{"id":9698,"date":"2020-06-09T20:00:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T03:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=9698"},"modified":"2020-06-07T16:27:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T23:27:23","slug":"revelation9_1-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/revelation9_1-21\/","title":{"rendered":"A Matter of Your Heart, Not Your Circumstances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Revelation 9:1-21\u00a0 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Revelation 9:1-21.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Revelation 9:1-21 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-11:\u00a0 If there was any passage in the Bible that resembled a science fiction movie, it\u2019s these 11 verses.\u00a0 What is going on here? The fifth angel sounds his trumpet, which then triggers \u201ca star that had fallen from the sky\u201d to appear. Apparently this star is not an actual star from space, but a fallen angel who is referred to as \u201che\u201d in verse 2.\u00a0 This fallen star (or fallen angel) is given the key to \u201cthe Abyss\u201d.\u00a0 While “the Abyss” sounds like some kind of space craft, it is not clear what the Abyss is.\u00a0 We do know that when the fallen angel opens the Abyss, enough smoke comes out of the Abyss to darken the sun and sky.\u00a0 After that, the most powerful and scariest looking locusts come out of the Abyss.<\/p>\n

Unlike the locusts that God sent in the book of Exodus who ate of all of Egypt\u2019s vegetation, the sole purpose of these much scarier locusts was “not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree” (v4), but to hunt down those who have not been marked by God with a seal and torturing them for five months.<\/p>\n

The leader of these locusts is \u201cthe angel of the Abyss\u201d (v11).\u00a0\u00a0It is very probable that \u201cthe angel of the Abyss\u201d in verse 11 and the fallen star in verse 1 are the same person.\u00a0\u00a0His name (Abaddon in Hebrew or Apollyon in Greek) means \u201cDestroyer\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Thus many commentators believe that this angel of the Abyss, this fallen star, is none other than Satan himself.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 Notice that the fallen star (also known as the angel of the Abyss, the destroyer; i.e. Satan) does not appear until the fifth angel sounds his trumpet.\u00a0 Notice also that the angel of the Abyss \u201cwas\u00a0given<\/em>\u00a0the key\u201d to the Abyss.\u00a0 What that suggests is that\u00a0even Satan himself is subject to God\u2019s authority and power.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>As Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, the same can be said of Satan: “Jesus answered, ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above…'” (John 19:11)<\/p>\n

That does not mean that God is the author of Satan and evil.\u00a0 Rather, God has power over Satan and evil and allows them to do only as much damage as God permits.\u00a0 In the end, Satan must answer to God.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Revelation 9:12-19 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.<\/p>\n

On verses 12-19:\u00a0 After the sixth trumpet sounds, four angels are released to kill a third of mankind.\u00a0\u00a0 They do so by mobilizing a massive army of 200 million horses and riders, whose appearance is arguably as scary as the locusts that came before them.\u00a0 A third of mankind is killed by the fire, smoke and sulfur coming out of the mouths of these \u201chorses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Revelation 9:20-22 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood–idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.<\/p>\n

On verses 20-21:\u00a0 Despite seeing and enduring so much suffering as a result of their sin, there were those who \u201cstill did not repent\u201d (v20).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0Repentance is an issue of the heart, not of our circumstances.<\/strong>\u00a0 If a person has a soft and humble heart toward God, even the smallest sin will cause that person to confess and repent.\u00a0 If a person has a hard and prideful heart toward God, great suffering may come to that person as a result of their sin and still they will not repent.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t wait for your circumstances or your environment to make you feel spiritual or to cause you to repent<\/strong>.\u00a0 It all comes down to the condition of a person\u2019s heart.\u00a0\u00a0You get to choose whether your heart is soft and humble before God or hard and rebellious toward Him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>That is why, as Proverbs 4:23, \u201cAbove all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of You.\u00a0 May my heart always be soft toward You, that I would be quick to admit to You when I\u2019ve done wrong, that I wouldn\u2019t wait until it is too late to humble myself before You.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Revelation 9:1-21.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

On verses 1-11:\u00a0 If there was any passage in the Bible that resembled a science fiction movie, it\u2019s these 11 verses.\u00a0 What is going on here? The fifth angel sounds his trumpet, which then triggers \u201ca star that had fallen from the sky\u201d to appear. Apparently this star is not an actual star from space, but a fallen angel who is referred to as \u201che\u201d in verse 2.\u00a0 This fallen star (or fallen angel) is given the key to \u201cthe Abyss\u201d.\u00a0 While “the Abyss” sounds like some kind of space craft, it is not clear what the Abyss is.\u00a0 We do know that when the fallen angel opens the Abyss, enough smoke comes out of the Abyss to darken the sun and sky.\u00a0 After that, the most powerful and scariest looking locusts come out of the Abyss.<\/p>\n

Unlike the locusts that God sent in the book of Exodus who ate of all of Egypt\u2019s vegetation, the sole purpose of these much scarier locusts was “not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree” (v4), but to hunt down those who have not been marked by God with a seal and torturing them for five months.<\/p>\n

The leader of these locusts is \u201cthe angel of the Abyss\u201d (v11).\u00a0\u00a0It is very probable that \u201cthe angel of the Abyss\u201d in verse 11 and the fallen star in verse 1 are the same person.\u00a0\u00a0His name (Abaddon in Hebrew or Apollyon in Greek) means \u201cDestroyer\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Thus many commentators believe that this angel of the Abyss, this fallen star, is none other than Satan himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9701,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions\/9701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}