In the sermon 'Hear the Trumpets' Warning' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Revelation 8, highlighting the significance of the seventh seal and the subsequent trumpet judgments as divine warnings to humanity. The sermon emphasizes the symbolic nature of Revelation's apocalyptic imagery, relating these images to both historical events and contemporary issues, such as natural disasters and climate change. Brown argues that these symbols represent God's judgment on a sinful world and serve as a call to repentance. The sermon underscores the importance of understanding these judgments not only as historical or future events but also as reflections of God's control over the natural world, urging believers to interpret these symbols with a focus on the big picture. Additionally, the sermon discusses the role of prayer, likening it to incense that rises to God and has a transformative effect on the world, supported by angelic assistance. Brown concludes with a call to repentance and a reminder of God's sovereignty and patience, urging listeners to heed the warnings and turn towards God.

To Revelation chapter 8 and find verse 1, please stand for the reading of the inerrant, all-sufficient Word of Truth, the true shepherd staff of the church. Revelation 8 verse 1, when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel having a golden censer came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angels hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

Then 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 living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third angel sounded and a great star fell from heaven like a burning torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and all on the springs of water. The name of the star was Wormwood. A third of the waters became Wormwood and many men died from the water because it was made bitter.

Then the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened, a third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, Whoa, whoa, whoa to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. Let's pray. Lord, you've given us such remarkable pictures so astounding so riveting and we pray you give us understanding of your Holy Word amen please be seated so these these verses are warnings, and they're warnings announced by trumpets, and the Lord has given this text to help us hear the warning of the trumpets. Now God doesn't surprise sinners.

He warns them. He warns them well in advance and they may not understand all of God's warning systems. I think that's apparent. This is a passage of scripture that has just such amazing imagery, particularly of what we would call natural disasters. And now most people don't blame God for natural disasters, do they?

In fact, it's actually very unpopular if there's a tsunami or an earthquake or a fire, you know, almost the worst thing you can say in order to get attacked is to say, this was the hand of God. Christians don't just say that. And on the contrary, though, you know, in spite of this, you know, floods and earthquakes are called by insurance companies, acts of God. Well, they are acts of God. They have that one absolutely right.

But we would like to make God more accessible, we would like to make God nicer, we would not want God to be a God who exercises his wrath through the things that he's made in nature. Now this passage I think has much to say to us in terms of warning, but I had a hard time reading this without thinking about how climate change is all the rage today. This passage speaks of many elements of climates acting up. But man blames himself for the climate change today. In this passage we find the answer to changing climates if indeed this has anything to do with any kind of literal climate actings up.

So I think a passage like this could be helpful to us to shepherd this church through the climate change revolution. So now as we arrive at Revelation 8, we find ourselves here in this section of judgments and these judgments are announced by seven trumpets. Just note, these are judgments from heaven, from God. And these are focused on the natural world in terms of the imagery that's there and we'll get to more detail on that the moon and the stars and the oceans and the fields and the grass you know are all spoken of here also let's we have to always come back to the interpretive grid, and that is that these are pictures. That's why in verse two, look at verse two.

I saw later on, and I looked. These are pictures. This is pictorial doctrine. This is what God has done for us. He's given us the doctrine in pictures.

And we've just finished the seven seals. The seven seals illustrate all of history from the time of the resurrection and now we have the seven trumpets. These are cycles of history. The seven seals ended in the second coming. The seven trumpets will end in the second coming.

These are cycles that take place in world history. They're not necessarily sequential. And these seven seals and these seven trumpets, they all say a very similar thing. They are warning of judgment against the apostate church and the pagans. And so we should be very clear about what these are.

The word trumpet or trumpets is the prominent word in the text and this sermon should sound like a warning. It should sound like a trumpet warning. No people don't really like sermons like that. We would like to be comforted in so many ways. I think there's a lot of comfort here in this text but as we hear the trumpet sound I pray that we hear the trumpet sound as well to grasp the gravity of the sinfulness of the world is God overreacting is God overreacting to cosmic treason Is God overreacting to people who turn away from Him, the one who created them, the one who fed them, the one who caused the rain to fall on them and the sun to shine upon them?

Is God overreacting? But these are judgments that are coming upon the world. And they explain the gravity of the sinfulness of sin and our own sinfulness and God is judging the earth. God will judge the earth. Now, we've talked quite a bit about how to interpret Revelation, sort of the hermeneutics of the matter.

And of course we always go back to the first three verses in Revelation which explain how to interpret the book. This is apocalyptic literature, in other words it's an unveiling. It's not hiding, it's an unveiling of things, but it's symbolic as well. It is in pictures. Many have described it almost like being at a sports event and you have a camera focused on one part of the field over here, but there's another part of the camera focused on the stands and another part of the camera is focused on this couple, you know, who's holding hands and you have all these different scenes from this sporting event, but it's all the same event and there are different frames of the pictures of life in the world so it is symbolic and it's often difficult to nail the symbolism down with exactitude I've found that And especially in this passage and in chapter nine, a little bit less in chapter nine.

But here's a piece of advice on dealing with the symbols. Look for the big picture. You might understand every single part of the symbol. Look for what's the big message. And usually the big message is pretty clear and this is this message here is that God is warning God is warning that judgment is coming and he's also explaining the natural world and he's explaining the political and geopolitical nature of the world that we live in.

So here's my advice you might not understand everything about these symbols and I don't I really don't understand the simplest part of the picture and you'll probably be going in the right direction. We've talked about the symbolic numbers in Revelation 4, the number 12, the number 24, the number 144, 000. These are symbolic numbers and these seals and these trumpets and the next the bold judgments they all symbolize events that happen between the resurrection and the second coming I think it's clear too that there's an escalation in intensity that you find in these various symbols. And they are cycles of judgment. These are pictures of things that happen in different parts of the world at different times.

They identify calamities. And so we've already seen the seven seal judgments which really focused on the persecution of the church by the world and the protection of God of his people. Well we learned that from the seals. Now we turn to the trumpets and this is God's wrath expressed in the created world. And God uses the created world to punish evil doers and to express his wrath over sin.

And we already know that the whole creation is groaning. I was reading in Job this last week and one of Job's not so very nice friends said you know even the moon is not pure and he was really talking about the fact that the creation is groaning. The creation is also fallen. God uses fallen creation to do his justice in the world. Now also another observation just to interpret this, The judgments that are here, they draw the mind back to the judgments that God exercised in Egypt through Moses and in the time of the Exodus.

You have the darkness, the blood, the locust, the hail, all that is here in this passage. What do we say about that? Well, the judgments in the Old Testament are forecasts, they're foretastes of the final judgment of God. So this is all being written to comfort the church, to help the church find her way through the difficulties, and just to be reminded that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth.

He's the ruler of the wind and the waves. So I hope these are very, very comforting. But also, this section particularly is written In order to call anyone who does not love God to follow him to repent of their sins It's written for that purpose. I'll prove it to you Hope turn the page to chapter 9 verse 20. Look at 9 20 and 21 This is one of the great purposes of this whole section of the trumpet judgments.

But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. Well what is this? This is a picture of the people who've lived under the troubles that have come upon the natural world and the political world and it hasn't turned them around. They didn't turn to God.

They did not repent. This whole section has its focus on calling to repentance. And God's very patient. He continues to preach to people. He continues to do things in the natural world.

Every day he lays out images of his kingdom and the sun and the moon and the stars and everything like that. But this really is a call to wake up. Have you been shrugging your shoulders toward God? Do you love God? Do you want to follow God?

Are you a holy man? Are you a holy woman? A child? Or do you want to be a holy child? Well that's what this whole thing is about.

So it's a very, it's a very difficult, but it's very tender in that sense as well. And hey, the earth is the Lord's and the heavens declare the glory of God, including the tsunamis and the earthquakes and the fires that come upon the earth. So you can see if you have an outline in front of you I have this broken down into three main sections. First of all the silence that's in heaven for about a half an hour. Secondly the sounds of the prayers of the saints.

It's gonna be hard to get through this without turning the whole sermon into the second section, but I'll try. And then thirdly, the sounds of the trumpets. And you have the four trumpet judgments. The first four are here in this chapter. The final three are in the next chapter.

The first four focus on the natural world and the second set of three focus on the spiritual activity of the demonic forces at work in the world. So that's how it's divided up. And so God is meeting out his wrath in order to turn the heads of the unrepentant. And so first of all, the silence. This is very interesting.

Verse one, when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven For about a half an hour at one commentator called this a breathless silence Well, it's in contrast to all the praisings of God in heaven you remember we've covered this a couple of times already in chapter four and chapter five where you have this outpouring of praise, everlasting joy in heaven, that stops. Everything stops right here. And notice it's right between the seals and it's right in front of the trumpet judgments. And we're not told whether it's silence after the seals or silence before here's what I think I think it's both I think you have these this picture of history and it's breathtaking and there's just an odd Silence look at what God is doing in the world and you know after seeing the the noisy praises before the throne it all stops and I think it's just a picture of awe before God and what he's doing it is the silence in the face of God silence in the face of judgment silence in the face of fire silence in the face of all the things that happen in the world to turn our hearts toward the Lord.

Silence in the face of judgment, the judgment of a world in rebellion against God and you know in Zechariah there are many places in the Bible where this where silence appears. Zechariah 2 13, be silent all flesh before the Lord for he is aroused from his holy habitation. One of the commentators, Dennis Johnson said, this is silence in awe of the majesty of God. Here's what he said, silence is creation's expectant response to the Lord's impending arrival of judgment. And I think that's what it is.

I think it's silence just at the astounding work of God to judge the world. And it is placed right between these two judgments. It's a pause. And we should pause from time to time and recognize the judgments that are on the world. There's so many of them, aren't there?

Just look at the news every day. You can see wave after wave of trouble in the world and it's it's it's important for us to be silent from time to time and meditate on what God is doing in the world. You know in Handel's Messiah there's this very dramatic pause in silence before the last hallelujah. And I think it's reflective of this text. Let all the earth be silent.

Stand before God and observe him. So you have the silence and then you have the the prayers of the saints, the effectual prayers of the saints in verses 2 through 5 and I saw said the seven angels who stand before God, they're standing continually, and to them were given seven trumpets. And then another angel having a golden censer, that's a bowl, a large bowl, and it has incense in it, It came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense. I like that.

I like that. I like that a lot. Our prayers need much incense. They're not all that great. That he should offer it with the prayers of the saints.

So the incense is offered with the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angels hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. By the way, in this text, three times, stuff is thrown down to the earth, just thrown down, wham, like that.

This is the first occurrence in verse five. So this is about prayer, the prayers of the saints, prayers of the people of God. I was reading somebody who said you know our prayers don't really have too much impact on the people around us but they have an impact in heaven and then they come back to earth. I thought that was right. The power of prayer is very significant.

Now there, I think there are three things that I just want to point out from this. First of all, the angels are doing God's business. The angels are assisting God in the prayers of the saints on earth like we just prayed a few minutes ago some of you have been praying earlier this morning we get together the whole church prays on Wednesday night you know the angels are involved in this well at the beginning of this study I said you're gonna get an advanced degree in angel ology well did you know that the angels are helping with your prayers? And of course the Lord Jesus is too. We don't even know how to pray.

And He helps us in our weakness. You've got the angels and you've got the Lord himself by his spirit carrying prayers, clarifying prayers. So anyway, angels are doing God's business in prayer. When you pray, just remember that. What an encouragement that is.

You're not alone in your prayer. You know, sometimes our prayers just seem so weak and insipid, but God has sent his angels. This is your Father's world. Praise the Lord. And then secondly, he anoints our prayers.

Our prayers always fall short, but they're precious to God. They're a sweet smelling aroma. Like I said before, I like it. Much incense. We need a lot of incense.

Probably some people need more incense than others, but we all need a lot of incense for our prayers Because we don't even know how to pray Sometimes we ought we often pray self-centered prayers. We often pray ignorant prayers. We often pray Self-serving I mean we pray all kinds of prayers. Our prayers aren't perfect. Nobody ever prayed the perfect prayer.

But yet God, he calls his children to come and pray. He actually opens up his throne room and we can come boldly. And we have all of this help and it's and it's like like an aroma it's it's really amazing God delights in the prayers and so this this just gives a sense of how precious prayer is. And it's so important to him that he beautifies our prayers with incense and it becomes a fragrance to him. So here's another thing, we don't just pray for our own benefit or for other people's benefit, We pray to minister to the Lord.

It's like incense going up before him. When the church offers prayers of praise and thanksgiving and adoration, we're ministering to the Lord. You know, one of the things that we wanna do in our church, our elders, we really just wanna heighten everybody's attention to the fact that when we come together, we are coming to minister to the Lord. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent.

We are here to minister to the Lord. We're here to lift up incense from the very beginning and that's why we want everybody in here right at the beginning, before the beginning, ready with your heart, let the incense rise before the Lord. It's such a good thing and you know the culture of a church in that matter is really important. Do people just kind of, you know, taking it lightly? No, no, no, we don't want that to be the culture of our church.

But the culture of these prayers is incensed in a beautiful way with his incense. So these angels help. And also the third thing is, notice that things shake up when prayers of the saints go up. Things on earth shake up when prayers go up and there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. Now this is language that goes back to the Psalms.

Are these literal thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes? They might be. I think it's that, probably that, probably more, probably earthquakes in souls, lightning bolts hitting people, and thunderings of the heart when people pray. In Psalm 18, verses six through nine, David talks just like this, it's amazing. I'll read it.

In my distress I called upon the Lord. David's praying. I cried out to my God He heard my voice from his temple My cry came before him even to his ears." So he raises up his voice and what happens? Verse 7, then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken because he was angry.

Smoke went up from his nostrils. This is obviously figurative language. He doesn't have nostrils. And devouring fire from his mouth, coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet.

David described this very same thing. The prayers of the saints go up and thunder comes down. And so and here you have these coals of fire, they're thrown on the earth as a result of the prayers of the saints. The prayers go up and they're returned to earth. The prayers of a righteous man accomplish much or availeth much.

And God uses these prayers, it's not the strength of the prayer, it's the strength of the God who carries the prayer and answers that prayer. You know when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, remember he taught them something really important he told taught them to pray thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven to pray is to bring heaven down And that's what's happening here in this passage. The prayers go up, heaven comes down. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 11 makes a really shocking statement. It's so hard to believe.

It's about prayer and the changes that happen in the earth. For surely I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things he says will be done. He will have whatever he says therefore I say to you whatever things you ask when you pray believe that you receive them and you will have them." Now it's interesting he talks about mountains. That's figurative. It's figurative language about prayer.

It covers lots of things. You don't really find many mountains getting moved over from a prayer. But you do find lots of other kinds of mountains in people's lives and in their hearts. You know on Wednesday night we have a prayer meeting and we of course we we gather because we believe God uses prayers. But hey prayer is like a thermometer.

It tells you the temperature of your spiritual life. When you don't have much desire for prayer, it's a thermometer, it's telling you something. Wake up, it's telling you something, what's going on in your heart. We all have that thermometer. I've got I've got it and I can tell I'm really doing before the Lord with my desire for prayer, but you know our prayer meetings are really important.

You know it's interesting I went and I was reflecting on our prayer meeting last Wednesday, and we were praying to end abortion. We prayed for a brother who's in prison, in the worst prison in the country of Malawi in Africa. We prayed for unsaved, the unsaved. We prayed for churches. We prayed for some pastors that we love around the country.

We prayed for upcoming marriages in this church. We prayed for the prosperity of Christian families in this time where families are being wrecked. We prayed about a family experiencing a miscarriage. We prayed for our missionaries in Turkey and for the opening of doors in Turkey. We prayed for a neighbor who had cancer.

We prayed for a friend in Texas with cancer. So, you know, those were our prayers. They were so simple. They just came out of our life together. We prayed for the people that we know and the things that we're involved in.

But what was happening? The prayers were going up. They were being attended to by angels and the Lord by His Spirit was helping us in our weakness. So we prayed. We prayed but we didn't pray because we're great prayers.

Nobody should pray because they're a great prayer because they're not or not. We pray because we have a great God. And this prayer reached God and The angels are throwing it down to the earth. It's such an astounding thing. You know, I've been talking about this in different ways already in this message, but The church should pray.

Is our sincerity flawed? Yes. Is our knowledge inadequate in our prayers? Yes. Are we attempting to be eloquent?

Yes. Are we rambling? Yes. Do we pray with selfish motives? We do.

Are we short-sighted in our vision? Yes, we are. God is so kind though. He comes to sinners and he helps them. Isn't that amazing?

So we should pray. Then the trumpet sound. One more comment. Our prayers have an effect on history, okay? The history of the peoples in the world and the nations and the institutions.

Our prayers, our prayers cause things to get thrown down from heaven on the earth. Okay, the trumpets. This is verses 6 through 13. So the angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. So we come to these verses.

Oh my, Revelation is so challenging to understand that the imagery, you can take the imagery in so many directions and I so is this are these trumpets literal or figurative? Here's my answer both they're both figurative and literal and But you should focus on the central message. Now, trumpets, in this first trumpet, the first of the seven trumpets, the first thing I want us to recognize in terms of the flow, The last trumpet doesn't sound until chapter 11, okay? So in chapter 9 the fifth angel sounds, the fifth trumpet, in 913 the sixth trumpet sounds, but it's not till 1115 that the seventh trumpet is sounded. So picture where you are right now.

We're just doing the first four, we have three more the next time we're together in Revelation, and then we're pushing on, and we don't arrive at the last trumpet until chapter 11. So we're gonna be in the trumpets for a while. Now open your Bibles to chapter 11, fine, verse 15. Here's the last trumpet. It's the last trumpet again.

You have the end of a cycle that ends in the second coming 1115 then I then the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven saying the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever and the 24 elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God saying, we give you thanks oh Lord God Almighty. The one who is and who was and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry and your wrath has come. And the time of the dead, that they should be judged and that you should reward your servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear your name small and great and should destroy those who destroy the earth so this is the light this is a second coming The seventh trumpet is the final trumpet. It's the last trumpet that you'll hear.

So anyway, these four trumpets, the first four, they focus on the natural world. And they explain the geopolitical, the geo-environmental turmoil, the political upheaval that is in the world. And they are absolute displays of Jesus' rulership over all creation and over all the nations. That's how I interpret these trumpets. And why is this so significant for us?

Understanding who controls the environment is going to be a really, really important thing for Christians. News outlets are telling us that the Biden administration is planning climate lockdowns. He's appointed a team to address the, what you've heard over and over and over again, the existential threat of climate change. And he's calling for a national unified response to this this threat of the weather. Now I'm not here to say that the planet is not on a warming trend.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's always been on a warming or a cooling trend. Hey, when I was in college, the climate crazies were telling us we were going into the next ice age. That wasn't that long ago. Well, now the whole earth is going to be, is going to burn up.

It's nothing new. And of course, you know, the climate change message is man has overheated the earth, the ocean temperatures are rising, maybe they are, land temperatures are rising, maybe they are, carbon emissions are causing it, we must stop it, we've got to stop all this kind of thing, you know, even, and this thing is running through all kinds of categories of really attack of the gospel. AOC is saying that the New Green Deal is a racial inequality issue. So it's, you know, the climate change is also a racial inequality issue. So now you're going to reverse the temperatures of the earth because it's racist.

So this is how things are going right now. Politicians in Australia are now saying that climate change as a cause of death now needs to go on death certificates. Quoting from an energy news article from Australia, Quote, we can make a diagnosis of disease like coronavirus but we are less literate in environmental determinants like hot weather or brush fire smoke. And here's the killer, climate change is the single greatest health threat that we face globally even after we recover from coronavirus. So get ready.

You know most Christians know that God controls the world. You know, he controls the sun, the moon, the stars, and all. He created them. But you're probably, we'll see, you know, but you may be facing climate change as a justification for controlling your freedom of movement, controlling your thermostat, controlling what you eat, whether you eat cows or not, restricting your private car ownership, You know, all of this run by the administrative state. So it's a big deal.

You know, I saw a video. It was very upbeat video about the gene editing movement. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but this, you know, it's a movement in the medical community that you edit your genes to improve your life, to make yourself a designer person, to make yourself like you want to be. Editing out this, editing in that, editing in strength, you know, strength, beauty, you know, getting rid of your susceptibility to different things through DNA modification. It really, frankly, it's part of the whole transhumanism movement, but during the presentation, the author said that gene editing will first of all be able to give us the ability to make designer people like you can be whatever well whoever is designing you wants to be, you know, whatever doctors on the other end or your family or whatever.

But he went on and he said, gene editing could be the planet's only hope to get off of a burning world. And he actually said, and if an asteroid is coming to Earth, our genes will have been edited to the degree that we will be able to live in space. This was a serious medical publication. So anyway, get ready, you know, people are really concerned about ecology and the earth. And here you've got all this, all this geological phenomenon in this text.

And I think it's both literal and figurative. In Job 26 we learn that's God who controls the weather. He stretches out the north over the empty space. He hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the water in his thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it.

He covers the face of his throne, and he spreads a cloud over it. He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters. At the boundary of light, darkness, the pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke. He stirs the seas with his power and by his understanding he breaks up the storm. By his spirit he adorns the heavens, his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

Indeed these are the mere edges of his ways. And how small a whisper we hear of him, but the thunder of his power, who can understand? Well there are many many places in scripture that you can go to see God's mastery over the natural world. Go to Numbers 16, go to Psalm 65, go to Psalm 104, go to Psalm 135, oh go to Matthew 826, Jesus gets up out of his sleep, rebukes the wind and the waves suddenly stopped. Well that's who controls the wind and the waves and the sun and the moon and the stars.

So you can rest. You can be at peace in the climate calamity. So the Lord is going to control all these things. In 2 Peter chapter three, we are told that he will come and the heavens will be dissolved being on fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Whatever is happening in the climate, God's doing it.

So you don't need to worry. He's wise. He does all things well. But the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utter speech and night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. In other words, God's talking through nature and how he governs it. Well, so you have this trumpet here and then you have you know, you have the third of the trees that are burned up and the green grass was burned up. Now these judgments echo the judgments of Egypt. They're very much like what we read of in Exodus chapter 9, particularly in the fire and the hail and the blood and the Nile.

And these are four tastes of final judgment. These are four tastes of judgments that come. You have a third of the trees that are burned up here. Most people believe this is a sign of God's holding back its divine restraint. Only one-third, not all.

He doesn't destroy everything, but he destroys a portion of everything. Interesting, when we were back in the seals, it was one-fourth of the earth would be affected. Here it's one-third of the earth. So that's why some think there's an escalation that's involved. It might indicate escalating phenomena.

So God is restraining. By the way, the one third, there's a rich testimony of this matter of one third in the Bible, Ezekiel chapter five and six, gives us this backdrop language. I'm just gonna read it for you, but this afternoon I'd encourage you to read Ezekiel five and six, and you'll see where this imagery comes from and it really is a picture of restraint. God is restraining his judgment in the world. Ezekiel 5 1 and you son of man take a sharp sword take it as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and your beard and then take scales to weigh and divide the hair you shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city and then in the next verse he mentions one-third again and then and then one-third again and in verse 12 he said one-third of you shall die of the pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you and I will scatter another third to all the winds and will draw out the sword to them.

The one third I think is a matter of God's restraint and he doesn't bring a comprehensive judgment. God warns before he destroys. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and so he warns over and over and over and every sorrow, every natural disaster is designed to remind us how urgently we need to turn away from our sin. God gives sinners heads up, lots of heads up, and God's given anybody here who's running away from him heads up right now. You got it, there's another heads up.

You've had a few, There are more to come in your life, but please turn. And God doesn't just fly off the handle. God gives warning after warning. He's very patient. Amos 4.9 illustrates this.

I blasted you with blight and mildew when your gardens increased, your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees. The locusts devoured them, yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord. And then he says, I sent a plague and you did not return to me. Isaiah says, why should I strike you again? You'll just rebel more and more.

God was striking Israel to turn their heads toward him and they wouldn't turn. You know how many times you have to beat your head against the wall before you turn? You know how many troubles have to come into your life before you'll repent? That's the that's the whole message here I think. Then the second trumpet, a mountain burning with fire thrown to the sea, that's verses eight and nine, and a third of the sea became blood and a third of the living creatures in the ocean died and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Again is this literal or figurative? I don't know it's probably both. It's definitely figurative. Figurative language is all through the Bible. At a minimum God is bringing calamity on the earth in different ways.

He may be interrupting maritime commerce, you know, the third of the ships were destroyed, you know. You know, there's a... If you study waves in the ocean, there are these aberrations of waves, gigantic waves that show up in the ocean, 100 foot waves. And they break in half 900 foot tankers and they go to the bottom of the ocean and nobody knows what happened to them. About one a week.

These waves are so powerful and they interrupt a lot of stuff that happens in the ocean. So then you have mountains falling, you know, falling. Mountains are sometimes referred to as nations in the Bible. Is he talking about a nation? Maybe, probably.

I mean, in Jeremiah 51, the mountain is Babylon. The mountain is just a figure of Babylon. So is he talking about nations? Probably. You know, is he talking about other kinds of mountains?

You know, I know that, you know, when mountains fall into the sea, there are tsunamis. You know, in 2004, there was a big earthquake in the Indian Ocean and a piece of the sea floor came up like 66 feet and three 100 foot waves were launched and they went all over the Pacific And they washed over a dozen countries and left 2 million homeless and killed 240, 000 people in three waves, 300 foot waves. Some of them were smaller than that. And scientists say it was like 2300 Hiroshima type bombs that went off in the Indian Ocean. Volcanoes do the same thing, you know.

You know, oceans are filled with huge mountain ranges. Sometimes they fall. And if they're on a fault line and they fall, a tsunami comes out of them. Have you heard of the Cascadia Subduction Zone? This is off the coast of California and Oregon and Washington.

It's a massive fault. You know, I grew up on the San Andreas Fault, which is in the land, but not very far from the land, just a few hundred miles out, is a massive, massive fault line. It's called the Cascadia Subduction Zone. And geologists say that when it slips goodbye the west coast cities and goodbye cities in Japan and the Pacific Rim because it will be massive when it slips. So you know commentators read this and they think is this an asteroid burning with fire coming, you know, to the earth?

I don't know, but there are really remarkable things that are built into the natural world. You know, there was a 1, 700 foot wave that was launched in Alaska in the 1950s by an earthquake. 1700 foot wave. There were eyewitnesses. Like three people lived through it.

17, and It's proven because it tore up the whole landscape 1700 feet above sea level. And you can see it today. In other words, there's a lot of power that God's built in the universe and he can tear up a lot of ground if he wants. And he sometimes does. But he doesn't tear up the whole world only a partial.

The third trumpet, a star falls from heaven to the earth burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water and the name of the star was warm wood and the waters became warm wood and many men died from the water because it was made bitter. So there this affects it affects the fresh water in the earth. And the word wormwood appears seven times in the Bible. And it's always associated with bitterness. You know, you have the strange woman in Proverbs, she's wormwood, She's bitterness, she's poison.

And idolatry is like wormwood. But is this pollution? I don't know. Does it refer to something else? It could.

What percentage of the earth doesn't have clean water today? I don't know. Is it physical or spiritual? Well, That's the third trumpet. But God is controlling everything.

I think that's the lesson. That's the big, what does the image mean? God has control of everything. The fourth trumpet, the sun, the moon, and the stars are darkened. Verse 12, A third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened.

A third of the day did not shine and likewise the night. Now studying the meaning of light and darkness in the Bible is fascinating. It covers lots of different things. Is this spiritual light and darkness? Is it physical?

I don't know. It could be both. In Isaiah 13, God uses the stars to express his wrath. Cruel, behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and he will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light.

The sun will be darkened and it's going forth and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil." You know Isaiah first of all is talking about nations that are coming against his people. Those are the sun and the moon and the stars coming down at least there in Isaiah 13. So Ezekiel chapter 32 has a very very similar thing you know these manifestations in the heavens are related to political and military operations against the people of God. So, is that what it is here?

Jesus said that there would be signs in the heavens and there will be signs in the sun, Luke 21 25, in the moon and in the stars and on the earth and they will distress the nations with perplexity. The sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing from fear and expectation of those things which are coming upon the earth for the powers of the heavens will be shaken then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." so you have this this terrifying psychological reaction to what's going on in the world and Jesus is prophesying it You can look at Joel 2 verse 10 you can look at Joel verse 30 through 32. You can look at Job 40 and 41 and you'll see God is in control of nature. He rules the wind and the waves. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth and he's judging the world to get it to repent.

So then finally you have this announcement of the next three trumpets. It's the warning of the coming woes through the following three. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Whoa, whoa, whoa to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. The word, the use of this language of woe refers to the calamity that falls on the heads of those those who shrug their shoulders before God. It is so dangerous to shrug your shoulders before God.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. So are you prepared for the coming judgment? If you died tonight and faced the Lord of glory, what would it be like and what would He say? Because it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what he says. Will you be unprepared?

Were you deaf to the warnings that you heard your whole life? Were you insensible to God's control over the whole world? Did you respond to the calamities in a holy way? Did you love the Lord your God and keep his commandments? Did you trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope to be forgiven for your sins?

Did you sing, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Was that you? When you stand before the throne of God. But everybody needs to know that as long as you're alive, as long as we're alive, we're gonna have a front row seat on the calamities in the world that God is using to turn our heads.

And with each calamity is another testimony that God is patient. He's so patient. So repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You know, I've been struck over the last few weeks of what a Christian has that other people don't have. They know how things fit together.

They know how to interpret what's going on in the world. They know how to interpret what's going on inside of them And they have a way. They know what God is doing with nature. They know what is happening in other people. They see things from God's perspective.

And they go to the throne of grace and there are times when they're silent and there are times when they pray and heaven comes down And they're never fearful because they know that God is God and he rules everything. Blessed is He who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it. Would you pray with me? Lord you have shown us these signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth so that we would taste and see that you are good, that you are a God of glory, of wrath, that you are calling sinners to repent, that you hear our prayers, that you have compassion toward us in our weaknesses in our prayers and you give us so much help to pray. Lord I pray that you would teach us as a church to pray way more than we ever have.

Every one of us, knowing what you've done. Let there be no person who makes the excuse, I just don't know how to pray, I'm too embarrassed to pray, I'm too proud to pray. Let these things go away from us Lord and Help us to trust in you. Amen. Now I want to leave.