Ahab paraded his false prophets and King Jehoshaphat said, Well, isn't there a true prophet of Yahweh here? And King Ahab says, Yeah, there's one, but I hate him. I hate him because he just doesn't stop with convicting me. He's always pointing out my sin. It was Mickey that he was talking about.
And where? Because. The true God gets in the way of impenitent sinners. And that's the story in 1 Kings 22. 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. Demonic Killers is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in Revelation chapter 9. The total number of armed forces personnel in the world in 2020 was 27 million.
four hundred thousand.
Well, that's 173 million. Short. Of what's going on here. And you're going to say, how do we reconcile this? I mean, these numbers aren't given to us by God for us to just say, oh, that's just, you know, a non-essential detail.
Well How many of you have watched March of the Wooden Soldiers? I miss the highlight of the movies when those soldiers come in with the bayonets and they're killing the bogey men. It's a part of your culture, and you should understand that movie. Anyway, my point is robots. How do you weigh you going to get 170 million more troops?
Well, if you have robots, you don't have to supply them with the beans, the bullets, and the bandages like you would have to do with human beings. Who knows what is in the government warehouses? Elon's only looking for numbers. I'm I'm still I'm gonna tell you, on my way home, I'm gonna dis be disappointed that nobody really locked into that March of the Wooden Soldier thing because it's one of the highlights of my childhood. It frightened some of my kids.
They just ran out the room screaming. The bogeymen. Anyway, verse 17.
So keep all of this in mind because it's all connected. And he says, And thus I saw horses. In the vision. Those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red. Hyacinth blue.
and sulfur yellow. and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions. And out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.
So they're not friendly, that's for sure. John saw these vehicles. With uniformed occupants. It's almost like he saw them driving by. He could he tells us what what their colors were.
Yeah. Uniforms of the 200 million Man army. He's not telling us the other side, just this one army. This army is demonically embedded, and so is the other team. At least nine countries and fifty-eight entities within those countries.
have this flag combination. Will the US, Russia, and Communist China have two of the colors? They're not matching. For instance, China has the red and the yellow on their flag. We have the red and the blue, Russia also.
But that falls short, and I believe because Antichrist will have his own colors. The convert At this time, will be made converts Also by somebody preaching, I told you so. You see, it's right here. When they start posting what these armies are doing, and they have their embedded journalists, and they're broadcasting from the battlefield or the theater of operation.
Someone's going to see these colors and said, I read that in Revelation chapter 9 and show it to others, along with so many other prophecies being fulfilled at this time, and that's where your converts are coming from. He says here in verse 17, and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions.
Well, he could be speaking in terms of their ferocity. their eagerness to destroy the others, The anger in their faces, I'd either be part of it, and it also could be nose art. The whole point of that is, yeah, well, this, you know, it's not hard to get our head around it. I don't think that's going to be all of it by any means, but I believe that will be some of it. Because nowadays, they can wrap your whole car, your entire car, in whatever business.
You know, uh Icons you have. You've seen cars driving around, you know. Watch March of the Wooden Soldiers wrapped all around the car.
So, I mean, I think they're going to be so full of themselves, so full of hatred, these things will take place. He says, out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.
Well, they're weaponized, whatever he's looking at. They have rockets, they can launch poison gases, cluster bombs, tracer rounds. There's no end to, well, there is an end, but there's a lot of stuff that these things can spit out that would fit what John is looking at. That was not around. during the Roman Empire.
Not not like he's seeing it. Over 50 countries have weapons of mass destruction, not nuclear. But still, weapons of mass destruct chemical, biological, long-range missiles. These things, they're stockpiling them. We like to think that, well, we have peace by, you know, this.
Armament and being balanced, and everybody's afraid to attack each other because it's going to be would be so horrendous.
Well, that's going to go away. We had just heard one. leader from from Russia, just kinda hint at. We wouldn't hesitate to use these things if we were pressed.
So, they're not just stockpiling them so they can collect dust. Satan is going to find a way to use them, and that's what we're reading about in chapter 9. He says, but these, by these three. Plagues inserted by the Translators here. Not inaccurate, just not there.
By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed. By the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.
So it's literally by these three. A plague is a scourge, so that makes it, you know, it's not out of bounds. These again are lethal. Inspired and guided by demons, we got that. What sane person can deny?
that Hamas is not demon possessed. What sane person denies that there are only two genders? I know I'm repeating it because it fits. It fits the fact that there are human beings. that behave can behave in such a way There's no problem understanding these prophecies are going to be fulfilled.
Jesus said, You will know them by their fruits. And you look at some of these folks in history, there are many others. For example, Paul Pott in Cambodia, the killing fields. Uh that wasn't Normal idi idiamin, Joseph Stalin. This is neo-barbarianism, and it's spurred on from hell.
And we're not even at the Battle of Armageddon yet. We considered a fourth of mankind killed. by the combined effects of the first four seals, the first four horsemen, And now That leftover amount of people are suffering this third of destruction.
So, estimating 8 billion people on the earth, even after the rapture, you're still going to have a lot of people here. Revelation 6: a quarter lost, that's 2 billion. Revelation 8, great carnage, no amount given, but we'll factor it in with conservative estimates. And here, a third loss. That's another 2 billion, because you have 6 billion left.
You lose another third. And so now you're up to over 4 billion deaths during the Great Tribulation period.
So when Jesus said, such as the world has not seen. It really couldn't happen in his day.
Well, you can say, well, you can't say, really. You can't say the flood killed more because we don't know how many it killed. And that was a whole different situation. This is worse. This is drawn out.
Verse 19, for their power is in their mouth. And in their tails. for their tails are like serpents, having heads and with them they do harm.
Well, the weapon system's four and a half. They get you coming and they get you going. They have tail gunners. It doesn't say That they're killing it with their tails. It's saying their tails are like serpents.
And that is they are deadly. Verse 20. But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues Did not repent of the works. of their hands. that they should not worship demons and idols.
of gold, silver, brass, stone, wood. which can neither see nor hear nor walk, Those are all created things. The demons, they weren't created demons, they became demons. They were created angelic. As angelic beings, some of them cherubs, some of them angels.
They rebelled against God. They had free will. And now they have the consequence of misusing. Again, you are free to make your choices, you are not free to choose the consequences of those choices. When it comes to spiritual things with God, now God gets right up front with this.
He says, I'm not going to tinker with this, I'm telling you now, this is demonic. These people are behaving demonically. And that's why he says they're worshiping demons. You know, you tell that to somebody, they're going to give you gruff. They're going to say, oh, you know, I'm not doing that.
Well, that's not what the Bible says. We'll open some of that up again. did not repent of their And The works of their hands. This is repeated twice, 'cause it's that important. Sinful humanity killing each other.
That's the work of their hands. parading their depravity uh preferring God's who were torturing and killing them. It was we'll see when they start worshiping Antichrist, when it's just presented to us in latter chapters of Revelation. And so God says, you got it coming to you. This kind of behavior is just bringing on you judgment.
You've got this coming to you. Unless you repent. He says that they should not worship demons.
Well, God doesn't want. Human beings worshiping spiritual beings. worshiping devils that They don't identify as devils. The God of this world, the Bible says, the devil is, because they have elevated him to that status in various forms. And I'm going to quote from Deuteronomy in a little bit.
By default, to refuse the true God is to worship Satan, and that's what the world hates hearing from Christianity. We are ridiculed and hated for pointing out this fact, and if we don't point it out, then we may have to answer to the Lord. When when when these things are put in front of us? Um When a Christian says, Your Hindu god Is out of hell, not out of heaven. We're hated for that.
They can say some bad things about us. We just can't tell the truth about them. When we say your Allah is Satan. They get bent out of shape by that. They want to harm you for saying such things because their God has to be defended, because their God is man-made, so men have to protect it.
We don't have to protect our God, we can't. This is considered in many places as inflammatory speech.
Well, always has been. Satan is so serious about destroying what we're preaching is that he tried to kill the baby Jesus. We're going to come to that when we get to chapter 12. God is saying, I haven't forgotten that. I'm going to bring that back up to you again.
Because there's nothing new under the sun. People are still pulling these stunts. Your role before the rapture is to know the scripture, to walk with your Lord. and preach the gospel. And you could preach the gospel in various ways.
You can live it, you can speak it, you can support it. You can defend against the corruptions that would take the gospel away. He says that they should not worship demons.
Well, this is, of course, God doesn't want. this to happen. Um The ideology of man brings up, opens the door for hell. You remember, I don't know if Ouija boards are still sold or not, but when they came out, there are a lot of people saying, Hey, you're dabbling with the spiritual world. You can open yourself up to demonic activity.
That's the truth. That's right. You can open yourself up. You can do certain things that will cause you to be possessed by demons. Shintoism.
was behind Imperial Japan. Nazism. Was behind Nazi Germany, making the distinction between the Japanese people and Imperial Japan, German people and Nazi Germany. It's not an ethnic thing, it was those who had that ideology, were the ones that were. Uh overwhelmed.
by demonic forces. Those religions The people in those religions were driven hard by their demons. Deuteronomy 32. Moses said, They provoked him to jealousy, with foreign gods, with abominations, they provoked him to anger. They sacrifice to demons, not to God.
To gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. As Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn't worship them. He says, Did Johnny come lately? Because they're made by men, not by an eternal God. And so Moses lays it out on the line.
Nothing in Scripture has walked back from that statement. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 10:20, Paul just ratifies it. This is exactly the story. Abortion advocates. are also guilty.
Of course. If you've Participated in an abortion, and you've come out of that, you are so forgiven. And God has cast it behind his back to remember it no more. But if you're still an advocate for it, this verse applies to you. Psalm 106, verse 37.
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. The idols of gold, silver, brass, and stone, all man created elements. And they're committed to these things to the very end. They're choosing who they want to exalt. People still adore their man-made gods.
and they will into the Great Tribulation period. And every false faith on earth does this. You know, there are people that will go to church and hear a pastor say these things and cringe.
Well, that's no way to save people.
Well, to pretend a drowning man is not drowning is to leave him drowning. which can neither see nor hear nor walk. Why do men give God status? to lifeless things. Ideas behind worshiping false gods is a real problem.
It is the real problem of civilization, of mankind. And the mention of idols here. indicates God is saying again, this is a spiritual issue. Your problems are spiritual. They just show up in the physical.
An unregenerate man. cherishes. Their own ideas about God.
Now, that's a theological word, has become a theological word. Unregenerated means not born again. No fingerprints of God. on your spirit. Because your spirit is dead.
You have a soul, you have a body, but you are distant from from the only true God. And those tend to cherish their own ideas about God. They just don't care for God's ideas about God. always leading to human misery. and Satan's delight.
Satan can be happy. when he's harming people. Verse 21. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality. or their thefts.
The Greek is a little bit more emphatic. It says they did not even repent. The idea is after all this, You'd think You would think A rational human being would say, ho, ho, wait a minute here. There's a pattern forming. Is the absence of Christians?
There's the escalation of mayhem on the earth, chaos, war, and hatred. with religious overtones. You would think they'd figured it out on that. Instead, it's the old routine double-down defiant reaction to God. The true God gets in the way of impenitent sinners.
You know the story of Ahab in 1 Kings 22? Where King Jehoshaphat, and I just want to let you know, I haven't forgotten that whole wooden soldier thing. Yeah. But Jehoshaphat You know, he was a good king. that was attracted to bad kings.
He was the the good guy that always hung out with the wrong crowd. and it almost cost him his life more than once. But it still, you know, himself was good. And uh anyway, he's with King Ahab, who is rotten to the core, and Ahab paraded his false prophets and King Jehoshaphat said, well, isn't there a true prophet of Yahweh here? And King Ahab says, yeah, there's one, but I hate him.
I hate him because he just doesn't stop with convicting me. He's always pointing out my sin. It was Micaiah that he was talking about. And where? The true God gets in the way of impenitent sinners.
And that's the story in 1 Kings 22. Demons and people. will together produce the greatest death toll the world has ever seen. And here is their second recorded chance to repent, the people on earth, God is saying, and they did not repent. They've had opportunity.
Someone's preaching during this time. And they're not. They're not taking it.
So God will respond with the seventh trumpet and its canisters of judgment, and things will just worsen. Remember, they still have the same Bibles as we do with the 40, 11 different translations. They still have the Word of God available to them. And throughout human history, into the great tribulation. God has always scanned the earth for those who will repent.
Ezekiel 38.
Now, I've referenced that a few times going through Revelation, and it depicts two great battles at the end of. Human history I believe they're two, some think they're one. the thirty eighth chapter. Has this to say. It says, Thus I will magnify myself and sanctify myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations.
And they shall know that I am the Lord. He's saying there in the tribulation period, they're going to be these converts. I want to drive that home. Because you can Miss it if you just read through the Revelation. You might say, Boy, aside from the Jewish people, who gets saved?
He says of their murders and their sorceries. Or their sexual immorality, or their thefts. This is what they weren't turning away from. These are in the Ten Commandments. The second commandment You shall have no other gods before me.
murder, adultery, and theft, The word for sorceries in the Greek is pharmakia. We get our English word, pharmacy, from this word. In John's day, it spoke of potions. In our days, it speaks of pharmacies. No, well, let me walk that back.
Certainly, we need, there are many medicines that come out of pharmacies that have. Very important for life and quality of life.
So I'm not a blanket bash. But it's like anything else. What do you do with that?
Well, there's that element within the drug world that is evil. And I think there we'll come back to that as we move through Revelation. uh later. But we have now this Department of Government Efficiency, and they're uncovering how much thieving corruption.
So, we have no problem believing this when God says they wouldn't turn away from their sorcery, sexual immorality. Or they're thefts. Sexual immorality. What about? The sex trafficking.
That's an evil that doesn't want to go away on its own. Second. Timothy chapter three, Paul said, Evil men and impostors Will grow worse and worse. And that's right. From the time that Paul wrote that, almost 2,000 years ago, men have had plenty of time to grow worse and worse.
And the Internet is again going to really facilitate. Mans. You know, we used to say people go to jail and they learn how to be worse criminals from other criminals because it's become this college of crime.
Well, the Internet's doing that without incarcerating them. I like the internet. I mean, you get some really nice sales. Uh this jacket, I wouldn't have found it if I didn't go shopping on the internet. Anyway?
Yeah. And please no comments unless they're positive because I'm fragile that way.
So the Great Tribulation. Produced. Fear And Death and horror But no majority repentance. And that is something to share with an unbeliever. After all of this, man is so addicted to sin, so indifferent to truth.
That after all of this, there's still going to be a majority that perishes. And this book in the Bible. shows that life without Jesus is not worth it. And it shows later in Revelation and demonstrates that death without him is not worth it.
Well, next up is the seventh trumpet. That woe is delayed. We're going to have an intermission and some background given to us. God is still caring. They are still rejecting.
That's what's going on in this chapter. Demons are real. And they hate The people that they deceive and use. God is real and is snubbed by people. But not all, not all people.
And we shouldn't lose hope. Ever. We are here because there is hope. We just don't know who it applies to, so we have to be ready for anything God leads us to do. Mercy offered, mercy declined.
So I'll close with these scary verses from Revelation 16. The first is in verse. Verse 9. And the men were scorched with great heat. And they blaspheme the name of God, who has power over these plagues.
And they did not repent. And give him glory. It's still doubling down. And then, verse 11: they blaspheme the God of heaven. because of their pains.
and they're sores. And they did not repent. of their deeds. They're just determined to snub God. And we should be mindful of this.
as preachers of the gospel. Uh 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.
