it's important for us to recognize that a nation can be free, a sovereign nation, and yet its people be enslaved. How can that be? Well, if people don't know that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for their sins. then they are enslaved to their sins and that's a far, far worse enslavement than even physical chains or bonds. And so we're thankful ultimately on this Independence Weekend of the freedom that we have because of who Jesus Christ is and because of what Jesus Christ did for us. I trust that if you're here today and you've never experienced the freedom from sin that Christ offers, that before you leave today you get that matter settled. By the way, I also want to congratulate Josh and Ashley, Ashley Jackson, on a recent engagement. In fact, I think they're planning a wedding for next summer. And so make sure you get by and see Ashley's very big ring there that she was flashing around. She showed me after the service the last time she was here, and I didn't get a chance to announce it. So congratulations to both of you. Good to have you up visiting this weekend. Take your Bibles and turn to Revelation chapter 8. Revelation chapter eight. This is a very difficult message for me to preach today, especially, I guess, to a Sunday morning audience. In fact, last week when I preached, we had a visiting pastor here, Pastor Tim Lehman, and he found out that I was preaching through the book of Revelation on Sunday mornings, and he said, wow, you are a brave pastor. Or stupid, one of the two, you know what? No, I really do believe that this is what the Lord would have for our church. And there is so much. This is really the culmination or the capstone of all of scripture, as everything kind of comes to bear. All of what went before really prepares us for this glimpse of the future, this glimpse of God's greatness and God's glory. Ultimately, of the redemption of mankind, but also the judgment of mankind. Now, as I was thinking about this message this morning, I thought back to a time, I have four younger brothers. And one of my younger brothers is, you know, he didn't get as good of grades as some of his brothers. He wasn't quite as athletic as some of his brothers. He was always kind of in the shadow of his other brothers. When you have five boys, somebody's good at something. And he was, I think he sometimes felt like he really wasn't good at anything. Well, one day, he tried out for the Little League All-Star team. And he put his all into it. He loved baseball. He was very good at it. And my dad tells the story. Of course, as a dad, you're very sensitive, especially to your children, that they not feel like they're inferior or that they're anyhow less than some of their other brothers. And my dad remembers driving up to the field where they had posted those that made the Little League All-Star team. And he watched his son, my younger brother, he watched him bound out of the car and kind of slowly make his way up, run his finger down the list, look again, and then with head bowed, shuffle his way back to the car. My dad would say, oh, did you not make the team? I'm so sorry. Well, that's OK. It's OK. But you knew, wow. And as a dad, when you see your children hurt like that, you want to make heads roll. You want to say, hey, what about my son here? You want to make things better. You want to smooth it over. You want him to be reaffirmed that he is special, that he's somebody. As a parent, my dad probably could have gone in there and argued loud enough to get his son on the team because he really was worthy of being on the team. But some politics that entered in, you know how that goes. But you know, sometimes as a parent you have to see your children fail. That's hard. And sometimes we as parents have to allow difficult situations. happen to those we love. You can't always just bail them out. Sometimes they have to just go through the hard knocks of life. Now, as a parent, or as a grandparent, or if you have people that you love, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? Because you don't want your loved ones to suffer, to go through difficult times, ever. But sometimes because of your lack of resources or sometimes just in your wisdom you know that, you know what, for me to just smooth things over for them, that might not be the best for them. They may just have to learn through that. Now think about God on a grander scale. Is not God far wiser than any of us are? Of course he is. God is never lacking for resources, like sometimes we are. So he's able to do whatever is best. And so that's why this morning as we look through this passage, I want us to come to this settled conclusion that because God loves us, no matter what happens, we've got to trust him. Because of God's love, that's a fact. For God so loved the world. Does the Bible teach that? Do you not know John 3.16? Of course we do. Every time you watch a big sporting event, right? There's a guy there with a John 3.16 poster, right? For God so loved the world. That is a fact. Do you believe that? Oh yes, we ought to believe that. Does it not teach us in Scripture God is love. Does the Bible say that? Do you believe that? Yes. So let's not forget these very clear truths that God not only loves you and knows your name and knows the very number of the hairs on your head, but God loves the world. God loves everybody. God, in fact, is love. With that in mind, I want us to look at this passage today from Revelation chapter 8. And I want us to remember this truth from this passage. God's love seeks man's repentance. God's love seeks man's repentance because apart from man repenting of his sin, God cannot have a relationship with him. And God so much wants to have a relationship with us that he will allow very difficult circumstances in order to bring men to the point where they will repent of their sins. And so these cataclysmic events that we're about to look at, understand the whole motivation behind this is really God's love in seeking to draw men to himself. It's also a reminder that God is just and He will not, He cannot allow sin, wickedness, to go unpunished. And so these really are very, though difficult verses to read, they're very confirming of God's character, of who He is. Before we look at our passage, I'm going to read a prophecy that had been made almost 1,000 years before the book of Revelation. This prophecy now is almost 3,000 years old. This comes from the book of Joel, chapter 2, verses 30 through 32. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered." Oh, that's a pretty familiar verse, isn't it? Paul would quote that in the book of Romans, chapter 10, verse 13. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered. shall have freedom, shall have forgiveness of their sins, shall be reconciled to God, shall have hope for eternity. But unfortunately, often what precedes that submission to God or that repentance of heart is difficult, cataclysmic even, disappointments, disappointing events in our lives. Things that God allows to bring us to the very end of ourselves so that finally we will look to God, the one who loves, the one who cares. See, God has a good purpose for everything that happens in your life. Oh, that we would turn to Him. That's what repentance really is. It's turning from our sin. That's the repentance part. It's turning to Him in faith. It's God I'm a sinner. I don't deserve to go to heaven. In fact, I deserve to go to hell, but I know that Jesus Christ died for me. He died on the cross to pay for all my sins, and I'm asking Jesus Christ to forgive me and to save me. Oh, be my Lord. In fact, it's interesting, this morning in Oxana's testimony, How often as a child, even as a teenager, she prayed and said, Lord, forgive me of my sins. But nothing ever happened. It wasn't until that day she said, forgive me of my sins and here's my life. That's what true repentance is. It's giving it all, holding nothing back. Well, that's what God is seeking to do for mankind in this passage. It's a fairly lengthy passage. And so we're going to just go through it section by section as I have comments to make. And it's important for us to remember something as we read through this. The judgments that we're going to see, these are really the trumpet judgments. We've been taking our time through the book of Revelation. We saw when the seventh seal was opened, that it announced that there would be seven trumpet judgments. And where we left off last time, was with verse 6 of chapter 8 of the book of Revelation where it says, and the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. And today we're going to see what happens now. But as each of these trumpets sound, what happens almost defies the imagination. But let me ask you a question this morning. Do you remember the story from the book of Exodus where Moses was in Egypt and he was trying to have Pharaoh let the people, the Israelites, go? And Pharaoh kept saying, no, no, no. And these plagues came upon Egypt. By the way, did those plagues literally happen? Yes. You know, what's interesting to me, I believe that those plagues that were given thousands of years ago in the court of Pharaoh in the land of Egypt, that was really just a small picture of the reality. That was just a regional plague. These are worldwide plagues. And in fact, they really approximate, if you have locusts here, you have locusts here. If you have the darkening of the sun here, you have the darkening of the sun. These are really just a picture or a foreshadowing or a preparation for the real plagues. In fact, the word plague is actually used in this passage and will find itself woven throughout the final chapters of the book of Revelation as God allows worldwide plagues upon the earth to accomplish his good purpose. And so with that in mind now, let's dive into our text, Revelation chapter 8 and verse 7. And we're going to see that God's love, God's love allows judgment. God's love allows judgment. Verse 7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood. And they were cast upon the earth, and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." I want to take a look at the first four trumpets here. And these first four trumpets deal with natural disasters. You know, God allows natural disasters to get a hold of men's hearts. It's amazing how much you need God when there's a fire burning an acre away from your house. It's amazing how much you need God when an earthquake has just devastated your livelihood, or a tornado has ripped through your community. or a hurricane has flooded your neighborhood. God uses natural disasters to get our attention. In this first trumpet, we see here hail and fire, and it's probably one of these massive storms that not only has large hail. By the way, did you hear just the other day in Maryland, they recorded the largest Hailstone, I think it was one of the largest hailstones in the history of Maryland. And it was, did you hear this? It was like four inches in diameter. It was like a softball. It was the size of a softball. It was bigger than a softball, this hailstone. All right, so when you think about hailstones that are crushing or storms where lightning is striking and burning, and we can certainly understand this, given an area perhaps that has suffered a great drought and all of a sudden you've got this thunderstorm, thunder and hailstorm, the devastation is phenomenal. In fact, in all of these first four trumpets, you're gonna find this same fraction, 1 3rd. One-third, one-third, notice in verse 7, of the earth, one-third of the trees, one-third of the green grass was burnt up. Let's go back in our mind to Exodus chapter 9. You don't need to turn there. Let me read these verses. Exodus 9, 24 to 26. So there was hail and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast, and the hail smote every herb of the field and break every tree in the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hill." And so it is that God allows this incredible storm, hail storm with lightning, to consume a third part of the trees. By the way, notice it says all of the green grass. So that's kind of interesting, not just grass, but green grass. And that's important to remember because a little bit later on, it's gonna talk about some green grass. And that's obviously grass that has either grown back or grass that had not yet matured because of the season. A couple of months later, there's some more green grass. We would understand that. So it's not a contradiction in chapter 9 and in chapter 8. But in this case, at this time, in this season, the green grass is destroyed by this storm. Let's keep reading. Chapter 8 and verse 8. And the second angel sounded. And as it were, a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea." Now, by the way, is it a great mountain that falls into the sea? No. It's something that is like a great mountain. Some huge rock thing that's on fire, that's burning, is cast into the sea and a third part of the sea became blood. The third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died. The third part of the ships were destroyed. My guess is that this is probably a meteorite. A big flaming mass of rock hurling from space that smashes into perhaps the Atlantic Ocean. I say the Atlantic Ocean because that's where a good portion of the world's shipping takes place between North America and Europe and South America. A lot of shipping trade going on in the Atlantic. Imagine a huge flaming meteorite splashing down into the Atlantic Ocean and the tsunami that results from that throughout the Atlantic Basin. And notice it says that the sea creatures die. The water becomes blood. And it's also striking to me, it doesn't say it becomes like blood, but it actually becomes blood. And that's why I believe the sea creatures die. Perhaps the shock, certainly, of this crashing into the ocean. You say, oh, come on. How could that ever happen? Let's go back to Exodus. Exodus chapter 7, verse 21. First plague and the fish that were in the river, the Nile River, died and the river stank and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. Remember, the water was turned to blood. And the fish, the sea creatures, the river creatures died as a result. the third trumpet sounds. Notice, as we continue reading verse 10. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp. And it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood. The third part of the waters became Wormwood. Many men died of the waters because they were made bitter. Perhaps this is a comet. I notice here about it like a lamp or like a torch, a flaming thing across the sky that comes and of course we know the gases that are involved with comets. A lot of times it's frozen gases that creates that flame like or torch like appearance. What if something like that came and crashed into this planet? Something happened back in 1908 that really baffles a lot of people. There was an event that took place in a remote part of Siberia. They believe it was something that came from outer space, some sort of, they don't even know what it was, maybe a comet, maybe a meteorite, but something came and just before it collided with Earth, it exploded. The explosion was 1,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. In fact, it wiped out almost 800 square miles of forest. They estimate 80 million trees were blown over by this. Something from space that came. And so it is that we see it's not uncommon for things to hit the earth. Look at the crater in Arizona, the Yucatan Peninsula. I mean, they've got all kinds of these. At some point, there was some major impact that hit. The estimates are that perhaps in the next thousand years, we may get something else. Well, we know we're gonna get something else. The Bible tells us right here, there'll be something else. But when this may perhaps comet hits, maybe the gases that are with it, it infiltrates the water system. And a third part of the waters become wormwood or bitter. The word there means, wormwood means bitter. Wormwood is the name of this star. Nowhere else found in the Greek Bible, but the concept is found in the Old Testament. Remember when the Israelites were trudging around in the wilderness and they came to a place and the water was bitter? They called it Mara and the tree was given to heal the waters and make them sweet once again. In this case, it's just the opposite. God, in essence, poisons the water. Wormwood in the Old Testament was always a symbol of judgment. For instance, in Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 15. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will feed them, even this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. In other words, one of the indications of God's judgment is that the water is poisoned, is made bitter. Now, not all who drank died, but there are many who will drink and will die of the poisoned water system. The fourth trumpet, verse 12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars. So as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And by the way, that verb there, the sun was smitten, that's the word for plague. It was plagued, if you will. It's the same root for the noun plague. And so we see that these are plagues. And these are really the fulfillment of the picture given to us thousands of years earlier during the time of Moses in Egypt. God is showing that he is in control. He's using natural disasters. Now the indication is if something like a comet were to strike the earth, there would be huge dust clouds, there would be all kinds of things happening in the atmosphere, and that certainly would cut down on light, the amount of light, the time of day, and so forth. We don't know how God will all work this out, but this is going to be very unsettling because you've just lost a third of your daylight. God is trying to get man's attention and draw him to himself. And notice what happens in verse 13. As bad as these natural disasters are, God gives a warning. And I beheld and I heard an angel and literally in the Greek, an eagle or a large bird flying through the midst of the heavens saying with a loud voice, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now when you hear one whoa, that's bad. When you hear two whoas, that's really bad. This is three whoas because he's announcing the last three trumpets and each of the last three trumpets are going to bring great whoa. upon the land. And so, here is this announcement, basically, turn now to God. It's going to get worse. By reason of the other voices, the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound. And so it is, that God uses natural disaster to try and get a hold of men's attentions, to turn them back to Himself, because God's love wants men to repent. What this introduces is now the fifth trumpet. We see in this trumpet that God uses physical pain to get our attention. Not only natural disasters, and sometimes we can muddle through that, okay, but boy, when we're suffering, when we're dealing with pain, that often will get our attention. And so God's going to allow physical pain to get men's attention. Let's take a look here in verses one through 12 of chapter nine. 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. All right, so this is not an inanimate object. This is not a meteorite. This is not a comet. This is a person. This is an intelligent being. He's given a key to the bottomless pit, or literally in the Hebrew, the abyss. In the Greek, the abyss. Number two, verse two, and 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. Well, that harkens back to, I believe it was the ninth of the plagues, eighth or ninth of the plague. I think it was the eighth plague. And these locusts were given power, as scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth. either any green thing either any tree but only those men which have not the seal of God in their forehead so non Christian people and to them it was given that they should not kill them but that they should be tormented or maybe you say torture this has the idea of excruciating pain for five months And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man, like a scorpion's sting. In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die the death, and death shall flee from them." In other words, it is going to be so painful, they just wish to die. Have you ever had pain like that? It was so painful. God, just take me home. Just take me home. Well, that's how it's going to be for five months for some of these people. Now notice, look at the description of the locusts here. And the shape of the locusts were like unto horses. All right, now, the next several verses you're gonna have nine times the word like or as. So it's not that they're horses or that, it's just like that. It's as if it was this. And so he's trying, John is trying to give us a visual picture of this as much as he can because these are unique creatures that none of us have ever seen. And I'm going to argue in just a moment, these are actually demonic creatures, not actual creatures, physical creatures here, but demonic creatures. These locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle. On their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold. Their faces were as the faces of men, and they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates as it were breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them. which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. Let's take a look at this fifth trumpet. This physical pain that is brought to the earth, the source of this seems to me to be demonic. Notice it says that a star falls from heaven. Well, we know often in scripture angels or these supernatural beings are referred to as stars. uh... revelation chapter twelve in verse four it even tells us that when uh... satan fell from god's graces because he in pride rebelled against god it says that he drew with him a third of the stars we know that to be a third of the angels of heaven uh... jesus in referring to satan in luke chapter ten says and jesus said unto them i'd be held satan as lightning fall from heaven and Revelation chapter 12 verses 7 through 9 and there was war in heaven and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought in his angels and prevailed not neither was their place found anymore in heaven and the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil Satan which deceive it the whole world who was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And so we know that Satan was cast out of heaven. We know that the demons or the fallen angels were cast out of heaven. But with all of that, I believe that this star that's given the key is not Satan, nor do I believe that this is actually even a demon or a fallen angel. I believe that this is one of God's good angels. Doesn't this make sense? Why would you give the key of the prison to Satan or one of the demons? So the key is given to one of God's serving angels, ministering angels, and he opens this bottomless pit and there arises this smoke, this abyss And this is interesting because the abyss, or this bottomless pit, is actually mentioned earlier in scripture. Do you remember when Jesus cast out all of those demons out of the maniac of Gadara? And remember, Jesus says, what is your name? And the demons respond back, our name is Legion, for we are many. And they besought him, those demons besought Jesus that he would not command them to go out into the deep. That word deep is the same Greek word here in Revelation chapter 9. In other words, they said, don't, please don't send us to the bottomless pit. In other words, the demons recognized that there was a prison, if you will. And Jesus had the authority to cast them there. And they pled with him not to send them there. Because there is an actual location, a prison, if you will, for demonic spirits, angels, that have rebelled against God. But at this point, that prison is opened. And it will be terrible on earth. Smoke comes billowing out of this abyss. And smoke is always used in the context of judgment, doom, torment. And of course, this trumpet judgment parallels the eighth of the Egyptian plagues, the locusts being released. But this is not just physical locusts. No, this is far worse. As we just looked at the description of these locusts, it is far different from anything we've experienced. Yesterday I went online and looked up pictures of locusts. That was kind of creepy. Got itchy just watching these pictures. You know, they show this picture in Africa, this guy standing there and there's just, the sky is black with these locusts. I'm thinking to myself, how in the world could you take a picture with this going on all around, you know. And then they show you all the larvae and the different kinds of locusts. And there was one locust I was looking at, and it really looked to me like a man's face. It was really creepy, a man's face on the underside of the head. In fact, I thought it was Photoshopped at first. And I was like, looking, no, that's actually just the way it is. And it was very, very creepy. But here is this horde. described as a locust horde. Instead of eating all the green trees and green grass and all that, they're actually torturing man, stinging like a scorpion. I can't think of too many things in this world that are nastier than scorpions. A lot of things, when they see man, they flee, not a scorpion. They're just nasty by nature. and their sting, I understand, I've never been stung by one, it's very unpleasant. But imagine these demonic beings that have the authority to torture men. We see all of these things, the fact that their heads seem to have a face of a man, there's intelligence there. These are not dumb animals or stupid insects, these are intelligent demonic beings. And I can't imagine what it would have been like to be in a battle and to hear on the other side of a mountain or a ridge the thundering hoof beats of thousands of horses coming to attack you. That would be very dispiriting. That's how it's going to sound. Like a multitude of chariots or innumerable horses. It is terror. It is pain. Why is God allowing this? God allows natural disasters. God even allows physical pain, if that's what it takes, to draw us back to himself. The irresistible power of locusts was proverbial throughout the Middle East. I think that's why this picture is given. And notice in verse 11, they have a king. which is the angel of the bottomless pit. I do not believe that this is Satan because Satan is walking around as a roaring lion right now seeking whom he may devour. He's not confined to the pit yet. But there is one who has great authority, and I believe this is what scripture talks about when it talks about principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. This is one of those rulers. This is not one who reaches the same height or authority as Satan, but he is certainly a ruler of the power of darkness, and his name means destroyer. That's what Abaddon or Apollyon, both the Hebrew and the Greek name, both mean. One who destroys. That's his mission in life, to destroy. And this kind of person is given the authority to send out his minions to destroy on the earth. But you know what? As bad as this is, his power is limited. You see, Abaddon, Apollyon, Even the devil himself is not in control. And so what are the limitations? He cannot kill people, right? We saw that, verses 4 and 5. Can't kill anybody, just make them miserable. You can only afflict for five months, and then it's over. And that would be the normal, by the way, typically locusts will come out in May and then disappear in September. So that's a normal cycle, five-month cycle. And these beings cannot touch anybody who is a child of God. So they're very limited. And it's so ironic to me that here you have demons who are the enemies of God going after men who are the enemy of God. You'd kind of think they'd be on the same team, right? They're all enemies of God. But that's the way the realm of evil is. It's chaotic. There's no cohesiveness. It's irrational. It eventually will implode on itself. And the sting is intolerable. We mentioned the word torment there, meaning acute pain. And this pain, the sting of the tail of these locust-like beings, brings men to desperation. You see, God loves them so much. If this is the only way He can get their attention, then He would gladly do this, to bring men to Himself. But let's look at the sixth trumpet. God not only uses natural disasters and even physical pain, but God uses catastrophic death to get our attention. Notice in verse 13, and the sixth angel sounded. And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God. And again, we were talking about that earlier. That's the altar of incense that was in the temple. And the four horns are the kind of like triangular at each corner of the altar, these triangular parts on the corners, the horns. and so from the alter you hear the voice of the angel that was ministering there that we read about earlier and uh... he says uh... to the sixth angel which had the trumpet loose the four angels which are bound in the great river euphrates and again whenever you see in scripture angels that are bound these are not good angels they're bad angels these are demons what we call demons uh... loose them And the four angels were loosed, and these are demons, not good angels, but bad angels. The four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. At this point in human history, one third of the world's population will die. Notice God has a timetable. He knows the very hour when this will be initiated. God is the one in control, not Satan, not any amount of demonic realm. Notice verse 16. And the number of the army of the horsemen were 200,000,000 or 200 million in this army. And I heard the number of them. How in the world does John know that there were 200 million? I mean, how could you count all of that? Well, he tells us, oh, I heard what the number was. The angel told me the number, 200 million. Just to give you an idea, the largest army in the world at this point is China's army. They have about 2.3 million people in their army. The United States is the second largest army with about 1.4, I think, 1.4 million. This is 200 million. But I don't believe this is flesh and blood. Again, I believe this is demonic. Let's continue reading verse 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire and of jacinth and of brimstone. All right, so this reddish, bluish, grayish and this yellowish colors. And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lines. OK, here you have these similes and these metaphors here. Similes. And out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. So there's your fire, smoke, and brimstone. And these three plagues, literally in the Greek, it's the word plagues here. These three plagues, the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone, By these were the third part of men killed by the fire, by the smoke, by the brimstone, which issued out of the mouths of these beings. It's almost like you read the myths of those dragons, the fire-breathing dragons. Maybe there's something to those myths. But you have very much a supernatural, demonic figures. You say, wait a minute. Come on, how could spirit beings look real? Well, don't we have lots of examples in scripture of angels who look like men? Yeah. They took upon human form. And so this is not, we can understand this. This happens. We've seen this in scripture. Their power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails were like unto serpents and had heads, and with them they do hurt." We see, first of all, in this catastrophic event that God is in control. It's part of his sovereign plan. We also know there's a spiritual plane. This isn't just a human army of 200 million men. I believe this is really a supernatural army. And by the way, are there not supernatural armies? Remember in the Old Testament when God opened up the eyes of Elisha's servant Gehazi to see on the hills the chariots of the Lord and the angels of God to defend his servant. There are certainly armies there that are beyond our material perception. And again, I mentioned the word plagues. Plagues now becomes a very large part of the next few chapters in the book of Revelation as God is seeking and doing all he can to draw men back to himself. God's love seeks men's repentance. It allows for judgment through natural disasters, physical pain, and even catastrophic death to get our attention. But you know what? God's ultimate goal. God's love allows judgment, but God's goal is our repentance. Notice verse 20. Sadly, and the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk and John's just why would somebody worship a lump of metal You pray to a block of metal that you just fashioned with your own tools. How is this thing that you just made with your own hands, how is this thing going to help you? You created it! And so it is that, sadly, even in our modern, sophisticated culture, men are just as foolish today to worship the evolution of their own creation. To worship science. To worship material prosperity. To put their heart and their time and their attention in things that are material in nature that won't last. If the first and greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, then what would be the worst thing a man could do? If the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, the worst thing you could do is to not love the Lord with all your heart. And so they fail miserably with the first table of the Ten Commandments. They don't handle God well. But notice verse 21. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts, They fail miserably with the second table of the commandments. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. And here you see the sixth, seventh, and eighth of the Ten Commandments being mentioned. And even this word sorceries, interestingly, it's tied in often with the use of drugs. Those that would use drugs for their own gain, their own pleasure, their own illicit pursuits. Become addicted to that. And so here these people are looking for happiness and security and peace everywhere but God. And they repent not. The sad thing is that this will be, other than chapter 16, this will be the last time the word repent is used in the book of Revelation. Put it this way, it's almost as though time is quickly running out. God is calling, God is calling, God is calling, God's turning up the pressure, God's begging men to come to Him, and men will not. Men will not choose God. Men will shake their fist in the face of God and turn to a lump of metal, a block of wood, turn to their own passions, their own ambitions, their own desires, and reject God. They will not love God with all their heart. And as a result, they will not treat their fellow man like God intends. God's love seeks men's repentance. You know, God allows judgment. Because He wants to draw you to Himself. Maybe you're going through a tough time, your life's kind of falling apart. Maybe that's even why you're here today. Because God has allowed terrible circumstances to get your attention, to draw you to Himself. Don't get angry with God for that. Praise Him for it. He loves you enough that He's drawing you back to Himself. Maybe you're here today and your life's falling apart because God wants to have a relationship with you. It's time to give up your sin, your lifestyle, and just give your life to God. Trust Him. Know that He loves you. Know that he's got your best interest at stake. God's love allows judgment, and God's overall goal is your repentance. God's love seeks your repentance. Christian, are you here today, and are you living your life with eternity in view? Do you know people that need the knowledge of God's love? Why not give that knowledge to them? Why not live your life in such a way that the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace? If you're here today, if you were to die right now, you're not 100% sure that you would go to heaven. Oh my friend, God brought you here today so that you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Let's pray.