here, praise the Lord. All right, Joel, chapter number one, book of Joel, chapter number one. One thing about preaching through a book of the Bible, you come across some unusual things that are not normal topics of sermon material, but everything in the Bible's written for our benefit and our profit. So, if you're visiting with us tonight and you came hoping, hoping that you would hear a sermon about locusts in the Bible, God has answered your prayers because this is the night for you. Joel chapter 1, verse number 1, the word of the Lord, that's what we're concerned about, word of the Lord. Somebody said, these politicians, they don't tell the truth. Well, why do you listen to them? These government people, they don't tell the truth. These social media people, they don't tell the truth. Well, you got the word of the Lord. You could pay attention to that. You'd never one time would say, the Lord, he didn't tell the truth. He always tells the truth. 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. We've talked about this a week or so ago, maybe two weeks ago now. When the older men drop the ball, there's not much hope for the next generation coming along. When the grandfather didn't teach the father, the father didn't teach the son, you're in a world of trouble. Hath this been in your days, 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's how truth gets passed along from one generation to another. That which the palmer worm hath left, hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep and howl, O ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. We preached that last time we were together. Would to God he'd cut off the booze from one end of our land to the other. For a nation has 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, tore the bark off if the tree'll die. He hath made it clean bare and cast it away. The branches thereof are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests, the Lord's ministers mourn. The field is wasted. The land mourneth for the corn is wasted. The new wine is dried up. The oil languisheth. Be ashamed, O ye husbandmen, howl, O ye vine dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth, the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Father, bless your word to hearts tonight. May we receive it as it is in truth, the very words of the living God. And Father, I pray that you'd help my heart tonight and the heart of all those that have made the effort to come and to be here this evening. We thank you in Jesus' name and amen. Verse number 12 gives the cause at the close of the report, close of the indictment, because the joy is withered away from the sons of men. The fruit of God's Holy Spirit is joy. The Bible says the joy of the Lord is your strength. This people to whom Joel is speaking, much like the people of your land in your day, they began to take joy in their orchards, their farms, their fields, their well-supplied grocery stores, the abundance of food upon their table, And soon they became occupied with their lives centered around, their happiness centered around the blessings that God had given them, not the God who blessed them. Cotton Mather dealt with this in colonial America before there was ever a United States back in the colonial days. And Cotton Mather wrote this, Christianity begat prosperity. and the daughter devoured the mother. It is a very wonderful thing to be as richly blessed by God as you are in your land. But when you come to the place where the joy of your heart is in the things that God has blessed you with, and not the God who provided those blessings, it may be time for God to remove them, to turn your heart back to God, who is the source of all blessing to begin with, and the true joy of our hearts. We have at some time or another in our lives, my wife and I, we've had cattle, and we've had goats, we've had one sheep, that was enough, one horse, that was more than enough, turkeys, and chickens, and guineas, and dogs, and dogs, and dogs, and dogs, and dogs, and cats, and every one of those animals, when you put the food in front of the animal, commences to eating. never lifts its head, never gives thanks, never gives praise. It's as though that animal doesn't have enough sense and doesn't have enough understanding to realize that food didn't just appear out of nowhere. Someone provided that food for that animal, but the Bible calls them natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed. The Bible never speaks of animals as possessing a soul, only a spirit and a body, so you wouldn't expect them. to lift their eyes toward heaven and thank God for feeding them. But when I see Americans, people who claim to live in a semi-Christian nation, many of the people who claim to be Christians, stick their face in a plate just like Porky Pig would, stick their face in a plate just like the cow would or the dog would. I wonder to myself, have you become so thrilled with your breakfast and your lunch and your supper and your snacks and your evening's meals and your desserts and your midnight snacks that you forgot to look up and find at least some joy and some pleasure in the God who has blessed us with such abundance? You know, it's not hard for the Lord to put a stop to all this wealth and prosperity. It's not hard for the Lord to put an end to it. In fact, all he had to do in the days of Joel, all he'll need to do or had to do in the days of Pharaoh, all that he will do in the terrible tribulation time to come, all he needs to do is send insects with an appetite as large as yours to eat your food before it gets to you. And then what will you do? Then what will you have? The Bible says here, the palmer worm, the locust, the canker worm, the caterpillar. These are four stages of this insect. The palmer worm is the pupa stage, P-U-P-A. An insect in the non-feeding stage between the larva and adult, during which it typically undergoes complete transformation within a protective cocoon or hardened case. Only insects that undergo complete metamorphosis have these pupal stages. The locust is the immigo stage, that's the final perfect stage or state of an insect after it's undergone all its transformations, become capable of reproduction. There's the canker worm, initial starting place. There's the larval stage. This shows the completeness of the destruction. Shows it's not gonna happen overnight. I'll send one generation of insects, if you will. I'll send another generation, another generation, and from the time they are formed to the time that they have grown old and died, they will consume and devour your farmer's labor. And then where will you be? I've been really blessed in my life. I don't know if you have. I have often said a prayer that I didn't have to say because the Lord suggested in His Word, give us this day our daily bread. I doubt more than a handful of you have ever had to pray that prayer. I don't suppose there's been a time in your life, unless you are very well on in years and grew up in America back when there was poverty, before people redefined poverty to mean housing and food and clothing and groceries. I'm talking about real hunger. I have never had to rise in the morning and ask God to please let me find some food for today. But it wouldn't take much for God to put an entire nation in that condition. Let's think about these locusts just for a minute, then we'll run some Bible verses. Locust has a large mouth opening with four incisive teeth in two scissor-like jaws. Swarms of them can cover all the ground for miles. And when they take to flight, they can darken the sun. They give a sound like rattling hailstones. When they light on fields, a bed of them is formed six to eight inches deep. And they can destroy vegetation faster than a wildfire. And when they depart, leave not the slightest trace of plant life. What would you do? Who would you call? What government agency would rescue you? The Bible says in Exodus, let's go back there, the children of Israel have been in slavery for 430 years. That's a long time. God has sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to set his people free, to let them go. and Pharaoh has refused, time and again. The Bible says in Exodus 10, verse 1, the Lord said to Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these my signs before him, that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them, that ye may know how that I am the Lord. And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. See, Pharaoh's problem is the problem of every unsaved sinner, and every sinner that's saved but still troubling their home, or their family, or their church life, or their land. People just won't humble themselves. Pharaoh knew what God wanted him to do, he just wouldn't do it. Verse 4, "...else if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring the locust." into thy coast. And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth. And they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail. God already sent a plague of hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field. And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, which neither thy fathers nor thy father's fathers have seen since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned to himself, and went out from Pharaoh. And Pharaoh's servant said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? Why do you keep pressing their God to do what he said he would do? Let them go. And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh, and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God. But who are they that shall go? And Moses said, We will go with our young, and with our old, and with our sons, and with our daughters, and with our flocks, and with our herds. We will go, if we must hold a feast unto the LORD. And he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you. I will let you go, and your little ones look to it, for evil is before you. Not so. Go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord. For that ye did desire, and they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence." You know what Pharaoh said? You grown-ups can leave, I'm keeping your children. The world doesn't care if you grandpas go to church till you die. Just don't bring your children here. The world doesn't care if you moms and dads believe the Bible. Just don't be so fanatical that you force it upon your children. Pharaoh's content to let you go, but he wants your kids. He wants to raise them to be Egyptians, live like Egyptians, talk and think like Egyptians. And the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts. They may come up upon the land of Egypt and eat every herb of the field, even all that the hail hath left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt. And the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. And when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested on all the coasts of Egypt. Very grievous were they. Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth. So the land was darkened, and they did eat. every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees, which the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses, and Aaron, and Hastin, and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore forgive I pray thee my sin this once, and entreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death only. And the Lord sent a wind and took the locusts away. But the trees are gone. You know how long it'd take to replace those orchards? The crops are gone. But they didn't just eat the crops, they ate the seeds that would be next year's crop, and next year's crop, and next year's crop. Now here's what you need to understand. Pharaoh might rule Egypt. Pharaoh might be the most powerful man on earth. But he's no match for God. And God is so powerful, he can bring the king of the greatest empire on earth to his knees with bugs. That's an amazing thing. So you know, I'll tell you, we're in real danger. We live in a world that's got atomic bombs and nuclear warheads. God doesn't need all that. He might let man turn those things loose on each other, and he might not. But all he's got to do is tell the east wind to gather up his locusts and dump them all in one place. And you go to bed one night with years and years and years and years of food stocks in line and preparation, all the farms running like they should, and you wake up the next morning and it's all gone. It's all gone. You say, what was the cause of that? Pride, rebellion, disobedience to the word of God. That's what it was. All right. Turn to the Bible, Deuteronomy 28. So God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses led them out. We don't have many pictures of Moses, but from what they say, he looked quite a bit like Charlton Heston. And brought them out through the Red Sea and into the wilderness. And they're on the way to the promised land, the land of promise, which God gave to the children of Israel from the river to the sea. God gave all that land to the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the Bible says in Deuteronomy 28, this is God, He's redeemed, He saved the people out of Egypt, He's bringing them into the promised land, and they stop along the way so God can give them the promise of blessing and a warning. Deuteronomy 28.1, it shall come to pass, a vow shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandment, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings should come on thee and overtake thee, if thou should hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God." So here's something you need to understand about man, the heart of man, the ways of man. When men hear the historical record that I just read you about the locusts destroying the crops in Egypt, they say, why would God do that? What a mean God. What a cruel God. I don't like that God. Wait a minute. God gave a reprobate like Pharaoh an empire. They had food every day of their lives. God's sending a plague to take their food away. They've had food. God sent Joseph by way of slave traders and prison to Pharaoh's house to help him stockpile grains and food and groceries for a seven-year famine that was coming. Lord's been very, very good to the Egyptians. He has blessed them abundantly. And all he asked them to do was one thing. Let that group of people who are living within your borders go to live within borders I will establish for them. And Pharaoh said to God, no. God's not a bad guy. He just took back from Pharaoh what he'd given Pharaoh. And Pharaoh didn't have to lose anything. All he had to do, your God told you to tell me to let the people go? Okay. Who am I to fight against God? So he's not the bad guy. And then we read about in Joel and what we're going to read here in Deuteronomy, when you read about God pronouncing these warnings against the children of Israel, people say, I don't know why God would threaten people like that. Why didn't God just bless them? He just told them. I will bless you abundantly if you want me to. Do what I ask, and I'll bless you abundantly. Then people don't do what God asks them to do, rebel against God, fight against God, sin against God, and then when God gives them what they deserve, God's so mean, God's so cruel, no, you're a dummy. You chose to fight against the one who wanted to bless you, and then double down by condemning him for sending you the judgments that he promised. It's an amazing thing. I didn't understand this until I got grown, but my father, oftentimes when we were having nonverbal instruction, He would say, you asked for this. And I honestly did not remember asking for it. He was just condensing the last several days of my life into one phrase. You asked for this. That encompassed the entire attitude and behavior and conduct. But the Lord is, well let me read it to you. He says in verse 3, all these blessings come on thee and overtake thee. They're just, blessings are running you down. If thou should hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, blessed shalt thou be in the city. How's that working out? Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago. And blessed shalt thou be in the field. How's it working out? Blessed should be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of thy ground, the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind, cows plural, flocks of thy sheep. Blessed should be thy basket and thy store. Amen. That's where the basket's supposed to be, in the store, not in the camp out in the woods. The basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. God said make your whole life a blessing. Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face. They shall come out against thee one way and flee before thee seven ways. Lord shall command the blessing upon thee and thy storehouses and all that thou settest thine hand unto. Storehouses, they've got more food than they need. They've got extra. That's what God wants to give them. And he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee and holy people unto himself, as he has sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. There it is again. Just do what he asks you to do. All the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. Pretty good, huh? The Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, and the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Then this is Israel. It's not America. But he's sure done that for us. Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give, the rain unto thy land in his season, and bless all the work of thine hand. And thou shalt lend unto many nations, thou shalt not borrow, you got more money than you need, look at that. And Lord shall make thee the head, not the tail, thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath, if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day to observe and do them, three times. I should not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day to the right hand of the left, to go after the gods, other gods, other gods, to serve them." They weren't multicultural. They didn't believe that all roads end up in the same place. God said, you do what I say and you don't bring any other gods into your national life. And I will bless you in every way that you can be blessed. So if they're not abundantly blessed, who's to blame? Not God. Not God. If your life is not abundantly blessed, who's to blame? It's not God. It's not God. The Bible says in verse 15, now watch. But it shall come to pass, if thou would not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to all his commandments and all his statutes, I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee. I don't want curses running me down. All right, look, among them, and he's listing all these awful things that could very well happen to them. Verse 38, thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in, for the locust shall consume it. Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil, for thine olives shall cast his fruit." Verse 49. Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flyeth, a nation whose tongue thou should not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young. And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed, which also shall not leave either corn, wine, or oil, or increase of thy kind, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. You sign up for one or the other. You volunteer to receive one or the other. Abundant blessings or judgmental curses. And among those judgmental curses are locusts coming to eat your crops and an army coming in to consume your stores. That's what God said. When you turn to, and we already did, when you turn to Joel chapter 1 and read, people with their hands on their head, their hearts aching, their bodies quaking with fear and trembling because locusts have come and eaten up all their crops, and an army has come in and invaded their land. Not one of them should have had to say to the prophet Joel, why is this happening? The reason it's happening is the same reason they didn't know why it was happening because they'd forsaken the Word of the Lord. So this is a fact. God deals very slowly and very patiently with individuals and with nations. But when a group of people on a high holy day in the nation of Israel are not at a house of worship but are defiantly holding a dance in front of a Buddha statue. And they are invaded from people coming across their border to kill them and worse. The news media around the world says, why did this happen? When America's cities are unsafe and filled with people who can't find a meal on the streets where they live, when you are being invaded by hordes of people whose language you don't understand, you can sit and watch the news and hear the experts say, we don't understand why this is happening. We're not really sure what we're seeing here. There's never been anything like this before. Yes, there has. Repeatedly throughout history there have been things just like this before. When a people who profess with their lips to know God, but with their lives worship multitudes of gods, when people who claim to be followers of Christ or Christianity or a Judeo-Christian ethic live like the devil, You're just liable to see food become scarce and see people invade across your borders and see your safety and your prosperity and your joy taken away from you. And God's not the bad guy. He gave you an option. If he'd forced himself upon you, you'd go, I don't like this guy. I don't want this guy shoving his religion down my throat. But he doesn't. Here it is. You want life? You want death. You want blessing? You want cursing. You want so much food to eat that you're afraid to weigh yourself? Or do you want to be digging in a trash can hoping to find something somebody threw away? I want all the blessings. What do I have to do? Obey the Word of God. Oh, there you go with that Jesus stuff. Okay. Just kick him out of your schools, kick him out of your government, kick him out of your home, accommodate your kids who don't want to hear it, and then wonder why you're being invaded, and wonder why you're paying four times for the same groceries what you paid for them just a few short years ago. You could go to church, you could hear the Bible, you could buy a Bible for a buck. You get one for free, you just ask somebody for it, you could read it, you could do what it says. Or you could sin and then curse God when you got trouble. Blame God for not blessing your life. That's the world we live in. And when you talk like this and preach like this, people view you as, you're some kind of a threat because you're not embracing the this and embracing the that and embracing the other thing. I'm embracing the word of God. I'm going to trust that. I'm going to trust that. Well, let's take a look in Revelation chapter 9. Revelation chapter 9. God saving the best blessings and most severe judgments for last. Revelation chapter 9 and verse number 1. 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. He opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. Isn't that a strange thing? All the way back there in Exodus, God used locusts. In Joel's day, several hundred years before Christ, God used locusts. And in the coming time of the world's great tribulation, God's going to use locusts. It's as if the Lord of glory said, I don't need a tank. I don't need a stealth bomber. I don't even need a plague. I just need little critters. Amen. Take a look. There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They're not scorpions, they're locusts, but they have a scorpion-like power. It was commanded them they should not hurt the grass of the earth. Now, that's odd. That's what they do. Normally, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. To them was given they should not kill them, but they should be tormented five months. And their torment was the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. Anybody ever been hit with a scorpion? Three times, three times. It hurts. They really hurt. Five months being stung by scorpions. Verse six, in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. That is some kind of torment. When you are doing everything in your power to end your life and find out you don't have the power to end your life, God won't let these people die. And the shapes of locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle, On their heads were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. I've never seen anything like that. There's a lot of things God's made you've never seen. Stick around. They had hair as the hair of women. Everybody knows what that means. And their teeth were as the teeth of lions. Now look at verse 7. As the faces of men, their hair was as the hair of women. Okay, you want to pretend like gender confusion is a good thing? God will send you some. You want a man's face and a woman's hair? Here it comes. So what are you saying? What am I saying? I'm saying God said in 1 Corinthians 13 that a man ought to have short hair and a woman ought to have long hair. So you know from a block away, a man for a woman. Because God made a man, God made a woman. He made a man for a woman and a woman for a man. That's what He did. Now you set yourself against the Word of God and start embracing, no pun intended, things that God told you not to embrace and you are saying, God I want all of your blessings while I defy you. And your nation is, as fast as they can, trying to come up with one more way to defy God. So these creatures have long hair, like women, and beards, like men. And they're dangerous. Just, sorry, I'm just telling you, you just need to turn off the movies and turn off the TV and turn off the ticky-tack-tock and all that stuff and read your Bible. I was going on pretty good until you said that. Well, stick around, there's a lot in this book. You know something, when I became a Christian, there were like 40,000 things in my life I had to repent of and change because they were against God. And four and a half decades later, I'm still dealing with things in my life that I'm learning I have to change because they're against God. I'm not going to do the Pharaoh thing and defy God. I'm going to repent. Because I want blessings chasing me down, not curses chasing me down. All right. I'm going to report you. They had hair as the hair of women, their teeth were as the teeth of lions. They had breastplates as it were breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, like many horses running to battle. It's a plague of locusts, but they're stinging locusts. They're a special variety of locusts made by God. They had tails like scorpion. There were stings in their tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. that a king over them, which is the angel, the bottomless pit. He's the top of the fallen angels, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. Now that's coming. So we've got to do that. You have Exodus. You have Joel. He's done it. I am the Lord thy God, I change not. I am the Lord thy God. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is Revelation chapter 9. Let's go back in time to Revelation chapter 4, shall we? Let's go to Revelation chapter 4. So I'm on God's side. I don't want you thinking mean things about God. Revelation chapter 4, verse number 1. After this, I'll tell you what, here we go. Revelation 2, I'm sorry. Revelation chapter 2, verse number 1. The church. the church. See that? Verse 7, the churches. Verse 8, the church. Verse number 11, the churches. Verse 12, the church. Verse number 17, the churches. Verse 18, the church. Verse number 29, the churches. Chapter 3, verse 1, the church. Chapter 3, verse 6, the churches. Chapter 3, verse 7, the church. Chapter 3, verse 13, the churches. Chapter 3, verse 14, the church. Chapter 3, verse 22, the churches. After this, I looked, and behold, a door was opened, and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither. Verse 2, "...and immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, the throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne." And you will not read in all the judgments, chapters 6, 7, and 8, no church, no churches. Chapter 9, 10, 11, no church, no churches. 12, 13, 14, 15, no church, no churches. The curse of chapter 16, chapter 17, chapter 18, no church, no churches. If you are on the earth to be tormented by those locusts, it's because you chose to stay when you could have left. Don't, God's not the bad guy. He'd be a bad guy if he didn't warn you. Well, so what's happening up there? Well, let's see, verse number, chapter 5, verse number 11. I beheld, I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing in every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such in the sea. All that are in them heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sit upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. The four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth forever and ever." What's all that singing about? Verse 9, they sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. Everybody suffering in Revelation 9 could have been in heaven around the throne praising Jesus. Everybody tormented in that tribulation time could have gone through the door and been singing praise and songs around the throne of King Jesus. They heard the gospel, they didn't like it. Heard the gospel, didn't agree with it. Heard the gospel, said, I've got my own religion. Heard the gospel, said, that's just your opinion. Heard the gospel, said, don't shove your beliefs down my throat. Lord said, okay, fine. I'll send you a hippie bug to sting you for five months, and that's just part of it. Amen. Everybody over 60 got that. Jesus Christ suffered the wrath of God against all sin for all time including yours and mine on the cross so that all you had to do to be saved was believe. And if you wake up one morning in Egypt and locusts have eaten everything, it's because you disobeyed God. And if you wake up in Israel one day and locusts have eaten everything, it's because you disobeyed God. If you wake up one day in the Great Tribulation and scorpions are stinging you, it's because you disobeyed God. He's not the bad guy. Here's what people do. This is our society today because we've rejected the Bible. If you reject the Bible, you've got to come up with something stupid to substitute for the Bible. Okay, so here's what people say. It's God's fault I was born this way. I was born a liar. It's true. I would be moderately hungry at two o'clock in the morning and I would scream like I was dying. Because the lust of my flesh demanded that mother feed me now. Very selfish. Deceiver. So then I get a little bit older, and my parents decided it was time to prepare me for life. And they didn't say, just go ahead and lie all your life. Just be a liar. They said, no, God said, thou shalt not bear false witness. I had to repent of being a liar. How about that? And then you get put in the nursery. And you take toys that don't belong to you from other children. And you take cookies that you're not entitled to because it's not cookie time. Because you get the cookie if you've been good the whole time and you haven't been good the whole time. And you're a thief. And today, today you get to become a teenage felon thief. Because your mother says, oh he's a good boy, just leave him alone, that's just how he is. God doesn't want you to stay just how you is. He wants you to recognize that he said thou shalt not steal and repent of it. So every adult, 16, 25, 40, 60, when they first encounter a real Christian witness, maybe at your door, they knocked upon your door, maybe at a street corner they offered you a gospel tract, maybe you come to church, you're going to hear something from God's Word that says you are wrong. In the eyes of God, you're doing something that is a sin. Here's what Jesus did to save you from that sin. You can do the Pharaoh dance, and cling to your sin and defy God, and lose all the joy in your life, and then lose your soul. You can do what Israel did in the days of Joel and cling to your sin and defy God and lose your joy and eventually your soul. And you can do what the people will do in the very last of days, refuse the gospel because it condemned them, refuse the gospel because it judged them, and you'll miss going to be with the Lord and you'll have to stay down here. Those locusts are only one of 21 judgments God's going to send. And then you go to hell. So here's the problem. In Exodus, the Lord said, now you grandfathers, be sure to tell your children what I did in Egypt. And you fathers, be sure to tell the grandchildren what I did in Egypt. And Joel steps on the scene and says, did your father not tell you? Did your father's father not tell you? Here come the locusts. And down they came. Now, this is why someone preaching the Bible to Americans today sounds so radical. Because your grandfather should have told you. God will punish your sin. Your father should have told you, God will punish your sin. But nobody did, and so now I sound mean because your dad didn't do his job. Your grandfather didn't do his job. Honestly, let me ask you something. I was with group preachers this week. I said, we are having to preach things today we didn't even know of five years ago. This is how far you go when you throw out the Bible. If I tell your teenage son he needs to repent of his sin and trust Christ as his Savior so he can go to heaven, not to hell, get away from it. You judgmental, narrow-minded, bigoted, That same parent will take their son to a doctor and pay to have his body mutilated. I'm cruel? You just made a eunuch out of your son. How'd we get here? Somebody didn't pass the news along. There's not a person on earth who hasn't sinned and come short of the glory of God, myself included. And there's not a person on earth the Lord wouldn't forgive and pardon and save if they would own up to that sin and trust Him. But if you don't, your nation gets overrun with bad things. Your lives and your families get overrun with bad things. And then you die and go to hell. And it's just a bad choice. Just a really bad choice. And I'm nobody. I'm just a preacher preaching the Bible. And the people sitting here tonight, we're all nobody. Some of us believe the Bible. Some of us don't. But here's why something inside lost people gets so threatened and so irritated. when someone witnesses to them on their job, or comes and knocks on their door, or preaches the truth to them in a church service. God said at the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. And your conscience has already told you what I'm telling you tonight. You didn't know the verses. You didn't know the scriptures. But you knew. You knew you weren't right with God. And you've been trying all your life to just hear only voices that tell you that you are, but deep down in your heart, you know you're not. And when somebody opens this Bible and confirms what your conscience has been telling you, now it's a battle, not against the preacher, against your own heart. Don't threaten God. Don't toy with God. He wants to send blessings to overtake you. Christ to save you. The trumpet sound to catch you out of here before this horrible tribulation begins. It would be really, really rough, really rough. A fella just a few days ago, oh, he got so angry. All I did was offer him the gospel. He got so angry. All I did was tell him, you really need this. He got so angry. And I said, I'm not going to force it on you. But if you don't get saved, and you're going to stand before God and say, nobody ever told me, I never had a chance. And all he's got to do is play back the recording. Right here on this corner on this day, this man went out of his way to offer you eternal life. And you chose locusts and hell instead of a full table in heaven. Because you thought, you thought, I wouldn't do to you what I did to Pharaoh. You thought I wouldn't do to you what I did to my own people, Israel. Happy Thursday night. Happy New Year. Aren't you glad to be saved? I mean, God could just send all that on you and not give you an option. No way out. No hope. But he sent his son, Jesus Christ. I think it's terrible, those scorpions that sting people like that. I think it's terrible the Son of God got nails driven in his hands, crown of thorns driven in his brow, and a spear run up in his side. I think that's terrible. Better make good choices, better make them quick. This is a limited time offer. It expires without warning. Praise the Lord. All right, Heavenly Father, Lord, we're so thankful that we ate before we came tonight, we'll eat when we get home, we'll eat when we get up in the morning. Father, may we not eat like the beasts of the field. May we acknowledge the source of our blessings. give thanks to you for what you've done for us. Lord, would you help us please, would you stir our hearts to plead with the lost, plead with the unbelievers to come to Jesus Christ. We know what's in store for them, they don't know, but we know and help us God please to tell them, go into all the world and preach