How many times have we heard?
Well, they're overdue for the big one.
Well, what's restraining these things?
Well, God is restraining them. And that's why, again, we read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2: He who now restrains, how much is packed into that? How much is God restraining? All of the book of Revelation and his catastrophes, that's what he's restraining. People will be hearing these news reports, and someone will be pointing out, what did the news just say?
A third of such perished and a third over here? Wait a minute, this is already written.
Now it makes sense. You're listening to Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Revelation. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
And now here's Pastor Rick as he continues teaching through Revelation chapter 8 on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. It's sovereignty. Divine prohibition. keeping these weapons of mass destructions from being unleashed. But it ain't going to hold forever.
And we're going to read about it and some of it in this chapter and the chapters to come. Because even though man will unleash his wickedness against man, there will still be these demonic activities that will heighten unlike ever before. And we'll get that in chapter 9. And not only chapter 9. Wrath comes to press sinners to repentance.
without totally destroying them. There will be enough survivors For the battle of Armageddon, when Christ does come back.
So the prophets they foretold of Christ's coming. And it's been fulfilled to the letter. We boast of it as Christians. We talk about how many prophecies were made and Christ has fulfilled them and nobody else has come close.
Well, the prophets have also foretold of God's coming global wrath. Why would you doubt that? It's guaranteed. But oh how difficult it is to get a stubborn heart to open to the Saviour. In verse 7, The first angel sounded, and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, And they were thrown to the earth.
Yeah. and a third of the trees were burned up. and all green grass was burned up.
Well, that can't be good. There's got to be a lot of death going on in the midst of these things. The first trumpet vegetation has struck. This is again the first of 14 salvos of judgment that are coming. The blood mingle blood here is from war.
Perhaps It's an initial strike. Which will result in counter-strikes, like when we get to verse 8 and 9. Again, referring to you who are prophecy students to the 38th and 39th chapters, just a quick overview. My take on chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel is: 38 is Antichrist coming to power, dealing with the Russo-Islamic alliance, and then chapter 39 is Armageddon. The other view is that they're all Armageddon, but there's too many discrepancies for me to agree with that one.
Well, during that. Coming to power of Antichrist when he's fighting the wars of the The red horse that comes on the scene as we read in Chapter 6, we read in Ezekiel, And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed. I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him. flooding, rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. But that's not it.
That doesn't end the earth. That's just one theater of war. The thirds that are mentioned here, a third of the trees here in verse 7 were burned up. And of all the green grass. And the green grass, the specification of green is likely telling us what year it's not wintertime.
This is one of those little things put in there that makes a point that will be not wasted on people living in through these things. Anyway, the thirds are not necessarily confined to one region. striking the vegetation hits land life pretty hard. Animals need the grass. I mean, you know, the people will need the vegetables and the grass, things like that.
Lumber and livestock will be affected. This is making life miserable for people not in the theatre of war. These are spread out globally. Earthquakes may occur in the Pacific, a little tsunami may and that will come with that. But you might have volcanoes or war breaking out in the Baltics.
I mean, it's again, this is a global deal. This could be a mention of targeting the food supplies of the armies. The hail and the fire, they do speak of judgment. In the book of Joshua, when He was going against the Amorites. God sent hailstones down to destroy the army of the Amorites on behalf of God's people.
So, God has always flexed his sovereignty when he's felt good and ready to do so, and we have no reason to doubt it will not be that way at this time. They were thrown to the earth. Violent events. And a third of the trees were burned up.
Well, wildfires, yes. But isn't it interesting that many of the nuclear missiles are on mobile Launchers. And these mobile launches are often concealed in wooded areas, particularly amongst. The Russian army.
Well, they're going to be targeted. with the missile launchers that are concealed in those wooded areas. and all the green grass burned up. Within the territories of the combatants or their suppliers. Verse eight.
Then the second angel sounded. and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.
Well, on this one, here's one of the reasons why, you know, I said I'm not don't expect me to always agree or comment on what Others are saying. We get here in many of the commentators: so, this is a meteor or a comet hitting the earth.
Well, if that were so, John would have said it was a meteor or a comet. That wasn't a foreign item to them. He's saying it's like a mountain burning, coming to the earth. He doesn't know what this is. Or at least he doesn't know.
How to. Express it. And this may be the counter-strike. to events in verse 7. And here the salt water is first mentioned, then the fresh water inland.
And one of the points about that is: well, in the saltwater, that's where your big navies are. And as you get into the fresh water, that's your brown water, that's where you have populations. But when he says, And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, Now this is one of my takes on what this Mountainous fireball looks like. These are warheads being released. They're coming down.
The tips are a glow and sort of like the trails behind them.
So when John says something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, That's light stuff to what? what these arsenals of these superpowers possess. Who knows what SpaceX is putting up in the skies? I mean, it's not like a drive-through. We've put our first drive-through out next to these are weapons, I would be quick to say.
they would include weapons and counter weapons. And things like that. And so, was John describing the collective plumes of? Warheads. Separating in mid-air, and best he could do is say it's like a volcanic mountain coming to the earth.
I believe that is his attempt to describe what was happening. He didn't know about nuclear strikes. You couldn't have much of what's going on in the book of Revelation without the modern technology that we know today. the nucleus strikes on surface and subsurface vessels. Luke's Gospel chapter 21, verse 11: There will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines, and pestilence.
That's the first. Got the fer uh three of the first four horses. And there will be fearful sights. And great signs from heaven.
Now we read that and we think that the great signs from heaven. Have to be, you know, meteors of asteroids. No, not necessarily. It can be man-made. Events or caused events such as bombing people.
And so let's not act surprised. at these cataclysmic events Because God has said, don't be surprised, I'm putting it in print. and a third of the sea became blood.
Well, the naval exchanges, the armadas, the supply ships wiping each other out. Blood is metaphor for killed in action. Verse 9. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed. The um There are seven of these thirds In Revelation, six of them.
Are in this chapter, one in the next chapter. A third of the trees, a third of the sea becomes blood. A third of the sea creatures die. A third of the ships are destroyed. A third of the rivers and streams are poisoned.
We get that in verse 10. A third of the sun and the moon is darkened for The third of the day had been And then when we get to chapter nine, a third of mankind is killed on top of. They're already quarter that was killed in chapter six. And so there's your billions of souls. that will perish during this time such as the world has never known.
The frequently repeated formula, a third, seems to refer to a sphere of Satanic influences. And that's why there's this repetitive, a third of this, a third of that, and sort of the scriptures saying Satan's going to be hard at work, he's not out of control. Out of God's control, this is the place to not be. At Lucifer's rebellion, his original rebellion, It is said that he drew a third of the angels.
Now there it says stars, but you can't now just say, okay, so now we know stars refers to the angels and we uh know the context begs to disagree with that approach. It's a standalone verse. A third of the stars or a third of the angels that follow him. We don't know what number that is. We have no baseline.
But uh this demonstrates that these are not natural events. They're defined judgments. The volcanoes that have been suppressed, for example, the earthquakes, the faults that have been suppressed. How many times have we heard, well, they're overdue for the big one?
Well, what's restraining these things?
Well, God is restraining them. And that's why, again, we read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, he who now restrains, how much is packed into that? How much is God restraining? All of the book of Revelation and its catastrophes, that's what he's restraining. People will be hearing these news reports and someone will be pointing out, what did the news just say?
A third of such perished and a third over here? Wait a minute, this is already written.
Now it makes sense. Verse 10. Then the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven. Burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.
So now the fresh water is. is hit. Uh see the falling star is uh Satan receiving license to wreak havoc on the earth. I don't see it that way. Not from this verse.
He is going to receive license to do that. He did when Antichrist came on the scene. But these are environmental judgments. Um They're going to be unmistakable, burning like a torch.
Well, this star that he's referring to, we're going to find out in the next verse, it gets a name.
Well, that's not uncommon. It's not uncommon to name munitions. We have the Daisy Cutter bomb, we have the Moab bomb. We put, well not we, but the people who make these things, I don't know if they think it's cute or just uh descriptive. They put these names, burning like a torch, well an ICBM, intercontinental ballistic missile, which could travel 7,000 miles an hour.
Supersonic speeds. Russia just, you know, showed off one of them. United States is like, pss, we got that. We don't tip our hand at how much stuff we have and how we can do it. They've got.
Uh Torpedoes for a lack of rhetoric Word. That can slowly travel to its target. Just take a few days. Hides its signature. Looks makes it sound l look like it's a boat crossing the sea when it's really a nuclear-armed Um Torpedo heading toward a city near you.
I'm just pointing out these things: how much stuff is out there?
So we cannot rule out these you can't rule out nuclear strikes from out of space. As one of our previous presidents mentioned, Star Wars. Verse 11, the name of this star is wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water because it was made bitter.
Well, this is the drinking water now that I mentioned earlier.
So verse eleven is detailing verse ten. It's wormwood, a bitter, noxious substance that Speaks of sorrow and grief in the Old Testament, only mentioned here in the New Testament, but mentioned several times in the Old. The water supply in certain areas will be contaminated. And uh there will be Um many deaths because of it. These drinking waters, well, they're You have biological warfare, chemical warfare, nuclear warfare.
Electronic, I mean there's all sorts of things that man has developed over the last 50 years. when they were testing one of their reactors in Chernobyl In 1986, that got out of hand and exploded. Chernobyl is the Russian word, I'm told, for wormwood. And I don't know that there's a prophetic connection, but there is, it does illustrate something for us. That Nuclear weapons out of control or unleashed.
will cause poison, radioactive problems. It said that the explosion of Chernobyl's reactor was a hundred times. gave out a hundred times more radiation. Then the bombs dropped on Japan. And incidentally, when we talk about these warheads and you fire one missile and then it opens up and six more come out, and they're all nuclear capable, and they always are saying, or it's like fifty times more than what was dropped on Japan.
And it's just telling us over and over again: man has put a lot into developing weapons of mass destruction that you never had in human history, that can only fit in the book of Revelation. No other religion has anything that comes close to this. You'd almost have to be. a fool to hear this story and dismiss it. You have to say any reasonable per person will say, wait a minute.
This is describing the future. In detail. And we talk about Ezekiel 38 and 39, and there they're talking about nuclear exchanges also and how contaminants have to be handled. And bones are marked because they're contaminated. Verse 12: Then the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, a third of the stars, and a third of them.
were darkened a third. of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And so there the fourth trumpet The skies are now hit. And much of the smoke from the destruction Is affecting the atmosphere. You know how far they've charted the smoke from those Canadian fires last?
Last year, 2024, 2,000 miles So what does that say about these exchanges of weapons and the things that happen because of them? Forests set on fire because somebody dropped a bunch of incinerary bombs on that area.
So the third is again saying to us, I think the signature is that the devil is hard at work. in the hearts of evil men and he will gain steam. and it will get worse. Um Uh l limited, however. Two thirds.
Because something's got to be saved for Armageddon. Matthew 24, that's a s that's a... sarcastic statement. Yeah. Um there will be much carnage at Armageddon too.
Matthew 24, 29, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And this is Jesus said that long before we had the revelation to kind of color it in. Verse 13. And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. Because of the remaining blast of the trumpet, and of the three angels who are about to sound.
Well, this angel is not trying to stop a horse. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Okay. Yeah, you got it. Incidentally, The picture we just shown. You know, if you're one of those who's sleeping in church, you missed the picture, and that's some satisfying thing for me. But you know, folks sit in the front row, so they don't see all the stuff that goes on.
The people playing backgammon in the other rows, and just you know, part cheesey. And so you sit up front, your head is in the game.
So that means next Sunday everybody will be up front. But Yeah. the pictures we shown because we don't usually do that kind of stuff around these parts. Anyway, coming back to verse 13. This tr triple woe here Is the angel saying you're going to get it now?
It's like what? We've already been going through stuff. And this is the point that we must make when we share. End time prophecy with unbelievers. Is that it's gonna be I mean it's To put it in human terms, God's fed up.
He's not. It's very Systematic in what he's doing, very deliberate. His goal is to save souls and to deal with the wicked. But from a just uh a glance from with human nature. He's about fed up with you people.
And it doesn't have to be this way, which makes him more fed up. And maybe an unbeliever can understand it in that language. I don't know, it's really hard to save people. And if it weren't, we'd be out there saving everybody.
Now, you a moment here, we're almost done to pause about. The King James and the New King James uses, I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice.
Well some of you may be using the not inspired version. The NIV? The A N S A B Many of the ESV The M-O-U-S-E?
Okay, all these versions.
So, I guess a very quick class on that. Your New Testament. comes from one of two sources. ancient manuscripts preserved from the Syria Uh ancient Syria. or other manuscripts that were circulated from Alexandria, Egypt.
Well, the ones in Egypt have only been discovered within the last 200 years or so in a monastery. They were like God just kind of blocked them out and they crept back in. I don't like them. I think they've brought nothing.
Okay, they're not going to damn your soul. There's nothing in the NIV or the NASB or any of the other ones that's so corrupted that now you don't know the gospel. But where the problem is is they bring up questions that only cause you to wonder Who can you trust here? Do I trust the Syrian manuscripts or do I trust these Egyptian manuscripts and the Latin ones that won't go with it? That's all it's done.
has not brought anything good or additional to Christianity. And so those translations from Egypt We'll use an eagle. flying through.
Well, the eagles don't talk. But that's what angels do, they deliver messages. That's what the word angel means: a messenger of God. And so I'm going to go with Uh the older manus the the um The majority texts from the Syrian Manuscripts, I think they are. far more reliable.
But if you say, well, I like my NSAB, that's fine. Just understand where the doubts are injected into that, and it should be no problem. But I'm now addressing that discrepancy. If you say, my Bible says an eagle flying through, making this whoa, whoa, whoa.
Well, eagles don't ride horses. Why would an eagle say, whoa, whoa, whoa? All right, so that's my thing on that. Coming back to this, to this woe to the inhabitants of the earth. The demonic devastation is about to be released, and that's what he's given a heads up on.
He's saying, these four trumpets. have been pretty bad. But what's coming is far worse. Luke chapter 21, we close with this. Watch, therefore, Jesus said, talking about this time in history to come.
and pray always that you may not be counted worthy to es that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass. and to stand before the Son of Man. Christ always mindful that, yeah, there's trouble on earth. But then there's there could be trouble with God after your life on earth. Make sure you can stand before the Son of Man, the blood of Christ on you.
Let's pray. Our Father. I don't want to be here for any of this. And it's even hard to imagine. the troubles that are most certainly coming.
You said it and that means it's going to happen. If you are a believer, then of course you rejoice in your salvation. you have much to rejoice about. Even in the midst of hardship in this life, it has a terminus on it.
Sorrow has a shelf life. This has been Cross-Reference Radio with Pastor Rick Gaston. This program is a radio outreach of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick has been teaching through the book of Revelation, but if you're interested in learning about a different book of the Bible, we have hundreds of past episodes available to listen to on demand. Just visit us online at crossreferenceradio.com and you'll find an archive of Pastor Rick's past teachings.
While you're there, you can also find links to follow our program on your favorite podcast app, as well as links to get connected with us on Facebook and YouTube. There's also an interviews tab where you can learn more about Pastor Rick's heart for ministry.
Well, we hope you'll join us next time here on Cross Reference Radio. Yeah.
