Okay. I was wondering, you know, about your trip down there. See, nothing wrong with your spark plug while you were driving. Then you take a nap, she drives. All of a sudden, the spark plug pops. So I know why. I've seen her drive. Yes, sir. She stressed that thing. She's trying to catch up from you going that 40 miles an hour. She wanted to get cut. That was probably it. Anyway, God is good all the time. All right. I got to put that one back. I had my Genesis sermon about ready to go on again. I'm not doing that one again. All right. So we are in the revelation of Jesus Christ when God reclaims the earth. Session number 20, second vision, part eight, Revelation eight, one through 12. There's our theme slide for the series. Christ is being unveiled in this book. And this is where we've been. So we've looked at the prologue, first eight verses of chapter one, the first vision, chapter one, verse nine to 322. Christ is the Lord of the church. And we looked at that extensively. We're in the second vision. Christ is the Lord of creation. We started in the throne room of God in heaven. One of the things we noted about God's throne is although it's beautiful, it is filled with wrath. And then we run across the seven spirits of God and they are blazing like torches filled with wrath. And then we see the sun. in chapter five, and he claims the scroll, right? Which is the title deed to the earth. He's going to reclaim it because it's his. And he's going to display wrath. Now, it's very interesting about this. When you first see the father, then you're focused on the Holy Spirit. Okay, as the seven spirits of God, and they're flaming as torches. And then you see the sun. And then you have the first display of wrath is the seals. OK. And that's the sun. And then the seven trumpets are the Holy Spirit. and then the seven bowls are the father. So it starts with the father, the spirit, the son, then the wrath is displayed, the son, the spirit, and the father. It just flows from that. You see how that works? The father begins this thing, he ends the thing in chapter 16. So you understand, that's how that all works. That's this vision. And we're gonna see some more here. So the opening of the scroll, the sealing of a remnant, we looked at that. We saw the first six seals. the reaping of a harvest and now the seventh seal comes. And that's where we are going to begin. Let's pray. Lord, help us grasp this revelation of wrath. The Holy Spirit is going to demonstrate wrath on the earth because he is in agreement that Christ should reign. This is an attestation of Christ's right to rule and reign over the earth as the one who claimed the scroll, the title deed to the earth, and all his activity is his work, his wrath, his display of power. so that Christ will reign on the earth. This is the activity of the Holy Spirit coming. So we will see that today. I pray you'd help us. We won't finish the bowls or the trumpet judgments today, but we will introduce them and we will understand why it's happening. So give us wisdom, give us an understanding and show us the truth here today in Jesus name. Amen. Now the sixth seal, brought us to the very coming of Christ. Remember? Sun goes dark, moon goes dark, stars of heaven fall, they see the signs of the Son of Man. in the heavens, right? The great earthquake and all the things. It's the second coming to the earth. And they're fleeing to the mountains, saying the mountains to fall on him so they don't have to face the lamb in his wrath. Second coming to the earth. So the sixth seal brought us to the very coming of Christ in judgment, the fleeing of humanity in a futile attempt to hide from the wrath of the lamb, Jesus Christ. That brings us to the end of the tribulation period. concluding Daniel's 70th week, Jesus Christ has taken the title deed of the earth, the seven sealed scroll, he has broken the seals, he prepares to claim the territory granted to him in the title. The breaking of the seventh seal brings us a surprise. Instead of seeing as we would expect, Christ crowned as king in the millennium beginning, we don't see that. We find coming out of the seventh seal, two other series of judgments. come out of the seventh seal. The seven trumpets and the bowl judgments come out of the seventh seal. These two series of judgments reveal the other two remaining members of the Trinity and their participation in reclaiming the earth for Christ's reign. Let me ask you, which member of the Trinity was involved in creation? All of them. Which member of the Trinity was involved in redemption? All of them. All the Trinity is involved in reclamation of the earth. You understand. They all are. these two series of judgments that come out of the seventh seal reveal rather than a part of it from it because the action is based on Christ's soul rights to claim the scroll so the Holy Spirit is saying he has soul rights to claim the scroll God the Father will say he has soul rights to claim the scroll he has so this is the two like two witnesses attesting divine witness attesting that he is the only one who can be the king of the world and have the kingdom. He's it. So keep that in mind. Timper Longman III states, one key feature we see in the structure of Revelation is that it's not often linear. There's parts where it's not linear. Rather, it keeps circling back to previous events, like flashbacks or slow-motion replay in a movie. We can see three cycles of seven judgments. Seals, Revelation 6-8. Trumpets, 8-11. Bowls, 15-16. Not as consecutive spirals or similar conduct that move us closer to the final. climax. So you have the first six seals that take you all the way to the end, and then you come back, portion back, and then you get seven trumpets and it goes back to the end, and then you go somewhat back, but not all the way back, and you have the bowls. You see that? Not strictly linear, but there is progression. You see that? So Longman is kind of supportive of what I'm telling you. The trumpet judgments do not pick up where the sixth seal left off. They resort back to the very beginning of divine action reclaiming the throne of Christ's reign and will conclude precisely where the sixth seal concluded at Christ's coming to the earth to reign. And the same can be said of the bowl judgments. They go back portion of the way and then they end at the same place. Sixth seal, seventh trumpet, seventh bowl, all the same event. Second coming of Christ to the earth. All right. So seventh seal broken. And when he broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for a half an hour. This is what you call an ominous silence. Ominous silence. To John, this must have been utterly startling. Since he heard the words, come up here, nothing has been silent. It has been massive music and massive singing and massive worship. No silence at all. Myriads and myriads of angels constantly praising the four creatures, the 24 elders falling down in worship, singing, petitioning souls from under the altar, the multitude of those who died in the Great Tribulation, their worship, the various angelic explanations, much more. All kinds of things going on. It is a center of activity and all of a sudden there is not a sound. Okay, it's the silence before the storm. That's what's going on here. Silence among this vast multitude of redeemed humans and holy angels without exception find their greatest exhilaration and fulfillment in worship. When everything is silent, this is ominous. When heaven is quiet before the great and glorious God, it is a silence of ominous. That is ominous. It is the calm before the storm. Thomas says it is the dramatic pause to symbolize the awe and dread with which the heavenly hosts await the events about to happen. All right. The Holy Spirit's activity in reclaiming the earth for Christ's reign. Okay, we looked at Christ's activity in reclaiming the earth for his reign. That was the seals. Now we're looking at the Holy Spirit's activity in reclaiming the earth for Christ's reign. The seals were obviously activity of Jesus Christ, his involvement reclaiming the world for his reign. So the trumpets portray the activity of the Holy Spirit and bringing judgment to the earth in preparation for reclaiming the world for Christ. or by Christ. Remember that the Holy Spirit was pictured seven blazing lamps of fire, right? They're just blazing with wrath, torches, blazing brilliantly with the fire of wrath and judgment. There was, here, quote, there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God, right? Remember that. We read that. We spent time on that. Here is seeing the result of such readiness of wrath. The second series of divine judgment is about to be unleashed. Holy Spirit's identification with this series of judgments is seen in what precedes the trumpets. Now, seven angels who stand before God, okay? And I saw thus seven angels, note that definite article, thus seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. I'll say this, the seven angels intimately identified with the Holy Spirit. And I'll show you that. These seven angels are intimately identified with the Holy Spirit. John introduces the seven angels as if the reader should already know them, as if they are familiar with them. The seven angels who stand before the throne. Leon Morris notes, the definite article shows that a certain defined group is in mind. This is a special group. MacArthur writes, John experienced a new feature of the seven seal, namely seven angels who stand before God. The use of the definite article appears to set them apart as a unique group, which have some called the presence angels. The presence angels. The verb translated stand is in the perfect tense, which indicates they were in his presence of God and been there for a time. Ladd adds that the language suggests seven well-known angels. They are very familiar. How would the reader be aware of seven well-known angels unless the angels are known from scripture or had been previously introduced into the text, right? Many commentators make a sad diversion here that just really mucks it all up. And they, They suggest that these angels are the ones mentioned in the Jewish pseudepigraphal book of 1st Enoch. 1st Enoch chapter 20 verses 2 to 8 mentions Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Saraquel, Gabriel, and Remiel. If you're a Catholic, you might know some of this. as the angels who stand in God's presence. Now the problem with seeing these seven angels as mentioned in 1st Enoch is that 1st Enoch is obviously a counterfeit document. So that's a problem for me. It's filled with false teaching, heretical concepts, fanciful ideas. It consists of 108 chapters divided into five books. It is a composite work of someone who placed all this stuff together, several documents to make one book, and then attributed it to Enoch. The compiling date is suggested between 4 BC and 95 BC. Most likely, John never even heard of the book. Most likely his audience have never seen it or even heard about it yet. You understand? They're not familiar with it. They certainly are not thinking about them as the seven angels. It's doubtful that John ever saw it. To base this portion of Revelation on 1 Enoch is a total mistake. Now, if these seven angels are not introduced in scripture outside the book of Revelation, and 1 Enoch is not scripture, They must have been introduced previously within the Book of Revelation. Okay? For, remember, the language suggests seven well-known angels in the audience. And what we've been introduced, have they been introduced before? And they have been introduced before as instruments of the seven-fold Holy Spirit of God. Bullinger comments, not merely seven angels, but the seven, because well-known and before referred to as the seven spirits, which are before the throne, for he makes this angel spirits. Timber Longman, again says, from the silent emergent seven angels associated with the divine presence, who each have a trumpet. Perhaps these seven are the seven angels who earlier were called the seven spirits before his throne. They're seven spirits of God. Again we have the number seven that signifies totality and completeness. Ryrie notes that with the introduction of these seven angels no further mention is made of the seven spirits of God. Which further indicates their special relationship with God and his purposes. Because the seven spirits of God and these seven angels are related and we'll talk about that. So it's interesting to note here of Ryrie, he identifies the seven angels with the seven spirits of God when commenting on this passage, yet previously identified the seven spirits of God as the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Okay? Which is true, it is that. So I wanna touch on the uniqueness of these angels. They are literally called the angels of his presence. That's their name. The English says, I saw seven angels who stand before God. The Greek doesn't read that way. Okay, the Greek reads a little different. I saw the seven angels, the presence of God. I saw the seven angels of the, that's of the presence of God standing. Very interesting. I saw the seven angels of the presence of God standing. I saw the seven angels of the presence of God standing. That's what the Greek reads. In all our discussions previously, we've noted that the seven spirits of God referred to the Holy Spirit. In Revelation 1, 4, 5, it is contained in the greeting from the Trinity. Okay, so look at this. from him who is and who was and who is to come, that's the father. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne, that's the Holy Spirit. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first... This is from the Trinity, you see that? This is a Trinitarian greeting. So keep that in mind. So in that verse, they're called the angels of the presence. And from the spirit of... of God. These seven angels in that passage who stand before his throne, that is who are in the presence of his throne, this presence, this presence angels. These are the present angels here, but they're not focused here because they are focusing on the Holy Spirit. So how can Seven spirits of God referred to the Holy Spirit and introduced seven angels. That's the question, right? How can they be related? The answer is no doubt found in the nature of the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit is invisible, isn't he? He's invisible. He's unseen member of the Trinity. His presence is only known through those whom he works through, okay? In this age the Holy Spirit is sent into the world but how is he known and what way is he seen? He's only known in people who he is resident in and working in or working upon and convicting that his presence is seen. Jesus compared the working of the spirit to the invisible wind. He said the wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound of it, you don't know where it comes from or where it's going, so is everyone who's born of the spirit. He works and his presence is seen, but he is not seen. If the Holy Spirit is unseen on earth and the only way he can be seen is through the instruments with which he works, then it's suggested that the same situation is found in heaven. Because the Holy Spirit doesn't have a body, does he? He doesn't have a body. His presence is made known in heaven through the seven angels of the presence. is what they're called, who are before God. When the seven angels are imbued, they are called angels. When the Holy Spirit imbued, they're called the seven spirits of God. So keep that in mind. The situation is not that unusual to grasp biblically. Who wrote the book of Romans? Who wrote it? Paul? Or the Holy Spirit? Which one? No, they both did. It's the true question. You see Paul, the Holy Spirit was working in and through and upon Paul. You didn't see the Holy Spirit, but he was there. And he wrote Romans through Paul. You understand? Keep that in mind. Who wrote Genesis? Who wrote Genesis? Moses, or the Holy Spirit, which one? Okay, you see, you understand what I'm saying. Scripture sometimes referred to the human authors and other times it refers to the Holy Spirit speaking as the author of the portion of scripture. Even in the millennium, the seven fold Holy Spirit is not seen himself, but through the one upon which he's upon. And in the millennium, that one specifically is Christ. Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the counsel and strength and the knowledge and the fear of the Lord, seven facets of the Spirit resting on Christ." You don't see the Spirit, you see Christ. But you see the Spirit of Christ, you see the Holy Spirit upon Christ doing these marvelous things. You understand? That's what we see in heaven. So here are the seven angels of the presence of God, those who are the unique instruments to reveal the presence of the spirit of God in heaven. They are given seven trumpets of divine judgment. So you see the Holy Spirit is behind this, right? You make this connection to these seven angels, to the Holy Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit's judgment. He is working through these angels to bring it about. All right. So trumpets specifically identified with judgment. Trumpets had a variety of human uses in scripture, calling people to a symbol, sounding an alarm in time of war, celebrating feast days, coronation of kings. Yet in this passage, it's the divine use of the trumpet in view. And Barclay writes, in visions of the Old Testament, New Testament, the trumpet is always a symbol of intervention of God in history. All these pictures go back to seeing a Mount Sinai when the law was given to the people. There were on the mountains thunders and lightnings and thick clouds and sound of the trumpet exceedingly loud. The trumpet blast became an unchanging part of the apparatus of the day of the Lord when God was going to invade history. That's what's gonna happen. The prophets look toward the day of the Lord, consistently portray the trumpet as a part of the imagery. I'll give you a few passages, Zephaniah. Near is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly. Listen, the day of the Lord, in it the warrior cries out bitterly, a day of wrath in that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction, desolation, day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet, battle cry against the fortified cities and the high corner towers. That's the day of wrath, you see? Trumpet. Joel says, blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, surely it is near. Zephaniah, or Zechariah, then the Lord will appear over them and his arrow will go forth like lightning and the Lord God will blow the trumpet and will march in the storm winds of the south. It is a day of judgment. The angel with the golden censer. The angel with the golden censer. And by the way, this is another one that ties it to the Holy Spirit directly. And we'll look at that. So we get the angel with the golden censer and what we find are the prayers of the saints. Prayers of the saints. And another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer and much incense was given to him that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. Here's a remarkable scene. The prayers of all the saints will be offered all up at once upon the golden altar before God's throne. All the prayers. In chapter five, the prayers of the saints were pictured as incense stored in the golden bowls kept by the 24 elders. The prayers of the saints in chapter five were a predecessor of the lamb taking the scroll and breaking the seals. So they are before the Holy Spirit's involvement in the trumpet judgments. here much incense is added to the prayers of the saints that is they're perfumed and they're sweetened and they're made fragrant to the nostrils of God the altar upon which the prayers are offered is immediately before the throne and a huge perfume cloud made beautiful to God arises before him The words of the psalmist are lived out in heaven. Psalmist 141 says, may my prayer be counted as incense before thee, lifting up my hands as the evening offer. May it be pleasant to you, pleasing to you. It's a sweet aroma to your nostril. Considering the above scene, one cannot help but link and think of the Holy Spirit's intercessory ministry in the prayers of the saints. It is particularly revealed ministry for believers, Romans, And the same way the Spirit helps our weakness. We don't know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearse knows what the mind of the Spirit is. He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. He changes our prayers and makes them fragrant to God. Many prayers offered by you and me are not perfectly in God's will. Perhaps they are somewhat misdirected, quite unfragrant to God. It's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to intercede for the believer according to God's will and make them acceptable to God, pleasing in his sight, fragrant to his nostrils. So again, we find a symbolic portrayal of the Holy Spirit's ministry connected with the seven coming trumpet judgments. This is what the Holy Spirit does. And when that goes up there's an answer from God. And the angel took the censer and he filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes and lightnings and an earthquake. He answered. Go. That's a go. God will not ignore the beautiful, fragrant prayers of the saints. Think about all the saints through history who are suffering for being faithful and they're vindicate me. Right? He's going to. He's going to do it. Johnson writes, the censer or fire pan is now used to take some of the burning coals of the altar and cast them to the earth. Symbolically, this represents the answers to the prayers of the saints through the visitation on earth to God's righteous judgment. All right, seven angels prepare to sound. The seven angels who had seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them. Anticipation is heightened as the seven angels arranged themselves in the proper order and they raised their trumpets in readiness to sound. As in the seven seal judgments the first four trumpets differ in kind from the following three. Remember the first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, they kind of go together. The first four trumpets go together in the same way. And you'll find that same way in the bowls. The first four go together in a consistent way. And so you'll see that. All right. The first four trumpets judgments, trump, four trump judgments affect affecting nature. affects nature. 1E, first trumpet, vegetation burnt. And the first sounded and there came hail and fire mixed with blood and there were thrown to 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. Rough day. Okay, rough day. The judgment is similar to one of the plagues of Egypt, by the way. Exodus 9 and Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky and the Lord sent thunder and hail and fire ran down to the earth and the Lord rained hail on the land so that there was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hell very severe such has not been seen all the land of Egypt since became a nation and hell struck all that was in the field through the land of Egypt both man and beast and the hell struck every plant of the field and shattered every tree of the field It's clear the plague on Egypt was a literal raining of hail mixed with fire and the result was destruction of every plant in that area. Here again added to the imagery here is fire with blood. This is judgment. The added color of blood to this judgment shouts the severity of the suffering that this judgment will cause. There is coming the first trumpet blast where one third of the vegetation on the earth, the planet, will be destroyed. You ever seen that kind of smoke? Why would God single out vegetation for his first strike in this series of judgment? Hoyt writes, The purpose of this judgment, like the plagues of Egypt, is to teach men that those things upon which they have depended as their primary source of life and health and happiness are, after all, dependent upon Supernatural Creator and Sustainer. The very fact that the lesson is necessary indicates the world of men will at last have reverted back to the paganism of the past. I think that's true. They will have become pantheistic in their explanation of the universe, denying the existence of God who is transcendent, before, above, outside, separate from his creation, and identifying God with their creation. They worship the trees and the plants and the... You understand? This is their God he's striking at. As he's struck at the gods of Egypt, he strikes at the gods of our culture. Imagine the angry cries from the environmental activists and environmental terrorists when what they worship, a third of their idols are wiped out in a single blast. Perhaps such devastation, such of this pagan environmental activists, maybe they would repent at this. but the effect on them will not be so positive. God's evaluation in Revelation 9 after the sixth trumpet reveals they rejected the divine message in the strikes. After the sixth trumpet says, and the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, they did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders and their sorceries and their immoralities nor their thefts. They didn't repent. It will be even as it was with Pharaoh. As soon as the plague is ended, they'll harden their hearts. Harden their hearts rather than repent. All right. Second trumpet. The oceans blasted. And the second angel sounded and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the creatures which were in the sea that had life died and a third of the ships were destroyed. Here, described in terminology familiar to John, is the picture of a great burning object from heaven, some sort of meteoric mass that blasts into the waters of the oceans. The immediate effect is to turn the affected area of the water one-third of the world's oceans blood red. In effect, all life in that area dies. Whether they're fish or mammals, they all die. Even shipping in those areas will be totally destroyed. Perhaps human life will be destroyed by the massive radiation given on those effects or the noxious gases that arise or merely by the turbulence, but every ship in those areas are gone. They're destroyed. Here again, the parallel is the Egyptian plagues. Divine wrath identifying itself with the very God of the Old Testament, the God of Israel. The first plague affected specific waters in Egypt. You remember, I'll just read it. So Moses and Aaron, dead even as the Lord had commanded. And he lifted up the staff and struck the water that was in the Nile and the side of Pharaoh and the side of the servants and all the water that was in the Nile turned blood. And the fish that were in the Nile died and the Nile became foul. So the Egyptians couldn't drink the water and the blood was throughout the land of Egypt. And the great difference between the plagues is the scale. Okay. From a single river in a single country to one third of the oceans of the world. One third of everything living in the ocean die. Whales, seals, salmon, sharks, mariners. Perhaps that will bring repentance. What do you think? Then it gets worse. Third trumpet, fresh water contaminated. And the third angel sounded, and a great star from heaven fell from heaven, burning like a torch. And it fell on a third of the rivers and springs of the water. And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And the third of the waters became Wormwood. And many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter. And the third angel sounded. In the second trumpet, a meteoric mass struck in a single large piece into the ocean. In the third trumpet, this meteoric object shatters into millions and billion pieces, and it enters the atmosphere, spreading its contamination to the third of the rivers and fountains of the earth. The second trumpet brought devastation to the sea, the world's sea life. In shipping, the third trumpet brings contamination to the world's drinking water. One third of all the water used for drinking and irrigating will be polluted beyond any use. These essential waters will be deadly. Apparent millions will die from drinking this deadly brew. Millions of others will be made very ill. It is apparent that one third of the Earth's people will be affected by this plague. One third is not said to die, so many will survive, but maybe wish they hadn't. Right? Wormwood is the name of the star. Wormwood, as described by Hoyt, is absinthe. In some places, men use it to make an aromatic cocktail which produces a dead drunk. Now God gives men their fill. The third part of the rivers and fountains of water are struck, resulting in the death of many. All right. Wormwood is an Old Testament symbol for God's judgment falling on man or the experience of divine judgment by men. There are a couple of examples. Jeremiah, and the Lord said, because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them, have not obeyed my voice, nor walked according to it, but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart, after Baals, as their fathers taught them. Therefore, says the Lord, the host, the God of Israel, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poison water to drink. And that's talking about Israel. And lamentations, he has filled me with bitterness. He's made me drink with wormwood. Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness. It is not a pleasant event. Then there's the fourth trumpet. The lights of heaven afflicted. and the fourth angel sounded, and the third of the sun, and the third of the moon, and the third of the stars were smitten, so that a third of them might be darkened, and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way." Very interesting thing. The three previous plagues would all be found to have a naturalistic explanation for their occurrences by unbelievers and no doubt by the governments and by the political leaders. You can always make up something. But this fourth plague cannot be explained away so easily. Only God can prevent the sun and the moon for working a third part of the day and turn it all black. Right? Only God can do that. sun, moon, stars will be made dark for a third part of the night and in the day. The only one who could interrupt the rays of the sun is the one who made the sun. The only one who could prevent light of the moon and the light of the stars shining is the one who made them. And he does. From this point on, the world of men know that they're at war with God and the war is on. God is responsible for all that is happening. The fourth trumpet also has a counterpart in the Egyptian plagues. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness that may be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was thick darkness in the land of Egypt for three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone arise from his place for three days. But all of a sudden Israel had light in their dwellings. They couldn't even light a lamp. They couldn't even light a torch. You see what this does? This is God. You can't change this. In Egypt, God sent inky darkness so dark it could be felt. When the fourth trumpet sounds, God will do the same on a global scale for a third of a 24-hour period. Total darkness. Such a plague will affect human life in massive terms. You can't even turn your computer on during this time, if they even work by now. They probably don't at all anyway. Almost every area of life, agriculture, navigation, human health, productivity, all will feel the consequences of this plague. Darkness is predicted to characterize divine judgment of the day of the Lord, predicted by Amos. Let me just read it. Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It'll be darkness and not light. That's what it'll be. So the first four trumpets strike at nature in order to punish human life. Death does result in the first four trumpets, yet death is almost incidental to the plagues. It's intended to make men miserable, to strike at their love for false gods and give them once again the opportunity to repent. So this is where we were today. seven seal, broken. Holy Spirit's activity, reclaiming the earth. We're still in the second sea. It'll pick up the rest of the second, two sea, and it goes all the way to 11, chapter 11, verse 19, when we get three sea. But this is where we're still in the second sea. Seven angels who stand before God, the angel with the Golden sensor, the seven angels prepare the sound. First four trumpets affecting nature. Vegetation is burnt. Oceans blasted. Fresh water contaminated. Lights of heaven afflicted. And it's a mess. But the worst hasn't come yet. There's still three woes coming. Just wait. They're coming. All right. That's the beginning of the Holy Spirit's activity in reclaiming the earth. Now, they know at this point that they're at war with God. They need to repent. They should repent. They've been warned in every possible way. And if they don't repent, who's fault is it? Theirs, right? It's theirs. Can't ask any more from the Lord than that. So we'll stop there and let's pray. Lord, thank you for this time together. Thank you for what is coming for Christ to reign is that the triune God will pour out wrath in order for Christ to reclaim the earth. And he will reclaim it and it'll be his. and he will reign on this earth for a thousand years and he will fulfill the dominion requirement for man and he will exercise perfect dominion that Adam should have exercised. The second Adam will do it he will claim it and he will live it out for a thousand years on this earth. That day is coming and we'll come with him when he comes on that day. He'll catch us away before that. At any moment, He could catch us away now. And then He'll prepare us, He'll raise us, He'll make us holy, He'll equip us, He'll dress us in fine linen, and we'll return with Him at the second coming. And we believe that. Lord, help us, help us be patient. Help us never doubt Him. Help us believe God's word and rest on it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.