We are continuing a study that we started a couple of weeks ago in the book of Joel. In Joel 1:1-7, we read:
The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
We saw a couple of weeks ago that the prophecy of Joel has to do with the time of Great Tribulation. Actually, it has to do with more than just the Great Tribulation. As we get into the book, there is also information here on the sending forth of the Gospel during the Church Age and the second sending forth of the Gospel during our present time of the Great Tribulation. Later on in the book of Joel, it really gets into looking at God’s great salvation plan and how He is going to save so many out of the human race before it is all over and said and done with.
The first chapter of Joel and into the second chapter is focused on the judgment of God upon the churches and congregations. It is very negative language, verse after verse, throughout Joel 1 and into Joel 2. There does not seem to be any letup. There does not seem to be any mercy of God in view. It is all judgment followed by judgment. Yet there is, we know, God’s mercy during the time of Great Tribulation, once we get to the second part of the Great Tribulation and God begins to send forth the Gospel into the world. God identifies this period of time as the “latter rain” here in Joel.
A couple of weeks ago, we looked at Joel 1:4:
That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
We saw that all four of these creatures are basically crop destroyers. They are destroying the harvest. They are coming against every “green thing” and they are devouring it and consuming it so that there is nothing left.
It reminded us of the plagues that came upon Egypt when Israel was in bondage in the land of Egypt and God sent ten plagues against them. Among those plagues there was a plague of locusts and they were destroying all of the harvest of Egypt.
This is what is going on here. God, in beginning the judgment process upon the churches and congregations, is destroying the “harvest” of the church. As we come to this time near the end of the world, there ought to be a great harvest of souls. There should be multitudes in the churches who have heard the Gospel and were blessed by the Gospel and were saved by the Gospel. But actually, we read a little further down in Joel 1, in Joel 1:10-11:
The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
So the “harvest” of the churches and congregations is completely and utterly destroyed, and we can see why. The “palmerworm” came first and whatever the “palmerworm” left, the “locust” came and began to destroy. Whatever the “locust” left, the “cankerworm” followed. After the “cankerworm” came the “caterpillar.” It is judgment after judgment after judgment, until it is all gone.
Remember, we were talking a little bit about locusts. It is not just in the Bible that there could be swarms or plagues of locusts. There are actually locusts that exist today in Australia. The official name of that locust is the “Plague Locust” because they are prone to swarm on crops in the millions or tens of millions. There have even been estimates of some plagues in the billions, where these creatures come upon all plant life and just destroy it. If a farmer has sown his seed and has taken care with the seed and watered it and developed his crop, once the locusts come, he might as well forget about it. His crop will be destroyed if a swarm comes upon it. Then he has to start thinking about the next year, because he is not going to be able to harvest any of the fruit that he had spent so much time on. Once this happened, all of that seed was basically wasted.
If we turn back to Deuteronomy 28 where God refers to this, keep in mind that after Deuteronomy 28:15, this is a chapter that focuses in on God’s judgment upon a disobedient people—upon those who outwardly or corporately are associated with God but have not been following God’s commandments or walking in His commandments. So God is, in verse after verse, beginning in verse 15, pronouncing the curses upon them. We read in Deuteronomy 28:38:
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
This is one of the curses of God upon a disobedient people.
What does this mean, “Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field”? Remember the parable of the sower? The parable of the sower is that he goes out and sows seed. Some falls “by the way side,” some falls on “stony ground,” some falls “among thorns,” and some falls on “good ground.” In this parable, Jesus explains that this has to do with sowing the Word of God, sowing the Gospel.
This is what the churches, even today, are involved in. They send out missionaries. They have outreach programs in their local neighborhoods, many times. They invite people into the church. They have personal witnessing going on amongst the church members as they share with their neighbors, “Come to my church. Visit my church.” It is all “sowing seed.” At least, this is how it has been traditionally. They want these people to hear the Gospel.
God is saying that when we get to the time of the Great Tribulation, there will be much seed sown. We know this to be so because churches are everywhere. Outreaches and arms of the churches are everywhere.
I am not saying that these churches are faithful in what they are teaching about the Bible or that what they are teaching is true to the Bible, but they are out there in the world. There are many missionaries from organized denominations who have gone forth, yet what is the expectation? They will “carry much seed out into the field,” but they will “gather but little in.”
We should not think that some are going to be saved by the ministry of the church. Remember, this is only looking at the plague of locusts, but following the locusts, there will be other plagues coming that will consume whatever little was not consumed with the first plague, until at the end, they have nothing. They have a harvest that is perished and that is no more.
If we look at the language of the Bible related to harvests and sowing seed, it means that there is no salvation. There is no salvation taking place in the churches, once God’s judgment has begun. Once He has unleashed these plagues upon the corporate body—upon the New Testament organized churches and congregations of the world—there will be no salvation.
Previously in Joel 1, where it speaks of the locusts, we talked about a verse in Revelation, but we did not actually go there. If we turn to Revelation 9, we will see what is in view by the plague of locusts. In Revelation 9:1, we read:
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Some people get confused when they read that “the fifth angel sounded.” There were four previous angels, and they try to understand the “trumpets” in Revelation chronologically. They try to understand it in a specific order, so they try to fit the sounding of the “fifth angel” somewhere into the Great Tribulation, but not necessarily at the beginning of the Great Tribulation because four “trumpets” have already sounded.
But we can not do that. We can not do that. We can not try to organize the trumpet sounds in our minds chronologically. The reason for this is because what is going on here in Revelation 9:1 has to do with the very beginning of the Great Tribulation. It has to do with the loosing of Satan at the start of the Great Tribulation. It is not dealing with the middle period or some period later on, and we can know this for sure.
Let us read Revelation 9:1 again:
…and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Who is the “star?” There has been a lot of confusion about this “star.” If you look at commentaries and look up some of the commentators, they have all kinds of ideas. They really do not know that this “star” is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is “the Bright and Morning Star” that we read about later in the book of Revelation. Also, He is the only One who has the “key of the bottomless pit.”
Turn back to Revelation 1:18. It says:
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
This is the Lord Jesus speaking, so the Lord Jesus possesses the “keys” of Hell, and the “bottomless pit” is a reference to Hell.
Actually, this word “bottomless” is found about nine times in the New Testament. It is found seven times in the book of Revelation, and in each case, it is translated as “bottomless.” (It is found three times in Revelation 9. It is found once in Revelation 11 and once in Revelation 17. It is found twice in Revelation 20.) In each occurrence in the book of Revelation, it is translated as “bottomless.” It is the Greek word, “abussos,” from which we get the word “abyss.” Our English word “abyss” and our understanding of an “abyss” is something that is extremely deep. If you go to the deepest part of the ocean where it is miles deep, that is called an “abyss.”
We also find that this word “bottomless” is translated as “deep.” We find this word in Luke 8, where there was a man who was possessed of devils who said that their name was “Legion.” We read in Luke 8:31, where the devils are beseeching Jesus:
And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.
There was a body of water in that place as well as a “herd of many swine,” and they besought Jesus “that He would suffer them to enter into them.” Then “the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.” They drowned in the lake. Yet, this word “deep” is the same word “bottomless” that we find several times in the book of Revelation.
In another Gospel account of this same story, the demons asked Christ, “Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?” They did not want to go into the “deep,” the “bottomless pit,” before the actual time.
When would the time come when the devils and Satan would be cast into the “deep?” They were cast into the “deep” at the Cross, because Jesus bound the “strong man” and has been ransacking his house ever since. Christ bound Satan for “a thousand years,” which was a symbolic number pointing to the completeness of the Church Age. It went from the Cross, up until, in all probability, 1988. It is actually a period of 1955 years, but the number “thousand” points to the completeness of whatever is in view. So the devils are beseeching Jesus that He would not yet cast them into the “bottomless pit,” into the “deep.”
This word is also translated as “deep” in Romans 10:7, where we read:
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (That is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
Again, this word “deep” is the Greek word, “abussos,” and this verse is giving us a little bit of insight into what the “deep” and the “bottomless pit” means. It means to be “dead,” to be where Christ was “dead.” Christ was “dead” when He died the “second death” in paying for the sins of His people. He went into the “deep” Himself. Not literally, but as God was pouring out His wrath upon the Lord Jesus, Jesus was suffering the equivalent of an eternal damnation.
So this word “bottomless” has everything to do with Hell. Yet, we will find that Satan was “chained.” He was in “prison.” He was in the “bottomless pit,” but he came out. If we turn to Revelation 20:1-3, we will see this:
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit…
Again, who is this “angel?” This “angel” is Jesus. He is the only One who has “the keys of hell and of death.” We read this in Revelation 1. Jesus is the “Angel.” He is the “Messenger of the Covenant.” He came “down from Heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit:”
…and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
This is kind of hard for us to understand, because when we think of “Hell,” we think of it as that place that God will create on the Last Day. All of the ungodly and all of the sinners and everyone who does not have a Saviour, because they have never become a child of God, will be judged on the Last Day and cast into Hell. Once you are cast into Hell, you never come out. It is eternal. The Bible is very clear about this.
So we read that Satan was “chained” and placed in the “bottomless pit.” He was placed in Hell, but he is being loosed. He is being set free for a “little season”—for a short period of time.
This is kind of strange; it is very unusual. But actually, it helps us to understand what God means in 2 Peter 2:4, where it says:
For if God spared not the angels that sinned…
Remember, all of the demons, including Satan, were once angels and they fell from that noble position.
…but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
They are “cast down to Hell” because God has judged them. They are guilty, in other words. There is no possibility of salvation. There is no possibility of mercy. There is no way that any one of the fallen angels can ever escape the damnation of Hell—unlike man, who is also guilty.
Man also rebelled against God. We also deserve eternal damnation, just as much as they, but God in His mercy has developed a salvation plan whereby He is going to save some of the human race—a number that we do not know. He will save tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people in totality, yet God made no plans for the angels. They have no substitute. “He took on Him the seed of Abraham.” He did not take upon him the form of an angel.
Since Christ did not die for the sins of any of these demons, God can judge them. When Jesus went to the Cross, they were condemned. That is when the Lord Jesus “bound him a thousand years.” It is assured. It is guaranteed. Satan will be thrown into Hell.
Satan does not admit to this, even though he knows what the Bible teaches about it. He is desperately trying to delay God’s salvation plan. He is trying to stop it at all costs, to stop God from saving His elect people, to prevent God from completing His overall plan of salvation and ending the world and bringing about Judgment Day.
We can see why Satan would have a very personal interest in being out there and being an adversary and stirring up his emissaries to hinder the work of the Gospel. As soon as that Gospel work is finished, it is over and done with for him and he will be thrown into the literal place of Hell.
But Satan was cast into the condition of Hell and restrained from hindering God’s work, via the churches. Yes, he and his angels or his emissaries have infiltrated the churches. He could attack certain churches so that they lost the “Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ” and became false gospels, and he was very busy sowing “tares” during the Church Age. But still, God used the church to save some of His people throughout the Church Age, throughout all of the generations, from the Cross up until the end when the churches finished their testimony. Satan could not hinder those whom God intended to save during that time, which are typified by the “hundred and forty and four thousand” and by the “firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”
So the language is that he was in the condition of Hell and that he had some restraints upon him. But now, when we get to the end, to this time of Great Tribulation, he is loosed. It is like the chains are taken from off him.
We have to ask, “Where is he going to go once he is loosed? Who is he going after?” Well, of course, what has been Satan’s main preoccupation? Actually, I doubt that he actually considers much else. His main preoccupation is on the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. He is constantly assailing it and coming against it.
So Satan is loosed finally. He is now the “abomination of desolation…in the holy place.” He is now the “man of sin” who “sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” He is now coming against the churches and congregations in a way that he never could before, with false teaching and false doctrine and false gospels.
A couple of weeks ago, we looked at this. A doctrine comes up and arises and it comes at the church, for example, the “tongues” movement of the last thirty or forty years. It comes into the church and it begins to devour the Word of God within the churches that it affects. These are the churches that are now beginning to think, “Yes, we can have revelation from God. We can speak in tongues. We can have assurance of our salvation, assurance that the Holy Spirit is in us, if we speak in tongues.”
This is like the first wave of the crop destroyers. It is like the “palmerworm” that is coming across the church. Following this is another assault from another doctrine and from another angle. They are coming and they desecrate Sunday as God’s Holy Day. Throughout the churches, the plague comes that teaches that you can do whatever you want on Sunday. You can watch the ballgame. You can go to the stadium and you can have fun. It is your day of leisure. It is your day of rest.
They totally misunderstand what God says about Sunday as the Lord’s Day. It is not a Day to do our own will, but it is a Day to be involved in spiritual things.
This has a great impact. You might not think that this type of disobedience is up there on the same level as speaking in tongues, but is it not awful that people now do whatever they want? They go shopping. They go to the beach. They go wherever they want to go and do whatever they want to do—on God’s Holy Day!
This has come against our churches in our day, like never before in history. It just follows doctrine after doctrine, like waves, like swarms of these crop destroyers that come upon every “green thing.” Anything that is good and trustworthy and a faithful doctrine of the Bible, in our day, something has come against it, and it has caught up many in the churches with its teachings.
So we have Satan being loosed. In continuing to look at this word “bottomless,” we read in Revelation 11:3-7:
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
We read in Revelation 20, “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil” was locked up “a thousand years,” and God said, “he must be loosed a little season.” Immediately upon his loosing, he comes against the “camp of the saints.” He comes after the “two witnesses,” who are the representatives of God sending forth the Gospel in the churches during the Church Age.
Notice this. As soon as they “finished their testimony,” they had nothing left to do. This was their witness. They were witnesses for Jesus. This was God’s will for His people during the churches. They were to share the Word of God, to send it forth into “all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
They accomplished God’s purpose for them, and once they “finished their testimony,” it was simultaneous with God’s plan to loose Satan from where he was bound for that “thousand years.” This is because, according to Revelation 11:7:
…the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
This is what happened. This is what happened at the end of the Church Age and the beginning of the Great Tribulation. We can work out the calendars of history to show that there is very good evidence that this occurred in 1988. Now, Satan has been loosed ever since that point in time, yet the churches continue.
The churches are still operating today. There are still many who are in the congregations and they are totally in the dark as to what is going on. They do not know that, spiritually, a tremendous event has taken place. A tremendous and horrible thing has happened. Satan has been loosed by God Himself. He has been loosed by the Lord Jesus Christ who possessed the “key of the bottomless pit” to lock him up and to open up the pit so that he could come up.
We see what he does as soon as he ascends out of the bottomless pit, as Revelation 11:7 tells us. He did not waste any time. He goes against the “two witnesses,” and he overcomes them and kills them, and they are lying “dead…in the street.”
We understand that this is referring to the first “two thousand and three hundred days” of the Great Tribulation, from 1988 to 1994, when everyone was in the dark. All the people of God had no idea what God’s plan was for the Great Tribulation. God had not yet revealed truth to His people. He still had those words “sealed” for a few years more, “till the time of the end.”
This is the time that we are now in. Since we are in this time, God is opening up the Scriptures and showing us just how everything fits together and what is meant by statements like we find in Revelation 11:7.
So Satan is loosed and the witness of the believers in the church is dead. There is nothing further that is going to happen, spiritually, in the church. God is finished with the church. The Church Age is over.
This is where we come to that understanding. We arrive at this conclusion based upon these Scriptures that tell us that Satan has been loosed and that God is the One who did it. God is using Satan as an instrument to bring about judgment on the churches and congregations.
If we turn back to Revelation 9:2, we will see this “star,” who is the Lord Jesus:
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace…
Whenever we read about “smoke” in the Bible, it normally has to do with the judgment of God, with the anger of God, with the wrath of God. Let us just look at one verse concerning this. Turn to Psalm 74:1, where it says:
O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
Here, God is relating “anger” and “smoke.” Smoke has to do with His wrath, “For our God is a consuming fire.” What goes along with fire is normally smoke. It reveals the “fierce anger of the Lord” against sin.
So back to Revelation 9:2:
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit…
This is because God’s anger is upon Satan and upon all of the demons. They are under the wrath of God; they are in the condition of “Hell.” God is furious with them and this is why they will also be thrown into Hell on the Last Day of this world.
Revelation 9:2 continues:
…as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
This is right at the beginning. This is 1988, the beginning of the Great Tribulation. “The sun” went out. “The LORD God is a sun and shield,” we read in Psalm 84:11. God is typified by the sun in the sky, and the “light of the glorious gospel of Christ” is what this points to—“the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Once the pit is opened and Satan comes up out of the pit, the “Light” goes out. The Lord Jesus departed from the church. We read in 2 Thessalonians 2, the Holy Spirit came “out of the midst.” Jesus was in the “midst” of the congregations. He was blessing the ministry of the church, making it a “faithful city,” because He dwelt within and was blessing the work of the Gospel so that His elect people would become saved by their ministry. But immediately, as soon as Satan is loosed, then God the Holy Spirit comes out of the midst; He leaves the church. This is the horrible condition that the church is still in. The Light of the Gospel is gone.
Later on, God also calls out His body of believers. They are typified by “the sun, and the moon, and the stars,”—all three of the lights are totally embodied or wrapped up in the body of believers because Christ is our Righteousness. For instance, if you turn to Revelation 12:1, it says:
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun…
This is God Himself. The Lord Jesus is our Righteousness. He is our covering. He is our “fine linen, white and clean.” He is our spiritual clothing. Revelation 12:1 goes on to say:
…and the moon under her feet…
This is the Law of God that no longer condemns us because Jesus has satisfied the Law’s demands in making payment for the sins of His people.
…and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
It says in Revelation 12 that this woman “brought forth a man child,” who is the Lord Jesus. This woman is representing the body of true believers.
You see, we are totally wrapped up in “the sun, and the moon, and the stars.” This is why the sun is darkened at the beginning of the Great Tribulation, but at a later point that we read about in Matthew 24:29:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven…
This has to do with the believers’ departure from the churches and congregations. This is a further darkening of the Gospel lights. Of course the main thing and the most important thing is when God Himself left the church, because following that no one could be saved within the congregations.
But, you see, there was a certain comfort to those in the churches and congregations, as long as true believers were still within. Those within the churches were still confident that their church was the place to be, that their church was where they received blessing and where they found salvation, that their church was the portal into the Kingdom of God, into eternal life—that this was the way to accomplish this.
Now, they have become even more troubled once God began calling His people out of the churches. They saw that the ones whom they might have thought of as being a little strange because they were the ones who were so serious about the Gospel, these are the ones who are coming out of the churches.
They now have to recognize and admit that many of the people who are coming out of the churches are not novices. They are not individuals who were just casual professors of the Name of Christ. These were very serious believers. These were the ones whom the pastor and elders probably recognized were giving of their tithes very regularly and faithfully. These were the people who were there Sunday after Sunday. These were the ones who talked about ministering the Gospel and went out with tracts, and so forth.
So this is a very serious thing to those who have remained behind. When these types of people start coming out of the churches, it can be very disturbing. It can really cause some trouble, as they think about these things. But it is a mercy of God to call His people out of the church, so that those who are unsaved and remain in the congregations might consider and think about what is happening.
Let us turn back to Revelation 9:3-5, because this is why we turned to Revelation 9:
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
You can see how this is not talking about a literal physical plague of locusts, because they do not “hurt” any “green thing.” They are not real locusts, are they? Spiritually, they are, but they are not like the plague that still comes upon certain fields of our day. They are not that kind of locusts.
These are locusts that come after the souls of men. These are locusts that are a much more terrible plague than having the sky literally blacked with tens of billions of these little critters that destroy crops. No, these are “locusts” that enter into churches and congregations and destroy, spiritually, the “green thing” of the Gospel. They destroy all of the wonderful teachings of the Word of God, all the blessings that come along with the Bible.
They are teachers and they are elders and they are deacons and they are pastors who carry a terrible plague into the church of our day, during this time of Great Tribulation, and have left it “desolate” and “ruined.” Before them was a “Garden of Eden,” and after them, it is a “desolate wilderness.” There is no “food,” spiritually speaking, for the poor souls within the churches and congregations. It is all gone because of the plague of the locusts.
There is a lot more here. Maybe we will get another chance to look at this at another time.