The Revelation 9:13 | Episode # 1063

November 5, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 9:5

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Revelation, chapter 9,

chapter 9.

Starting with verse 13 tonight or not. Is it 13:13?

Revelation, chapter 9, verse 13 is the sixth trumpet that we have. We've gotten off the ground a little slow with the mic, but we'll get going. Revelation, chapter nine. And it is a interesting passage.

It's had a lot of similarities to the last trumpet. And if you'll remember, that's where the hornet, like creatures came out of the pit. So we're gonna be dealing with another group of creatures.

And I will just say to you that when I was a little boy,

and I think this is important,

when I was a little boy and when we studied through scripture as a young man,

there was a great movement toward the study and the understanding of prophecy.

And it was started in the late 70s and early 80s,

and a book kind of kicked that off, and it carried on, and it's carried on even to today,

where there's a great emphasis on biblical prophecy. And that book was called the Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. Okay. And so we're talking about a book that came out 40, 45 years ago.

I think it came out in the mid-70s,

and it was a.

A book about prophecy.

Now,

remember,

as we're studying through this, and I'm saying this for a reason,

because that book indicated that Hal Lindsey thought that this chapter, especially this passage, the sixth trumpet, was pointing to an army that would come on the Earth. And that army would was the Chinese,

the People's Republic of China.

That army, because of the numbers that are mentioned here in that, the number that is mentioned is 200 million or 100 million soldiers or 100 million of these creatures that are unleashed on the Earth.

Now, I'm going to say this because the Apostle John, as he's writing this book, as he's writing this, you're gonna see especially in this passage, which I think is really neat in this passage, he makes sure that you understand that this is a book of, yes, prophecy in that there are things that God directly says that these things are going to take place.

But he also gives you the, the understanding that many of the things he writes in this book are visions.

And if you'll remember, and I want to always spend time going through this so that you get it,

if a prophet says, thus saith the Lord, meaning God told me to say these things,

okay? And you sure enough see that in chapters two and three of the book of the Revelation, when you hear the angel saying to us, meaning God's messenger saying,

say this to the church at Laodicea, the church at Smyrna,

whatever church,

then that is a word for word prophecy. God has given you a prophetic word.

Remember when we get to. And this is true of Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets when the prophet says, I saw a vision,

okay?

Now is that prophetic? Yes. He is seeing something in the past that is happening in the future,

but he is not getting a word for word revelation for it. He is telling you what he sees,

okay?

He's just relating to you what he sees. And so there can be a lot of supposition about what it means.

There can be a lot of trying to figure out how it works. But until the prophecy is quite clearly completed, until you come to the place where you know for sure that, yeah, that's what that was,

well, then it's got room for,

I mean, there's some room to say it could be or could not be. And I say that because the great movement of our time into prophecy was, was started by a book that says that the Chinese army is the army that is mentioned here.

And it is the only army that's perhaps big enough or would have ever been big enough to actually meet the parameters of this prophecy.

Now, the problem with that is that the Chinese,

well,

the,

the army of China,

their ability to field an army this large is slowly and quickly,

over time, slowly now, but over time will quickly diminish. What did I mean by that? Well, the Chinese population is shrinking,

okay? And it's shrinking because they spent 50 years either killing their children or regulating that they not have any children.

And in fact, over the last decade, China has moved away from the one child policy to a point where now they are actually paying people to have more than one child because their population is collapsing.

And we believe, according to the Chinese government,

that there are over a billion Chinese.

But there are other people who've done some of the studies and some of the things as far as consumption and how much energy they use, that would tell you that there's a chance or likelihood that the Chinese population is in the middle of an absolute collapse.

And it may be as low as 6, 7, 800 million.

Now,

there is a country in the world who has grown big enough to maybe even field an army of 200 million men.

Does anybody know what country that is?

It's India. That's exactly right. India surpassed China as the largest country in the world as far as population in the last five years.

Okay, and so India is now a country that perhaps would have enough people to field an army of 200 million.

Does that mean it's India?

No, because remember, it's a vision. It's a vision that we're reading. And when we read it, we need to see some things and we need to hear some things, and we need to understand some things, and we need to realize that God is giving us a message that's for today.

But this message may not be completed or completely understood until years from now, if not decades from now, if not even centuries from now. Okay?

And I hear people say this all the time, that God is sure, surely God is coming soon and very soon. Don't y' all hear that all the time? And usually that is a function of your age.

Okay?

Are you with me? The older you get, the more you think he's coming soon.

And it might actually have something to do with. With the more you realize that you're going soon.

Okay? And I say that for fun, but it's true.

It is absolutely true. Because as you get older,

you realize the depravity of the world is terrible. But I will say this.

It has been this bad forever and ever,

okay? It has been this bad forever and ever.

The depravity of the human heart is terrible. So when we get to this, it says,

then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God now.

So the question is, is what is he talking about? Well, there's actually two altars that are.

That this could be talking about. It could be talking about the altar of incense, which is in the inner courts, but is not in the holy of holies. Do y' all know what I'm talking about?

Well, let me explain it to you, describe it to you, because I always want to describe this. If something comes up, I want to describe it so that you'll know it, because it's important,

because it's a picture of you.

Okay?

The temple and the tabernacle are a picture of the New Testament Christian, and they're also a picture of the New Testament Christian worship. Okay, What I mean by that? Well,

there is a.

A gate.

If it's the temple, it's a wall. But there was a gate around the tabernacle. There was only one entrance in and one entrance out.

Okay. Which symbolizes that Jesus is the gate, and there's only one way in and one way out. Okay.

It's important that you understand that, because the Bible says we enter his gates with thanksgiving and we enter his courts, which would be.

As you progress toward the holy of holies, you have courts that you go through.

The first place you go through is a court of the Gentiles. It's the area where the Gentiles could actually go in the temple on the Temple Mount.

It is the place where you enter in and you begin to progress toward intimacy with God or close personal relationship with God. And so when you would enter in,

you would enter and you would see a lavern for washing, and you would see a place for a altar, for a sacrifice, and that would be the sacrifice that you would bring to God.

And so there was a place for washing,

there was a place for sacrifice, personal sacrifice,

the giving of yourself to God.

And we talk about that on Sunday morning. A lot of times. You'll hear me when I pray. We're offering ourselves as living sacrifices.

That's the picture that goes on there. Then once you get past the sacrifice,

and I don't want to spend all night on this, but once you get past sacrifice,

you enter into the outer courts. And that would be the place where Jesus taught. Okay. That would be the place where they would meet together. The Jews would come together, and they would hear God's word.

Then you have the inner courts, and in the inner courts, you've got two tables, and you've got an altar, an altar of incense. You've got a table of showbread, which is a picture of the body of Jesus Christ.

And then you've got a menorah. There's a.

Which is,

you know, the Jewish candelabra.

You've got the menorah there,

and that would shine light in that room. And then you would have the curtain which separated the holy of holies from the rest of the area.

And inside the holy of holies, you would have the Ark of the Covenant. You would have the cherubim on top of that ark. The ark is a picture of our bodies, too.

I talked about that a little bit in our morning Bible studies this morning. And that was where the presence of God dwelt in the temple, okay? It's called the propitiation spot, and it's where the eternal meets the physical.

Okay?

And by the way, that location has moved from a temple built by human hands to inside of you.

Where God dwells in your heart is the propitiation spot. It's the spot where God's eternality meets your temporal physicality. Okay? All right, Now, I explained that. I explained that because it is important to understand when it's talking about these things, the incense would say,

this has something to do with.

This has something to do with hearing God's word and the Holy Spirit revealing it to you.

If it's. If it's talking about.

If it's talking about the Ark of the Covenant and the horns of the altar in the presence of God, then it's talking about intimacy with God.

All right?

Now, the Bible says,

well, revelation has taught us that the saints are under the altar. And what are they doing?

They're offering up prayers and they're asking God to avenge their death.

Now, remember, and we've been gone for a while, so I'm trying to make sure I hit all the points so that you'll remember. Remember, Jesus functions as the Old Testament goel in the Book of the Revelation, right?

What does that mean?

Well,

he is the kinsman redeemer, meaning he takes those who. Who are God's family and he redeems them back into full fellowship with God. He's the kinsman redeemer. That's what the Book of Ruth is about.

Okay? It's about the kinsman redeemer. He's also what the other aspect of the goel is, the avenger of blood.

He's the avenger of blood. He's bringing about God's judgment on the earth and the. The judgment that God has for the earth and not only how they have treated His Son, but how they have treated us as believers, okay?

And so God's purpose is to avenge his,

to bring about his wrath on the sin and wickedness of the world and on those who have mistreated his children,

mistreated us.

Okay? So he is the avenger of blood. And so when we come to this altar,

you have Jesus functioning as the goel,

the kinsman redeemer, and the avenger of blood. Now, this voice calls for this angel to go out,

and it calls it from the altar.

So it's my opinion that this angel, which is being released,

to go and release these terrible creatures is Jesus himself.

As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep.

You, that he'll make his face to.

Shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace toda