The Angelic Conflict - Part 14 -
They are alive because they have volition - they still have the opportunity to respond to the grace of God.

1. Pain can serve as a motivation, but in some cases pain can make a person a lot worse. 2. Pain, suffering, and adversity either makes us worse or better, but it never leaves us the same.

3. Some believers under disaster are motivated to improve, rebound, and go forward. Others turn very bitter and very sour, and eventually get locked-in to the evil and arrogance of the cosmic system.

They have five months = God always provides grace before judgment. God always provides solutions before the problem.

This has absolutely nothing to do with these days (present time). Our greatest danger from demons is our residence in the cosmic system in reversionism.

Arrogance cannot endure torture. The same humility that provides capacity for life and prosperity also provides the ability to withstand pain in time of adversity.

Those living in the cosmic system do not make decisions from a position of strength, they are making decisions from a position of weakness.

Satan is an evil and an unjust ruler, and he turns his first demon assault army on his own human servants.

The locust demons are described in terms of cavalry - they have mobility and fire power, REV 9:7.

They have a military insignia, their crowns were not gold but like gold = they think they are a victorious army, REV 9:7

Their faces were like men, indicating that demons do appear as men though they have greater intelligence and adaptability.

The significance of crowns like gold is victory; this demon assault army comes out of the abyss shouting victory, but for the demon assault army it is a false victory.

The only combat victory they have is against those members of the human race who during the Tribulation reside in the cosmic system as Satan’s servants.

REV 9:8 - At the time that this was written long hair of a woman meant beauty.

peribolaion = her long hair is a sign she is under authority; a woman using her long hair in different ways to make herself beautiful; used as a veil or a covering.

EZE 28:12 “You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” EZE 28:17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;”

There is a relationship between the hair of women in this passage and the concept of beauty related to arrogance.

Beauty + glamour = the arrogance in the Satanic revolt against God.

SOL 4:1 “How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil; Your hair is like a flock of goats That have descended from Mount Gilead.”

PRO 6:25 “Do not desire her beauty in your heart, Nor let her catch you with her eyelids.” PRO 11:22 “As a ring of gold in a pig’s snout, So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.”

PRO 31:30 “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who respects the Lord, she shall be praised.”

Robert R. McLaughlin Bible Ministries

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Robert R. McLaughlin 2001