Thru the Bible

Steve Swetz: As believers in Jesus Christ, our best days are yet to come. Praise the Lord for that. Can you sense that the end of days is hurtling toward us? Jesus' return for us could be in our lifetime. Does that encourage you? I sure hope it does.

Welcome to Thru the Bible. As we anticipate our great days ahead, we also recognize that the darkest days in human history are still to come. Revelation makes it clear, but don't be frightened. If you belong to the Lord, you'll be with Him, raptured from the earth before the great tribulation. That's what Dr. J. Vernon McGee reassures us in Revelation 9. So while you find your place in God's Word, Greg and I have got some stories to share from our Persian-speaking listening family.

Greg: We do, and it's such an important outreach. About 130 million Persian speakers worldwide and, of course, many of them are in Iran. But some are in Afghanistan, a language that is often called Dari. We also have many ways of getting out our Persian ministry. We have audio, we have radio, we have digital, and we have television. So we're going to hear from different those who are viewers and those who are listeners.

Steve Swetz: This first testimony comes from Sadar, who writes this: "I am from Afghanistan. I've heard your teaching and would like to know where you were from. I want to be friends with you. Will you accept me? I am wondering if I can become a Christian too."

Greg: We love those letters. Of course you can become a Christian. And that probably is Sadar watching our satellite TV. You know that team, you and I have been in Egypt. They will reach out to him and they will definitely let him know he can become a Christian.

Guest (Male): Now we hear from Miriam, who tells us: "With all my heart, I'm extremely grateful to every one of my brothers and sisters in God who prepared this program, and also to the dear believers who translated the programs into Persian and so beautifully. For all these five years, I have been impatiently waiting every day for the gift of this heavenly bread and living water that the Spirit of God prepared for me and the rest of my sisters and brothers in faith through you, His servants and true children.

I found comfort and enjoyed every word and sentence of this book and its interpretation. Now I cannot live without the Word of God. Amen. May God engrave His Word in our hearts and use us for the glory of His name. Thank you for your blessed existence, which is like a light in this dark world. May the grace, peace, and blessings of our Lord Jesus be with you and remain with you. Amen."

Steve Swetz: What a beautiful spirit this lady has that she shared with us. So many blessings built in there. Here's another listener. This is a Persian-speaking listener who shares this: "Glory to God and thanks for the existence of God's zealous children who so compassionately convey the unbiased teaching of the Word to others. You truly discover the treasures of the Word and share them with us. May God bless you abundantly."

Greg: These last couple letters just reflect a depth of heart and hunger that there's always been something very special about the Persian-speaking world and we love our brothers and sisters there. Now, this is from Fereshteh. We hear this: "I receive a lot of blessings from you and your teachings. You are the beloved and faithful servants of God. Thank God for your presence. May the blessings and health and strength of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you and the people of your house forever."

Steve Swetz: Again, just such an encouragement. And Greg, you mentioned earlier they may be watching us. Just for those of you that need a little bit of background, Qolob wa Thaba originally was the Arabic translation, a unique format where we took it and put it into a discussion format. Actually, our ministry partner did. They did a three-camera set and they really turned it into a dialogue. We were a little bit sketchy on doing that initially, and the Lord has proven so fruitful. Now I said in Arabic, that has then been dubbed into Persian and it has had great success in that part of the world as well.

Greg: It has. And we were also a little sketchy on dubbing, and they do it so carefully and it's such a high-quality product that they've put out. I had another man that had done 20 years of Persian television, Christian TV, review it and he said this is definitely a valuable ministry product. So such an encouragement.

Steve Swetz: Let me pray for us as we begin. Heavenly Father, we are just so blessed to be a part of spreading Your Word into the Persian world. I pray that that would continue, that You would continue to bless those that are listening to the program, that they would come to Christ if they haven't yet done so, that they would be built up in their faith if they are believers. And that's our same prayer, Lord, as we turn to Your Word in the book of Revelation now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now friends, we've come in the ninth chapter to the last three trumpets that are blown. These last three are separated from the other four by the fact that we have here the three woe trumpets. In other words, as we were told back in chapter eight verse 13, "And I saw and heard one eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe to them dwelling upon the earth by reason of the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to blow the trumpet." Now we have here the blowing of the last three trumpets.

And very frankly, we've moved into that which is highly significant and symbolic in one sense. But I want to make a statement in just a moment about that. We're coming to a section that is actually weird and wild. It boggles the mind as we read through this chapter here. So much so that all kinds of interpretations have been given of this section. May I say that let's get our feet back on the ground and get our heads screwed on right.

If we do, we'll find out that the things that are mentioned here ought not to frighten you if you're a child of God. You're not going through these things. This is not the blessed hope of the church to endure the things that are mentioned here. This is a Christ-rejecting world. The church has been taken out of the world and these things are to happen in the great tribulation period. John has made it very clear that he's speaking concerning that period in this particular section and the blowing of these seven trumpets.

Now we come to these last three. These woes mark the deepest darkness and the most painful intensity of the great tribulation period. This is generally associated with the last three and a half years of that 70th week of Daniel, which is the great tribulation period. These will be the blackest days in human history. Now the language used in this section is admittedly the most difficult of interpretation. This does not preclude our policy of following the literal line, even when the figures adopted are the most vivid and wild.

If another interpretation is proper, John will furnish us the key. So with that thought in mind, knowing where this fits in and knowing that we should be very careful in our interpretation, we move now into this chapter here. Now will you note, verse one, and I'm reading as usual my translation, which I cannot sincerely recommend to anyone. I still say the authorized version is the best that we have with notes. Now I know I sound like a square, and the reason I sound like a square is because I am a square. That's better than going in circles, especially in this book here.

"And the fifth angel sounded, that is, blew the trumpet. And I saw a star out of heaven fallen into the earth. And there was given to him a key of the long shaft of the abyss." That's the proper meaning of the word that's translated the bottomless pit. You can call it the long shaft or the pit or the well of the abyss. First of all, let's look at this star that is here. We've already seen two stars, and we said they were literal stars, meteors that fall to the earth.

You probably heard about the boy and the girl that were engaged. They were sitting out on the porch in the summer evening and they began to play a game. If he saw a shooting star first, he got the kiss her. If she saw it first, he just didn't get the kiss. Well, she got angry with him because he started counting lightning bugs. He sure had quite an advantage there. Now meteors are the shooting stars that you see on a summer day. My wife and I sat on Lanai of a hotel on Waikiki Beach several years ago when they had a shower of meteors out there, shooting stars.

That's what the paper called them and even the scientists out there called them shooting stars. So here I trust we understand that shooting stars are meteors. Now here is a different kind of a star because it's called a him and he acts with intelligence. So we're talking now about an unusual person. This star is different, therefore, from the stars mentioned at the sounding of the fourth trumpet. This star acts with intelligence. He's given a key which he uses, and he's no inanimate star because I don't think an inanimate star could do this.

Now we believe that this star is Satan. Now some identify the star with Antichrist. If so, this lends support to the view that Antichrist is Satan incarnate. But I don't accept that. My point is that Antichrist is exactly that. He's everything that Christ is not and he is motivated by Satan. We'll see that later on. Now the reasons for interpreting this star as Satan are abundant. For instance, when he's mentioned back in Isaiah 14:12, we'll be seeing that later, the thing that caused him to fall originally. What was it that caused the greatest creature God ever created to fall?

Well, we're told in Isaiah 14:12, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations." And the Lord Jesus said in Luke 10:18, "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." That would be like a fallen star, you see. And then again, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:14, "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." Now I think these scriptures abundantly confirm the position that Satan is in view here.

John's going to state later that Satan was put out of heaven and cast to the earth. That'll be in Revelation 12:7-9. But if we've established the fact that we're talking now that Satan is cast out of heaven, now what does he do? Well, he goes down, takes the key which apparently means that God is permitting him to do this because the key denotes authority and power, and that he has, that is Satan has, and this is given to him of God actually. It's a permissive will of God.

Now the long shaft of the abyss means the long shaft leading to the abyss. The abyss is the bottomless pit, which we're going to see in Revelation the 20th chapter. The abyss and Hades may be synonymous terms, but the abyss and hell are not the same by any means. We'll see that when we get over later on. The important thing here is that our Lord probably referred to this in Matthew 12:40, and probably ought to turn that and look at that because I didn't intend to, but I think I'll turn there and read this to you.

And He says here in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the fish's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." He speaks here of His descent into the heart of the earth. The body of Jesus was actually not buried in the earth. It was put in a new tomb and it certainly was not in the heart of the earth. Rather, what we have is in this language in Matthew, He went to the abyss and that apparently is Hades or Sheol.

It's in two compartments. The Lord Jesus made that quite obvious when He told about the rich man and Lazarus and how that the rich man and the poor man both died. The rich man went into not hell, but into this place here. And the poor man is in Abraham's bosom or paradise as our Lord called it. Now He's gone down there at His death to announce to the saved His victory and that He'll be leading them into the presence of God. And that's what I think Paul meant when He said He led captivity captive.

Now He went to the abyss to announce that His redemption had been wrought. I want to add this, however. I think it behooves us not to be dogmatic where scripture's silent, but there is the thought that there is a shaft that leads from the surface of the earth to the heart of the earth. Now I know when I say that that it sounds very much like you're being superstitious, but I don't say I even accept that. Let me put it like this. I do accept it; I would not be dogmatic about it. If some of you had some advanced information that I don't have and could show me and prove to me it means something else, I'd certainly be glad to accept that.

The Lord now holds that key by the way. And Peter tells us that demons are imprisoned there. And Jesus said this in Luke 8:30, and I'll read that. "And Jesus asked him saying, What is thy name? and he said, Legion: because many demons were entered into him. And they besought Him that He would not command them to go out into the deep, that is the abyss." That was what He's talking about there. It's a very literal place, by the way. This idea that heaven and hell are mythological and that heaven is sort of the beautiful aisle of somewhere, a Shangri-La hanging out in space somewhere, may I say to you that that's not the teaching of the Word of God.

The teaching of the Word of God is that heaven is as literal as the place where you live today and hell is more real than the place where you live. Although some folk, in fact someone wrote me about the place where they lived and they felt like it was the backside of the desert. Well, be that as it may, we're talking about that which is literal. So that during the last part of the great tribulation, this key is given to Satan and he's given a freedom that he's never had before. And that explains, I think, why men cannot die during this period because Satan wants to keep them alive.

He doesn't want his army decimated at all. Now I read verse two: "And he opened the long shaft of the abyss and there came smoke out of the long shaft of the abyss as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke of the shaft of the abyss." Out of that shaft like a great erupting volcano will come smoke to cover the entire earth. Now this is smog of the most vicious type and I think the literal interpretation of this verse that we've given you is the most satisfactory one.

It certainly is to me and has been to many others. Now I read verses three and four. "And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth, and power was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was said to them in order that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green things, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads." Now this to me beggars description. I think that John here has given the symbolic language that describes creatures that are so frightful that this is the only way you could speak of them.

And let's look at this now. These are locusts, but of a very different character. They're just no common locust by any means. First of all, they eat no vegetable product. We find that locusts today eat nothing but the green stuff and here they don't even touch the green stuff. And then the locusts of the earth have no king and we are told in Proverbs 30:27 that they have no king, but these locusts have a king. And in the plague in Egypt, and by the way, there's a striking similarity of this plague to the plagues in Egypt as we've noted that before.

In the plague in Egypt, the inspired recorder said before them, there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. So this is a different type of locust than the plague in Egypt. Now the other thing that Govey remarks about these is their literal creatures resembling the literal animals named: the lion, the horse, the scorpion, and the man. Now I want us to look at this. This is a plague of locusts which is as literal as the plague of locusts in Egypt.

And Joel, you will recall when we were there, prophesied of a coming plague of locusts. And if you do not recall, turn back to Joel the first chapter and read that. I hope many of you are beginning to realize now that you have to have a working knowledge of the Old Testament to understand Revelation. And then the only other thing you have to follow is that it's a simple book, that it's well-organized, that it's put to us in divisions that you can't miss unless you've got a system that you've got to defend and then you just make it mean anything you want to.

But if you let John give it to you like it is, then you'll have no problem with Revelation at all. Now the difference of the locusts here and the locusts in Joel is the character of the locust and the object of their destruction. They sting as scorpions and their objects are evil men. Now let me read on in verse five, still my translation. "It was given to them in order that they should not kill them, but in order that they should be tormented five months and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when it striketh a man."

Now the scorpion is shaped as a lobster and lives in damp places and his sting is in his tail. Though it's not fatal, it certainly is very painful indeed. And that's the picture that is given to us here. And these are mentioned by Joshua, and I'm taking a little time for this today when he mentioned the hornet. He says in Joshua 24:12, "And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you." So that you see the children of Israel acquainted with the Old Testament, believers in that day, would understand what he's talking about here in these scorpions.

And he also moves on and says here, verse six, "And in those days shall the men seek death and shall not find it, and they shall earnestly desire to die and death fleeth from them." That's the reason we said that Satan is given the key here to this shaft where evidently it's Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades in the New Testament. And it leads to the abyss and that is where the dead of the ages past, that's where their spirits have gone. And that's where the Lord Jesus went to announce the redemption He had wrought on the cross.

Now Satan doesn't want his crowd to die. It's only his crowd that are attacked by these locusts. And so men during this period try to commit suicide and are unable to do it. It reveals something of the awfulness of that day. And Satan wants them here because there's a battle between light and darkness that's being waged. But there are others that think that maybe God won't let them die because sinful man must face up to the music from which there is no escape. It's not a laughing matter to reject Jesus Christ. My friend, it's not a simple thing to ignore Him.

You hear people say that there're so many things that are important in this life and I'm willing to grant that many things take second, third, and fourth place. But the most important thing is your decision concerning Jesus Christ. Now that brings us down to verse seven. We're going to talk about the locusts next time because they're described for us and, believe me, even the description beggars description. We'll see that next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Swetz: It's true. The most important decision in your life does concern Jesus Christ, and that applies to every one of us. Is Jesus in first place? Talk to the Lord about it. If we can serve you, contact us by email at biblebus@ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE, or send us a note through our app. Well, the Bible Bus rolls on in Revelation next time. I'm Steve Swetz and I'll save you a seat.

Thru the Bible is a five-year study of God's entire Word. And together, we discover God's purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him yet?