilderness and it didn't take very long. You know, they complained about their food, the wilderness, desiring meat instead of manna. Do you remember that? We read that in Numbers chapter 11 uh verses 31 through 35. And in response, God provided them with an over overwhelming amount of what? Meat, quail. That's exactly right. And it lead it to their suffering, so much quail. So, he did what? He gave them over to what they want in such an overabundance that it literally became out of their nose.

And then what happened from that? They became sick because overindulgence and then judgment was poured out and there was mass death that way in the camp. So, is this the Lord giving those living on the earth at that time the fullness of their sin and obedience? See, there's always a spiritual application obviously to everything God is showing us. Is that what he's trying to communicate that part of this severity of this woe is that Jesus at this point is finally saying I have given you the warnings. I'm still giving you time. There's still time to repent, right?

But you have had the fullness of your disobedience. You've had the fullness of your sin. Now, I'm going to give you over to that much like he did Pharaoh over to a hard heart. That wasn't God making Pharaoh's heart hard. Sometimes we read that and misunderstand that. That was actually Pharaoh hardening his heart and God finally saying like I picture like a young man or a little toddler trying to run to get to the cookie jar and you're holding them back cuz they're like frothing at the mouth and you're literally holding them back, right? And what happens eventually you say it's not going to be good for you.

You're going to get a belly ache. You 're going to get sick. You're going to get sick. Don't don't do this. Don't do it. And finally what do you do? You you really want to Okay. And you remove your hand and what happens? They go. They start eating all the cookies and an hour if that long later sick beyond sick. And you can't help them anymore at that point because they've already done what? They've eaten. They've ingested. They've become gluttonous, right? They You understand here the spiritual application is just like today there's such disobedience going on in this world.

Many don't want to yield to God's commandments, statutes, and judgments. Many want to yield to their opinions. They I find this a very strange time to be alive because I really believe people are so sensual, if I can use that term. The idea of sensual we think of it as a perverted or a sexual term, but it's actually not entirely about that in scripture. It can also apply to the desire of feelings and wanting to fill the feelings. Okay, and and that idolatry, that filling of feeling, that sensual aspect can take on many different forms in many different ways in people's lives.

And so I I I I believe spiritually what he's saying here is that there is the fullness of their sin and disobedience. And so he is finally just like he did with Israel giving them over to that. And they didn't want to yield to God as king. So, now they're going to inherit the king of the earth. They will have more sin and more disobedience than they can handle. And it will lead to such suffering as mentioned and we're going to read here this morning, so much that they will want to die and won't be able to escape it since that's what happens.

Evil begets evil. And it ultimately, as their term says and the name is given, it ultimately destroys, right? So, let's look at chapter 9 verse 1. I'll read this together and then we'll go line by line and verse by verse. But hopefully this is a good primer to what we're going to be learning about in very important chapter here. Then the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fallen. Pay attention that. Underline that in your Bible. What tense is that? Past, right? From heaven to the earth to him. Now, the star's called to him.

It's given a pronoun. Pronouns matter. Was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like smoke of a great furnace. So, the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth and to them was given powers like scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only to those men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for 5 months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days, men will seek death and will not find it. They will desire to die and death will flee from them. The shape of the locusts was like the horse prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like Notice with me like like like and gold. And their faces were like faces of men. They had hair like women's hair and their teeth were like lion's teeth.

And they had breastplates like the 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 stingers in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for 5 months. And they had a king over them, an angel of the bottomless pit whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek his name is Apollyon. One woe is past. Behold, still more woes are coming after these things. That's where I believe the Lord will lead us today just in this passage because there is quite of a lot to going on here.

So, again pretty heavy chapter, right? Verse 12 verses here a lot going on can be very confusing. I know many have gotten to this passages in scripture and there's been books, and I mean literally books written just about this chapter alone because for so many it's been confusing in the interpretation. I remember going up even um I went to uh you know some of you know I was raised Catholic. They didn't really necessarily uh read the book of Revelation, but I remember hearing about it and looking at these things. And I I can remember being young and and somewhat fearful.

Uh is the you know are these locusts literally going to be like little soldiers that are going to fly out? And And I I think I thought maybe that way especially as a young man and probably before I began to really understand the scriptures, I thought that's what this was describing. And I've seen there's a lot of scholars that go back to that and ignore the um syntax or the Greek of the language. Maybe they don't know Greek, but um I'm not sure, but they ignore the syntax of the language and they end up thinking it is these kind of you know creatures that are you know in some ways you're like little armies of locusts that have scorpion tails literally.

Friends, I I think it's going to become very clear as we're reading through this especially like they're really describing I believe this is describing the fallen angels. I believe this is describing demons that are very clear going to come from the abusso or the abyss that are going to come up and they are going to be allowed to torment men, women uh that are alive at that time for 5 months. And yes, like a scorpion or a tail they will be able to sting or bring harm to a human being in a way that is going to be such torment that human being has never experienced that before in all of the hopes of doing what?

Tapping out and saying okay, Lord, I I I submit. You are the king. I don't want to follow this uh this Satan. I don't want to follow the king of this earth. I don't want to follow the king of the abyss. I see where this is all heading. I I tap out, Lord. I want to do it your way, your way, Lord, please. And then obviously call unto unto Jesus Christ for forgiveness, repentance, and then obviously reconciliation. That's God's plan through even this punishment or judgment in the great tribulation. But let's just take it line by line to see how I got there.

Maybe some of you will get there this morning and go well, this can't be a literal locust that's you know flying around with all this armor on, right? Maybe you maybe some of you walk out here and go no, I really think this is a supernatural locust with all this little armor on, right? And that's okay, too. I I just want to faithfully handle the word of God. And And so let's look together at verse 1. Then the fifth angel sounded. So, the sound the heralding happens and I saw a star fallen. Now, that's I circle the word star and then I underline the word fallen in my scripture.

John is seeing something that already happened, okay? Please remember this is John's vision Revelation of Jesus Christ. Let's not forget that John is seeing something here. It says that he what? Saw. He didn't say present tense. I see this. So many times this gets skipped over. People quickly go through this and say oh, John is seeing something in real time and that's how they arrive at the wrong interpretation. The language and the Greek matters. This is the past tense even in the Greek manuscripts it reads this way. I saw. John is revealing something to us that he already understood and has seen and had taken place.

This is not something that is happening in that present age that he's seeing a star fall. As a matter of fact, the prophets had told us that they likewise had had visions like that. Who am I thinking of, right? Two of them in particular. What two prophets in our Old Testament had written about Satan falling? And Revelation 12 even tells us took a third of the angels with them. I can think of Isaiah 14 where Satan himself in the throne room of God said I will be like what? The God most high. Does everybody remember that?

And then I think of Ezekiel chapter 28, the second prophet, okay? Who also had a vision. And in that vision Ezekiel saw one Satan himself. And he saw what he was doing that he was a cherubim. So, we got a little information that he was an angel. So, I think most of you knew that that Lucifer Satan was an angel, but he's a fallen angel. And it said that he saw him fall from what? The heavens, the sky that way. Very very interesting because even the language is going to connect it for us in chapter 12.

We don't have to use our imaginations here. So, not only has Ezekiel told us, Isaiah told us, you can go back and study those passages, right? Uh Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel chapter 28. But then look what it says here. I saw a star fallen. He's talking about something that already happened. We know that Lucifer already fell. He didn't just fall now. It's not his his future is not falling. We know that he's not kicked out of heaven yet. We would all agree with that. That's true. That hasn't happened. We'll see that in Revelation in the future.

He still goes to and fro, right? Some people don't know that, but he's still the great accuser, right? He's still going up and accusing uh you and I before the Father, before Jesus Christ in which Jesus Christ stands up and he's the what? Advocate. He's the great advocate, right? For us because of his shed blood. So, this whole trial and this whole thing is going on. The book of Job even illustrated that this has been happening since the time of ancients in times past. Remember when he would gather and and God said well, you know, have you seen my servant Job?

And well, yeah, I've seen some that so he's having a conversation with God. This was cuz you favor him, you give him all this stuff. He didn't really love you. It's cuz the way you've blessed him that he shows his favor to you. So, he puts God on trial. Says no man will really ever love you, God. The only reason that the people love you is what they can get out of you. I mean Jesus Christ came to the earth and that happened with the feeding of the 4 and 5,000. Right after that not too long he says look, if you're not part of me, you don't need of my flesh and of my blood.

He wasn't talking about being a cannibal. That's against the law. But he was making a connection point for everybody on the earth at that time. He's like pay attention, right? Buhler Buhler, right? Pay attention here. Don't watch that movie. But he's making for those who already seen it. I made a connection. He's like come on, right? He's saying pay attention, right? What was he making a connection? Because then right after what does he say? It says the multitudes left him. And then he turns to his disciples are you going to lead me to for this is such a hard thing that I said into you, right?

And then the people left him. So, it's very interesting here. I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth to him who's given the key of the bottomless pit. So, past tense a star we're given a pronoun. It's not a I've never heard anybody call stars him or hers, right? You may have a star named after you, but that doesn't give a star gender, right? That doesn't give a star a pronoun, right? Okay, so you you understand here this is not a literal star. We get that at this point because of the pronouns, because the way he's saying in the past, he's describing a person that is fallen or a being maybe better put.

A person may be a wrong way to say it. Now, this is something that's already happening, he tells us. This star fell from heaven again similar language. Now, hold your finger here. Turn to chapter 12 in in Revelation. I know we're going to get there, but it's important because he uses similar language here. This is how we don't end up misinterpreting this. This is how we don't listen to the talking heads. You know what I mean when I say that? People that are talking it's oh, this is what's going to happen. Oh no, this is prophecy next.

And oh, this is it. And they'll have you believe in the a whole lot of things. Scripture interprets scripture. You have everything you need right in front of you, scripture. Look at Revelation chapter 12. Now, a great sign appeared in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of 12 stars. We'll explain all that in a little bit. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and pain to give birth. Okay, this is all describing a very important event. And then look at verse 3.

And another sign appeared in heaven, behold a great fiery red dragon. Now, I'm I'm going to interpret this for you. I know we'll get there and we'll do that. Who do you think the red dragon is? Satan. I think everybody understands who Satan is, right? A red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and he what? Threw them to earth. Underline that. So, have we seen God in his language use the word stars? Has he said he's throwing them being beings to the earth?

Did we just read that? So, we know God in his language interpretively has used that same terminology before to say I am taking beings from heaven, stars, and I am throwing a third of them. Have you ever heard of a third of the angels fell and came to earth in Genesis? Do you remember the intermingling of what happened? The Nephilim that came to some of you know Genesis 6 you remember that. This is describing exactly the events that already occurred back in Genesis 6. And then what happened to those angels at that time? God brought judgment.

Remember what was that judgment called? The flood. It was a worldwide flood. And when that flood happened, what happened to those angels? They were then taken and put into a bottomless pit. What are we reading about here this morning? A bottomless pit. We're going to look at the Greek language instruction. Is it any coincidence that the very people that the very beings that are going to be released from this bottomless pit happened to be the same beings that were cast to the bottomless pit, happened to be the same beings that a third of them were thrown out of heaven and uh resulted to the earth and then eventually committed that sin by leaving their abode.

How do I know that? Because you and I both have the book of Jude. And Jude verse 6 tells us that, doesn't it? That they left their heavenly abode.

Guest (Male): This is His perfect love.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Matt Vanderboegh on His Perfect Love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. That's hisperfectlove.org. We've expanded our podcast, too. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit hisperfectlove.org. We're thankful for the listeners that come alongside of us with their prayers and financial support. If you're interested in supporting this radio ministry, there's a place to do that at hisperfectlove.org.

Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God in these last days. Pastor Matt loves to hear from his listeners. Even just a quick hello telling him where you hear the program and how you're blessed by it means a lot. Email us there at the website hisperfectlove.org. Are you looking for a Christian school that offers a quality education and a nurturing environment for your children? If so, you might be interested in Calvary Chapel Christian Academy, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Calvary Chapel Christian Academy is a non-denominational Christian school that serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The academy's mission is to provide a Christ-centered education that equips students to love God, love others, and serve the world. The academy offers a rigorous academic curriculum, a variety of extracurricular activities, and a caring and supportive staff. The academy is located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. For more information, please visit our website at ccharisburg.org/academy. That's ccharisburg.org/academy. Well, that'll do it for today, but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the book of Revelation with us here on His Perfect Love.

Guest (Male): This is His perfect love.

Guest (Male): His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.

Guest (Male): Let the word go out. The perfect love of Christ to shine. Our lives will shout. I am my beloved's and he is mine. Every heart is in His hands. We'll never stop reaching out. This is His perfect love. The world knows I am This is what real love looks like. This is His perfect love.