Daniel's 70th Week

SHOW NOTES:

The four angels lead a world war—the first, literal war to include every nation on earth—with a stunning army of 200 million. This is the wholesale invasion of the earth by the demonic world, the result of Satan’s opening the door of the shaft to the bottomless pit.

Hi everyone, I’m Tammy Becker.  Welcome to the Almighty God & Gospel Girl Podcast.  This is week fourteen into our series of Revelation and our podcast today is titled: Daniel’s 70^th Week.   My podcast today will be based on the reading of Revelation 9.  And if you would like to follow along with the notes or maybe you would like to find the links to anything mentioned in the podcast today, you can go to the link in the description or by visiting www.youministries.com and visiting the corresponding page.  As we get started today, I would like to remind you of my disclaimer, that as always…do not take my word, or anyone’s word for what you read…get yourself in the Bible and let God discern His Word to you.  I am only human and make many mistakes and do not claim to know or understand everything in the Bible…I just hope by bringing out this study that your interest is sparked enough to get into God’s Word and begin to deep dive on your own.

We’ve traveled some dark days in the Tribulation, but the worst is now upon us. These next events are so weird and wild, it boggles the mind. Unless John tells us otherwise, we’ll take them all as literal.

The eagle’s announcement, “Woe, woe, woe—a great wrath is coming to those who live on the earth,” signal three angels who will blow three trumpets. This covers the last three and one-half years of what the Old Testament prophet Daniel called, “the Seventieth Week,” the Great Tribulation. The Bible points to this season as the blackest days in human history.

FIFTH TRUMPET: FALLEN STAR AND PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS (VV. 1-12)

The fifth angel sounds a trumpet and a star falls from heaven. We’ve already witnessed two other stars fall, meteors to the earth, but this one is different. This star is alive and not only acts with intelligence, but he is given a key from God.

his falling star is Satan. The prophet Isaiah called him, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer” (Isaiah 14:12) and Jesus said in Luke 10:18 that He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven (see also 2 Corinthians 11:14 and Revelation 12:7-9). So what does Satan do as he’s thrown out of heaven? He goes to earth with the key to the abyss.

The abyss is a literal place. The Bible doesn’t teach that heaven and hell are mythological, with heaven as some beautiful island hanging out in space. Heaven and hell are as literal as the place you live today.

God gives Satan the key to the abyss, the long shaft of which is called sheol in the Old Testament and hades in the New Testament. The shaft leads to the abyss where the spirits of the dead of the ages past have gone. This is where the Lord Jesus went during His three days between His death and resurrection to announce the redemption He accomplished on the cross (see Revelation 1:18 and 1 Peter 3:18-22).

God allows Satan a freedom he never has had before, the authority and power to open this long shaft of the abyss. Then out of the shaft, like a great erupting volcano, pours a vicious smoke that covers the entire earth and darkens the sun and fills the atmosphere.

Out from the smoke come locusts with stingers like scorpions. But unlike locusts, they don’t eat grass, but attack people who don’t have the seal of God’s protection on their foreheads. They aren’t allowed to kill anyone, just torture them with unspeakable agony for five months. Things get so awful people want to kill themselves, but they can’t die. They long for death rather than repenting. Only Satan’s crowd are attacked by these locusts, but he doesn’t want his men to die either because he needs them in the war between light and darkness being waged.

These locusts have other unusual characteristics—human faces, antennae like the glory of girl’s hair, their bodies look like war horses with iron breastplates, and on their heads are golden crowns. Just the sound of their activity is terrifying, like the sound of a battle.

Yet in all this weirdness, this plague of locusts are as literal as the plague of locusts in Egypt. A working knowledge of the Old Testament is essential to understanding Revelation—these locusts were also mentioned by the prophet Joel as having lion’s teeth (see Joel 1:6) and also pictured in Joshua as hornets (see Joshua 24:12).

 Another unique characteristic of these locusts is that they have a leader, called “the angel of the abyss” (v. 11). Likely one of Satan’s chief henchmen, this king’s name is Apollyon—literally, “the destroyer.” Apollyon leads them in a terrifying invasion of earth. This confirms what Daniel told us, that the demonic world is divided into military ranks--generals, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, and privates. Ephesians 6 tells us the angels of God are divided the same way.

This locust warfare lasts the first five months. The next two trumpets warns that worse things will follow.

SIXTH TRUMPET: EVIL ANGELS LOOSED AT THE RIVER EUPHRATES (VV. 13-21)

When the sixth angel blew the trumpet, a command came from Jesus Christ Himself at the horns of the golden altar (symbolic of power) in heaven to loosen the four angels bound at the river Euphrates.

They must be fallen evil angels, since no good angels are bound. Sometime in past eternity, they were bound away from the others because of the enormity of their crime.

Why were they bound here at the Euphrates River? Complicated and nuanced, the prominence of this area in Scripture can’t be overlooked. The Garden of Eden was somewhere in this region. The sin of man began here. The first murder was committed here. The first war was fought here. Here was where the Flood began and spread over the earth. Here is where the Tower of Babel was erected. East and west are divided at the Euphrates. And to this area were brought the Israelites of the Babylonian captivity.

Babylon was the fountainhead of idolatry. And here is the final surge of sin on the earth; Zechariah 5 identifies Babylon as the last stand of false religion, and this is where Satan’s last stand will take place.

God had a purpose for these evil angels to fulfill at this specific hour, day, month, and year, and ordered their release to accomplish His will. These angels were ready for a specific assignment at a specific hour in history—to kill one-third of the earth’s population who are in rebellion against God.

Previously, 25% of the population was killed under the fourth seal judgment (6:7-8), and many more died as martyrs (see Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21-22). Now another 33% is removed. In these seven years of tribulation, over 50% of the population of the earth will be killed. No wonder the Lord Jesus said that if those days of tribulation had not been cut short, no human life would be saved.

The four angels lead a world war—the first, literal war to include every nation on earth—with a stunning army of 200 million. This is the wholesale invasion of the earth by the demonic world, the result of Satan’s opening the door of the shaft to the bottomless pit. The description of the horsemen further confirms this fact. The underworld is now making war on mankind.

These creatures from the underworld are frightening and bizarre. The horsemen are striking in their brilliant and toxic colors—fiery red, bright blue, and light yellow. The normal horse is an animal of war (see Job 39:19-25), but these are enhanced—their heads were lions and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. These unnatural horses are able to kill with their mouths, and instead of horses’ hair for tails, they have serpents which bite and kill mankind.

Hellish forces are at work.

If the population of the world were 1.5 billion at that time, more than 500 million would be killed. Yet ironically, the people left alive refuse to stop worshipping demons who are responsible for their misery under this sixth trumpet judgment. These unresponsive, unrepentant, hard-hearted people will continue in their moral sins: murders, sorceries, immorality, and stealing (21:8; 22:15). “Sorceries” (pharmakon—“pharmacy”) implies an uncontrolled drug use, which will contribute to a pervasive, violent drug culture and religion. Many will turn to drugs when they are stung or bitten by these weird creatures. Although people won’t die from their injuries, they’ll want to. And as a result, they will take drugs to overcome the pain and help them endure. Of course, these drugs also make them susceptible to sin. The Antichrist will use all these sins to bring mankind into subjection to himself, and they will be easily lured in that day.

Yet none of these severe judgments will move the remaining unbelievers as a whole to repent. The apostle Paul describes what is happening here as only impacting those who reject the Word of God. “And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

 The moment you reject the gospel and shut your heart to God, you are wide open for the big lie when it comes. This is the reason so many today fall for everything that comes along. If you’re not standing for the Word of God, you’re easy prey for any false teaching, cult, or error that puts you in their bullseye.

NEXT week will be talking about what the angel told John to eat!