SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And it's my delight and joy to be leading us through the book of Revelation and chapter 9 here today.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to turn there in your Bibles or swipe there on your devices, we'll get started in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: You know, from time to time I hear people talking about leadership as a subject or a topic.
SPEAKER_00: And they'll often say something like this when life is filled with uncertainty and complexity, what can often help is a little clarity.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
SPEAKER_00: I've noticed, though, to gain clarity, it becomes necessary for me to consider the categories of my current perspective.
SPEAKER_00: What's influencing the way I'm thinking?
SPEAKER_00: What have I embraced as true or false?
SPEAKER_00: What is influencing the way that I value things or devalue other things?
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to our life with God, especially in times of uncertainty and complexity, certainly like we have now, it's my conviction that even the most vivid parts of this amazing book we call Revelation will ultimately bring us to greater clarity of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the revelation of Jesus Christ, the unveiling, the apocalyptic is the word.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we have in the last book of the Bible another really clear look at who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: This describes, at least in part, you know, the Bible's answer to some of the big questions of life.
SPEAKER_00: Everything from, you know, where did everything come from?
SPEAKER_00: What's the meaning of life?
SPEAKER_00: How can we know the difference between right and wrong?
SPEAKER_00: And do we even have a destiny at all?
SPEAKER_00: Here's revelation as the last and final word.
SPEAKER_00: And it's basically look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Here is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Consider Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to do that as we look through these pages and all of the images and all of the symbols in motion and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure we keep our eyes fixed on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is the outline we've been working with here.
SPEAKER_00: Borrowed it from, in part, from the theologian pastor Derek Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us a breakdown of the seven different visions in the book.
SPEAKER_00: And there are other ways to divide the book up in terms of an outline, but this certainly has been helpful for us.
SPEAKER_00: And we're in the middle right now of the third of the visions, looking at the seven trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I want to I want to reiterate that this entire book is not designed to make you worry about the future.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a prophetic puzzle for you to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a uh some kind of crazy code for you to decipher.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is to for us to receive and to uh set our eyes on the person and work of Jesus and to be filled with wonder and worship as we uh gain a clearer vision of his truth, a greater faith in his power, and a more confident assurance of his love for us.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are, chapter nine, it is action-packed.
SPEAKER_00: And um it is uh we're kind of coming to that middle point of the uh second of three cycles about the judgment of God, the first being the seven seals.
SPEAKER_00: This is the seven trumpets, and the third will be the seven bowls.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get there in a little while, but for right now, we've just studied last week uh the first four trumpets, and they were sounded, and there were consequences that fell upon the earth, and about creation and commerce and all of that, and wayward, sinful humanity choosing to live its life as if God doesn't matter, or as if God doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: Is got God is blowing the trumpet, trying to awaken a spiritually deaf world to the consequences of their choices.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he is turning up the volume on the good news of the gospel so that these folks will hear it.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a nice uh Derek Thomas does a nice job contrasting the um opening of the seals and the sounding of the trumpets in this little quote I pulled from his commentary.
SPEAKER_00: The opening of the seals and the sounding of the trumpets point us to the same great reality, but from different perspectives.
SPEAKER_00: The seals view the unfolding of the redemptive purposes of God from the point of view of the Lord's own people, those who are sealed.
SPEAKER_00: The trumpets view this same reality from the point of view of the unsealed, those who are not the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: The opening of the seals brings great consolation to the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: The sounding of the trumpets brings great woes upon those who are not the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: The seals are comforting.
SPEAKER_00: The trumpets are warnings.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we have a really, I think, wonderfully succinct description of the difference between the two sets of seven, the seals and the trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the Bible, it reminds us that we need redemption, that we can't do that on our own, that we need outside help, we can't figure everything out.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't smart enough, we aren't powerful enough, uh, we certainly aren't honest enough.
SPEAKER_00: And so here comes the scripture with the good news of God's offer of grace, mercy, and peace, reconciliation with Him through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, chapter nine, I gotta warn you in advance, it's perhaps one of the more graphic and astonishing passages in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Um, after we got through those last four trumpets, now moving into the fifth, the consequences of resistance toward God will now be shifted from uh uh its effects on nature and commerce and institutions and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: But now it's gonna be on people themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is uh this is complex and uh and it's it's a it's a shocking to read, but uh, but I think ultimately it will lead us to the place where we'll see God's great design and God's great offer to us of salvation through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The fifth angel sounded, verse one of chapter nine says.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth, and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.
SPEAKER_00: So again, John will use the words like and as when he's describing things that he's seeing or hearing in this revelation, this these seven great visions that he is experiencing in the heavenly realm.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses words like like and as simply because his mind is being blown, his eyes are popping out of his head, his heart is thumping like crazy in his chest, and he just doesn't quite know exactly what he's seeing.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, it's like this, or it's as that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so again, these things are the pointers, not the point, and they're pointing us to God's sovereign reign over all of creation.
SPEAKER_00: They're pointing us to the person and work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll continue to look.
SPEAKER_00: But here you can you can almost see this.
SPEAKER_00: This star falls from the heaven.
SPEAKER_00: There's a key to the bottomless pit.
SPEAKER_00: It uh the whoever this star is, I'm gonna suggest to you that it might be Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it might, there's an image of Satan falling from the heavenly realm that Jesus talks about in Luke chapter 10, that Isaiah talks about in chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: So it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I know that, I'm just saying it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: But this uh star that falls, this personality that falls, uh, because there's a personal pronoun used in verse 2, he opened the bottomless pit with this key, and the smoke went up out of it.
SPEAKER_00: So smoke begins to billow like just everywhere, and it literally um darkens the air and the sun.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much of it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But that's not all.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what else happens.
SPEAKER_00: And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth, and power was given them.
SPEAKER_00: As the scorpions of the earth have power, they were told these locusts, and so there's a sort of passive reference to the fact that it's it's likely God that is putting the boundaries on these locusts, but as these just thousands and hundreds and thousands of locusts, just imagine coming up out of this black smoke, uh, they were told that they could not hurt the grass or the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people know about the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation, but not as many know that those who belong to God have a have a mark on their forehead too.
SPEAKER_00: They've been sealed by God.
SPEAKER_00: They belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so what God is doing here is he's putting boundaries and limits on the impact of these locusts who are gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not, he's not gonna tell, he's they're on a leash, the locusts on a leash, and they are not to affect the green.
SPEAKER_00: So it's no longer about the grass or the or the foliage or any of that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be about people, and it's gonna get rough for those people who are unsealed, those people who have rejected God all of their lives, and continue obstinately to reject God.
SPEAKER_00: And they were, these locusts were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man, and you can just see that scorpion holding an unsealed person and their stinger just constantly for five months uh stinging them.
SPEAKER_00: And then five months is uh, I've heard that's the estimate of the life of a locust or a scorpion uh on the planet anyway.
SPEAKER_00: But bugs, man, I don't like bugs at all.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: I've been told if you put all the bugs on one side of the scale and all the human beings that exist on another side of the scale, the bugs outweigh us 12 to one.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if that's true or not.
SPEAKER_00: I heard it though, and it gives me the creeps to even think about it.
SPEAKER_00: But here, they are agents of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they are allowed to torment, but not to kill.
SPEAKER_00: They're allowed to torment for five months.
SPEAKER_00: In those days, men will seek death and will not find it, verse 6 says.
SPEAKER_00: They'll long to die, and death flees from them.
SPEAKER_00: And the appearance of the locusts, he's gonna describe them in detail now, and he's gonna have to use his words like and as his comparison words, because it's gonna blow his mind again.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're huge locusts.
SPEAKER_00: They're not small little bitty locusts, like the ones we get in our trees every 13 years.
SPEAKER_00: No, these are like as big as a horse, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, prepared for battle.
SPEAKER_00: And on their heads, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that strange to imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: They had hair like the hair of women.
SPEAKER_00: Again, strange to imagine, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions.
SPEAKER_00: And so this bizarre looking creature.
SPEAKER_00: Giant locusts, face of a man, hair of a woman, teeth of a lion.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just amazing when you think about it.
SPEAKER_00: They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to the battle.
SPEAKER_00: And so John knows what the sound of chariots rushing to the battle sounds like, and so that's what he compares it to.
SPEAKER_00: We need not think that means it's tanks and helicopters and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And for all of the people that want to focus on just those little details and try to figure out what these things are, missing all the while missing the point that God is sovereign over all that's wrong, and he's even setting limits on the agents of his wrath in this particular vision right here.
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
SPEAKER_00: And pointing us, always pointing us to our need for a savior in all of these things, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so these things are like the the the these locusts, they're like the they have the the uh breastplates of iron, the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, many horses rushing to the battle.
SPEAKER_00: They have tails like scorpions and stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.
SPEAKER_00: That's reiterated like we needed to hear it again, and but we are reminded of it again.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's rough, man.
SPEAKER_00: You would think anybody that would hear this warning would sit up straight, take it seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but sadly, that won't be the case.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see.
SPEAKER_00: They have as king over them these locusts, the angel of the abyss.
SPEAKER_00: His name in Hebrew is Abadon.
SPEAKER_00: That means destruction in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: His name in Greek is Apollyon.
SPEAKER_00: So John gives us both.
SPEAKER_00: John, who, the Apostle John, who is writing from the Isle of Patmos, he's in prison when he gets all of these visions, and it becomes the book of Revelation, and it's uh becomes an encyclical letter that goes around to the seven churches, and they're all reading this, and he's using Hebrew and Greek both.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because in that region of the world, at that particular time in the world history, there would have been Jews that spoke Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: There would have been Gentiles that would be speaking the Greek language, and so John, knowing both, uh, makes sure that everybody knows this is not somebody you want to meet.
SPEAKER_00: Destruction.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Destroyer.
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea is this is a very sober warning uh through trumpet number five.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the sixth trumpet.
SPEAKER_00: The sixth angel sounded.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is John talking now.
SPEAKER_00: He heard a voice from the four horns, doesn't say who the voice is from, um, but it is uh from that altar, right before God.
SPEAKER_00: One saying, this voice saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is the conductor of all that's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Likely God, don't know for sure, it's not stated, but giving the signal for these four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River to release these angels who are bound there.
SPEAKER_00: And the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and the day, no, excuse me, for the hour and day and month and year.
SPEAKER_00: There's just the one T-H-E there, meaning it's all connected.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's a very specific hour and a very specific day and a very specific uh month and year.
SPEAKER_00: God is, his meticulous providence is mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: And and these four angels who have been bound at the river Euphrates, this is their whole reason for existence.
SPEAKER_00: They've been waiting for this signal, and God gives the signal, and they are released, and they are released for the purpose, and it's very sobering again, it's very tragic that it has to come to this.
SPEAKER_00: But they're released for the purpose that they might kill a third of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: And notice again, yet there is still a limit, a boundary set to these agents of God's wrath as they are sent out.
SPEAKER_00: One third, meaning two-thirds will be observers, two-thirds of the unsealed, those unbelievers, those who've belligerently, obstinately resisted God.
SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds will see this in hopes, and the idea is that in they will see this in the hopes that they will repent or to give them another opportunity to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And the number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million.
SPEAKER_00: And John says, I heard the number of them, and that's because it would be impossible, I would think, to count them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you ever seen like thousands and thousands?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you have on TV.
SPEAKER_00: I have as well.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands and thousands and thousands of people at an outside festival or at a at a march or at an inaugural event or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And you see all of these people, and you there's no way to you just guess, you know.
SPEAKER_00: 200 million would be mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: And here comes this army of 200 million horsemen.
SPEAKER_00: Hard to see or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And so he heard the number.
SPEAKER_00: This is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: The riders had breastplates, the color of fire, and of hyacinth.
SPEAKER_00: It's a blue, bright blue and yellow uh colored flower, and of brimstone, and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone.
SPEAKER_00: A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths.
SPEAKER_00: You notice it's not even the horsemen that are, you know, that the smoke and the fire and the brimstone are coming from.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming from the mouths of the horses.
SPEAKER_00: And the horsemen, 200 million of them, riding these 200 million horses in this vision that is clearly not meant to be literal.
SPEAKER_00: So all of you folks that are out there trying to figure out which country they're from and what they stand for and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: This is meant to simply show us the overwhelming sovereignty of God in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Um, beyond counting, unavoidable, unstoppable.
SPEAKER_00: This is the sovereign God of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: And a third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which receded out of their mouths.
SPEAKER_00: For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.
SPEAKER_00: Again, very tragic, very sobering.
SPEAKER_00: What about the two-thirds that remain?
SPEAKER_00: What are they doing?
SPEAKER_00: What's their response to all of this?
SPEAKER_00: You would think they would be humbled and and and crumble before God in repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: And sadly and tragically, not so.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 20 and 21 finish up this chapter for us, and what happens as a result of the fifth and sixth trumpet blowing.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.
SPEAKER_00: And the the point that's being made there is that these are these are creations that you know, these are god little g gods that humans create, the idols of their hands, made with you know materials that will decay eventually.
SPEAKER_00: We were never created to worship finite things, friends.
SPEAKER_00: We were created with eternity in our hearts, the Bible teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: So that the only thing that could ever satisfy our hearts is the Infinite One Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so here, these folks continue to worship the works of their own hands that have eyes but cannot see, feet but cannot walk, ears but cannot hear.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Simple idols.
SPEAKER_00: And they did not repent, verse 21 says, we'll close the chapter out, of and the and these are sort of the uh you know, if idolatry is the is the condition, um it issues forth in specific things.
SPEAKER_00: And so in verse 20, it's idolatry that's they wouldn't repent from.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 21, we see four things that come as a result of that idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: They would not repent of their murders or their sorceries, the word their pharmacia, same word, we get drugs, basically, pharmacy, the drugs, their addictions, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um, they wouldn't repent from their murders, from their sorceries, nor their immorality, nor their thefts.
SPEAKER_00: And you see what's happening there.
SPEAKER_00: They're what's left of humanity that has rejected God completely and outright.
SPEAKER_00: Just like we saw with the the seven seals as they were opened up.
SPEAKER_00: And I think these are parallel, you know, images of the same thing, okay?
SPEAKER_00: What we see is just like with the seals, where we we saw it it result in in humanity, everybody fighting to conquer, everybody in conflict, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um and and the ruin of nature as we saw in the first four trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: But here it is, they they don't repent of their murders, and so they're literally societally it's just breaking down.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and they're given over to addictions and to sexual sin, immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Uh immorality includes sexual sin, but there are other kinds of immorality as well.
SPEAKER_00: The way we view others sometimes is quite immoral.
SPEAKER_00: Um some people uh go so run so dark.
SPEAKER_00: As to think they can own another person.
SPEAKER_00: And that just that's so immoral.
SPEAKER_00: So wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Um that they can buy and sell and trade.
SPEAKER_00: Um that's just so wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Human trafficking.
SPEAKER_00: Um all kinds of immoralities that that take root in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And thefts is also listed there.
SPEAKER_00: Not just stealing from one another, coveting, wanting what someone else has, and just taking it.
SPEAKER_00: And it just becomes the you know the the power of the of the fittest.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the victory goes to the one who can who can demand their own way.
SPEAKER_00: Anarchy is reigning and ruling as the world is unraveling.
SPEAKER_00: And um we see, we get tastes of that, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Some of us can begin to understand that, even though we're not the only time frame in the world that this kind of thing has happened, this kind of chaos has happened in, not by a not by a long shot.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but when we see it and then we read about it here, what God is making sure we understand is where does that all come from?
SPEAKER_00: And leaving God out of the equation.
SPEAKER_00: These are the unsealed, these are those that don't belong to God, and that's what the results of leaving God out of the equation sort of end up being.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 9, the fifth trumpet torment of the unsealed, sixth trumpet destruction and defiance.
SPEAKER_00: God has heard the prayers of his saints for justice and for the vindication of their faith in Christ, you see.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven will have the final word.
SPEAKER_00: God will not allow wickedness to continue indefinitely without uh divine uh you know response.
SPEAKER_00: And this brings up some questions.
SPEAKER_00: Who has the rightful authority to determine what is sinful, what is wrong in this world?
SPEAKER_00: We need to be asking that question.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you listen to the world as it thinks and acts apart from God, you'd think that you or I, individual, it's up to the individual, or uh it's up to the masses, up to the culture flow, it's up to the whatever's popular right now in this moment, whatever the buzz issue or cause is.
SPEAKER_00: Or is there a moral lawgiver behind it all?
SPEAKER_00: Is there a creator who, by right of creation, actually, is the one that sets the boundaries for right and for wrong?
SPEAKER_00: When you look behind the standards, is there evidence that they've been set by a loving and a kind God who seeks our highest good and wants us to live in ways that will cause our souls to flourish and the society of persons to work together well, to be civil to one another?
SPEAKER_00: Michael Wilcock in the Message of Revelation says, Trumpet six, like the rest, is sounding the warning of God's wrath against sin in reply to the prayers of his people, that evil should not go unpunished, that justice should be done.
SPEAKER_00: And we say we want justice, but you see, you can't have justice without there being such a thing as truth.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no such thing as truth, then I cannot claim that racism is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: If there's no such thing as truth, I cannot claim that theft is wrong, or that human trafficking is wrong, or that murder is wrong for that matter.
SPEAKER_00: And these things are articulated in this list, and we're to be thinking about these things.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the chapter, what clearly marks those remaining alive, the two-thirds, remember, after the effects of the sixth trumpet, is their recalcitrant resistance to repent from idolatry and the conduct that accompanies it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's all articulated in uh verses 20 and 21.
SPEAKER_00: Those remaining alive after the sounding of trumpet six did not repent of their idolatry, did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their addictions, their immorality.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't repent of their thefts, you see, because they would not do that.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 9, as I say, is perhaps one of the most graphic and difficult, astonishing passages, even.
SPEAKER_00: The warning trumpets have sounded.
SPEAKER_00: The ensuing plagues have and will continue to degrade the environment, commerce, natural resources, but now they've actually hit home with humanity, and a third of humanity is wiped out.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see that sinful humanity will have another chance to respond to God's warning trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, sadly, once again, many uh will um contumaciously choose to reject God and his warnings.
SPEAKER_00: From Revelation 9, we're reminded of four things, and I promise you I will end in hope, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: From Revelation 9, we're reminded that number one, God is the one to whom we will all give an answer one day.
SPEAKER_00: Sinclair Ferguson, one of my favorite Bible teachers, favorite theologians, your problem in mine is not just that we're under the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem in mine is not just that we are by nature in bondage to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem in mine is not just that we have nothing to plead before the judgment seat of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem in mine is all three put together.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see is that the Bible is honest with us about the problem.
SPEAKER_00: See, if you can't get the right diagnosis, you'll never get to the right solution.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one to whom we will all give an answer one day.
SPEAKER_00: We are all sinners, and we will give an accounting of our lives before God one day.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible's very clear about all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't do that on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Our problem is that we're bound to our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: We're under the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we we don't have anything to plead before Him on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Good news is we aren't on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's beautiful, and we'll get there.
SPEAKER_00: From Revelation 9, we're also reminded, secondly, that there are some who obstinately refuse the clear and kind offer of God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to believe, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: But even Paul wrote about it in Romans chapter 2, verses 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_00: Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
SPEAKER_00: But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying there is that why would you reject God's kindness that is designed to lead you to repentance?
SPEAKER_00: Why would you resist?
SPEAKER_00: Why so recalcitrant, obstinate, belligerent against God, and against bowing before him?
SPEAKER_00: Pride is at the heart of all my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Pride is at the heart of all of your sin as well.
SPEAKER_00: And pride must go before I surrender or bow before him.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas Merton, uh, don't often quote him, but man, this summary from uh Life and Holiness, I think it's just brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: Take your time on this one, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Sin is the refusal of spiritual life, the rejection of the inner order and peace that come from our union with the divine will.
SPEAKER_00: In a word, sin is the refusal of God's will and of his love.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you refuse that?
SPEAKER_00: It is not only a refusal to do this or that thing willed by God, or a determination to do what he forbids.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is more radically a refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our mysterious contingent spiritual reality hidden in the very mystery of God.
SPEAKER_00: You see, um sin is a condition of my heart before it ever issues forth in an action or a deed.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is me resisting in being.
SPEAKER_00: Um the one who gave me my being, you see, and that's true for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We have to bow before him, intellectually, morally, spiritually, in every other way.
SPEAKER_00: We must surrender, we must bow before him to receive from him this great freedom, this great um good news, the gospel, the reconciliation we so long for with our Creator.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the kind of healing and peace that we all long for comes from him, the Lamb who was slain.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one that can rescue us, you see.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, from Revelation 9, we're reminded that all actions and agents of God's righteous wrath are under his command.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see all the boundaries?
SPEAKER_00: Only a third in those first four trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: I think it I think the the designation of a third was mentioned like a dozen times.
SPEAKER_00: God put a limit, put a leash on the results of those trumpets, those warning trumpets, as well as here on the locus, the their locus on a leash.
SPEAKER_00: They just were not permitted to do anything beyond right there where God draws the line.
SPEAKER_00: And then yet with the sixth trumpet, it had to be just sounded a little bit louder.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because no one repented.
SPEAKER_00: They did not repent.
SPEAKER_00: And so one-third of humanity suffers.
SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds of humanity has another opportunity to repent, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, we're told at the end of chapter number nine here, they do not repent.
SPEAKER_00: So God's love, as the Bible views it, Packer says, never leads him to foolish, impulsive, immoral actions in the way that its human counterpart too often leads us.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, God's wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is.
SPEAKER_00: It, God's wrath is instead a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.
SPEAKER_00: And so Packer, so brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: I we're really going to miss him.
SPEAKER_00: He just passed away recently.
SPEAKER_00: And this book, Knowing God, if you don't own a copy of this book, you need to go out and get it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: If I were trapped on a desert island, it would be one of the books I'd have to have.
SPEAKER_00: If I were allowed just ten books, it would be in the top ten for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But his love is not impulsive.
SPEAKER_00: And his wrath is not capricious or impulsive either.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he is not cranky.
SPEAKER_00: God is not cranky.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he's not irritable.
SPEAKER_00: But his wrath is his settled opposition against all that is evil and against all that has set itself against God and against his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so from Revelation 9, we're reminded of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But the fourth and the last point I want to leave you with is that because of the cross of Christ, we don't have to become objects of God's righteous wrath.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you do not have to become an object of you, if you trust in Christ, you see, you're among the sealed of God.
SPEAKER_00: Here, this chapter is about the unsealed, those who have refused God, God's kindness.
SPEAKER_00: They've rejected the idea that they need to repent, that they need to bow before God in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they would rather pursue their idols of self-indulgence when it comes to their murders and their addictions and their immorality and their thefts, all of those things that really are just results of that fundamental problem of pride and idolatry, worshiping the self, self-defication, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And so here what we have in the gospel, though, is an offer.
SPEAKER_00: It's for you and it's for me, just like it's foreshadowed right here.
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of uh uh illustrated here for us, that that's on offer, even though these people are refusing it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to, and I don't have to.
SPEAKER_00: And why wouldn't you want to receive this offer from God?
SPEAKER_00: His kindness leads you to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it was designed for.
SPEAKER_00: So his patience with you and me is that we would become repentant Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And all of life is repentance, as Martin Luther taught us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to the cross and died, smothered in borrowed sins, and then was buried in a borrowed grave.
SPEAKER_00: And then three days later, he did to that borrowed grave exactly what he plans to do with your grave and my grave.
SPEAKER_00: Kicked the stone out of the way and rose again from the grave, proving that he could be victorious over our last and greatest enemy, death itself, and over sin that brought death into the world.
SPEAKER_00: So he's the one we should turn to.
SPEAKER_00: He took our place on the cross, died in our place, so that we might have the righteousness of God that is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he who knew no sin became sin on the cross for us.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott says it this way in his classic book, The Cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The concept of substitution may be said then to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation, for the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, it's so brilliantly said.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, we may not be able to understand or explain everything that God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: We certainly cannot fix everything that's broken.
SPEAKER_00: And it's become overwhelmingly obvious to most of us anyway, who are believers, that the answer is uh is not within ourselves, because we're kind of part of the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the problem is within ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We're stubborn, bullheaded, and hard-hearted.
SPEAKER_00: And what we need is a transplant.
SPEAKER_00: We need God to give us a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the New Testament uses language like you must be born again, or you become a new creation in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because what he is offering you, and what he's offering me, is this amazing, great exchange.
SPEAKER_00: We give him our lives and he gives us his life.
SPEAKER_00: New life in Christ, a new heart, um, reordered affections, reordered priorities, um, a new heart that loves God, doesn't resist God, if we surrender to him and place our heart in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: We need a source of help that will prove to be wiser than we are, more powerful than we are, more honest than we are, frankly.
SPEAKER_00: And that is who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: I seek to persuade you that in the God of the Bible, you have an offer, the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: How will you respond to it?
SPEAKER_00: Here we see in the book of Revelation each of these cycles leading us up to the vision of the return of the true king.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait till we can get to the seventh trumpet, but it's not till chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get there.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get there soon enough.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but here he comes.
SPEAKER_00: The one, you know, our our Redeemer, who's called the Lion of Judah, the king.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the root of David became one of us, the king of the universe became one of us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then became the lamb who was slain.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate Passover Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the Lamb of God, Jesus, gave his life for us on the cross, uh, that we might know the salvation of God, that we might be redeemed by him, something we can't do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Um, his love is on offer to you, his love is on offer to me.
SPEAKER_00: How do we receive it?
SPEAKER_00: Folks, you just drop to your knees, you lift up the empty hands of faith, and you just say, I surrender, I surrender all.
SPEAKER_00: And you just receive his love.