Morning, we're going to continue on. This morning, we're going to continue on in Revelation, where we left off a couple of weeks ago. But before we start, let's go Lord in prayer. Father, we're grateful for this morning. Father, we look out on a beautiful morning like this and we see echoes of your glory. We can see that creation testifies to your greatness and your goodness. And so, Father, we enjoy this morning. But Father, we want to enjoy you more than we enjoy this morning. Father, that's why we're gathered here, because there is much greater glory than the sun rising on this morning. There's much greater glory than the beauty of creation. We have gathered together to see that glory, to gaze on that glory. Once again, the glory that you have, that you have revealed in Christ. And so, Father, as we gather this morning, we pray that that would be the case, that we would be able to see Christ's glory clearly together, and that we would be able to rejoice in that glory. And so Father, as we turn to your word, we pray that your spirit would be here with us. Father, we need minds that are able to understand your word correctly, eyes that can see your glory. And Father, most of all, we need hearts that react correctly to your glory, that rejoice in who you are and want to run after you. So Father, I pray that you would work that in us this morning, that through the power of your word applied through your spirit, that you would be remaking us in that way. Father, I pray for myself as I come to present you a word. Father, I pray that you would guard my words. Father, that they would be only what is true and glorifying of Christ. Father, that they would be those words that are helpful to those who are here listening. Father, I pray that that would be a glory to Christ as we meditate on the word together. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. So we are continuing on where we left off in Revelation a few weeks ago. But before we start, I'd like to always step back and take a big picture view. And so, as we started Revelation, we started out with this premise. This is the point of the book of Revelation. The Revelation of John is a Christocentric book. It's centered on Christ. We could run off and get tangled up in all sorts of other things, but it's a Christocentric book. And the point of it is to show the pattern of this world from Christ. Christ's first coming to his second coming, or the phrase that I'll use a lot is, from Christ to Christ. And John wants us to see several things as we go through this book. He wants us to see the spiritual realities that are happening around us, instead of merely looking at this world, to see beyond this world, and to see the spiritual realities that are around us, and to recognize the dangers that face us, but in the face of all that, to know that God is going to win. And so Revelation's call then is for us to have wisdom, for us to have perseverance and to worship in the midst of all of it. And so as we've gone through Revelation, we've seen several things. We open with the prologue to Revelation, which was a revelation of Christ. He comes and appears to John and announces that he has a message for the church, and then I said we're going to organize Revelation on seven sets of seven, seven being an incredibly important number in Revelation. So we had our first seven, the seven churches, we looked at each of those seven letters and saw how it announced a danger, but called us to look at Christ in the middle of that danger, to love His promise and to follow His command. And then we saw in between, we have these interludes. We have the seven letters. And then it said, if we look at Christ, that's our victory. So it shows us a picture of Christ on the throne of heaven with all the multitudes of heaven bowing before his throne. God himself sits on the throne, and then Christ comes. And He is the Lamb that was slain that is worthy to take the scroll and to announce God's plan for this world. And so then we moved into the seven scrolls. We saw the seven scrolls as the Lamb tears off the seal on the scroll. The seven seals we saw that the Lamb was going to work out His purpose and we saw the pattern of history from Christ. to Christ. As it says in Matthew, there will be wars and rumors of war and famine and earthquake and plague and death and all those things will happen and that is not yet the end, but we have the seven seals that testify that these things are all under Christ's control and he's using them for a purpose. He's using them to be patient until all the redeemed are called in. And then we saw that that's the result as history comes to its end. We see 144,000 sealed, 12, a complete number times 12, it is assuredly complete, times 1,000, a multitude that no one could number. And so to make it clear, it echoes that a few verses later and says a great multitude that no one could number comes and joins the throng before the throne, worshiping God and the Lamb together. And so now we're ready to start into the third seven, which is the seven trumpets, Revelation 8 and 9. And that's what we're going to look at today. And there's going to be a prologue. All this will go together as well, the seven trumpets and then the two witnesses. We're going to look at the seven trumpets today and probably get to the two witnesses next week. So that's where we are this morning in the seven trumpets. And so this morning, we'll be looking at Revelation 8 and 9. So if you have your Bibles, you can open those with me, or I'll have the text here on the screen. So let's read that together, Revelation 8 and 9. Starting with Revelation 8. When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood before God. I'm sorry, stood at the altar with a golden censer. And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth. And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of that star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became Wormwood, and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter. The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their life might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night. Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with the loud voices that flew directly overhead. Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth. At the blast of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow. And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star falling from heaven to earth. And he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power, like the power of the scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days, men will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. In appearance, the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, their faces like human faces, their hair like woman's hair, and their teeth like lion's teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and the power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon. The first woe is past. Behold, two woes are still to come. Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice 10,000 times 10,000. I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them. They wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur. And the heads of the horses were like lion's heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the work of their hands, nor give up worshipping demons in idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, or of their sorceries, or their sexual immorality, or their thefts. So as we look at the seven trumpets, which we'll look at six of them this morning, the seventh always announces the start of the next. So as we look at the seven trumpets, this is going to be my main point. The seven trumpets display God's progressive judgment on this world. The seven trumpets display God's progressive judgment on this world. God's increasing judgments call the world to repent, but also call the redeemed to rejoice. God is bringing his plan to pass. So that's what we're going to look at this morning. We're going to see that God is bringing progressive judgments down on the earth. A judgment that calls men to repent will also hear that men will not. But it also calls the redeemed to rejoice. That's something we'll just touch on this week. And then as we get to the interlude, we'll expand on quite a bit because we see God bringing his plan to pass. So as we go through this morning, I want to have four points. The first point is going to be short. I'm going to talk about the fantastic imagery we see in this passage. If someone was to pick out a random passage and say, this is what is in my mind about Revelation, it's probably this passage right here in Locust with the heads of people and human hair and lion's teeth and scorpion tails running about the earth, torturing people. And so we're going to take a moment talking about that fantastic imagery and the message of Revelation. But then the main point of the message is going to be, I want to look at first, what is the message of the seven trumpets? What are they announcing? And second, what is the purpose of the seven trumpets? And then I want to look at ourselves and say, OK, we've heard the seven trumpets. What does it mean for us? We'll look at the call of the seven trumpets. So let's start with that first point and look at the fantastic imagery that happens in Revelation. And so my question here is, okay, we've got all this fantastic imagery and we can get really caught up in that. I could sit here and talk a long time about what does a locust mean and why does it have a human head and tails like scorpions and man's hair and lion's teeth and why do we have horses going around breaking fire on people and killing them? There's a lot of fantastic imagery in this passage and what are we to do with all that? So let's just go through and just kind of list the things that we see in our passage as we go through. We start, we see a great burning mountain thrown into the sea. I haven't seen that happen myself. That's interesting. Wonder what that means. We see a great star, and not just any star, it's a star that has a name called Wormwood, and it falls into the sea. We see a third of the sun, the stars, and the moon go dark, but specifically a third. The rest of the day and night and everything is perfectly okay. We see an angel fall from heaven and open up the bottomless pit. We see terrifying locusts with human faces and scorpion's tails torment men without letting them die. We see a king of the demonic locusts appear named Abaddon and Apollyon, which both those words mean the same thing, meaning destruction in first the Hebrew and then the Greek language. We see four angels released from the Euryphrates that were stored up for this hour. We see a great army of fire-breathing horses with lions' heads and serpents' tails, and they kill a third of the earth. And my question as I go through all of these is we could spend a lot of time talking about all of this imagery. But is the imagery the point of the passage? And I'm going to answer no. The imagery isn't the point. The imagery isn't meant to be what we get tied into. The imagery is meant to be an illustration. It's something to dress up the point. It's what happens in apocalyptic literature. So what I want to do as we come to this passage is not get distracted by all the imagery. because we could dive in deep and try to figure out all these different images and at the end what we'd talk about is all these images and not have any idea what the passage was about. And so as we go through these are kind of the thoughts that run in the back of my head. Fantastic imagery in apocalyptic literature is representative and emotional. It's representative and emotional. It's meant to take a point and to dress it up so that we feel a certain way about it. If we see locusts with human heads and hair like a woman and lion's teeth and a scorpion tail, they're supposed to be terrifying. Not necessarily that we have to think really, really hard about each of those descriptions. It's almost like we're watching a horror movie, which is more what we're supposed to get out of this. It's representative and emotional. It's meant to help us to see a truth and to feel a certain way about the events being described. And so our passage has a point beyond the imagery. We could get tied up in the imagery and miss the point. The imagery is meant to emphasize the point, not to be the point. Also, the imagery is often connected to the Old Testament imagery and is meant to bring a point from the Old Testament into the passage. So we're going to look at some of the imagery, but we're going to look at the imagery by saying, where did this imagery happen before? And what point is it trying to draw in from the Old Testament and bring into Revelation? And so what I want to do is to try to over interpret the imagery. When we dive into the imagery and try to over interpret it, it's very easy to miss the main point of the passage. So this morning I'm not going to sit here and talk to you about what are these locusts representing and what are the fire breathing horses representing and what are all these things supposed to mean. Because first off, I'll be quite honest, I have no idea. I have no idea, but then I'll always gladly say, I have no idea, but that's not the point. I have no idea, but that's not the point. If these things are actual events that are going to happen, I'm sure we'll recognize them when they happen. If scorpions come with human heads and hair like a woman and scorpion tails, they'll be easy to see. But that's not the point of the passage. And so I'll also say if anyone has a specific question about the imagery in our passage, I'll open it up after the sermon. You can ask questions. I may or may not be able to answer those. We could talk about those afterwards if you want to. But during the message, I want to focus on what is the point of the passage and what does it mean for us as we go through the seven trumpets. So with that, I want to go to the message of the seven trumpets. So we come to the opening of the seven trumpets. We come to Revelation 8, verses 1 through 5. It says this, when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. So last week I talked, I set out a vision for where I'm going to go with the sevens in Revelation, especially the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls. And I laid out that the seven seals, I believe, are representative of all the time from Christ to Christ, the pattern of history that will be continually repeated, a set of events that we shouldn't be surprised that happens over and over again. And yet, in the midst of all of them, God hears his people's prayers. He is going to answer his people's prayers and bring judgment to pass on those who persecute them. And he will redeem his people from the earth. That's going to be the passage. But then I said, every time we reach the seven, we reach this pause point. And so here's our pause point. We have this silence in heaven for about half an hour. We're going to step back, and then we're going to dive back into the story again. And so we have silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer. He was given much incense to offer with the prayers of the saints on the golden altar before the throne. So we have an angel show up. We have the seven angels given seven trumpets, and they wait for a minute, and an eighth angel comes up. And they're in God's temple, and he's given a censer, a censer to wait full of incense to make a pleasing aroma. It says that censer is full of the prayers of the saints. And so in the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. And what is the result of those prayers? Then the angel took the censer that filled it with fire from the altar, and he threw it upon the earth. And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. And so the first thing that happens as we enter into the seven trumpets is there is announcement again that the prayers of God's people have effect. The prayers of God's people have effect. They rise before God as a pleasing aroma, and God hears their crying, and he reacts to their crying. He hears them as they're persecuted, and he says, I'm going to take action. And actually what I think is going on here is there's actually a pointer to where we're jumping back into the story. So recall, we had the seven trumpets. We had the first four, which were the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But then in the fifth seal, we had this vision onto the persecuted saints. And they cry out, how long, oh Lord? That happens in Revelation 6, 9 through 11. We jump into the fifth seal, and it says this. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. And they cried out with a loud voice. This is not the first time in Revelation 8 that we've heard the prayers of the saints come up before God. We saw that back in Revelation 6 when they cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been." And so the fifth seal was a vision of God's people crying out before God, the martyrs saying, how long, oh Lord, will you wait? And so the trumpets jump back to that and says, those prayers have come up to God. They have become a pleasing aroma to God, and God is going to react to those prayers. And so that's why I set out this, vision of what the sevens are about. The first seven are general. They're about what is the pattern of history. There are going to be wars and rumors of war and famine and plagues and death. That's what history is about because God is judging this world. But then at the end of those, The seven seals, we come to the seven trumpets and they jump back into the middle. And they say, okay, let's go back and review what's going to happen as we start to march towards the end. As the prayers of God's people, the fifth seal come up to God, what's going to happen? And then we're going to have another seven. Another seven that doesn't cover the whole of human history, but starts to march towards the end to say, okay, we are going to have famine and plague. and rumors of war and war and lack of peace as we go through this world. But it's not going to be all one simple flat line. That these things are always going to be happening at the same amount. God is going to hear the prayers of his people and he's going to respond. And that's going to jump us in to the seven seals. So then we can go through the seven seals. And what I want to do is just start to list what are the seven trumpets. As I go through the sevens, I'm going to mix them up a lot. I'm sorry. you have to kind of keep up and figure what I'm talking about. We're going to go through the seven trumpets. What I want to do is go and list what the seven trumpets are as we go through. And so we'll just go and read each of those. So the first trumpet you can look. Oh, I skipped. I want to see a pattern in the seven trumpets first. So we're going to go through and I want to notice that there's actually a lot of repeats here in the seven trumpets. So we come to Revelation 8-7. We see that a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up. In Revelation 8-9 we see a third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed. In Revelation 8-10 we see it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. On Revelation 8.11, we see a third of the waters become warm water. Revelation 8.12, we see a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, and a third of their life might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining. Revelation 9.18, by these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed. And actually, I didn't bring every example that I could out of this, but I made a list, and if you haven't noticed it yet, this is the repeated word. It's a third. a third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees, a third of the living creatures, and a third of the ships, and a third of the rivers and the springs of water. A third of the waters became warm water, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, and a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the night might be cut from shining. And then by these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed. So obviously, a third is really important to the seven trumpets. But at first glance, we might say, why? Why is a third so important to the message of the seven trumpets? It actually has to go back to the seven seals. The seven seals and the seven trumpets go together. They're playing off of one another. The seven seals announce, this is the pattern for the world, but then the seven trumpets say, but it's going to get worse. So we get to Revelation 6 verse 8. This is the summary of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It says, and they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence by wild beast of the earth. And so for anyone who's math-challenged, one-third is greater than one-fourth. And that's what we're supposed to see. The seven seals announce that God's judgment is going to be through this earth, that mankind is going to feel the judgment as history goes on. But there's going to be a limited judgment for a while. A quarter of the earth will be fallen. But then as we get to the seven trumpets, what happens? It gets worse. It used to be a quarter. Now it's a third. We're starting to feel an intensification of God's judgment upon the earth. And unless you think I'm just kind of pulling that out randomly from this one number set, I want to show you one more thing in our passage. Oh, I'm sorry, as God's judgment goes on, it intensifies and that's in response to his people's prayers. But that's actually the pattern of the seven trumpets as well. So as we go through and list the seven trumpets, we'll see that there's a pattern in the seven trumpets. So trumpet one, we see that hail and fire fall upon the earth. In the second trumpet, we see the sea destroyed and turn to blood. In the third trumpet, we see the fresh water destroyed and turn bitter. And the fourth trumpet, we see the sun and moon and stars darkening. And so as we look through these, we say, these are all things that happen as judgments on the earth. These are judgments on the very physical foundation of the earth. Hail and fire come and destroy the land. The sea is turned to blood. The waters are turned bitter. And the sun, moon, and stars are destroyed. The very creation is suffering the judgments of God. But then we come to trumpet number five, we have these terrifying locusts that torment men. And then in trumpet six, we have terrifying horse beasts that kill men. And so, and then in trumpet seven, we see that the kingdom belongs to Christ. And so we start with four, and I said that the sevens usually have four, and then three, or actually, really, four, and then two, and then one, is how the sevens are usually split up. So we had the four forcement of the apocalypse, the two questions that come before God, and then the seventh was silence, and heaven, and the seals. We're gonna have that same pattern, four, and then two, and then one. And so we have four judgments on the earth, but then we have two judgments on men. Two judgments on men. And actually, in between those two judgments, we can see there's an intensification. The first one is that they would be tortured by these locust beasts that come to torture men but not kill them. They will torture them in a way that they wish they could die, but they won't kill them. It's not to death. But then in the sixth trumpet, there's released another set of beasts upon the earth that go to kill a third of the earth. And then finally, the seventh trumpet announces our final judgment. The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. We aren't looking at that seventh yet. We'll get to the seventh after the interlude. But we see, as we go across these, First, we have this pattern four, and then two, and then one. And in between the four, and then the two, and the one, there's actually a brief announcement. We're going to have this announcement of three woes. The first four trumpets are blown, and then an angel comes as a herald and says, be prepared. Three woes are about to fall upon the earth, saying, basically, in general, it's going to get worse. You've felt the first four, but it's going to get worse, so much worse that these last three will be called woes. And so the entire pattern of the seven trumpets is a pattern of intensification. The seventh still said, this is what history will look like. It will be full of war. Peace will not be upon the earth. You'll see famines and earthquake and plague and death. And that's the pattern of this world, don't be surprised. And that's evidence that God is present in this world to judge. But then the seven trumpets summon and say, it's not always going to be even though, because as God hears his people's prayers, he's going to react to them. It's going to get more intense. The judgments are going to start falling with greater and greater intensity. Judgments on the earth, judgments upon men, and death will fall upon them until finally the final judgment occurs. And that's really what the message of the seven trumpets are. In fact, I think we see this in other places in the New Testament and less figurative, less dressed up language, language that isn't meant to make us feel as much, but say things more clearly. So we come back to Romans 8, which we read this morning. I just want to go back to verses 18 through 22. This is Paul looking at the future history that will happen to the church. He says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time. He starts here. He says, yeah, here is where we suffer persecution. Here's where we're subjected to the frailties of this world. Here is where we have trial and tribulation. He says that is suffering. But he says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy. and not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So he goes, okay, we're starting here. We're going to end here. There will be an infinite glory that is going to be revealed. But then he's going to start talking about the pathway. He says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. It hasn't happened, Jack. There's this longing that's going on. The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. So Paul says, how do we get from here to here? How do we get from present suffering to future glory? He says that path is going to look a lot like childbirth. I think I'm behind in my things. That path is going to look a lot like childbirth. That path is going to look a lot like childbirth. So, for men, we don't ever get to experience that. For husbands, we might have seen our wives do it a couple of times or two. We can say that childbirth, if we were to start to look at what that means, childbirth is progressive, it's painful, and it's intensifying. You have your wife and she starts to have the pains of childbirth and at first the contractions, they come and they go. But then as it goes on, it gets stronger and stronger and stronger. It intensifies and becomes painful. And Paul says that's going to be the history of the world. We're in present suffering now and that's going to happen. It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse. It's the pains of childbirth. We're going to have an intensification. It's going to get harder and harder as time goes on, because God's judgment is going to be falling upon this world. And he's going to hear his people's prayers, and it's going to get more and more intense. But then we can also say on the flip side, childbirth is progressive, painful, and intensifying, but it also ends in great joy. Yes, this is going to be the pattern of the world. There will be these things for all of history, but as they go on, they're going to get worse. As they go on, you'll see more famines, and more war, and more death, and more destruction, because God is hearing his people's prayers, and he's pouring out his judgment upon the earth. But persevere, it doesn't last forever. The final judgment will come, and there will be great joy. Your people will be rescued. And so the message of the seven trumpets, and I'm going to summarize it very shortly, is something like this. The message of the seven trumpets is that history will progressively suffer the judgments of God. It will get worse. Things will get worse. That's the message of Revelation. And so we shouldn't be surprised in intensifying disease, disaster, and death. because God is fighting for his people. Things will get worse, but that's a good message. God is hearing the prayers of his people, and he's fighting for them. We're caught on the battlefield right now, and that's not particularly present. The men in World War II, the men that have fought any war, have not felt the war to be pleasant, but they knew it was good. They knew that they were fighting for the right cause. But that's where we are right now, is we're in the midst of that war, and it's going to get worse. God is going to be pouring out his judgments on those who persecute his people, and we get caught in the midst of those. And so that's the message of the seven trumpets. But now I want to stop and look at what is the purpose of the seven trumpets? Why do we have this message to announce? And so we're going to look at this. The first one is looking how the seven trumpets fit into the book of Revelation. But now I want to look at the Old Testament. I stated this at the beginning. I said that Revelation isn't this fantastic book that draws on nothing other than weird, fantastic imagery. It's actually taking imagery out of the Old Testament. And it's drawing that imagery in and putting it in the center of Revelation. And it's building off of all these Old Testament imageries to tell us a story and to bring a truth out of the Old Testament and bring it into Revelation. And so where I'm going to look for the seven trumpets is to Exodus. There's some other books that are going to weigh in here and we can discuss a lot of other things, but Exodus is behind the seven trumpets. And so what I want to do is actually go through and just list the plagues that we see in Revelation chapters 8 and 9 and then go make a comparison to Exodus. So we go through and we see the first plague is hail and fire, Revelation 8-7. Revelation 8-9 we have water turned to blood, specifically the sea is turned to blood in 8-10-11. We see that the fresh water is turned bitter. In verse 8-12 we see the darkness descends on the earth. Chapter 9, 1 through 12, we have these terrifying locusts sent to torment the earth. And in chapter 9, 13 through 21, we get these terrible horses that bring plague and death upon the earth. So those are the six plagues that fall with the first six trumpets. And if you're watching carefully, you'll notice I've heard all those things before. I've heard all those things before. So we come to Exodus. Exodus had a plague of hail and fire. We come to Exodus 9, 13-35. We had that read this morning. Moses comes before Pharaoh and says, let my people go. So far, you haven't listened. If you don't listen now, I'm going to throw hail and fire on your crops. And chapter 7, 14 through 25, we have a plague on the water. The water is turned to blood. The Nile is turned to blood so that all the water in Egypt was destroyed. This one is actually paralleling two plagues in the Revelation account. And I think there's a purpose for that. The water turned to blood was the first plague. And that was a judgment upon the Egyptians. This was a local judgment against those who were destroying or persecuting the people of God. But now as we come to Revelation, Revelation is going to make a testament that no land is outside of this. And so it takes that one plague, the first plague of Exodus, and it doubles it. And so the first one is not only the rivers, but the sea has turned to blood. This universal everything is under the judgment of God. And then in the fourth plague, it says all the fresh water, just like the Nile, is going to be turned bitter. That's going to draw imagery out of later in Exodus when they come to waters that are bitter. But also looking at this first plague, it's an intensification that says, it's not a local thing. This is a judgment on the entire world. But then the next plague was darkness. And in Exodus chapters 10, 21 through 29, that's the ninth plague. Darkness fell on the land of Egypt so that they could not see each other for three days. And then we have locusts come and descend upon the earth. which was the eighth plague, chapter 10, one through 20. Locusts come and descend upon the land of Egypt. And then we get the horses coming and killing a third of the earth. And that's the last plague, the 10th plague, death of the first one. There's a parallel to it. It's going back to Exodus and saying, like the time of Exodus, things are going to happen on this earth. like the time of Exodus when God was fighting for his people. Things are going to happen on this earth because God is fighting for his people. But then we also see one of the things I think we're supposed to see when we go back to Exodus is see what's the result of each plague. So every plague comes through. In Pharaoh, on several of the plagues, he starts to react to them, but at the end, he doesn't change his mind. And so in the seventh plague, it says Pharaoh also hardened his heart this time also. He was scared. He called for it to stop, but as soon as he went away, he didn't repent. And then in the first plague, it says Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them. In the ninth plague, it said that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. He wouldn't repent and let the people go. After the locusts, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart again. He would not repent. He would not let the people go. And then at the announcement of the last plague, it says this. Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh. and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. And so that's the background of these plagues that are descending in Revelations. These plagues have happened before. These things have happened. God has fought for his people, but man in their natural state will not respond to any amount to the judgment of God. God's judgment will continue to intensify in this world, and men will not repent. Pharaoh saw all the wonders that God could throw at the land of Egypt, and every time he got scared for a moment, but then he hardened his heart and said, no, I will not let your people go. And that's what we should expect as these judgments fall upon the earth, is their call to repent, a call to look that God is the ruler of this world, that God is the one in control, that men will not repent. And so we see this over and over in Exodus, Exodus 7, 2 through 5. You shall speak all that I command you. This is the beginning of the plagues. And your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to tell the people of Israel to go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart even though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. And so he says, I'm going to multiply my signs and wonders. It's a call to repentance. But Pharaoh will not listen to you. I will harden Pharaoh's heart. It's a call to repentance that will be ignored. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my host, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. And so the plagues are calls to repentance, a statement that God is in control. But they're going to be ignored so that God can display his power and his glory. And we see that over and over again. We can actually go to each plague and see similar statements. Let's just go to one more. Exodus 9, 16. This is in the locust. Then the Lord said to Moses, rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and Satan. Thus says the Lord God, I'm sorry, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go that they may serve me. I give a call to repentance. Let them go. They are my people. For this time, I will send all my plagues on you, yourself, and on your servants and on your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now, I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose, I have raised you up to show you my power, so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. It's a call to repentance, but it's going to be ignored because God wants to show His power. To show all men that I am in control. I am sovereign of this world and none will fight against me. So we come back to Revelation, and it turns out the six trumpets tell us what the purpose is. There's a paragraph at the end. It turns out Revelation is full of this fantastic imagery, but it always comes back and tells us the point. Revelation 9, 20 through 21. the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues. Yeah, judgment fell, a call to repentance, a call to see that God sits enthroned above this world. But what was their reaction? They did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. No matter how much judgment God pours out upon this world, men will not repent. No matter how much judgment God pours out, men will harden their hearts and raise their fists against God, and God will use them to show His glory. And so if we were to summarize the purpose, I'd say the purpose of the seven trumpets is something like this. The purpose of the seven trumpets is to call mankind to repentance. But then second, to give them no excuse for not bowing down before him. All men can see that God rules this world. And as God throws his judgment down upon this earth, as things go from bad to worse, all men know that there is a God who rules in heaven, but they harden their hearts. Men will not repent, but God will not be ignored. So that's the message, the purpose of the Sermon on the Cross. The message is, God's judgment will continue to fall and get worse as history goes on. And the purpose is to calm men to repentance, but also to know that they won't. And so God will declare his glory over them. And so what does this mean for us, the call to seven trumpets? We've skipped over a lot. Like I said, I'm not going to try to dive in and tease out all the locusts and the horses and all the things that go on. But I think we've seen enough. We've seen the main point of the passage. And we can start to apply this passage to us. We look at these seven trumpets and say, God's judgment is going to get worse. And even right now, I'd stand before you and say, I don't know if this means all the time God's judgment is getting worse. I think that is always true. Or if these seven trumpets will be something that happens towards the end of time, I don't know. And honestly, I don't think that's really important to us here today, because we can listen to the call of the seven trumpets anyway and know how they apply to us. So I want to listen to five things as I've meditated on this passage. What does it call us to do? First, as we hear the seven trumpets, we should expect that this world will not ultimately get better. we should expect that this world will not ultimately get better. God's judgment is falling upon this world. And that challenge is a large set of theology that says we can work together to bring the kingdom of Christ on this earth, that we can build up a great empire where the gospel is going to be proclaimed across the whole world. What a great desire, but the scriptures tell us that's not going to happen. what's going to happen is men will not repent, that God will hear his people's prayers, and that judgment will continue to fall, and judgment will get worse. And so we shouldn't get caught up in those theologies. We shouldn't get caught up in, we have to make this world better. I'm not saying that we have to make this world worse, or that it's not bad to do good things in this world, but that's not the core of our theology, and that doesn't drive what we're after. We shouldn't expect that ultimately this world will get better, even if for a short time, even if for 100 or 200 years there's freedom of religion in a place where the gospel is held up. We shouldn't expect it to last. The world isn't going to ultimately get better. It's going to get worse. And God's judgment is going to fall. And so a corollary is we need to recognize that God is sovereign over everything, even things that we would call disasters. When these judgments fall, when we see judgment come upon the surface, We should know that God is in control. We should look at those things and rejoice because we know that our God is sovereign. He's doing exactly what he said he would do. He's judging this earth and he's doing it for us. And so the third is we need to persevere. We need to persevere. There's a message. It's going to get harder. Paul told his heroes it's going to get harder. John told his heroes it's going to get harder. We need to persevere now. But it's going to be like childbirth. We need to persevere when things get hard. We shouldn't be surprised at disaster. We should keep following Christ because we know it's like childbirth. It's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse and then it's going to be done. And there's going to be ultimate joy. And so fourth corollary, we need to rest and rejoice. When we see disaster, when you see things falling apart around us, We need to rest and rejoice that God is fighting for us through the travails of this world. When things are going hard, when disaster is coming, that's a sign that our God is present, not a sign that our God is absent. God is fighting for us through the travails and the trials of this world. Our prayers are being poured out before God. And so that's the message for the redeemed. See these things. Don't get caught up in trying to make the world a better place because it won't work. Persevere and keep following after Christ, knowing that the judgment is your prayers being poured out before God. But in general, both to the redeemed and to the world, the message is this, and this is kind of the banner message. When we see disaster, we need to listen to the lesson of the seven trumpets and repent. Whether it's a small disaster close to us or a global disaster or whatever we see, every time we see disaster fall, it's another chance for us to repent. Whether it's repenting again because we are the redeemed or for the first time because you never bowed the knee to Christ, it's a call to repentance. And so I just want to close with this verse, because I think it actually summarizes the message of the seven trumpets well. It's Luke 13, 1 through 5. Jesus speaks to the Galileans. It says, there were some present at that very time. He told them about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And he answered them, do you think that these Galileans were any worse sinners than all the other Galileans? Yeah, they suffered the disaster. They suffered the destruction. But were they any worse because they suffered in this way? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. That's the message of the seven trumpets. When we see evil happen next to us, when we see evil happen in our nation, when we see evil happen in our world, when we hear forest fires and wars being lost and disasters happening all around us, we should look and say, yeah, terrible things happen because the judgment of God is falling on this world. It's a chance, if you're still here and talking about it, to repent. And so kids, here's my summary. What is the message of the seven trumpets? This is the answer, that God's judgment on this world will progressively get worse. The message of the seven trumpets is that God's judgment on this world will progressively grow worse. And instead of being surprised, we should repent and we should rejoice. Our God has it all under control. Instead of being surprised, we should repent and rejoice. Let's pray together. Father, we're grateful for this message from the Word. Father, we're grateful that you have shown us what your plan is. Father, that we don't have to be surprised at the trials that come, the terrors that happen on this earth. Father, no matter how bad they get, we know that you are in control and that you are working your plan out. Father, I pray that you would take to heart this message. Father, that it would draw in us a spirit of repentance to be turning away from the things of this world which are doomed to destruction. To be turning away from the idols of our heart that cannot see or hear or walk. To turn away from the things that you do that are an abomination to you. Father, instead to run after Christ as our King. Father, I also pray that we'd hear this message and rejoice that you are our King. Father, that your judgments ring true, that you will not allow this world to continue forever. Father, I pray that every time we see disaster, we'll notice one more trumpet that says, you are coming soon. Father, I pray that you would give us a rest and a rejoicing in that as we hear this prayer. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's open it up. If there's any questions or comments or other discussion we had. What things do you want to talk about? Absolutely. Absolutely. I wouldn't disagree with that at all. I would just follow it up and say that any time Christ works something in us, it is worked out as us doing it. We are preserved in us. We persevere. We have it worked in us, and therefore, we do it. So Paul can say, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. But here's the thing. You're committed to work it out, but it's not you. It's God who works in you to bring about his perfect purpose. Otherwise, we can see perseverance as our act. Yeah, absolutely. No, I agree with you 100%. Perseverance has to be weighted on faith, on the fact that God is going to win, that God will give us the strength to make it through, to say on my own, you know, I have no perseverance, but I will persevere trusting in Christ that he will bring me through. Yeah. Just one more thing. It doesn't have anything to do with the whole point of the sermon, but it's something I'm very looking forward to talk about. So, this is here. Back in Romans where it says, by whom, who suggested that you feel this? We know that God subjected it to their personal utility, but it's not capitalized. Is that really making a reference back to Adam right there? Just to make that point or is that just a little Well, so the capitalization was made by some translator who made a decision. I would say by him who subjected it is a reference to God because it's him who subjected it to futility and hope. Saying, yes, I'm going to bring the weight of sin down on this creation because it can't exist as it is now. It has to feel that it is not in the right place. to know that the way it is going is leading only to destruction. But it isn't. Hope that they will see and they will repent and come back. So what you're saying is, it's saying exactly that. It's not that it was trying to make a difference. Right. At least that's the way I read it. Yeah. Anything else? Excellent. I got off pretty easily. I'll turn it over to... Thank you.