Well, in the afternoon, we've been going through the book of Revelation. Today, we'll be finishing the portion that is found in chapter 15 and 16. It's all kind of a section that hangs together. These chapters are about the plagues that God poured out in judgment upon his apostate people and upon the beast that they worshiped. and upon them as a nation and upon them as a city, upon their city. They're called the Last Plagues because they're associated with the end of those three entities that I just mentioned. They're revealed in reverse order of their historical fulfillment. The first three plagues are associated with the end of Israel as a nation in A.D. 136, when they were miserably slaughtered after the Barcacco Rebellion. The next two plagues are associated with the destruction of the seven-headed beast of the Roman Empire, the seventh head being the Emperor Titus in AD 79 and 80, he died in 81, whose mark they received and to whom they gave worship. And the sixth and seventh plagues bring us back to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple that began in AD, that destruction began in AD 66 and concluded in AD 70. At least that's a way of seeing the fulfillment of these things. I'm always careful to say that there are other interpretations of this book, and so we have to be cautious about being too dogmatic of these things. The more I look at it, the more I see the fulfillments of these things so in detail in the first century, the more striking it is to me that this was indeed written, as it says, about things that were shortly to take place and not things that were far off. Last week, we looked at the sixth plague, and this week we'll look at the seventh. It's spoken of in Revelation 16, 17 through 21. This week, before we have our reading, I want to do something, I want to kind of set the, I want to begin with a question that will help you to connect with our text. To bring you into what we're gonna be looking at. We're gonna come back kind of to this subject at the end as well. So this is to kind of prepare us for receiving what we're getting ready to read here and being able to understand it as it applies to us. So how do you respond? The question is, how do you respond to God and all the trouble that we have and that you have in this world? Okay, we have lots of trouble. We're born to trouble, it says in the Bible. Job said, as sparks fly upwards, man has trouble. So how do you respond to the trouble that we have corporately, nations, things like that, and that you have individually? We're all part of the human race that God made, yet our days are full of trouble. We go through many sorrows, we have many fears, and then we die. We are like this because we fell from God into sin in the very beginning. He responded by casting us out of paradise so that we're subjected to all kinds of sufferings, death, and worst of all, to eternal punishment in hell. There are two responses. Two responses. The response of God's elect can be summed up with these words. Lord, have mercy. That's what happens in the elect. The elect are the ones that God has chosen to rescue, to restore, to sweet and blessed fellowship with himself through his saving work. They are more and more tender by their troubles. Sometimes it begins in a very small way in their lives. They begin to see that they are the problem. So instead of being angry with God, they start asking for mercy instead. It's a completely different way of looking at things. Instead of, what does God do? I'm not gonna have anything to do with him. What is he doing? They realize I'm the reason that there's problems. All of us with our sin. This is why we have these. And they cry out for mercy. Now, this sometimes begins with a very small seed of that desire for mercy. Is there a beginning? God is calling them as a factual call begins to to take root in their lives. It grows up in them. The day comes when they truly embrace Christ as their savior. The ultimate cry for mercy and salvation, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. And God hears and he responds and he gives us life in Christ. Sometimes it's a long time after a person professes him. In the reformed churches, we don't claim to be able to tell when someone is truly regenerate. But rather we receive people upon profession of faith. And sometimes we see more clear marks of lively faith and sometimes not so clear marks. But if God is working, if they're elect, then he uses the word and the sacraments and the different things. And as that begins to take root in them, then it brings them to a place where they actually, as it would be said in the old days, close with Christ. They actually come to embrace him. You see that in some of the testimonies you have in the Old Testament with people. When was Jacob converted? It's hard to tell. He has lots of experiences. He's drawn in, drawn in, drawn in. And there's lots of examples like that. They finally come, though, to a saving way and are forgiven and justified. The ultimate cry, Lord, have mercy. I need God's salvation. And I look to Him in such a way that I receive that blessing. The response of those who are left to go their own way, though, to the very same sorrows in the world and troubles is to blaspheme God. As they go on, they become more and more hardened and bitter against God. They're proud and they cannot accept that they are guilty. The problem is not here, it's out there. That they're very guilty, as we all are, for rejecting God. All of us as a human race have done that. Throughout history, the Lord gathers those who are His elect into His church. Okay, the church is there for the gathering of the people of God, the people who trust Him and look for mercy. He gathers them to secure to them His promise of mercy, to those who look to Him for mercy. He makes it sure to us. He also works in them and through them as a body that they might bring thanks and praise to Him, that they might, as a body, seek Him, that they might receive instruction and protection in walking with Him and in the things that He's done for them. He brings them together to testify of Him in the world, that they might proclaim the praises and the salvation of God. And He brings them together to provide fellowship and communion and care Christ is the head of the church, the foundation, the righteousness of the church, the worship leader of the church, the Lord of the church, the life-giving source of the church, the Savior of the church, and so on, and so on, and so on. He is at the center of everything, and God gathers those that are His people into this church even before they are converted many, many times. His church is always a mixture of wheat and tares as well. There are those who are actually looking to God in Christ for mercy, and those who have instead a root of bitterness, as it is described in the scripture. Jacob and Esau, for example. Until each is mature, they cannot easily be distinguished. Sometimes the one who is actually coming to God for mercy and beginning to cry to Him for mercy looks more like the unbeliever, and the other one looks more like the believer. Many of those who are elect have not even been converted yet, though they are in the church, even though they may have professed. They have not received new life yet. Think of Jesus' disciples. At first, all of them were interested in having positions in the world where people were honoring them and they were established with riches and honors. They thought, Messiah, we're gonna follow Messiah, this is gonna be great. And then he didn't do stuff like they were expecting. And there was not much difference between, Judas didn't stand out as one that was any different. But what was happening within? In Judas, the root of bitterness was growing up. In the others, they didn't like what they saw sometimes, but this is the Messiah. And we have no other place to go. And they continued to follow him. And over time, it all came together. And then they became more and more filled with rejoicing. And this is the one who came to bring mercy to us. This is the one who came to bring salvation. And they went out preaching him. And Judas became bitter and harder and harder and cold, you see, because he was there with them. But he didn't have the seed of life in him. He didn't have the fruit that came from that. There are times when the church is so dominated by unbelievers that it's what we could call an apostate church. And that could be the church at any level. It could be a particular congregation, it could be a church in a whole nation or a denomination, or it could be a church around the whole world. You see, this is the case then in all these ways. When it's an individual church that has the root of bitterness becomes the dominant thing in it, then they're called by Jesus the synagogue of Satan, aren't they? And he says that he's going to remove their lampstand. This does not mean in that church that there's no true believers left. But what it means is that they're not the ones that are running things. They're not the ones doing the preaching and setting the agenda. They're rather the persecuted minority within the church. Some of you have been in churches like that, where you were perhaps a believer and the ones that were leading were not really believers. In the Old Testament, the whole church became apostate in Jeremiah's day, didn't it? The Lord destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and delivered them to exile. They hated Jeremiah. He was among them as one who was bearing witness to the truth. And the Lord delivered them to exile in Babylon. And all the while, he preserved those like Jeremiah and Daniel. who were true believers, who all the while were saying, Lord, have mercy on us. We have done wrong. Have mercy, Lord, deliver us. And the others, what is God doing? They were angry with God. It was also true when Jesus came. The Old Testament church officially, in her leaders, rejected him and delivered him up to be crucified as one who is a blasphemer, who is defiled, and who is unclean. There was only a remnant. in the whole Old Testament church at that time that were seeking God's mercy and that rejoiced when that mercy came through Jesus Christ to them. They recognized it and they rejoiced. Jesus warned them that severe judgment would come that would be brought against those who rejected Him. He told them that there would be, quote, great tribulations such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. Matthew 24, 21. He told them that not one stone in the temple would be left upon another. And that was exactly fulfilled in that generation. It was not some way later time. It was in that generation, just like he said. He said that they would be cast out and it would be of the kingdom, the sons of the kingdom, the professing sons of the kingdom that weren't really sons of the king, would be cast out and it would be given to a nation that would bring forth the fruits of salvation. In other words, those who found life in Christ, who sought the mercy of God for salvation and restoration of him to him, those who said, have mercy. And when they heard it, they rejoiced in the mercy, like many of the Gentiles that came to Jesus when he was on the earth. And he looked at the hardness of his people, but he would go there and they would say, Show us a sign, show us a sign that we should follow you. He would go to the Gentiles and they'd say, oh Lord, have mercy on me, have mercy on me. You see, it's a totally different, a root of bitterness and seeking mercy. This is the difference between those who have life and those who don't. Now, let's come to our text today. That was to warm you up to our text. Okay, as we come to our text, we have the commencement of the day when the great judgment began. That the Lord Jesus said would be brought upon his generation because they were an apostate church who rejected their Messiah and did not know the day of their visitation. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, he said. The focus of our text is on the plagues that were associated with that judgment when God's wrath was poured out on them. I'll read our text now at this time. It is Revelation 16, 17 through 21. This is from the vision of the seven bowls of wrath, the wrath of God, that were poured out by seven angels. We're picking up here with the seventh bowl, which was the seventh in John's vision, but was the first chronologically. There's a chiastic arrangement here with some of these things that are in Revelation, so they seem to be going in reverse here. So here is the word of God, Revelation 16, 17 through 21. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since the plague was exceedingly great. You see the connection to what I just had. Have mercy on one hand, blaspheme God on the other hand. This was the day when our Lord said, enough, unleashing his wrath upon the apostate church of the Old Testament. Notice verse 19. It says that this was a time when, quote, Great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of wine of the fierceness of his wrath. That's what it often says when God brings judgment, that they were remembered. In other words, God brought them before him to address them in a way that they could see what God thought about them. He brought forth his judgment upon them. There'll be that judgment day that's coming when everything will be remembered and God will express what he thinks about what has been done or not done. Clearly then, this is the expression of God's wrath that Jesus said would fall on Jerusalem and her temple in that very generation. Let me read a little bit more here. In Matthew 23, 32 through 38, he said to them, okay, this is after he denounced them for all of their hypocrisy and all these things. Matthew 23, you get to verse 32, he said to them, in kind of a sarcasm, he said, fill up. the measure of your father's guilt, serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city." These were the apostles and prophets and disciples in the New Testament. persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. God's going to visit all of those sins upon them. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. Anyone among them had said, Lord, have mercy. They would have found mercy. They did not, and they find judgment. It was right after this that Jesus also said, Matthew 24, two, do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Now, I've shown you previously that in Revelation, Jerusalem is called Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, and such names of places that were devoted to destruction because of their rebellion against God. The church had become, the Old Testament church, had become so corrupt that they were now the ones that the true people of God had to be delivered from, just as they had to be delivered out of Egypt, out of Babylon, or wherever. Now, the very people who profess to know God were the ones that they had to be delivered from that were killing them and slaying them all over the place. Instead of redemption from Egypt, They needed a redemption from Jerusalem. Jerusalem had become Egypt and Babylon. Now, I don't have time to go into all the proof that the Old Testament apostate churches call Babylon. We did that earlier. But just to touch on it, just give you a point here. point you to Revelation 11, 8, where we're told about this great city. And what does it say about the great city? In Revelation, it's identified as the place where Christ was crucified. Revelation 11, 8, it says of the prophets, the true prophets of God, the two men that were killed and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom. and Egypt, and to make it absolutely clear what city we're talking about, where our Lord was crucified. Now, some people that wanna have this as a different time frame, they have to do all kinds of things to move that around. But here, just taking at face value, this was where, this was a city that did receive all kinds of judgment in that time period, and this is where our Lord was crucified. Now, this is a monumental judgment of the Church of the Old Covenant that is being spoken of here. It's the fulfillment of all those curses that we saw in Deuteronomy today. It was God's church, though. It was God's church, the Old Testament, the Old Covenant people. It was truly God's church. It was the place where He had preserved and nurtured all of the true saints who sought His mercy that He promised. But now having crucified their own Messiah and being dominated by a root of bitterness rather than a cry for mercy, crucified their own Messiah and having instigated now the wholesale slaughter of those who followed him, severe judgment was to fall on them. Keep in mind. And do not forget this. Keep in mind that there is a was a remnant of Jews that did receive Christ. OK, some people have gotten into this. Let's hate all the Jews thing. They included the Jews. It was 144,000 Jews who were preserved by God to carry the gospel to the world. Never forget that Jesus himself was a Jew. And these are the people that God used to bring the gospel into the world and to spread it in that first early time. And most Reformed and Puritan theologians believe that the time will come when the Jews who are alive in the earth at that time will be restored to Jesus Christ. that there'll be a great gathering and we should pray for that. We don't hate people and say, well, they crucified Christ, so we'll hate them. There's been people in history that have done that and people that want to do that today. That is not where we go with this. We look at it and we say the ones who hated Christ and who are slaughtering and trying to kill every last Christian, Those are the apostate, that's the apostate church that had to be smashed by God and was smashed by God and will be smashed by God as it appears again and again and again. A church that is filled with the root of bitterness. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple served two purposes. It brought appropriate judgment on those apostates who had rejected God and had control of the church when Jesus came. And it brought a definitive end to the old covenant and worship of God by priests and altars, which was the hallmark of the old covenant. It was the way it was supposed to be. But now, instead of offering sacrifice, we proclaim the good news of the sacrifice. It was offered by our Lord Jesus Christ. The one that all along was appointed to do that sacrifice that would truly reconcile us to God. We don't go and now offer other sacrifices like they did that are about shadows. But now we proclaim that the preacher has replaced the priest. The priest that offers sacrifices now is the preacher that proclaims the great high priest who is exalted and reigning in heaven. That's why we don't have all of the ceremonies and things of the old covenant. OK, so these two purposes and that first purpose about bringing proper judgment to them that also incorporates with it. It was necessary for the preservation of God's people. Because they were being successful in killing them off. So many Christians were killed at this time. I've been amazed at looking at some of those things in this time period. I didn't realize how great the persecution was in these early days. Both Rome and the Jews were trying, the unbelieving Jews were trying to kill the Jews who did believe and some of the other Gentiles that had come in. So the time for judgment to fall on Jerusalem has come. This is seen in verse 17. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done. Now, those words, it is done, convey the idea that time, the time for this judgment has now come. Those words are used to refer to a genesis, like a beginning of something. It's the beginning of the end. It's the beginning of the judgment that's going to terminate them. This bowl has been poured out and there is no turning back. It has come to pass. It has come to be. That's the idea that we should pick up here. I believe the end of Jerusalem in the temple has come. The judgment that will destroy them has now been unleashed with these plagues that mark and in certain ways initiate the destruction. They don't bring the complete destruction, but these plagues are associated with the end of this city, Jerusalem, just as they were the end of the seven-headed beast in the next decade, and just as they were the end of Israel as a whole nation much later in 136. So the plagues described under the pouring out of this bowl herald and symbolize the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. They seem to have begun in AD 66. Now, I've been using a lot of the research that Kayser has done. He has done such an extensive amount. You'll see that in what we're looking at now. He has found evidence of literal fulfillment of these plagues, everything including a very great earthquake in 1866 that wiped out cities, moved islands, and collapsed cities to massive hailstones that weigh well over 100 pounds that have been documented and studied even in modern times. He has collected lots of information from multiple sources and disciplines, history, technical journals of science, and archaeology. So here is how he describes the earthquake. He says, I quote, look at the text. Verse 18 says, this is all quote, And there was a tremendous earthquake, a terrible, severe earthquake such as had not occurred since mankind existed on the land. Verse 20 adds, and every island fled and mountains were not found. Some of your versions might say, the mountains. As if all the mountains disappeared, but even futurists don't take it that way. In any case, there is no the in the Greek. It's just mountains. There were some mountains that disappeared, but certainly not all mountains. But the Greek is just as clear that every island had sufficient movement that it could be said to flee. The Greek word, ephougen, what on earth is that talking about? Certainly the spiritual shaking was that profound, but what about the literal physical shaking that represented it? See, there was a literal fulfillment that represented the spiritual reality. So since in past weeks, he says, we have clearly documented the timing of this event to the first century, we can know with a certainty that it did happen because God said it would happen. And in my searches last year, I ran across even more evidences of a massive earthquake that literally fulfills every detail of these verses. There is more and more evidence coming out all the time. He says, Josephus wasn't much help. He only mentions a terrible noise as the earth shook Israel. He doesn't say how hard the earth shook. It was just significant enough that he mentions the noise that the earth made and the movement of the earth. It's interesting because Josephus was actually more interested in some of the signs that were in the sky and stuff like that, which were in many ways more alarming. There were various visions that were seen. There was a big sword that everybody saw. All different people talk about it, Romans, different people. Those were the things that occupied him more than an earthquake. But anyway, going on, Keiser says, back in chapter 6, I documented that this happened all over the Mediterranean. Let me give a tiny summary of what I documented back then. I have about a dozen books and numerous technical journals and documents. of what I'm about to describe. And if you want more details, you will have to look at my exposition of chapter 6, 12 through 17, which is the portion of the first half of the book that lines up date-wise with this one. The first article I stumbled upon was a technical journal by George Paraskevich, quite a name, and it was published in a journal called Science of Tsunami Hazards. And it presents the results of numerous interdisciplinary studies showing that of the 613 historically documented earthquakes in the Mediterranean region from the time of Christ to the present, The four biggest earthquakes were in the years, what do you suppose? 8066, 365, 800, and 1303. And this one in 8066 was massive. Let me summarize and point form some of the conclusions that he and other colleagues came to when they studied this super earthquake. And I won't give nearly the same amount of detail that I gave before. First of all, it was massive enough to be felt all over the Mediterranean, and we looked at a lot of evidence of that. Second, a 30-foot high tsunami hit Crete, and the tsunami was higher in some parts of the Mediterranean. And these studies show evidence of tsunamis in 8066 all over the Mediterranean. Third, some islands, mountains, disappeared under the water due to the buckling that happened from the impact of the Aegean and Anatolian microplates hitting up against the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. There were some places where land masses were up in other places where they buckled and went down. And they have recently started excavating some cities that are now completely under the water. There is some fascinating underwater archaeology going on. This is fairly recent that some of this has happened. They're doing these studies of these places, these cities that actually went under. Fourth, Cities like Colossae and Laodicea were leveled by this earthquake, with Laodicea itself not being rebuilt for another 160 years. This is one of the proofs that the book of Revelation could not have been written any later than the first quarter of A.D. 66. I've got a lot of other proofs, but evidence shows there simply wouldn't have been any city of Laodicea to write about in chapter three if it had been written in 80, 90 or after, as some people believe. And we will see we will be seeing in verse 19 that many cities of the nations fell down. They were flattened. You see, this is all very, very interesting because we're seeing the direct fulfillment of prophecies. Fifth, based on the evidence that we have, every portion of the Mediterranean map was impacted in some way, including every island in the Ionian and Aegean seas, the eastern Mediterranean and the western Mediterranean basin. Papadopoulos and Vassilopoulos say that the cities on the island of Crete were totally destroyed, all of them. There is also evidence that the earthquake affected many cities in Greece and Italy. So there were cities all over the Roman Empire that were affected to one degree or another. This was not a minor earthquake. Let me read a couple of quotes from George Pararis, Karyannis, on what exactly was going on in terms of tectonics and seismology. He says, tectonic collisions and alpine orogenesis resulted in further complex geotectonic deformations that created the Hellenic-Orogenic-Tectonic Belt. the long range of mountains that traverse the western side of the Aegean microplate. These tectonic processes continue to stress and fold the Earth's upper crust in the region, thus forming more islands, more mainland mass, and lifting the mountains of Greece to greater heights. The active tectonic interaction and collision of the converging African and Eurasian plates, along with the entire eastern Mediterranean margin, resulted in multiple subduction zones, post-orogenic basins, accretionary margins, neogenic crust shortening, and extreme seismology and volcanism, processes that continue to the present. There have been numerous scientific and archaeological field investigations of raised shorelines and submerged ancient harbors of the eastern Mediterranean that are indicative of major crustal displacements associated with significant earthquakes. Field studies of salt deposition and erosional features indicate that the upper crustal displacements raise the land by as much as 6.66 meters on the average above the ancient sea level. corrected for eustatic sea level variation. Maximum uplift in one area was as much as 9.9 meters. That's like 32 and a half feet. He says, can you imagine going through an earthquake that raised this building up 32 and a half feet in a matter of minutes? It would be terrifying. That would be a moving of islands and mountains on a scale that had not been seen by men before. Very literally, a terribly severe earthquake, such as had not occurred since mankind existed on the land, occurred on festival Passover of 8066. For many more details about this earthquake, I would refer you to my sermon on chapter six, verse 12 through 17. And there I'll end the quote from Phil Kaeser. Why did I quote so much? Because people say, oh, that could never literally happen. what is described here, mountains being brought down. Islands being moved and cities being utterly destroyed. When did that happen? When did an earthquake, when could an earthquake ever do something like that? Now we see from studies that have been done that something like that does literally happen. So we don't need to immediately say, as so many do, this must be just a spiritual thing. It didn't really happen. Just like we don't say that about the Red Sea. The Red Sea opened up. We don't say it about the Jordan River. The Jordan River opened up. We don't say it about the various things that God has told us about. over in his word. We need to consider what is symbolized by these plagues. This is the thing that is really important here. The earthquake that changes everything, the face of the land, represents what we saw foretold in Hebrews. Perhaps written only a short time before this earthquake in AD 66. It symbolizes and heralds the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple in AD 70. OK, this earthquake was representing this great shaking of God's whole covenant structure and of all of the church and all of these things. It was a shaking, a physical earthquake that represented a great spiritual earthquake. Many commentators believe then that Hebrews was written to the saints in Jerusalem as they were the most likely to be tempted to turn back. to the temple for their worship. I mentioned that this morning. But listen to what Hebrews in chapter 12, 25 through 29 says about spiritual shaking, the spiritual shaking that was about to come. It says, see that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth. Now, remember, these are people right before this physical shaking on earth took place. He says, see that you do not refuse him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth. Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who spoke from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth. But now he promised saying yet much more. And I will shake not only earth, but also heaven. Now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. Now that certainly speaks of what's going to happen at the very end, but it also speaks of what happened in the time of 70 A.D. The physical plague that shook the earth so violently represents the shaking off of those people and nations that rejected the Lord our God. The only thing that cannot be shaken is Jesus Christ. And whatever is in Him, that's what cannot be shaken. The Old Covenant with its great city and massive temple could be shaken. But Christ, our Savior, cannot be shaken. He abides forever. Hebrews talks about it all the way through. These are the temples and the altars and things that are made with man's hands. These are the ones that are with Christ forever in glory. There was a complete termination then of the temple and its worship on earth. But this shake up occurred because Christ, who cannot be shaken, came to fulfill it. If you come to him, you will be part of the kingdom that cannot be shaken. If you're not in him, then you will be shaken. The giant hell stones, perhaps many commentators think, represent God stoning Israel here for their spiritual adultery. He cut off apostate Israel, but the remnant in Israel who came to Christ could not be shaken. Christ is their bridegroom. He provides for them. I mentioned before that in the Old Testament, when I did this in my prayer, that sometimes the kings and the prophets and the priests would go astray and you wouldn't have someone properly offering sacrifice for you. You wouldn't have someone ruling you according to God's will. And it led to God sometimes cutting off the whole nation. Now that Christ is the prophet, priest and king, it's not going to happen anymore. He cannot be shaken. He's established forever and ever. We're secure in him. We have blessing in him. So now let's look at how people respond. OK, we're back where we started from. How do people respond to the plagues that God sends? And let's consider what our response reveals about us. OK, how do you respond? Okay, let's look. There are essentially two responses to the plagues. Those who are lost blaspheme. Okay, trouble comes, however it comes, personally, nationally, whatever, they blaspheme. That's what's recorded at the end of our text. Second half of verse 21, the very end. Men blasphemed God because of the plagues of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. What a sad and wicked response to God's holy wrath. What a way to respond to affliction. Affliction should not... You're an idiot if you're being afflicted by God and you shake your fist at Him and curse Him. What is going to happen with that? That is not the way to respond when trouble comes. They curse and swear and become angry with the God who has visited them with His affliction. They reject God and deny His Son because they don't like His plagues. Instead of realizing that the plagues expose their sin and guilt and ought to crush them and make them humble before God, they become more and more hard and arrogant and shake their fist in the face of God. The elect, you see, have a very different response here. Those that God has given life to, or even the beginning of life, they say what we saw before, Lord, have mercy on me. A sinner, when they see plagues, either coming plagues or plagues that are upon them, That's what is in their core. That's what is at their core. Sometimes this cry, as I said before, it begins as a tiny seed of yearning, a seed that that came about by the gracious working of God to reveal himself and his truth. But that seed grows into a passion for mercy that brings them with ever increasing joy and thankfulness to Christ, in whom God's mercy is presented and packaged and brought to us. They say, what a Savior He is. He has come to secure full salvation and forgiveness for us. Lord, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me, a sinner. How do you respond then? How do you respond to affliction, both personal and public? Does it lead you to cry out to God for mercy? Or does it lead you to become bitter and angry and cynical and cold? Does it make you tender to seek after God, to seek his will in the trouble, to seek to honor him in the trouble, to look to see how you can please him? Does it make you hungry for Jesus Christ and his grace that brings you to God in a loving and appropriate way as the one who wants to know and glorify him? I'll be the first to admit that I do not always respond well to affliction. Even this week, I got angry because of my computer. It was crashing while I was trying to do my work over and over and over again. When I tried to use another computer, I couldn't get it to work because with the programs that I had that I'm accustomed to using, it made my work extremely difficult. I finally did get another computer to work, but I was pretty angry. But by God's grace, before the problem was resolved, The Lord convicted me of my sin and he made me tender so that I cried out to him for mercy and began to rejoice in Christ again because God has given me the seed of life. Not because I'm good, but because the way I am naturally is to blaspheme, but God changes us by his grace. None of us are perfect in this life. What I did was deserving of hell. But Jesus paid for my sin when he went to the cross and he did not let me go on in my rebellion. Do you understand the significance of what I'm talking about? You say, well, that seems kind of trivial. No, it's not trivial. This is where we're at with God. There is in us by nature a root of bitterness against God, and He does something, and we curse and we blaspheme. That's what we keep seeing in Revelation. That's no way. That's not the way. We need to come when we see those things and say, this is an evidence that we have all sinned against God, that we have displeased Him, and He is just and holy and good, and we have displeased Him. All this trouble has come upon us because of sin. We wouldn't have any of this if it wasn't that. And we should say, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Don't be like the Pharisee. Lord, I pay my tithes and I do this and do this and do this. I'm not like that guy over there, the guy over there, the tax collector. He says, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. He goes home justified rather than the other. When you see affliction in the right way, reminds you that we are the wrongdoers. God is not the wrongdoer. What do you find when you talk to atheists, agnostics, different ones? God is the wrongdoer. When you really get down to it, they say, God couldn't have made the world because the world's in a mess. And therefore, if he had made it and he's good, then the world would be not in a mess. That's their logic. God did wrong. It's not me. It's not us. It's him. It's not have mercy. It's you're the problem. And so they say, I don't believe in him. They deny him. But even this God given transformation that gets you to recognize that you're the wrongdoer and not God, when that happens, it still is a transition that's not complete, a transformation, I should say, that's not complete. And that keeps you coming back to the Lord again and again, saying, have mercy on me. You have to say it as I did this week. You have to say it again and again. If you're not in Christ or not at least coming to him, then you get more and more bitter and hard. That was just little things. Well, it was bad. It was terrible. Does it make you more bitter? Do you come away from it more bitter and hard? And you get more bitter, more hard, more bitter and more hard and more bitter and more hard. Or do you come away from it tender? Looking for mercy, seeing that you need mercy. I know we were told about by our brothers down at Grace Woodstock about a man that was coming to their church, had a terrible, terrible background. He'd been mistreated and abused, had all kinds of problems. And his whole mantra was, you know, all the bad things have done to me. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. And I said one day they were talking to him and he said. I realized that I'm the problem. His whole life changed. He said, have mercy on me, the sinner, and he turned to God. His whole life was transformed and he started seeking the Lord and finding joy in Christ and serving him with gladness. That's what we're talking about here. Don't close your heart. Don't take that sting and say, well, no, I'm not going to listen to that. No. Open your heart. Don't close, open your heart and come to God. If you do. You will find life, you will find mercy if you come. Have mercy on me. You will find life, he will never turn away the one who comes seeking mercy in him. Please stand and let's call on his name. Oh, Lord, our God. How we thank You that You take sinners like us and You make us mercy seekers. Because we're not mercy seekers on our own. We could have all the plagues fall on us. The plagues of Egypt, the plagues of Babylon, the plagues of Jerusalem. We could have these plagues all fall on us and we would still blaspheme Your name right to the very end. We'd shake our fist at you and say that you have done wrong by these things all the way to hell. And we pray, Lord, that you would have mercy upon us, that you would have mercy upon us who call upon your name. Lord, you have promised. that if we cry out to you that you will not turn us away. We pray that you would give us such a heart. Oh Father, how far, how much we need to change and how far we can change by your grace. We pray that our response to you will be one of tenderness and of seeing that we're the problem, not everyone else, not everything else, not you ultimately, it's us. And Father, we thank you for the way that you have marvelously created us so that you work in us in a real and living way. We're not programmed in some weird way where we walk about mechanically, but we're living beings who react and respond to what you reveal to us and what you do in our lives. And we respond either with this bitterness or we respond with seeking mercy. And Father, it is by your grace alone that we can seek mercy. Father, open our eyes, if they have not been opened, that we may see this clearly, and that we may come to you, that we may find life in you, that we may find mercy. What terrible judgments you brought upon your church, the ones where you had nurtured the likes of Moses and Abraham and David, Solomon, Hezekiah, so many others, Lord, that You had nurtured and brought to salvation and carried along and revealed Yourself to them through the true prophets that addressed the church and were often stoned, the true kings who ruled in righteousness and truth. Father, what a blessing Your church is. But Father, we see that again and again, particular churches and national churches, and even sometimes pretty much worldwide, will go into a dominant apostate condition. But we see your faithfulness every time. Like Elijah was told, I have 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal in Israel. Your faithfulness remains what they sought. They did not attain, but election. It was obtained by election. We praise you, Lord, for your gracious working. Please continue the work. that you have begun in your church, you will continue it. You said that there would always be a church to call on your name. There would never be a time when you did not have a people that were set apart for you. But father, we pray that the church of mercy seekers, that they would become the dominant voice, that they would be the ones, Lord, who would be able to lead and lead your people and truth and righteousness, not in denying the cross and denying the gospel and denying your calling and your word and the conviction of sin and all the things that they would want to deny. We pray, Father, that the truth might stand in Jesus Christ, that he might be exalted as the only Lord and Savior, the one who is crucified, who is cut off because of us. Thank you so much, Lord, for what you've done. What a Savior he is. Glorify your name. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. of the Lord, who is able to keep all of those who look to him for mercy. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to God, our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.