Burunche’s Blog

Revelation 10:1 – 7 “Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head. His face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He held in his hand a small scroll, which lay open. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. Then he cried out in a loud voice like the roar of a lion. And when he cried out, the seven thunders sounded their voices.

When the seven thunders had spoken, I was about to put it in writing. But I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven. And he swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it: “There will be no more delay! But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, just as He proclaimed to His servants, the prophets.”

John has been watching with horror as demons have swarmed over the earth, but now God is sending His messenger angel. Who is this messenger? All that we know is that this is one of God’s trusted couriers; this angel must be very close to God. The rainbow is part of the throne of God. Ezekiel described God this way: “Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire, and on the throne high above was a figure like that of a man. From what seemed to be His waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire within it all around. And from what seemed to be His waist down, I saw what looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded Him. The appearance of the brilliant light all around Him was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.”

This angel has one foot on the sea and the other on the land, indicating that God is sovereign over all creation. The angel’s voice is like the roar of a lion and when he speaks, the seven thunders cry out. John, who is listening to all this, immediately wants to write down the messages the seven thunders are speaking, but a voice from heaven tells John to seal up what the seven thunders have said and not to write it down. Not every revelation is to be shared as soon as it has been given! There are visions and messages that are given years in advance; this does not mean that the person who has the vision should run out and share it. This is the age of social media, and some people are willing to share all their intimate details, including their meals, complete with photos. But timing is vitally important. God told the prophet Habakkuk when he was complaining about not seeing results as quickly as he wished, “For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end, and will not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and not delay.” Habakkuk 2:3

The angelic messenger reassures John, “And he swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it: “There will be no more delay! But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, just as He proclaimed to His servants, the prophets.” God is still on His throne and His timing is perfect.

William Barclay comments, “The meaning is that the whole purpose of God in human history will stand revealed. Much in life is difficult to understand; wickedness seems to hold sway. But, as John saw it, there is going to be a final show-down. God and Antichrist, good and evil, will face each other; final and total victory will be won, the questions will find their answers and the wrongs will be righted. Beyond all the strangeness of the picture stands the truth that history is moving towards the inevitable triumph of God and that, though evil may flourish, it cannot in the end be triumphant.”

Why do so many of us love to watch old Western movies? We watch in anticipation that sooner or later, the good guys in the white hats are going to show up and right all the wrongs, rescue the captives, and clean up all the messes. Unrealistic as those movies are, there is one thing that is true about those plots: There is a God of the universe whose nature encompasses all goodness, righteousness, truthfulness, faithfulness, and every other virtue. The One True Living God is all-powerful and all-loving. And one day, God IS going to come in and finally settle all the messes! On that day, what color hat will each of us be wearing? Will we be wearing white hats, indicating that we are on God’s side, or will we be wearing black hats? Spoiler Alert: better be sure you are found serving God and wearing a white hat!

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for these scriptures, even though they are sometimes hard to understand. Thank you that you ARE a God of Justice and that you WILL make everything right! Help us to love you and to serve you all the days of our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:5 New American Standard Bible (NASB) ⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Wow! This is the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry and God tells him that God had already set Jeremiah apart for a special ministry, even before Jeremiah was a fetus! What an endorsement! How you can beat that vote of confidence? If a young person heard that kind of a prophecy today, they would be having visions of TV shows with lots of special effects. But hold on! Because God has something totally different in mind. From the beginning, God knew that His Chosen People were going to misbehave, despite all of his warnings. (Check out Deuteronomy 32 for God’s warnings to Israel. He doesn’t mince any words!) And now, guess who gets chosen to inform the nation that it’s payback time for abandoning the God of their salvation?

^17 “Now, gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, or I will dismay you before them. ¹⁸ Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land. ¹⁹ They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.

We live in an age in which doing the right thing us may cause us to get sued, to lose business, lose jobs, lose all our possessions, or even be killed if we try to report the truth about a prominent political figure. The temptation to just keep quiet, to go along to get along, can be incredibly strong! How can we risk our family’s health and well – being? Many times, we feel like Tevia, the Milkman, in “Fiddler on the Roof,” “God, I know we are your chosen people, but couldn’t you choose someone else for a change?” And Jeremiah must have felt the same way. Jeremiah was a priest, for goodness’ sake! All he had to do was to just mouth nice platitudes and everybody would have approved. But denying the Word of the Lord was an impossibility for Jeremiah. “But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” Jeremiah 20:9. So Jeremiah followed the Lord, even when it meant accompanying the exiles from Jerusalem into Egypt, even though God had warned them never to go back to Egypt. Many times Jeremiah must have rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered the Aramaic equivalent of “Oi weh!” (Yiddish for “Oh misery!”)

Perhaps today you find yourself in the same position as Jeremiah. You took a stand for righteousness and now everything has fallen apart. The people you thought were your friends have abandoned you. Your name is being trashed on social media. Your teenagers are getting bullied at school. And you are left wondering why you couldn’t have just kept quiet. But remember, God sees. God knows. Your struggles have not been in vain, and God still has His hand on your life.

Lamentations 3:20 – 25 Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. ²¹ This I recall to my mind, and therefore I have hope. ²² The Lord’s lovingkindnesses ^[a]indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” ²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the ^[b]person who seeks Him.”

PRAYER: Father, today there are many of us who are suffering for righteousness’ sake, and it is terribly hard! We see no hope in our situation. But you are a God of infinite resources, and you have promised to honor those who honor you. Come into our situations and light the darkness. Provide the things that are needful! And above all else, Father, give us hope! In the matchless name of your Son our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Revelation 9:13-21 “The sixth angel sounded a blast on his trumpet and I heard a voice from the four horns of the altar saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet: “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So there came the four angels who were prepared for that hour and day and month and year, to kill a third part of the human race. The number of the armed forces of cavalry was twenty thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number, and this was how I saw in appearance the horses and those who were seated on them. They had breastplates of fiery red, and smoky blue, and sulfurous yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths there issued fire and smoke and brimstone. With these three plagues they killed a third part of the human race, with the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which were issuing from their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like snakes with heads, and with them they inflict their hurt. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, even in spite of this did not repent of the deeds of their hands, so as to cease to worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which can neither hear nor see nor move; nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.”

The demonic locusts have attacked everyone in the human race who does not have the seal of God on their foreheads, but the locusts were only able to sting for 5 months, the life span of the average locust. But now new horrors are arising! At the blast of the sixth trumpet, four powerful angels are released and now hell is really going to break loose. One third of the human race are about to die!

Who are these angels and what is the significance of the River Euphrates? There are many suggestions. Barclay says, “The Euphrates was the ideal boundary of the territory of Israel. It was God’s promise to Abraham: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates”. The angels, therefore, came from the distant lands, from the alien and hostile places from which the Assyrians and the Babylonians had in time past descended with destruction upon Israel.”

Throughout the world, there are territorial demons who attempt to control the evil done in their areas. In Daniel 10: 19-21 an angel comes to give Daniel an interpretation for a vision he has had. Daniel 10:19 “As he spoke with me, I was strengthened and said, “Speak, my lord, for you have strengthened me.” “Do you know why I have come to you?” he said. “I must return at once to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I have gone forth, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But first I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. Yet no one has the courage to support me against these, except Michael, your prince.” The prince of Persia referred to here is undoubtedly the territorial demon assigned to Persia, and the prince of Greece is the territorial demon assigned to Greece. These angels at the River Euphrates were bound; i.e., they were chained there. Only evil disobedient angels would require being bound, so these are evil angels. It is a horrible mistake to assume that all angels are good; one third of the angels accompanied Satan when he fell from heaven. It is also vital to remember that Satan can masquerade as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

In the time of John, the Parthian cavalry was the most feared cavalry in the world. In World War II, the Germans used the term “blitzkrieg” or “lightning war.” The Parthians specialized in lightning – fast destruction, and God might have used John’s knowledge of the Parthians to help him describe what he was seeing in the vision. Some Bible teachers speak as if John was making all of this up; I feel John was trying to describe the vision as honestly as he could.

Revelation 9:20-21 “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, even in spite of this did not repent of the deeds of their hands, so as to cease to worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which can neither hear nor see nor move; nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.”

What is the significance of the number of the hellish cavalry? The numbers mentioned here simply indicate that the number was countless and beyond all reckoning. Are these demonic horses fighter planes or some other kind of aircraft?Those details are not important! What is important is that one third of the human race dies in these attacks. Despite the fact that God is giving the survivors of these attacks one last chance to turn to Him, the remaining two thirds persist in pursuing their substitute gods and in murder, sorcery, immorality, and thefts.

As we read these passages, the question we must answer is this: what are we worshiping? If you are worshiping anything less than the One True Living God, today is your opportunity to change! Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow!

PRAYER: Father God, let us turn our hearts to you! Let us stop fixating and obsessing on careers, on houses, on relationships, on wealth, or on anything else that we have made into an idol. Let all who read these words truly come to know your Son Jesus as Savior and Lord and Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Revelation 9:9:1,2 “The fifth angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and I saw a star failing from heaven on the earth, and to him there was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless abyss; and he opened the shaft of the abyss; and smoke went up from the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the abyss.”

How could a star receive a key? In traditional Jewish thought, stars were divine beings who could become disobedient or even evil. C. S. Lewis in his book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader uses this concept with great effect. Evidently, this star has been found faithful and true because he is given the key of the shaft of the bottomless abyss, to open it.

What is the abyss? Here, we again turn to William Barclay: The abyss is the intermediate place of punishment of the fallen angels, the demons, the beast, the false prophet and of Satan. Their final place of punishment is the lake of burning fire and brimstone. To complete the picture of these terrors we may add that Gehenna–which is not mentioned in the Revelation–is the place of punishment for evil men.

In the beginning it (the abyss)was the place of the imprisoned waters…The second step was that the abyss became the abode of the enemies of God, although even there they were not beyond his power and control. Next the abyss came to be thought of as a great chasm in the earth. The Apocryphal Book of Enoch contains grim descriptions of it. It has no firmament above and no firm earth beneath; it has no water; it has no birds; it is a waste and horrible place, the end of heaven and earth. It is chaotic. There is a fire which blazes and a cleft into the abyss whose magnitude passes all conjecture….

Will this vision come to pass literally? My personal response is “Why not?” But the important thing is that no matter what we think, the opening of the abyss will herald the advent of demonic forces previously beyond all imagination.

Revelation 9:3-12 From the smoke locusts came forth upon the earth, and they were given power like the power of the scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only such men as had not the seal of God upon their forehead. They were not permitted to kill them, but to torture them for five months. Their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it strikes a man; and in those days men will seek for death and not be able to find it; and they will long to die but death flees from them. In likeness the locusts were like horses prepared for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces and they had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. They had scales like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots with horses running to battle. They have tails like scorpions with stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. As king over them they have the angel of the bottomless abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek Appolyon. The first woe has passed. Behold, there are still two woes to follow it.

Nobody who has ever had a scorpion sting forgets it! The scorpion venom feels like fire – a burning pain that can drive someone crazy. And God is allowing these locusts to sting for five months… but notice something. The only people the locusts are allowed to attack are those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. What does this mean?The Book of Revelation has caused all kinds of arguments; however, it is obvious that even in this time when demonic powers have been released to trouble the earth and its inhabitants, there are still those who serve the one true living God and have His seal of approval.

We will speak more about these horrors tomorrow, but remember this: throughout all of these trials and torments, God is still on the throne and He still knows those who are His. The question each of us must face is this: do we belong to God? Do we have His seal on our foreheads?

PRAYER: Father God, please help everyone who reads this devotional to understand that these are NOT fairy tales and that you have meant every word! Help all who read this to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It’s in His mighty Name that we pray. Amen.