In this sermon, the preacher discusses the events described in the book of Revelation, specifically focusing on the opening of the pit and the unleashing of demons. The fifth angel sounds the trumpet, and a fallen star, representing an angel, is given the key to the bottomless pit. When the pit is opened, smoke arises and locusts, symbolizing demonic torment, are released upon the earth. These locusts have the power to torment people for five months, causing unimaginable suffering. The preacher emphasizes the inescapable nature of this torment and highlights the importance of seeking to be counted worthy to escape these coming judgments.

We come to Revelation chapter 9, and I have entitled this The Great Plague of Demons. We've seen all different kinds of plagues to this point. As we come to this section, we're dealing pretty exclusively with demons. I want to read from verse 1 down to verse 12, and then I want to launch right into it. We are in the midst of the trumpet judgments, as you recall. We've seen four of them so far. And now the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the 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 power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like, watch for the word like in here, their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when he strikes a man. And in those days men will seek death and they will not find it. They will desire to die and death will flee from them. The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold. And their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair and their teeth were like lion's teeth. And they had breastplates like 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 stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Now, last time you remember after the first four trumpet judgments there was an angel flying through heaven. Remember that? And he was crying, woe, woe, woe, three times. For the first four woes had taken place. Now there were three more. This is the first of the three that are left to come. And when we get to verse 12, one woe is past. Behold, two more after this. It is hard to imagine what could be after this, but there's more. Now, as we look at this, we see four things. We see the opening of the pit. Very clear. The unleashing of the demons. The demonic torment team, as I call them. And we'll find out how many of them there are next time. Although I'll tell you, it's 200 million. Give you a little forecast on where we're going. 200 million. And the king who leads them. The opening of the pit, the unleashing of the demons, the demonic torment team, and the king who leads them. Let's begin with the opening of the pit. To begin with, we read in verse one, the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star. Star is biblical language here for angel. A star fallen from heaven into the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. This is Satan. This is Satan falling from heaven to earth. Sometimes people may ask you, where does the Bible say that Satan fell in heaven? I want to tell you right now. It's in Isaiah 14, 12, Isaiah 14, 12. You can just turn there real quick. And we have the account of that. Isaiah 14, 12. How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. How you are cut down to the ground. You who weaken the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars, angels, stars of God. In verse 13, I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farther sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Yet you shall be brought down to shield the place of death to the lowest depths of the. What does it say? The pit. Now, here you see Satan fall. As as he exalts himself, wants to be God and he falls from being Lucifer, the son of the morning, from glory to being a fallen angel, a demon in Luke 10, 18. I'll just read it to you. Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. So this is Satan. So you see the star who falls from heaven to earth and to him is given a key. This is Satan to him is given a key to the bottomless pit. The key comes from its keeper, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. He has the key to all things and he opened the bottomless pit from this point and releases the demons that are inside. Now, this bottomless pit, literally the abyss, you might find it translated other places in your Bible is the abyss. This bottomless pit is a prison. It is a prison where you have demonic hordes incarcerated. And you find reference to that in this chapter, in chapter 11, chapter 17, chapter 20, and mention of it elsewhere. Luke, 2nd Peter, Jude, etc. But here we see that this is a place of imprisonment for demonic spirits. And we read that he opened the bottomless pit and it spewed forth smoke as of a great furnace so that the sun is darkened. The whole air is filled with it darkened because of the smoke of the pit. So you picture in your mind those billowing clouds of volcanic ash, whatever it is, is coming out of this furnace from the center of the earth. And then out from it come these locust like demonic creatures. They are, in fact, demons. Now, before we go any further, I want to take some time to focus on this place and who is in there. This bottomless pit is a prison spoken of in the Bible more than you might think. And its inmates are spoken of in detail in the Bible. Turn in your Bible to Jude. I want to talk about the demons that are chained up inside the pit so that we can have some insight into who these locust creatures are. Because they're not locusts. They're not locusts. So I'm asserting to you that there are demons and I'm going to show it to you in Jude, chapter 6. Hang a left from Revelation, you'll plow right into Jude. Otherwise, you'll miss it. Hang a left from Revelation to Jude, chapter 6. Your Bible doesn't have chapter 6? What kind of Bible is that? I'm just kidding. There's no chapter 6. In Jude, verse 6, we read the angels who did not keep their proper domain. So we're talking about angels who did not keep their proper domain. So you understand we're talking about demons. But left their own abode. He has reserved an everlasting chains under darkness for the day of judgment. So there are angels reserved in chains under darkness somewhere. And they are angels who didn't keep their proper domain, left their own abode. They did something drastically wicked to be chained up in a place when other demons are allowed to roam around. Verse 7, he gives us an example of what they did. As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah having given themselves over to sexual immorality. And here's the key phrase and gone after strange flesh. Are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So Jude is talking about fallen angels who did something so desperately wicked that it's described as leaving their own abode. Caused them to be put in chains of darkness reserved for the great judgment day. And it had something to do with going after strange flesh as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did. Well, what happened there? Turn in your Bible to Genesis 19, verse 1. We'll find out Genesis 19. Just to give you a quick backdrop on it, three men appeared to Abraham when he was in the door of his tent. They conversed with him. Turns out one was God. Two were angels, but they are definitely in the appearance of men. Then God talked with Abraham and he said he was going to judge Sodom. Abraham bargained with God. And when it's all done, we find the two angels go down to Sodom and God doesn't. He won't even go there. He disappears. He will not go there. But he sends two angels to destroy it and agrees to get Lot and his believing members of his family out. So in Genesis 19 to 19, one, we read, then the two angels. Now they are on the earth as men at this point in time. The two angels come into Sodom in the evening. And Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. Now, verse four, before they lay down the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, everybody. They all come gathering around the house and they called to Lot and they said, where are the, what does it say? But we know they're angels, right? But obviously they are human enough that the young and the old and everybody from every quarter comes out and says, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. And the King New King James is a very soft word for something that is very graphic and wicked that we may know them carnally. The men obviously are two angels. Definitely they are in the form of human beings. Definitely. Ask Lot, you know, he could tell you. So Jude 6 describes angels who did not keep their proper domain, but went after strange flesh. That is to say, here you have men going after angels. Jude 6 is talking about angels going after men. The same, it's just the opposite, it's just the same only different. It's the opposite. So you with me? So same kind of bizarre, wicked thing. In this case, it's the angels going after the men. So these angels, Jude said, are imprisoned in chains under darkness. Peter, go to first Peter chapter three, verse 18. I'm having you flip back and forth across the Bible, not to torment you, but because I'm following a train of thought, a chain of thought, because we're going to go back to Genesis again. You're going to get upset with me if I tell you that we're following a chain of thought. That's why we're going the way we are. There's a method to this. First, Peter 318, we read for Christ suffered once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. So Peter is saying that when Jesus died on the cross and his body was then dead, he wasn't. And he went somewhere and he did something. Now, what he did was he went and he heralded his triumph. That's what the Greek says. He heralded his triumph to spirits who were in prison, in prison. Verse 20 tells us who they are, that Peter is talking about the Jesus went and heralded his triumph to who formerly were disobedient when once the divine long suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is, only eight souls were saved through the water, the flood. So Jesus went and heralded his triumph to spirits who were in prison, who were spirits that were formerly disobedient. When were they disobedient? They were disobedient in the days of Noah to such an extent they are put in this prison. You follow? OK, now go to the days of Noah in Genesis chapter six and we'll find out exactly who these demons are and what they did. Genesis chapter six. This is the only way to arrive at the proper interpretation of who these locust like creatures are in the bottomless pit when the key is given to Satan and he opens it. Genesis six one. Now it came to pass when men begin to multiply in the face of the earth and daughters were born to them that the sons of God. Notice the contrast saw the daughters of men. There's a contrast here. Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. And so first they saw, then they took. They took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. This is wide scale. And the Lord said, my spirit will not strive with man forever, for indeed, he is flesh. Yet his days will be 120 years. So here, sons of God is a phrase in the Bible used to describe angels. You find it in Job chapter one, chapter two, chapter 38. It is a term used to describe angels, sons of God. It's held in contrast here to daughters of men. Then when that happens, a verse to God immediately responds, you see the response, my spirit will not always strive with men. You move down to verse five and you see the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And then you read on and you come to the flood. But I want you to see there is an immediate reaction to verse two from God and it leads to the flood. In verse four, there were giants on the earth in those days and also afterwards, when or during the time. When the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them, sons of God, in contrast, the daughters of men, they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men of old, the men of renown. We are now at the most hotly debated passage of Scripture in all the Bible. And some have argued that the sons of God here are the sons of Seth, who cohabitated with the daughters of Cain. Others suggest they were perhaps human kings wanting to build harems. But the passage puts a strong emphasis, as I've showed you on the angelic versus the human sons of God, daughters of men, and the New Testament, as I showed you, places this account in the sequence of other Genesis events that have fallen angels. We saw that already in Jude and in first Peter. And so we got here. So here in the time of Noah, we have these fallen angels and I showed you the angels as men in Genesis with lot on purpose, fallen angels and they cohabitate with the daughters of men. And the result is the flood. What was going on here? What was going on here is Satan was producing an unnatural union with demons and women of the human race that violated God's ordained order of human marriage and procreation. And what the devil was trying to do, get this, is bring about an unredeemable race of human beings. That's why the flood. And that's why when only eight believe and survive in the flood with Noah in the ark, it's because the rest of the human race was demonized to the extent that Satan was seeking to make the human race unredeemable. Because don't forget, in the garden, when man fell, God rushed in, found them hiding, pulled them out, clothed them. But even before that, he announced the prophecy of the Messiah, the savior of the world to them. Genesis three, 15 and the doom of Satan on the spot and the salvation of the human race. Therefore, overthrowing on the spot by by forecasting prophecy, everything Satan had just done. So God promises a redeemer, Satan, then goes about here to seek to bring about among the human race, a demonized race of people that serve him that are unredeemable. It's a brilliant plan, and it didn't work because of the flood that wiped them all out. So whether the demons inhabited the bodies of human beings or whether they somehow appeared on earth in the bodies of human beings like the angels and Sodom, either way, they blew it. They blew it in a horrendous way and they caused the flood and then caused these demons to be incarcerated in the bottomless pit. When other demons are allowed to roam around until the end, the lake of fire, these are chained up for a reason, and this is the reason the Bible gives. It's very tightly woven argument and you can search it out on your own. In fact, I encourage you to because the longer you search it out, the more it will solidify what I've just told you. You can search out all the other angles and all the other arguments and lines of thought. This is the one that makes the most biblical sense, and it's the one that enables you to understand who the demons are in the bottomless pit in Revelation, chapter nine, verse one. So why don't you turn back there? Do you remember when Jesus went to Gadara and there was the man there who was possessed with a thousand demons, a legion, and he cast the demons out and they begged him. They said, do not send us to the abyss. Remember that now, you know what they were talking about. They know those demons know there is a place that demons who do the very worst things get sent to and that they're face to face with the son of God. And he has the power. He alone has the power to send them there. Don't send us to the pit before the time they understand everything we're studying. And that's why you see those kinds of comments on the part of demons in the New Testament with Jesus interacts with them back to Revelation nine. Now, you understand that the demons inside the bottomless pit are the most wicked demons there are in existence. The other ones are allowed to roam free. Then you realize when you come to this fallen angel, given the key, Satan, to open the bottomless pit and they come out, it is as if somebody is to give you an analogy as if somebody went around the world, opened all the prisons and let out the most vicious, perverted, wretched criminals in the entire world. And they were free to roam around the earth and do anything they wanted to to anyone. That's the picture, the worst of all, the demons are now free. So the opening of the pit. Now we come to the unleashing of the demons in Revelation nine, three through six, and we have John's description of the demons, they are as locusts out of the smoke. Locusts came up on the earth. And to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. So picture that cloud of smoke billowing up into the atmosphere and then out of that smoke, it's spewing these creatures and the number I already gave you, which is further in the chapter. It's in our next study. Out of that comes all these creatures resembling locusts. They swarm out of the abyss like a plague on the earth. These demons are given a form. They are inside the bottomless pit. We cannot see angels, we cannot see demons normally. Right. That's basic. They were seen in Genesis and Sodom, so they took on a form here. They take on a form that suits what they're going to do. And we find the description as we move through here. Now, why locusts? Well, John, you must remember, John is writing this. And he is writing, looking at what he sees and he has to use his own frame of reference. So he's a swarm of these creatures come out and he describes them as locusts. And in that part of the world, a swarm of locusts and their destruction would be very familiar to John. And reading the Old Testament, you have locust plague described in Joel, different places in the Old Testament, the locusts as referred to in that part of the world is very common. I read that in 1889, there was a swarm of locusts over the Red Sea that covered 2000 square miles. So when John describes them as locusts, our minds go immediately to a grasshopper. Or if you've traveled the world, you've been to the Mediterranean areas, you may have eaten French fried locusts. John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey. And you may have gone big with your falafel and your bag of big bag, big coke and a big bag of fried locusts. I've seen them. I never buy them. But you see them bagged up there like French fries. So your mind may go to that. I don't think that's so much the part John is going to as he is the part that locusts come in swarms and they do huge amount of destruction. And you find that in so many places in the Bible. But these are not ordinary locusts in any sense of the word. This is a demonic horde. These are demons. So the description of the demons as locusts, the protection is interesting here in verse four, they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree. Those are the things that were harmed last time. Remember, in the first four blasts of the trumpet, the first four trumpet judgments. Now they're told don't touch them. But you can only touch those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So that tells us there are some who will be protected and that would be those with the seal of God on their foreheads. Who are those people in the book of Revelation? One hundred forty four thousand. So here we see, looking back to how we looked at the hundred forty four thousand is literal with a literal seal of God on their head to enable them to preach the gospel, survive, live and go on into the millennial kingdom. You see, as you read on, that's the right interpretation. It fits. So you come here. These are real people, the real seal of God, and they are not allowed to touch them as they are preaching the word of God. They're protected. However, anybody that doesn't have that seal on their forehead. And I would assume that other believers at the time are sealed as well. Anybody that doesn't have that seal on their forehead, they they can go ahead and harm. That is every Christ rejecting individual. So there's protection for those that are the Lord's believers, especially the hundred forty four thousand. Then there is the affliction from these demons, which is really repulsive to even contemplate. Verse four, they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth and anything, any tree or the men that do not have only the men that do not have the seal of God in their foreheads. Verse five, they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. They were commanded not to kill. You know, that tells me that they have the ability to kill. They have to be told not to kill. When Satan attacked Joe, many of his servants died. They have the ability to kill. They must be told here not to kill. Imagine they've been imprisoned since the time of Noah. When they get out, they're demons, you know, they want to kill everybody in sight. God has to tell them and put a limit on them. You cannot kill. They can torment, but they cannot kill. That is the mercy of God to give these people one last chance to turn to Christ. Because really, if you add it all up, you get down to this time during we're now into the last three and a half years on Earth. If you add it all up and how many have died so far, at least around half the human race has died. So God has a limit. Half the Christ rejecters on Earth have died, roughly speaking, looking at all the numbers we've seen so far. So you cannot kill them, but you can torment them. And the torment lasts for five months. It's amazing to me, the first four trumpet judgments, we saw the limits God put on the judgments. One third, one third, one third, one third. Our God is a precise God. His economy of effort has no waste. There's nothing sloppy about it. He is always in control. He was always precise. And so here there is a limit, five months. A limit you cannot kill, a limit you can afflict and torment for five months. And the torment that lasts for five months is likened here to a scorpion sting. Verse five, like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. I don't know if you've ever seen anybody get stung by a scorpion or if you have. It is one of the worst things that can ever afflict a human being here. It says their torment is like the different. So it's not they're not scorpions, they're not locusts, they're demons, their torment is like the torment of a scorpion. It lasts for five months. So it has all of the emotional agony, all of the sharp, excruciating pain, but it's beyond it. So what would it be? I'll tell you what it is. It's gross, it's demon infestation. Not just demon possession, demon infestation and all of the torments that come with it so that these demons afflict you. Let's take the mystery out of it completely. What happens to people in the Bible when they are afflicted by demons? Look in the New Testament, you find Legion, who we talked about earlier. There was another man there as well, lived in the caves. Anytime they put clothes on, they rip the clothes off, put chains on them, they break the chains off because of the agony. They were in almost supernatural strength and then screaming insanely and cutting themselves. That is the torment of demon possession. When Jesus came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples were there. They were trying to cast out a demon from this boy. His father said from a child he's been demon possessed. The demon throws him into the fire and throws him into the water to drown him all the time. I'm rescuing him all the time. The torment of demon possession to throw you into fire or water to drown you, to make you insane, to cut yourself, to you bleed, to shriek and moan. In the Old Testament, when King Saul rebelled against God and turned away from him, he became demonized. When David used to play the wonderful music to him, he became demonized. He started throwing spears. He tried to kill David. He committed mass murder with the priests. He went insane, demonized, insane, mass murder. Then he committed suicide. So you look at what happens when people are afflicted by demons in the Bible. It's very clear. Demonic torment with imagine a human being not just being demon possessed or demon oppressed, but infested with demons. Legion had one thousand. He had demonic infestation, the filth of it, the torment of it, the agony of it. It is so horrific that men, it says in verse six, in those days will seek death and they will not find it. They will desire to die. And death will flee from them. Let me just stop here for a minute. When people today, when you're witnessing to them and you say, receive Christ, he loves you. Behold, he stands at the door of your heart. He knocks. He wants to come in, have fellowship with you, save you, give you new life. And people say, you know, I'm not ready for him now. And I know the rapture will come and the tribulation will come and I'll give my life to him in the tribulation. Are you willing to face demonic infestation to trade that in for whatever would hold you back from Christ now? It's appalling to contemplate. And yet you see the goodness of God, the goodness of God. Today is the day of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. You don't have to go through this. People will go through this. And their unimaginable attempts at suicide will fail. Imagine jumping out of a 20 story building to commit suicide and you hit the sidewalk down below and you don't die. Imagine seeking to blow your brains out with a shotgun. The brains go all over the wall and you still are alive. I don't know how it's going to be, but I do know that suicide is at the end of demonic torment. We find in the Bible men will seek to die and death will flee from them. So tormented five months like this and they cannot get away from it. That's the point. The torment is inescapable. You can't get away from it. So we've seen the opening of the pit. We've seen the unleashing of the demons that are inside and what they're like. Now let's go to the whole team. I call it the demonic torment team in verses seven through 10. Here is a detailed description. They are shaped like horses ready for battle. The shape of the locusts was like horses ready for battle. This is a picture of a war horse in John's day. War horses were trained. They were trained for battle. So when they were suited up with the armor they wore, they're very heavy. And when they were lined up, ready to charge, they would stomp their feet. You see them, you know, in the movies and they snort and they're ready. They're ready to go. They're they're very defiant. They're very strong. They're very battle smart. And that is the picture of these demons here that form this army like horses prepared for battle. War horses. And then you read in verse seven that on their heads were crowns of something like gold, crowns of something like gold. What is that? Well, the Greek word here for crown is Stephanos. It is the victor's crown used of generals coming back from war in those days. They would be given the victor's crown when they came back triumphant. This is to say that they were the victor's crown. That is to say nothing can stop them. They will triumph in what they are sent forth to do. You cannot stop them. They're invincible. Then you read they have the faces like men, faces like men. Why does it say that? Because these are not locusts. These are not helicopters. These are demons that are rational beings. Once they were glorious angels. They have faces like men because they are rational, intensely rational, and they can think so. They are faces like men. And then they have hair like women's hair in Jeremiah. Jeremiah described locusts as having kind of like a bristly hair on them. These have hair like like women's hair. In the Bible, the woman's hair is her adornment. She can fix it up. Women do become more alluring and so on. This speaks of their ability to be enticing and alluring. In other words, when Satan lures you in. He always makes it beautiful. He will entice men to their doom the way he always has. And it will be very appealing. That's the point. Very appealing. So that they will be enticed to their doom, to their involvement with these demons in their teeth and are like lion's teeth. They rip and they tear with great fierceness. And verse nine, they had breastplates like breastplates of iron. John would be thinking of a soldier's armor in his day. And thus they are. You cannot harm them. It is iron like armor. You cannot harm them. In other words, you see one of these or a thousand of these coming at you. You pull out your pistols and start firing. That doesn't even affect them. You throw down your guns and start running. They catch you and start afflicting you for five months. You cannot do anything against them. You cannot escape their torment. And that is the picture of the armor. There's no weapon man has that will stop them. And then they had tails like scorpions and there were stings in their tails and their power was to hurt men. Five months, tails like scorpions. And so they have this ability to torment men. Then finally, we come from the demonic torment team here. We'll see more about them next time. There's a king who lead them, leads them. Verse 11, they had a king over them, which says, again, they're not locusts. Proverbs 30 says the locusts have no king. These are not bugs. These are demons. They have a king over them. The angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon. But in Greek, he has the name Apollyon. He's been around for a while. He's got even a Hebrew name and a Greek name. Old Testament, New Testament. He's been around a long time. Some interpret this to be Satan. I don't, because he says right here, it's the angel of the bottomless pit. Satan is not associated with the bottomless pit until he is locked there during the thousand year reign of Christ. He is associated with in the Bible, which on Ephesians, he is the prince of the power of the air. So this is not Satan. This is one of his high ranking demons who's been incarcerated here over all these. He is one of his top generals, if you could put it. Satan's demonic hordes are very, very organized. And this is the king that is over them when they are set free to do one thing during this time, and that is to hurt men. That's it. One thing to hurt men in judgment. So you read all of that and then you read in verse 12, one woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. Oh, my. Jesus said, pray and ask God that you would be counted worthy to escape all these things that are coming on the earth. Do you? I do. Now, I believe I'm saved. If I don't know whether I'm saved or not by now, I'm all messed up because I've been a Christian for a long time. I know that I'm saved, but I still pray to the Lord because he said to. And I say, Lord Jesus, if you come today, I pray that you find me worthy to snatch me off this earth and take me with your church to heaven when you come in the rapture, because I don't want to stay here one millisecond longer than I have to. And I don't want to get any closer to these things than I have to. This is frankly close enough for me. In fact, I strongly recommend you read a few psalms before you go to sleep tonight. Seriously, read some really nice ones, because maybe even skip ahead in Revelation to read about heaven, because otherwise you may have some creatures flying around your dreams that you don't want there and you're never going to see them anyway. The reason is, is because we love Jesus Christ and the only reason we love him. It's because he first loved us. I thank God I can read these things. I know the future of planet Earth. I know what is coming. And it is so good to know that beyond this, my God, who sets the five month limit on these demons. He's the same one who I read later in Revelation is going to take Satan and all the demons and throw them into the bottomless, into the lake of fire, bottomless pit only for a thousand years, lake of fire where they would be tormented forever and ever. The Bible says we will look upon him. The deceived and accused, the brethren, and we will marvel. And I thank God I will not be put in there with him. Because hell was created for Satan and his demons, not human beings. You have to willfully follow Satan to go where he goes. You have to love darkness rather than light to be put into the darkness forever. And if you love Jesus Christ, who is your savior and he is your king, you're going to heaven and you'll be there forever and ever. And just think, James said that this life is as a vapor that appears for a little time and then it's over. Can you imagine what heaven's going to be like? It's going to go on and on and on, and there will be no night there, no tears there, no pain there, no demonic torment there, no bad weeks there, only joy. And here in this life is the quest for fulfillment that sort of slips through our fingers. We seem to have it and it's gone there. There will be only fullness of joy, fulfillment in what God has designed for us in the beginning as he fills our lives with himself. This light affliction does work for us an eternal weight of glory. That's where we're headed. But in the meantime, we're to be teaching every man and warning every man of the things that are coming on this earth. And it's a joy to do it because there are so many out there that want to know Christ. When you talk to them about Christ, they want forgiveness. When you offer it, find them, let the Lord lead you to them. And he will. Father, thank you for leading us to Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for the marvelous truth that is here before us. And thank you for the hope of heaven that is stretched before us forever. Lord, may we be filled with your presence. May there be as much of heaven in our souls through the Holy Spirit as we can contain in these days. May we bring with us a sense of your heavenly peace and your heavenly joy everywhere that we go and every person that we're with. And we will give you all the glory as you keep us busy about the things of your house until you come. For we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.