Sermon Transcript: The First Two Woes 4/12/2021 Jeff Schwarzentraub 49 min read - Lord Jesus. Thank you for today. Thank you for the privilege of being able to preach your word and thank you for the privilege of us being able to gather to hear you directly because Lord, as we say, and we believe that every time your word is open, that you have a specific word that you want to share with anybody who would have receptive ears. So Lord, we pray that we'd be receptive to hear what you want to say through this very sobering text of scripture, but we believe that you have a word for us and that you want to speak directly to us. And so now for all those who are gathered, who desire to hear the word of the Lord to believe what it is that He says about you and will by faith put into practice what he shows you. Would you agree with me this morning by very loudly saying the word - [All] Amen - Amen. Last week as I was given the invitation abandoned mere Speedway and I was watching people by faith, just step up out of their seats and start walking down the aisles. And they just kept coming and they just kept coming and they just kept coming. I was noticing just the people that were so refreshed that they had met the Lord. It was a new life to them. When I met a little 12 year old girl and she was crying and telling about how the Lord had just saved her life. And we were having a great conversation. So I asked her, I said do you have a good church that you can go to now? She's like, "well, I go to Brave Church." And I said, well, I hear that's a good one. You should keep, you should keep going there. And it was so fun because not only was it great to see the tears of joy in people's faces that had turned from their sin and turned to Christ and knew that they were completely forgiven but it was fun to watch many of your faces people that are already saved, who were saying to me, Jeff just watching that many people get up and walk down the aisle just stirred my faith because it reminded me of this fact Jesus Christ is still alive and He's still saving lives. Amen. - And it never, ever gets old. I know for me, even sometimes they'll catch on TV like an old Billy Graham crusade or something like that from the 70's. And everybody's wearing a leisure suit and a big thick tie and they have a Bible on their lap and they're in Canada. And you know, it's just a simple gospel presentation and I'm watching people from 40 or 50 years ago step up out of their chairs and walk down the aisles. And I feel it in my heart again, I'm crying tears of joy, like praise God. Because every time we see God raise somebody to life that has been dead, it reminds us of what He's done in our own heart. And that's the good news of the gospel and centered in everything that we do at Brave Church is the gospel. And I have really good news for you. If you're visiting or you've been here for a long time the good news of the gospel is, is in Jesus. And in Jesus alone, can you find hope. That's the only place that you can find it. The good news is if you've been looking for hope anywhere in your life, you'll never be satisfied until Jesus Christ is in the center of your life. You can't find it in property. You can't find it in cars. You can't find it in relationships. You can't find it in money. You can't find it in prestige. There's all things that you can pursue in this world, but none, but none will satisfy except the eternal shed blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ who laid down his life on a cross and rose from the dead. So if you're here today the message that you want to hear from the front, right from the very beginning is that God loves you so much that he sent his son Jesus Christ into the world, to fulfill the law, to live perfectly, and then to offer His life as a sacrifice on behalf of your sins. So you could trade your sins in for His life. Not only did he die to pay for your sins three days later, He rose from the dead. That's why he's able to offer life. Cause he authenticated Himself as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the only son of God. And I'm going to tell you something. He is the only way to the father and there's nowhere else to get to God except through Him. That's good news. No matter who you are no matter your gender, no matter your background, no matter your nationality, no matter the pigment of your skin, Jesus Christ and Him alone is what and who you are looking for. Amen. And so that's important that we know this because as we get into the texts that we're getting into we've been studying the book of Revelation and in the book of Revelation we've been building and has been crescendoing up to a specific moment in time. As the book opens, we get a huge picture of who Jesus is in chapter one that He's not just the meek and mild baby in Mary's arms that He's the King of Kings and He's the Lord of Lords. And he's a warrior. We see him walk among his churches and we see that Jesus Christ is the head of his church. Then in chapter four, we get an in chapter five we get to see a worship scene in the heavens where we get to go to see the throne of God and how worship takes place there. And it's awesome. Then in chapter six, we saw that Jesus was the only person in heaven or on the earth or under the earth who was worthy of opening up a scroll. And on this scroll, there were seven seals on this scroll. And as each seal was opened, there was tribulation that was beginning to happen in this world. We saw the antichrist appear. We saw wars. We saw famines. We saw death. We saw martyrdom. And by the time the sixth seal is opened, there is terror on planet earth. And the Kings of the world and all the people of the world are diving out in caves wanting to get into the dark, crying out for the rocks to come fall on them because they'd rather die than repent and believe that Jesus is the Christ. Then we see there's a great pause. And in this pause we see four angels holding back the destruction that's about ready to take place because two things must happen first. Number one, 144,000 Jews, 12,000 men from all the tribes of the Jewish nations are sealed. That's given ownership to them because they're going to be protected by God. And then we see the resurrection and rapture, resurrection of the dead and the rapture of the church go into heaven in chapter seven. Once that happens, we see the seventh seal open. The seventh seal opening begins what we call "The Day of the Lord" or the time that God pours out justice on planet earth because of His holiness. Because God is so Holy and so righteous and so true. He can not tolerate ongoing sin. And so there's going to be punishment for sin. And when he opens the seventh seal there's silence in heaven for a half an hour because everybody is just hush cause it's about ready to unleash. And 30 minutes later the trumpet judgments begin. Once the seventh seal is opened the trumpet judgments begin. We'll see once the seventh trumpet is blown, the bowl judgments begin. These seven trumpets are "The Day of the Lord." They are God's wrath on mankind for refusing to believe. People who stubbornly refuse to believe that Jesus is the Christ will experience this. Now we know as believers, if we've trusted Jesus Christ there is no wrath on us for God did not appoint us under wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord, Jesus Christ. If you're a believer in Christ, this is not for you. If you're a believer in Christ, you say well then why teach Revelation nine? Because God wants you to know His holiness. God wants you to know his power, and God wants you to know His justice. He wants you to know he's not just mincing words. And there's four ways that people refuse to believe when you read through Revelation nine, that you will see in his word today, and it should break your heart and it should cause you to pray more extensively and more often for what God has. And so I want to encourage you open up your Bibles to Revelation 9 today, Revelation 9. And while you're opening up to Revelation 9, let me tell you why I titled this sermon, "The first Two Woes." In Revelation 8:13 the last verse of chapter eight, He says, "then I looked and heard an Eagle flying in mid-heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth because of the remaining blast of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. We saw in chapter eight, the sobering texts where four trumpets were blown. And all of the ecology on planet earth was devastated. We saw fires destroy a third of the vegetation. We saw oceans destroyed. We saw streams and lakes become bitter. And we saw the sun and the stars turn off their lights. So there were temperature changes, psychological changes. It's not a very good day, but all of the first four trumpet judgments were judging the planet, not people. And while we talked about that, we said, Hey as we're going through Revelation 8, very sobering to see very sobering to see as we get into chapter nine, we see these woes. Woe, woe, woe. The first four trumpet judgements we saw. Now we're going to see three more trumpet judgments. Two of them we're going to see today. The last three trumpet judgements are called "The Three Woes." So the fifth trumpet is going to be the first woe the sixth trumpet we'll see, is the second woe and the seventh trumpet which will open up all the bowls are the third woe. So what today we're going to take a look at is the first two woes. We're going to see trumpet five and we're going to see trumpet six. Now why the word woe? Woe means disaster. Woe means horror. Woe means terror. And some people when we talk about these first two woes the reason we talk about these first two woes is some people stubbornly refuse to believe the sincerity of Christ's words, that judgment for sin is inevitable. Some people stubbornly refuse to believe that the sincerity of Christ's words, that judgment for sin is inevitable. Some people just refuse to believe it. If you, if you take anything away from this message what's going on on planet earth when we get to Revelation nine, are people who stubbornly refuse to repent. Like no matter what, I'm not going to repent. I'm not coming to Jesus. There's nothing I've done wrong. It's God's fault that the world is where it is. I'm stubbornly refusing to repent. That's what Revelation nine is pouring out. So let's take a look at the text. It says "then the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star from heaven, which had fallen to the earth. And the key of the bottomless pit, some of your versions may read abyss was given to him." So we're trying to figure out, okay, who is this star? Because the star is going to be unlike some other stars in the book of Revelation. Sometimes we're talking about a star being a star. Other times stars, as in chapter one, represent people. This is going to represent a person because he was given the key to the abyss or to the bottomless pit. So this key is not something that he had. He didn't have access and authority to it. He had to be given the key. God had to give them access and authority to this abyss. Now who's the one who has fallen. John didn't see him fall. He said there was an angel or a star that had fallen. We don't know the Bible doesn't make crystal clear. But when we think about a fallen star it could be that it's Satan. It could be that it's one of his demon cohorts. That's a high ranking demon official somehow some way we read that there's a demonic spirit. Somehow that's going to be given access to open up this pit or this abyss. Now you may ask, well, what's this abyss? What's this place? Well, this abyss is a deep, deep hole for demons to be held for a place in a time of judgment. You may remember in Jude chapter or there's only one chapter in Jude, but Jude six where he talks about those who and Noah's day for what they did and their cohabitation with human beings they were, they were held in judgment in the abyss. You may remember the story of the guy and it's in Mark 5 and Luke 8 who Jesus went to see who was demon possessed. And they tried to get him chained up but he'd break the chains. He'd cut himself with stones. He was walking around naked. People thought he was crazy and out of his mind. And when Jesus approached him, the demons spoke to Jesus and said, "what do you want with us?" And he said, what is your name? And remember what he said? The demon spoke and said "Legion for we are many." And then in Luke 8:31 the demons begged Jesus not to send them to the abyss or the bottomless pit. And Jesus even showed grace there. Maybe he was doing it because he wanted us to see just how many demons there were. Cause you remember when he released them, they went into a herd of pigs and the demons took the pigs off over the cliff and all the pigs died. And they're about 2000 pigs. So there are at least 2000 plus demons inside that one man at that time. Now picture this here's what's going on is the fifth trumpet is blown. As the fifth trumpet is blown, there's some demonic influence has been handed authority and access to that pit. And all the incarcerated demons are now being let free to run loose on planet earth. Picture of what it would be like for just a moment. If every prison in the world at the same time just let everybody loose and said, run free, do whatever you want. That might be terrifying. This is 100 times more terrifying. These are demons that are being turned loose on planet earth, under the authority of God to do what God wants to do to show his holiness and his justice. Notice what it says. It says 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. Now you may ask, well, what, what's this smoke? What's this smoke of the pit? Where is the smoke come from? Are they cooking out down there? Like what what's, what's going on? It's sobering what it is. If you turn your Bible over to Revelation 14:11 you'll see what the smoke is. It says, "and the smoke of their torment, goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day and night. Those who worship the beast in his image and whoever receives the mark of his name." what's the smoke come from? It comes from their torment. They're being tormented so much that smoke comes up because of the torment that's going to take place for those that go in hell. The reason there's smoking hell is because of the torment of the holiness of God, pouring out his wrath for all eternity. That's what it is. And so you see, as this pit is opened up, this abyss, this bottomless pit, he opens it up and outcomes all this smoke of torment. "Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth. And the power was given them as the scorpions of the earth had power." And notice what verse four says, it's terrifying. They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth nor any green thing or any tree but only the men who do not have the seal of God, on their foreheads. Now, if you remember from what was taking place before that in the first trumpet, you know, about a third of the grass all burned up and you may say, well why is it told not to touch the green grass? Why is it touching out the grass, there's no grass? In all likelihood the grass has grown back. When we see these seven trumpet judgments it doesn't mean because the Bible doesn't tell us except for the fifth trumpet we're going to see how long that lasts how long each one of these trumpet judgements lasts. But clearly there was enough time for the grass to grow back because all the green grass was destroyed. Now there's still green grass on the planet. So grass has come back. So these judgments are not like one and done and they're over. And we're all getting through all these trumpets today. And we'll move on. This is going to last for a long period of time. And here's what he said. Hey, the first four trumpets that was all the vegetation. That was ecology. That was oceans lakes, streams, temperature, sun, moon, stars. Don't touch any of this time. Just go after people. All the demons that have been incarcerated being turned loose on who? People, it's terrifying. Again, good news. If you know the Lord, you will not be here for this. You will not be here for this. And notice who they went after nor any green tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Well, who has the seal of God on their foreheads? The 144,000 Jews. That's the only ones that we've read about. Now does that mean there haven't been other people saved during this time? Not necessarily. Perhaps there's been some people post-rapture when they saw Jesus take all of the resurrected dead and all the saints all at the same time, up into heaven. Perhaps there's some people that repented at that time. Perhaps we don't know. I don't want to be dogmatic on this. The Bible doesn't give us a whole lot of hope though. I mean, one place you could look is in Revelation 11:13 where it talks about how in a certain hour we'll get there. "There was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell. 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven." Does that mean that when they gave glory to God of heaven, they were saved and they were repenting. I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. The reason that you'll hear people sometimes talk about the 144,000 Jews as the 144,000 Jewish evangelists is because if you have to take a pre tribulation position and arbitrarily say, there's a rapture sometime before all this happens and you've placed it at Revelation 4:1 or sometime before arbitrarily which nobody can prove, then you have to account for what people call tribulation saints. Like where are all these saints coming from? Where are they all at? If you take a position like I do and just read through the Bible literally you'll say, well that's the church because the church is still there during the seals all up until the sixth seal but in the right after the sixth seal when the rapture happens. And when the rapture happens and everybody gets to heaven, I don't see in my Bible 144,000 Jews proclaiming the gospel around the world. They may, they may be claiming, but the Bible doesn't even say that the 144,000 Jews that are sealed are even Christians at this point in time. It just says that they're owned and protected by God. It could be that as they go through this, that they begin to give glory to God. We don't know. I'm just telling you when God's day of the Lord comes and he pours out wrath on mankind. There's not this massive revival. Prior to this time, I guarantee you there's going to be a revival. And revival is going to look like this. It may not be scores and numbers of people but it'll be those that have been, are truly believers that have been playing games. They're going to get right. And those who attend church and pretend they're Christians that really aren't, they're going to leave. There'll be a sifting in the church prior to this time because when we get to Revelation 9, this is God putting himself on display to pour out his justice on a stubborn mankind that refuses to repent. And that's what's happening here. So God says, Hey, those that have been sealed. We know it's the 144,000, for sure. Could it be others that have been saved during that time? They got a seal, possibly. We just don't know because the text doesn't tell us. And notice what it says, "and they were not permitted to kill anyone." Now that sounds pretty good to me. I mean, if all the demons of hell are going to be unleashed all the ones that have been incarcerated don't kill anyone but to torment for five months and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. Torment means this excruciating pain, excruciating pain. Anybody here ever had excruciating pain before? I mean the kind of pain that like I can't take this for one more minute. The kind of pain that says, give me some morphine The kind of pain that says I don't want to live anymore. Like that kind of pain. That's, what's going to be going on for five months. Five months as these demon hordes are on planet earth. And they've been given power to hurt human beings and to sting them like the sting of a scorpion. Now you say, well what's the sting of a scorpion like? I'm glad you asked. I did some research this week. I got on the Mayo clinic website. Here's some of the symptoms. They may include, pain which can be intense. Numbness and tingling, slight swelling and warmth. And if you really get it bad it can involve difficulty breathing, muscle twitching or thrashing, unusual head, neck and eye movements, drooling, sweating, nausea, and vomiting, high blood pressure, accelerated heart rate and restlessness or excitability or inconsolable crying in children which may be the worst symptom that they've listed so far. I mean, can you imagine for five months and notice what it says in the very next verse, verse six. "And in those days, men will seek death and not find it. They will long to die, but death flees them." It's going to be so bad in that day that people would be like, I'd rather be dead, but somehow God supernaturally he's not going to permit people to die. There's going to be no suicide during that time. I mean, no people jumping off buildings, no gunshots no hangings, no taking pills. No nothing. God is going to prevent people from dying. He's going to say, you think this is bad. I'm pouring out my wrath on mankind. I'm not going to let you die. I want you to experience my wrath. That's what's going on on planet earth. It's devastating. It's terrifying. You say why? Because God is always trying to put his glory on display. Did you know that? He's always trying to put his glory on display. I mean, we see it in the words of Jesus. When Jesus was talking to the Pharisees of that day which he loved, but he had a hard time with because they were super religious people. They just didn't believe in Jesus. He tells them in Matthew 15:7. Here's what he says to religious people who didn't believe that he was the Christ. He said this, "you hypocrites, you rightly. Rightly did Isaiah prophecy about you. These people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as the doctrines the precepts of men." What was He saying about the religious leaders of his day? He was saying, you honor me with your lips. Like you're giving me lip service. Like God is good and all this stuff. But what you teach is the doctrines of men. You teach how to be successful in this life. You teach your best life now. You teach how to be prosperous here. You teach anything but me. You don't teach about my holiness, my righteousness, my truth. You don't teach about my justice. You don't teach about the truth of God's word. You don't teach that there's a literal heaven and a literal hell. You don't teach that I'm the way the truth and the life. He says, you diligently study the scriptures and rightly so because they testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. You are total hypocrites. And then what does he say in Matthew chapter 23? If you get time to read that this week I encourage you to do it. Eight times you hear Jesus say woe, woe, woe to you. Woe to those who have a stubborn, hardened heart in their life that refuses to repent and come to Jesus Christ Woe to the Pharisees. Woe, to religious people of our day. Woe to those who think there's other ways to God. Woe to those who don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Terror is coming. That's what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees. And it's not just a new Testament teaching too it's old Testament teaching as well. Remember when God sent the plagues to Egypt to free his people and all the different times that God would send the plagues. What was he trying to get Pharaoh to do? To relent, to show that he was the God of the universe. And yet, what do we see in Exodus 7:3-4? God says, "but I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring out my hosts, my people, the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt by great judgments. It says, God's going to harden Pharaoh's heart. You say, well, that's not fair. You don't understand fair. Here's what's fair. What's fair is if God sent every single breathing person to hell and punish them for eternity, that's fair. That's equitable because every person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The fact that God would save just one person is scandalous. The fact that God would just free up one person is gracious. And yet God so loved the world that he sent His only son. That God sent Jesus so that anybody, anywhere, at any time could escape the wrath of God and trust in Him. How gracious is that God? He's incredible. But you see it wasn't just God hardening Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart to Him. In Exodus 8:15 it says, "but when Pharaoh saw that there was a relief he hardened his heart and did not listen to them as the Lord had said." Chapter 8:32 of Exodus, "but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also. And he did not let the people go." I mean, we see this battle all the time. Like who's doing what? Which came first, the chicken or the egg. Here's what I would say. The same son on a hot day that melts the wax, will harden clay. The same son of God. If you bring a soft heart to God, he'll make it soft. If you bring a hard heart to God, He'll make it harder. We have this false belief that I can just trust God anytime I want at anytime. And I'm just going to roll through the motions. And I believed that lie as a kid. So I know a lot of you believe it too. I used to believe this lie. Yeah, I know that there's probably some truth to Jesus but I'm not going all in. I mean maybe when I get old, you know and I have nothing else to live for, then I'll give my life to Christ and I can die and go to heaven. But I don't want to live for Him now. Some of you have believed that lie. I want to tell you something, as you harden your heart to the Lord, now it's only going to get harder. It doesn't mean that you get a chance a year or three or five or 10. Today, if you hear the Lord's voice, do not harden your heart. There comes a place in time and I don't know when it is that if you continue to harden your heart before the Lord your heart can get to a place where you can't repent and you can't respond. It's not just out there all the time. And if you hear his voice, let that soft voice in him bring your heart to him and let them heal you and let him him save you from your sins. You say, well, what was the purpose in all this? Exodus 9:15 and following says, "for if by now I had put forth my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence you would have then been cut off from the earth." God said, I could have killed you a long time ago. "But indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain in order to show you my power. And in order to proclaim my name through all the earth. Still, you exalt yourself against my people and not letting them go." What does God say? He goes, I could have killed you a long time ago. I know I'm more powerful than you. You're you're dependent upon me, but I'm letting you live because I want the whole world to know, just how powerful I am. In Romans 9:17, we read the same idea here. In Romans 9:17 says, "for the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you. And that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." Even today in Denver, Colorado I'm proclaiming to you that the God of the Bible is more powerful than any King on the earth. Now does that mean that God couldn't have got his power if Pharaoh had repented? See I believe if at any time Pharaoh had repented and said you're the God of the universe. You're the most powerful God, whatever you want us to do. However you want me to govern. However you want Egypt to look just so long as the world knows that you're God, I repent. Would God have gotten his glory that way too? Absolutely. I will tell you something. God will get His glory through you. He will either get His glory through you by allowing you to repent and be saved by Jesus and pouring his very life through you. Or He will get his glory by you by showing the world that he's more powerful than you. And He's more Holy than you. And He's more just than you by punishing you and your sin. Either way, God gets all the glory. That's why today if you hear the Lord's voice, do not harden your heart because many people stubbornly refuse to believe the sincerity of Christ words that judgment for sin is inevitable. I mean, even when you read Matthew 24 about all of the very things that we read about in Revelation 6, here's what we read in Matthew 24-25. "Behold, I have told you in advance." But I'm telling you before it happens. He's like a good parent. If you go down this, this is the consequence I'm telling you right now. Jesus is not holding back. God's plan for his justice is eternal. He knows exactly when he's going to pour it out. There's not one person here, not one person listening to my voice that would ever need to experience the wrath of God because God, the Father poured it all out on his Son. He told you what was going to happen. But if you stubbornly refuse to repent, the sincerity and simplicity of Christ's words that judgment is inevitable. Then God's wrath will be upon you. Let me tell you a second one. Some people not only stubbornly refuse to believe the sincerity of Christ's words but they stubbornly refuse to believe the reality of demons that desire to destroy. They stubbornly refuse to believe in the reality of demons that desire to destroy. Some people don't believe in demons. Some people don't believe in demons. We read in Revelation 9, all the incarcerated demons are going to come up out of the pit. And here's what they look like. Now in verses seven through 10 you're going to see the word 'like' a lot. Because John is seeing things in the first century he doesn't know what he's describing. And we as interpreters need to be very careful as to what we think he's describing. So it looks and what he says. He says the appearance of locusts, which of those demon locusts was like horses prepared for battle and on their heads appear to be crowns like gold. And their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like the hair of women and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. They had breast plates like the breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. They have tails like scorpions and stings and in their tails is the power to hurt men for five months" And some of you are going to say, okay tell me exactly what that is. 'Cause I got to know. I don't know. They're demonically inspired locusts that are doing something. What is he seeing? I don't know. I think we need to be very careful that we can say that. Because there's too many interpreters. Like, Oh, that's Apache helicopters. Okay. That's this that's this it's war. We don't know. Here's what we do know. We know the intent of what these demons are going to do and we know the extent to what they're doing it but we don't know how it's all going to play out and praise God we're not going to be here for it. So be careful. I'm not saying when people interpret it wildly that they're necessarily wrong because they may not be. It's just that the Bible doesn't tell us. It's like this it's like this. And I don't even know what that would mean. Cause even as I read different interpreters like what does it mean that they have hair like a woman? Everybody's got a different opinion on that. Some people say, well, that means that they're attractive. And the kind of be wanted. But is that really what long hair in a woman? I mean, I don't know. We don't know. They were prepared for battle. They were prepared to do the Lord's beating and here's what you need to see. They're under the authority of God. They're under the authority of God. Says in verse 11 they have as King over them. The angel of the abyss, his name in Hebrew is "Abaddon" and in the Greek, his name is Apollyon." That means destruction or destroyer. When I hear that, I think about the verse in John 10:10 where it says, "the thief comes only to do three things steal, kill, and destroy. He's a destroyer. Satan and all of his demonic horde are destroyers. Now let's talk about this just a little bit. I grew up in a church that really didn't read the Bible. Talk about the Bible. Talk about heaven and hell as reality is talk about Satan. A lot of people in our church would have believed he was real. Other people said he's metaphorical. So let me just go on record of telling you Satan is real. He's a real created being. You can read about him in Exodus chapter. I'm sorry. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And even those, even though those sections are referring to the Kings of Babylon and Tyre, it's also talking about Satan and who he was because there are certain things that can only be ascribed to him. Being in the garden of God, being worship leader wanting to ascend to the highest place, being cast out of heaven. All those things would apply to Satan and him alone. Let me tell you this. After 30 years of ministry, let me tell you something. Satan is as real as it gets. Satan is as real of a created being as I am. And he has demon hordes that help him. One of the problems that we have in the West of believing in demons is that in the West we have cognitive answers for everything. We put a label on everything. When people struggle for something, we have a prescription for it. We have counseling for it. We have a label for it. It doesn't always fix them because sometimes sometimes not all the time cause I think counseling is good. I think medications prescribed by a doctor can be good. Let me just say that. So I don't get 30 million emails. I think that can happen. And that's good. And I'll use that. But sometimes it's demonic activity in a person's life. Let me be clear on this. If you're a believer, you have a deposit of the Holy spirit in your life. You can never be possessed by a demon ever. Never, ever, never. If you trusted in Christ, you have the Holy spirit, never but can you be oppressed by a demon if you're a Christian? Yes you can. Yes you can. And you can be super oppressed by a demon by giving the devil a foothold and participating in sinful patterns as a Christian where demons can clamp onto you and go with you and you can become something different. Even though now on the inside, you haven't changed. You still belong to God. You're his forever, but there's demonic activity. And we see it all throughout the new Testament where Jesus is cleansing people of demons and healing people and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. It's what we need to do. And we need to be aware that sometimes not all the time but sometimes when people are wrestling with are demonic forces. And what can demons do? Well, they can take possession of those that aren't believers. I mean, you talk about a demon horde being released from hell and they can possess non-believers? I mean, you read about the things that demons are able to do. They can help produce superhuman strength. Sometimes they can tell the future. They don't really tell the future but they just get you to believe they can. Which by the way if you have your quote little angel that talks to you and tells you things, I believe you have an angel that talks to you and tell you think it's just a fallen angel and he's telling you demonic things and you don't need to listen to that. You need to listen to God and his word and the Holy spirit. Right? So when we see things it's not like people have superhuman powers and they know, only God knows the future. That's why we take people on mission trips all the time. And they see people manifest demons or we cast out demons like, well how come you never see that in the U.S? Because we have answers for all those things in the U.S. So the demonized people that come into our churches we tell them, you need counseling, get some pills meet with me five more times, instead of saying, Hey what's really going on in your soul? Tell me what's going on. Tell me what's happened. Because some people in church are demonized. They just are. So it's not to scare you. If you're a Christian, you'll never be possessed by a demon. But if you're a Christian and you decided to live sexually immoral and you drink all the time or you do drugs, you can invite oppression by demons. And he said, well, that's, that's better. I mean, really? I'm just oppressed by demons. I mean, it's awful. And this is what's going on here. Demons are real. And they're going to take over, under the authority of God for a period of time and sting people. I mean, think about this. Imagine wanting to die and not being able to. I remember on September 11th, 2001, turning on the television that morning and watching people in the Twin Towers as the planes went in, when the cameras went right on them they knew that they were going to burn alive inside and thought that it would be better to jump than to burn alive inside the building. Because the torment was going to be so strong. It's just like, it's just better to jump and get this thing over with. That's what people are going to be feeling for five months and nobody's going to die. Why? Because God's showing you, Hey, I'm going to show you my holiness. I told you these things were coming. I told you, I told you, I told you to repent but you were too stubborn to repent. And that's what we see happening in chapter nine. That's the fifth trumpet for five months, for five months, sobering text. Says in verse 12, the first woe has passed. Behold two are still coming after these things. The fifth trumpet's done praise the Lord. I mean, there's any text in the Bible that as a preacher you'd want to skip, Revelation 9 would be a contender. I mean, this is, this is sobering, right? But I believe God wants us to know how serious He is about sin and well, what we also see about these first two woes as we get to the second woe and the sixth trumpet, we're going to see this that some people stubbornly refuse to believe this the severity of punishment that your sin deserves. Some people refuse to believe the severity of punishment that your sin deserves. Notice what happens in verse 13. "Then the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. Now who are the angels? The Bible doesn't tell us. But the fact for me that they're bound I don't see any righteous angels being bound in scripture tells me there's an unrighteous angels or demons that have been bound. And what does he say? The four goes release them from the great river Euphrates, verse 15. And the four angels who had been prepared for, knows what they were prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released so that they would kill a third of mankind. The hour, the day, the month, the year. What does it tell you? They're under the authority of God that some of this idolatry that's going on in the world and the demons that are being worshiped, God's like fine, I'm going to use those demons to destroy you. And I've got the hour set ,the day set, the month set, the year set. It's already set. It's not as if I'm going to lose my cool one day and blow up and say, that's it. It's already been set. It's already been set in the future. And it's all under God's sovereign control. Notice what it says. It's going to kill how many people, a third of mankind. And how sobering is this? I mean, we saw in the fourth seal that death came to the earth and that there was given permission to kill a fourth of the planet. A fourth, it doesn't mean a fourth was killed but they were given permission to kill a fourth. Now we see another third. I'm not great at math. So you can write me later today. Our world's population is just under 8 billion people right now. It's about 7.85 billion people. Okay? If it's 8 billion people at this time that this happens, just think about what a fourth would be. What's a fourth of 8 billion. Good that you guys are bad at math too. What's a fourth of 8 billion? It's 2 billion, right? So now you got 6 billion people left on the planet. What's a third of 6 billion? No, not three A third. This is awesome. I feel so at home. Thank you. We got alpha started. We got a math course starting it's going to be great. All right. One third of 6 billion. My high school teacher would be so proud of me right now. One third of 6 billion is 2 billion. So we've had 2 billion gone and another 2 billion gone that makes how many? 4 billion you're doing great. If there's 8 billion people and 4 billion are gone. That's half that's where we're at. That does not include the resurrected saints. The rapture that's taken place. People that have been dying of natural causes all the other things that are going on, where people I mean the population is just going down down, down, down, down. We're living in what's so-called right now, a pandemic global pandemic. You may have heard something about this. Right now there are about 561,000 people that have died of COVID around the globe. We're talking about over 4 billion people dying. That's a pandemic and there's nothing you can do to stop it because God's wrath is being poured out on the planet, right? That's what's going on here. And sometimes we refuse to understand the severity of the punishment that your sin deserves. It says this, "the number of armies of the horseman was 200 million." Now are these horsemen that are real horsemen? Are these demonically influenced horsemen? Are these horsemen that are, is this tanks that he's seen? I mean, we don't know. Be very careful when you hear people say authoritatively this is what it is because the Bible doesn't say exactly what it is. We know it's, demonically inspired. You say, well, how do you know it's 200 million? He says, I heard the number of them. I heard it. They were 200 million, 200 million in this army to destroy 1/3 of the planet. And this is how I saw the vision of the horses and those who sat on them. The riders had breastplates of color. Of fire, that's red, of highest scent, which is blue and a brimstone, which is like a sulfuric yellow. And the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions and out of their mouth, proceed fire and smoke and brimstone Fire and smoke and brimstone, pastor Jeff well is fire smoke and brimstone preachers? I am today because it's in the text, right? Fire, smoke we are talking about, but the smoke was brimstone. And notice what he says about those three. It says this, "a third of mankind was killed by these three plagues the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouth for the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents and have heads with them that they do harm." Again. What are these? I don't know. I'm just glad I'm not going to be here. However, it's going to be inflicted is going to be inflicted the way that God is describing the vision here. And it's going to be challenging. And here's what we have a hard time with. We don't understand that sin is so severe that it causes this level of punishment. And some of you are here today saying, wow, like who is this God? Like, what is he thinking? I want to tell you what he's thinking. If you ever want to know how severe God is about your sin take a look about how God treated his one and only son because of your sin. See God the Father sent his son to be the savior of the world. And when Jesus Christ came to the world as incarnate, God-Man and he's fully God and fully man, he lived the perfect life. He fulfilled the law. Was he welcomed by people? No. He was rejected. He was betrayed by one of his closest friends. He was abandoned by his other disciples. He was falsely tried and falsely accused. And one of the biggest trials shams in the history of the earth. He was spit upon. He was mocked. He was beaten so bad. He could barely even breathe. His back would have been ripped wide open. So then what they decided to do is put a robe on him. So he would bleed through and it would stick to him. Then they put a scepter in his hand and put a crown of thorns on his head and mocked him and beat him. They put a blindfold on him and they kept punching him saying prophesy. In other words, who is it that's hitting you? Then he was forced to be shamed in front of all the people. This is your King. Then he was forced to carry his cross up a Hill called Golgotha. And he was so tired. He couldn't do it. So Simon had to carry it for him. And when he got there, as if that wasn't enough they drove nails into his hands and his feet as he hung naked on a cross. And as people came by, did they have any compassion? No. They said, you said you could save others. You can't even save yourself. Come down off that cross. Thieves on his right and his left, both mocked him until later in the day, one of the thieves recognized that he was the Christ and said, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And as God the father is if that wasn't enough, what happened on the cross was the most severe that ever happened to Jesus is that God the Father poured out all of his anger and his wrath on his son because of your sin. And that's why, when Jesus says the words "it is finished" it means that I satisfied the wrath of my dad for everyone who would believe that they're a sinner and need their wrath satisfied. Three days later, he rose from the dead and said, anybody want this? I'll give you life. I've taken the wrath of my dad for all sin for anybody, anywhere, at any time. But you must repent and come to me and believe that I'm the Christ. That's the good news of the gospel. How severe was God was sin on his own son. He had him slaughtered. His perfect sinless son for us. And we don't get that. We don't get it. We don't get it. I didn't get it growing up. I went to church growing up. I memorized the Bible at the Lutheran Grade School. I went and growing up. I haven't memorized Luther's small catechism. I thought that got me extra points when I got to heaven too. And I remember being a Young Life Camp and I was going through the motions and I was telling people all the answers. Cause I knew the Bible and I knew Jesus died for the sins of the world. I knew he rose and I knew all the facts. I knew all about him, but I'll never forget being on the little inner tube with my young life leader. My elbows were like this. He was sitting across from me with his elbows like this. And he was saying, "Jeff, I don't think you understand sin." So I walked him through what I knew it was. And then he said something back to me and I remember in my heart thinking, okay, I can make this argument. I remember saying Gordy, if what you're saying is true that means that God would love like ex- murderers and prostitutes and thieves the same way he loves somebody like me. And I knew I had him. I knew he was going to say, no that's not what I'm saying, Jeff, you're an awesome person. And that's not what he said. He said, that's exactly what I'm saying. You're a sinner. You're unsaved. You need to repent and trust Christ. I was so ticked off. If I could have found a bus ticket home from Young Life Camp, I would have gone home. And who are you to tell me? I've gone to church my whole life. Who are you to tell me I'm better than these other people? Who are you to tell me? I mean, I know Jesus died on the cross for some of my sins. And I admit I got some cinema life but not as much as that guy does. I mean, Jesus died on the cross but I got a little of his blood I don't need as much as they do. But praise God in that 24 hours, God showed me that I was dead in my sins and I was dead in my trespasses. And that final night, when I stood in my feet, I said anyone who wants to trust Christ? I stood to my feet and I said, this week I confess Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior. And I began to weep, like not like little tears like I'm doing now, like snap bubbling, shoulder shaking cry for like two hours. Because I knew that I had crossed over from death to life. I knew there was a difference in my life. I knew that I was a sinner that had been saved by grace. And I knew what the apostle Paul meant when he said of all sinners of whom I'm the worst. He didn't mean like I've seen everybody's sin patterns. Mine are worse than yours. That's not what he's saying. He's saying I was so acquainted with my own sin. And I'm so aware of who I am and all that God had to forgive that compared to anything else I would see in anybody else, I know that I'm the worst of all because I'm most acquainted with me. Most of us don't think that. What a tragedy it would be to go to a church like Brave Church that preaches the gospel. That's the number of people that love the Lord, who have repented, and you truly don't know him. And to hear these words of Jesus when you get there, "depart from me you worker of iniquity I never knew you." But, but, but Lord, I went to church. But, but, but Lord, I was at Brave Church. Pastor Jeff's a Christian. We read a study, the book of Revelation. It's Revelation nine. I knew. Yeah, but you didn't know me. You didn't recognize your sin. You didn't realize you need to come to me. I'm telling you, come to me. Turn from your sin and come to me. See if you don't recognize that you're dead in your sin then there's no hope in the gospel. There's none. And most of us don't realize that the severity of punishment that our sin deserves. That's why we read this and we're so sobered because we have this understanding that just from a human standpoint because all of us have friends, all of us have family members, coworkers neighbors that don't know the Lord. And so when we read this passage, we have them in our mind. And here's, I'm going to tell you if you have unsaved friends you've never shared the gospel 100 times you think, man, they're going to blow me off again. And they're getting mad at me for it. Don't ever, ever, ever stop praying for people. Don't ever, ever, ever stop living the gospel in front of people. God is gracious and God would desire all people to come to know him. Don't you ever stop praying for people. But you do need to understand there does come a point in time and this is the text where it comes where when people get to this level of hardness in their heart, they don't want anything to do with God. What I understand theologically that I don't understand emotionally is that one day we're going to cheer for God's righteous justice to be meted out on people that don't believe in him. I can't do that as a human being. I can't do that in the state that I'm in now because I know too many people that don't know Jesus. And I'm not wishing that on people. I'm wanting people to come to repentance. But there'll be a day where they're known for who they are. And we will cheer Jesus. Not we're not going to cheer the punishment but we're going to cheer. Look at your righteous glory. And you are so worthy of your righteous glory. That's who you are. See the final point of this notice verse 20 The rest of mankind. Now we've lost half the planet already. Now you have the rest of mankind you would think at this point, they'd be looking for old videos. They'd be looking for DVDs. They'd be looking for, you know pastor Jeff online, you know, can we read it? What's going on here? Not that's not what they do. 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 the demons of the idols of gold and of silver and a brass and of stone and of wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk. No, and they did not repent of their murders nor their sorceries nor their immorality nor of their thefts. Let me tell you the final problem that people stubbornly refuse to believe. They stubbornly refused to believe the necessity of repentance for salvation. Refuse to believe it. They refused to believe it. So Jeff, why do you believe it? Because the Bible teaches them. In Matthew 3:2 we read John the Baptist first sermon. He says, "repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." This is first word. Matthew 4:17 when Jesus began to preaching ministry his first word was, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Peter's first sermon. He didn't go to seminary to learn this stuff. He spent time with Jesus. When everybody's being cut to the heart saying what must we do to be saved? He says repent. And each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Repent. Peter also goes on later in the new Testament. 2 Peter 3:9 He says this. "Let me tell you about the love of the Lord. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some of you count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance." Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7:10 for the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation. What does repentance do? It leads you to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. See the problem we have with the false gospel in our culture is this. We tell people, Hey, God loves you, but you're a sinner but Jesus died and rose, do you want to believe this? And somebody says, well, yeah if I believe what happened, you go to heaven. Really? What do I have to do? Pray this prayer. Okay, dear Jesus. I believe he died on the cross, rose from the dead. Forgive my sins. Amen. Amen? Yup. Great. I can go live however I want for the rest of my life. That's not salvation. It's ridiculous. Salvation is when the spirit of God works in your heart and shows you that you're dead in your sin. And that if you keep going your way on your road you will die in your sin. And apart from Christ, you have no life. And it's his mercy and grace pouring that out to you so that you can repent. What does repent mean? Repent means to turn. I mean, it's to turn back to him. Repent literally means to change your mind. It's it's a desire to be different. It's a willingness to do things God's way. No matter what it's understanding that God is right and I'm a wrong. Repentance does not mean I'll change myself. I mean, how many in here know you can't change yourself? I've been a Christian 30 years. I can't change myself. Repentance is not God. Here's what I promise to you. And I'm going to commit to you and here's what I'm going to do better. And it's all, it's not works. Repentance is God's work in your life that shows you that you're dead, that you need him and he's leading you to himself. It's him doing the work of guiding you to salvation. And what are these people saying? We refuse to do that. We want nothing to do with God. As a matter of fact, now that these plagues are over and all this stuff's going on we just want to get back to our normal lives again. I'm not repenting of anything. And what did they refuse to repent? Well, how about this? Idolatry. Idolatry. Idolatry is giving your ultimate allegiance to that which is an ultimate. I mean, in Jeremiah and Ezekiel we read about how they said, you know would you are my father and stone you gave me birth. They would create statues. And then they'd worship them. You say, well, why would people do that? Who would worship stone and wood? And that's so silly. How about your house? What's it made out of? Some of you worship your house or what you're going to live in someday. Some of you worship your car. Some of your worship your possessions. Some of your worship sports figures that we'll never ever know your name and don't care about you. Some of you worship Hollywood people and musicians. Some of you worship your money. Some of you worship your identity. Some of you worship your reputation. I mean, there's all sorts of things that you can give your ultimate allegiance to. That isn't ultimate. Only Jesus Christ is worthy of all your allegiance. And here's what these people are doing. Their hearts hard now. They had opportunity they're without excuse but they allowed it to get so hard. They can't repent. Now they're just angry at God that they can't worship the idols that they love so much. What else are they not repenting of? How about this one, murders. We talked about this last week. Got abandon me all you murdered. Anybody's have hate, malice, ill will towards another person. You know, not like I want them dead but if they caught COVID for a couple of weeks and were bedridden, that'd be kind of cool. And I can't stand them. I mean that or somebody cut you off in traffic or somebody cuts you off in the grocery line or somebody speaks ill will to you or somebody doesn't appreciate you at work and deep down you're like, man, I hope they get there's. That's murder. And these people aren't repenting saying, God, the way I treat my fellow man they're created in your image and I'm to love them. I don't care about them. I care about me and I'm putting other people down for my glory. What about sorceries? Sorceries comes from the Greek word, pharmakeía which was where we get our English word pharmacy. So we're talking drugs, refuse to repent of drugs. It also involves like magic, fortune telling. Now it doesn't mean if you go to a Chinese restaurant later today, not throw out the fortune cookie or something, you know, read is fun. I'm talking about people that really believe that other people have authority over their lives because what they're telling you. Nobody has authority in your life but the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? Even when somebody has a prophetic word or an encouraging word for you test it according to the word of God because Jesus Christ is the authority for all things. Some are into the magic art. Some are into Ouija boards and some are into table lifting and some are into white magic or black magic. Guys it's all of the devil. And it's real. If you have a Ouija board, burn it today, throw it out. Don't even say I spent 12 bucks on that thing. It's the best 12 bucks you'll spend to throw away. Get rid of it. They're real demons in the world. And if you invite them into your life they will oppress or possess you. Get rid of that garbage. If you're doing drugs, turn. You may not be able to change yourself but turn to Christ because Christ can fill you and give you something far better than any drug high can ever do it. We'll go through two more, very quickly. What about this other one? Immorality it's porneia. It's where we get our word pornography. Porneia is any sexual immorality at all. So let's just talk about what morality is cause it'll save us a lot of time. God created in the Bible in Genesis one and two two genders, two genders. Male and female, both are equal in the sight of God. Both are valuable in the sight of God. Both are created in the image of God and both have great, great distinction with God. And because of the difference that God made them it's for this reason that a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh. The only way to have purity sexually, if you're single, is to be celibate. And if you're married, it's between a man and a woman till death do you part. Satisfying each other any way that falls shy of that, sin. Sin. Now we can talk about all the different kinds because we could be here all afternoon. Cause as I do counseling, I find new and inventive ways people have come up to be immoral, right? Any kind. Immorality by yourself, sin. Immorality with what you look at, sin. Immorality with the same gender sin, all right? Anything that stopped shy of a man and a woman that are in covenant marriage to please one another, sin. That's it. And if you're single, celibacy or it's sin, that's it. And here's what's going on. Here's what these people are saying. They're saying a lot of things, our culture saying, I'll have my sexual desires anyway I want, with whomever I want, however I want, anytime I want and you can't tell me what to do. That's right where they are in this book. Are we close? Are we close? They're not repenting. They're mad at God for saying, what you set up as your standard is not a standard that I like. And then what about thefts, stealing? Finally, I got, I got a free pass on this one. I'll steal. If you gossip about somebody, you steal their identity. If you lie about another person, you steal their identity. If you take things at work that don't belong to you if you talk bad about your employer you talk bad about your employer is stealing. Yeah. I mean, and it's not that we're Brave Church and it's not like we can stand here and say, God, we've never done any of those things. All of us have engaged in all of those things but we've repented because we said, God I can't change that, but I want you to change that. And it's only by your grace and I'm running to the cross because I want to flee from the wrath to come. And I want to have your life in my in your name. And I want to live for you and for you alone. That's what I'm telling you Brave Church, if you're here today or you're watching online or you listening on the radio wherever you're hearing this, Hey pull the car over and do business with God. Because the most important thing you can do is to repent and turn to him because when that happens and the Holy spirit comes into your life you're a new creation. The old has passed away and behold all things have been made new. It's called being born again. I mean, when's that happened for you? Some of you will say, well, it's never happened to me but I've always kind of been a Christian. Wrong! If you're married, I ask a lot of married people when did you get married? Nobody's ever told me. I don't know. Just kind of woke up one day and there was this person like right here. It just kind of happened. And I don't know. Now I'm not saying you might remember the exact date, moment, time and place. That's okay. My parents tell me I was born on December 8th of 1970. I don't remember it, but there's evidence in my life to show that I'm alive. If you've been born again, there should be evidence in your life to show that you are alive. Are you alive? Because I think one of the biggest strategies would be to go to a church like Brave Church that preaches the word, that loves the Lord, that preaches the gospel. And have you sit under teaching like that and say, you know what? I was too stubborn and I was too embarrassed. And I didn't want people to know that I had this stuff going on in my life and I didn't really want to repent. And I let my heart get too hard. God's giving you a gift today. The gift is not get yourself right and then I love you. The gift is I love you so much. I've already taken care of it. All you have to do is respond to my grace. You don't have to do anything. My son did it all. There's nothing you do. You just come to the cross. You come to Jesus as broken and knowing that you're a sinner and when you are, he'll never ever let you go. And for those of you who are Christians, this is sobering for us too, because sometimes we get cavalier in our own lives and say, well, I know I'm saved but we at cavalier in our walk with Christ. And instead of living out that Jesus Christ is our cornerstone and our rock and who we're building our life on. We began to just kind of live our own way. And this is God's wake up call to us like, no, I take your sin serious. Jesus would say, I died for all that. You don't need to live in it any longer. It's actually you think the sins pleasurable, it's actually what's killing you. It's actually, what's taking your joy. So today he's saying, will you come to Jesus? Will you come to Jesus? God's showing us his holiness and putting it on display. So we ourselves would give our lives to Christ. So every arm's going to have you bow your head and close your eyes and I'm going to ask you where you're at. Because I think it'd be remiss to preach a message like this and not give you an opportunity to respond. And if the Lord has been heavy on your heart that's just him showing how much he loves you, how much he cares for you. The fact that he died for you. And here's how you can pray. The prayer is not a magic prayer. It doesn't make you saved, but if it expresses the desires of your heart, Christ is the one who saves you. But you can pray like this, Lord, Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm separated from you. And I know I deserve your wrath, but I believe you died on the cross for all my sins and that you rose from the dead. Lord right here now I want to repent of my sin. I don't even know if I can change anything. I'm just telling you, I know I'm a sinner and I'm coming to you. I'm turning to you. And Lord, I'm confessing you as my Lord and savior. Come into my life and be the Lord of my life. For those of you who are believers here today perhaps the Lord has convicted or pricked your heart about something in your life where you're not living for him, where you said, Hey, I love you enough to show you that's what it was. Why don't you just take a second here to say, Lord that's it. I repent of tell him. This is in my, I know I'm saved but I repent of this. And I ask you to be my life in that area. I can't change me God. I know I can't but I know you can. Lord for what you're doing in this place. We give you all the glory and all the honor and all the praise, in the mighty and matchless name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Can we give God praise?