Revelation Chapter 9 Verses 16 – 19

 Power in the mouths and tails. Speak life… your words have such

power and then the tail end of those words, what they leave behind…

a lasting effect. So, speak life. Encourage… everyone in this room

needs love, kindness and encouragement and there is more power than

you know going forth through your words.

 Notice in verse 16 that John "heard" the number of them…Two

hundred million…that is so many that it would take you six years of

non-stop counting to get them all…so what he saw was a major force.

Some commentators have ascribed what John saw to a literal army of

men but I just can't arrive at this is any natural army. For one thing,

the emphasis is not on the men, but the horses. It is the horses, with

heads like lions that have the power to kill and that power is in their

mouths and their tails…lion heads and serpent tails.

 What John is seeing here is a demonic army, headed up by the four

fallen angels that have been bound since the beginning for this very

thing. At any rate, I would think that after 5 months of horrible

scorpion locusts, death fleeing and a zombie apocalypse…and then an

army of 200 million horsemen with lion’s heads, serpent tails and over

half of all mankind killed, plus all of the other calamity that we have

seen, I would think that there would be a major revival, right? But

surprisingly, that’s not the case here…

Revelation Chapter 9 Verse 20

 Here’s what I’ve figured out about repentance, obedience,

faithfulness, and all the things that we are “supposed to do” as

Christians. We aren’t going to do them (in any meaningful,

impactful or sustaining way) if we don’t love the Lord. This is

super simple and remarkably central. In fact, I think this is the central

point of all faith and salvation. Do you love the Lord? Not do you

believe in God, not do you believe that Jesus is the Way, Truth, and

the Life. Not do you know that God is the truth and you should live to

serve Him. Satan knows all of those things. The thing is, and I don’t

know how it took me so long to see this, but now that I do its ALL I

see, the thing is, have you come to know Jesus?

 Because if you know Him, then you will inevitably and undoubtedly

LOVE Him! He is perfect and good in ALL His ways. He has seen

you, accepted you, given all for you, even laid down His entire life for

you, and no matter how messed up you are, He will do all those things

again! And when you receive that, when you grasp that, believe that,

understand that, when you get to know that, and Him and all that He

is…, (this is even in our design to know Him), you cannot help but

love Him with all your heart!!!!

 Why? Because slavery seeks to obey, love seeks to please. Love is

always seeking to please that which it loves! Ok, that’s the principal,

check this out. 1 John 2:3-5, “Now by this we know that we know Him,

if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does

not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But

whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him and

by this we know that we are in Him.”

 1 John 5:1-5, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of

God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is

begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God,

when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of

God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are

not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is

he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son

of God?”

 We are being instructed that true belief is not based on fact when it

comes to faith but it is based on relationship. We can know Jesus, the

Pharisees knew Him, but to KNOW Him as in salvation and to be

saved, to be changed, to be the bride of Christ, the church, that is not

to know Him like Satan knows Him but to know Him in terms of

being in a real, personal, love relationship with Him. If you love Him

then you know Him. If you don’t, you don’t!

 AND, if you love Him then His commandments are not

burdensome, they are your heart to do, you just want to be holy

for He is holy…, and you do the things because it is the love of

God that compels us and the goodness of God that leads us to

repentance! The conclusion of the matter? Religion is fake! Doing the

right things because they are the right things is meaningless and heavy

and burdensome and slavery! Knowing God is Christianity!!

 It’s just like this with us! We have people we know…, they don’t

know us. We have friends, and many don’t really truly know us…

And, we have partners. Huge difference. A friend is different than a

partner! A partner is someone who you love and they love you. They

are FOR you and you are FOR them. You would walk through fire for

them because you love them and the same for you. They put you first

and are interested in what pleases you and vice versa. And these are

the people that KNOW who you really are!

 Jesus told us this same principal in Matthew Chapter 7 verses 21-23,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom

of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will

say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your

name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your

name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart

from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” I never KNEW you!

 This is incredible revelation. We pray the sinner’s prayer and we

invite Jesus into our hearts and into our lives AND we have got to

learn about Jesus. Because you can do all those things, pray the

sinner’s prayer and believe without any doubt that Jesus is God and

yet if you never come to know Him then you have no confidence in

your relationship…, in your salvation! So, the massive question is not

why do you not repent? Why do you not change? Why this and why

that… The massive question is do you know the Lord? And the

same question is, do you LOVE the Lord? Because that’s how you

know if you truly know Him…, when you LOVE Him!

 Then you WILL serve Him! It will be natural! You WILL desire to do

what He commands! Why? So simple! Because LOVE continually

and constantly and consistently and certainly seeks to please! Seeks

to serve. It comes naturally! No one even has to tell you how or what

to do, YOU ASK what can you do and what MORE can you do!!

 A brilliant and renowned lawyer asked Jesus about this one day.

Matthew 22:35-40, “Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a

question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great

commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all

your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second

is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two

commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

 All of the law, every bit of the 10 commandments towards God, no

problem at all if you love God. All of the commandments towards

man, no problem if you love one another. Because love always seeks

to put the other first and always seeks to please and to serve!

 So, the problem here during the Great Tribulation is that the entire

world is loveless towards the Lord. The “rest of mankind” it says

there in verse 20, all of them clung to and then the list…, but the

answer is, what you love…, you will serve! It’s just that simple…

And if you KNOW Jesus, you will have a desperate desire to serve

Him!! AND it will constantly grow because you will never exhaust

what is to learn about how good God is!!!

 And oh by the way, lets talk about grace for just a minute, because I

fail the junk out of Jesus (was that doctrinally correct!? HA)! BUT, He

loves me, and I love Him, and He has made Himself not only my

Partner but my propitiation! So, as I fail Him, He loves me… And if

that frees me to fail Him more then I don’t love Him!!!! No! His love

for me COMPELS me to love Him better! Day by day. NO

condemnation just determination because He is SO good!!!!!

Revelation Chapter 9 Verse 21

 And now we know why… They did not repent because they did not

know Him…. Because to know Him is to love Him. To know Him is

to be a Christian… You can’t hide from light. Get close to it and you

will see it… This is the key, learn of Him, keep coming to church,

read your Bibles, think about what you are hearing, reading and

learning, and grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It

WILL lead to everything else aligning as it should in your heart and in

your life!

 So quit trying to be a better person and failing and then giving up and

then trying to be a better person and failing and then giving up, rinse

and repeat. Get to know JESUS and let your Christianity be lived out

in the power of the Holy Spirit rather than the feeble and failing power

of your own flesh!!! John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to

them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who

believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of

the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”