Revelation chapter 1. Revelation
chapter 9. The first chapter of this book that
you and I are studying says, Blessed is he that reads, and
they who hear the words of this book. So I'm going to read and
you're going to hear. And that's about maybe all we'll get out
of it. I don't know. I hope we get something out of
it. Let's read chapter 9 together. Revelations chapter 9. And the fifth angel sounded,
and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was
given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless
pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke
of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were
darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out
of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given
power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was
commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth,
neither any green thing, neither any tree. But only those men
which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them
it was given that they should not kill them, but that they
should be tormented five months. And their torment was as the
torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. And in those
days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall
desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes
of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle,
and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their
faces were as the faces of men, and they had hair as the hair
of a woman, and their teeth was as the teeth of lions. They had
breastplates as it were breastplates of iron, and the sound of their
wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
They had tails like in the scorpions, and there were stings in their
tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. They had
a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name is in the Hebrew tongue Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue
hath his name Apollon. One woe is past, and behold,
there came two woes more hereafter. And the sixth angel sounded,
and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar,
which is before God, saying to the sixth angel, which had the
trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great
river Euphrates. And the four angels were loose,
which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a
year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the
army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand, and
I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in
the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates
of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone. And the heads of the
horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouth issued
fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third
part of men killed, by the fire, by the smoke, and by the brimstone.
which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth
and in their tails. For their tails were like unto
serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. And the
rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet
repented not of the works of their hands, that they should
not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass,
and stone, and of wood, neither which neither can see, nor hear,
nor walk. Neither repented they of their
murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor
of their thefts." There were two prevailing opinions in the early
church, even among believers. What was going to immediately
take place when our Lord Jesus ascended back to heaven? Some
thought that we were coming into a great utopia of some kind,
that things were going to get so much better. The apostles
thought this. That's why they wanted to sit
on the right hand of Christ and the left hand of Christ. And
the Lord had to beat them off of that opinion that things were
going to get better. Things were going to get glorious.
Just before the Lord ascended back to heaven in the cloud,
remember what the apostles asked him? Lord, will you at this time
restore again the kingdom to Israel? Will you restore the
glory as in Solomon's day? Will you give us a king to reign
over us? Will we subdue those who have
brought us into bondage? That was an opinion even the
apostles had. But the apostle Paul was writing
to the church. And this is what he said when
he was writing to the church that pretty much put this opinion
to rest. We must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of heaven. It wasn't going to get to the
point where the church was going to subdue the world and everything
was going to become easy. It was going to be a time of
great tribulation to the church. There was another opinion that
prevailed in the apostles day in the early church. And that
was this opinion that some thought the Lord Jesus was coming in
their lifetime. They thought he was coming immediately. When the Apostle Paul wrote 1
Thessalonians, you'll notice in every chapter he closed it
with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there were some in
that church that were troubled. They were troubled because they
thought the Lord's coming would be immediate. Now, why were they
troubled? They should have been hopeful,
and they were. But they had loved ones that
were lost. They had neighbors that were
lost. They had co-workers that were lost. And if the Lord came
immediately, then they'd be under His judgment. So they were troubled
about His coming. So the Apostle Paul writes to
them and says, I beseech you, brother, you who are troubled
in mind, thinking that the Lord's coming is at any time. He said
that they shall not come. The Lord shall not come until
there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed. Remember that, the son of perdition?
So he put that to rest, and the Apostle Paul was right, wasn't
he? Some people have even come up
with a notion that the Apostle Paul believed that Christ was
coming back in his lifetime. I don't think he was so mistaken
about that. I hate to think that the Apostle
Paul really believed that Christ was coming back in his lifetime
because that would have been an awful mistake that he had
made. He did not believe that. He taught in his epistles that
evil men and deceivers would wax worse and worse. In the last days, perilous times
shall come. Dangerous times. Lawless times. And that's what we've seen, hasn't
it? We've seen that. The saints, looking back now
over 2,000 years, the saints have had times of great revivals. There's been times where the
Lord was pleased to add to His church. But there have been times
of tribulation. Times of great suffering and
persecution. Not just to this church. Not
just to the Church of Christ, but to the world itself. Look
back on the world in the last 2,000 years, and what do we see
in this world? For the last 2,000 years, this
world has suffered. There have been wars, there have
been rumors of wars, there has been sickness and death and dying
in this world. And that's just what the Scriptures
predicted. Look here at what He says in
chapter 8. In verse 13, there had been these trumpets sounding,
four of the trumpets, and there's going to be three more trumpets.
And look how he says it in chapter 8, verse 13, And I beheld and
heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with
a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth
by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three
angels which are yet to sound." Now why does the Lord Jesus write
these things to the church and tell us these things? Why does
he do that? He doesn't do this to discourage
the church. He does this to warn them to
be prepared. That things may not get better.
That's things messing up again, isn't it, David? Reckon it's
my boys? Why would the Lord write here
and tell us that these four angels have blowed their trumpets of
wool, but he says the next three is even going to be worse. Why
would he write to us and tell us that? Brothers and sisters,
the church is living in this world, and it's a time of the
judgment of God upon an unbelieving world, and he writes this that
you and I may be prepared for it. That we may be established
in the faith of the gospel. That we may grow in grace and
knowledge that when these things do come, we won't be shocked. We won't be shaken in our faith. And that's one of the reasons
we have the book of Revelations to tell us what's coming. What's
coming in the days of the church age, in the day of disgrace?
Well, God's judgments are coming on this earth. And we see it. Here in chapter 9, we have the
blowing of the fifth and sixth trumpets of woe. And these trumpets
reveal a greater and deeper judgment of God upon this rebellious world. Now, why do I say that? Because
the fifth trumpet reveals demon activity. I think of all the
trumpets. Well, the Holy Spirit just told
us in verse 18 of chapter 8, didn't He? He said it's going
to get worse. The first four trumpets have
been bad, but the last three are going to get worse. And so
what's this fifth trumpet? It reveals demon activity. And for the first time in the book of Revelations, we have
demon activity. I'm going to wait until David
gets that fixed. Can you shut it off, David? Is the volume up too high? Well, turn it off if you have
to. There you go. Turn it down, David.
I'm preaching to you folks, not outside anyway. I want somebody
here up there ready to listen. It's us gathered here that we
need to hear, isn't it? So what makes the fifth trumpet
so devastating to this world? And we're told here in chapter
nine and these first three verses that this angel fell from heaven.
We have no idea who it was. Most commentators assume that
it's the devil himself. It's not Christ. Christ never
fell from heaven. But these are symbols. And as
John saw this vision, this symbol, there was this star come falling
from heaven. He was given the key to the bottomless
pit. In verse two, he opened the bottomless
pit. Now, when we see something like
this, you can imagine this can't be good to have the bottomless
pit. What dwells in the bottomless
pit? Well, demons for one thing. They dwell there in the pit with
the souls of those who have died without the Lord Jesus Christ.
They are in a pit. So he opens the bottomless pit. John sees the air darkened by
the smoke of that pit. And then verse 3, there came
out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And these are demons. coming out of the bottomless
pit. Now, as long as they're in the pit, they can't bother
anybody but those who are there. But when they come out of the
pit and they give permission to roam through this earth, there's
where they do devastation. There's where they do great hurt
and harm to people. And don't we have so many examples
of that in the Gospel? I don't know what it was, brothers
and sisters, about when the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth
and took our humanity, but it seems like that whole area over
there was full of demons. Remember the Gadarean maniac? He had 2,000 demons in him, and
he was tormented by them. He cried. He lived in the cemetery. He would put his arm up on the
tombstone and cut himself and lived in despair every day of
his life until the Lord Jesus come where he was and cast the
demons out of him. But they troubled him. They tormented
him. That's what demons do. That woman
of Canaan that had the little daughter, she came to the Lord
Jesus and she was so distraught. She said, Lord, have mercy upon
us. My daughter is grievously tormented
by a demon. We're not told what she was doing,
what her attitude was, but she was tormented by a demon. In
Matthew chapter 17, there was a man's young child that was
possessed of a demon. And he told the Lord Jesus that
he is grievously tormented. He casts himself in the fire
sometimes. He casts himself in the water
to try to be destroyed. And when the Lord Jesus came
up to heal him, he was laying on the ground foaming from his
mouth and watering. What a pitiful sight that was.
And the Lord commanded that demon to come out of him. And in Luke
chapter 6, they brought unto him those that were tormented
with unclean spirits, and he healed them. And this continued
in the days of the apostles. In Acts chapter 5, there came
a multitude out of the cities, bringing those which were tormented
by unclean spirits, and they were healed every one of them. And we see the same attitude
here in Revelation chapter 9. These demons that came out of
the pit, they tormented people. And they tormented them to the
point that they desired to die and not to live. Now, I don't
know what that looked like. I don't know if it was a physical
torment. I don't know if it was a mental
torment. But the demons tormented people to the point that they
would rather die than to live. I remember I went to a nursing
home one time friend of mine to visit some people there. There
was this man sitting pretty close to us and he would be talking
normal. Then all of a sudden he would
clench his fist and look up towards heaven and shake his fist at
God and use all kinds of filthy, blasphemous language. The lady
had to stand pretty close to him while we were there and pat
him to tell him to stop. And you could look at that man's
expression and tell that he had mental problems. But probably
what it was was demon possession. And this is what I think makes
this fifth trumpet so devastating that these demons that came out
of this bottomless pit afflicted people to the point that they
said, I'd rather die than to live. Now I want to show you,
hold our text there and look with me over in Psalms chapter
78. Psalms chapter 78. You remember when the Lord sent these plagues upon Egypt. That's
what Psalm 78 is about. And the devastation that came
upon that nation. The frogs, the darkness, the
killing of the firstborn, the rivers and so on being turned
into blood. And all of that was horrible.
But there was one judgment that was probably worse than the others. And we are told that here in
verse 49. Psalms chapter 78 and verse 49. And He cast upon them, God cast
upon the Egyptians, the fierceness of his anger, and wrath, and
indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them."
Now, and that's why the Holy Spirit tells us here in our text
that woe be to the inhabitants of the world by reason of this
next judgment that's coming. And what is it? Evil angels. Evil angels. Back over here in our text again,
there's two mercies here revealed in this fifth trumpet that I
don't want us to look over. I don't want us to look at these
and just get the negative aspect of it. But I want us to look
here and see what a mercy that's revealed in this fifth trumpet. Here in verse four, look what
he said. And it was commanded them, evil
spirits, these wicked demons, that they should not hurt the
grass nor earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree,
but only those men which have not the seal of God in their
foreheads." Now, here is the blessing behind this. They tormented
men, but they did not torment anybody that was sealed by the
Holy Spirit. When Christ comes to abide in
our hearts, He rules there. And though these demons may try
a believer's soul and agitate you, they can never drive Christ
from His throne and torment you. They can never do it. They can
be like Paul, the messenger of Satan that came to him to buffet
him, but it was just to try him. Demons can agitate God's children,
but I tell you, they can do them no permanent hurt. They cannot. I love this word here in verse
4. And it was commanded them that
they should not hurt those who were sealed in their foreheads
of the living God. That's a commandment to them.
They will not touch a child of God to do them permanent harm,
because the Lord commands them. Now, you remember about this
seal back over here in chapter 7 and verse 3. Look in chapter
7, verse 3. Here's what was commanded these
angels that was holding back the wind. saying to them, Hurt
not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed
the servants of the living God in their foreheads. Now, brothers and sisters, that's
a comfort, isn't it? Whatever this demon activity
looks like, and I have no idea, really, the depths of it, the
breadth of it, but whatever it is, And it is a judgment upon
this earth. It will not touch God's little
children. It won't touch those in whom the Lord Jesus Christ
dwells. Greater is He that's in you. And who's in you? The Son of
God's in you. The Spirit of Christ is in you.
And greater is He that's in you than He that's in the world.
The second mercy that we see here is found here in verse 5.
They were to torment men only five months. Now, that's not a very long time,
is it? Five months. They shall be tormented five
months. He mentions that twice. We can be sure that this judgment
is coming upon this earth and has probably been here in different
places at different times in this world. But we can be confident
of this. It will be short-lived. It's
only five months. That's a blessing, isn't it?
Don't just tell us that the Lord regulates everything that happens. He told the church at Smyrna,
the devil shall cast some of you into prison and you'll have
tribulation for how long? Ten days. Ten days. He knows. the trouble that's
coming. He knows how long it's going
to last. He knows how deep that trouble will be. And he knows
when it ends because he ordains it. He rules and regulates it. Devils can do nothing without
permission of our sovereign Lord. Devils are not sovereign. There's
only one sovereign and you can have only one sovereign. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. And He commands
these demons just for five months. I'm giving you liberty for five
months. And then that's it. Here in verses
7 through verse 10, we have the description of these locusts.
I just read it to you a minute ago. What they look like. They were a fierce looking bunch. John saw in this vision most
older commentaries say that this is descriptive of human soldiers
that's under the influence of these wicked spirits. And they
put up a pretty good convincing argument about that. I was reading
Al Barnes today and man, he put up a pretty good convincing argument
that These locusts that come out of the smoke are soldiers. They're military people, and
they've been so influenced by these demons that they go out
and slaughter people. There's probably some truth to
that, especially when we look just a minute at the sixth trumpet.
But I think here, brothers and sisters, this is a description
of the demons themselves. One of the things that Barnes
was able to explain is here in verse 5, to them it was given
that they should not kill them, but torment them. Now, if these
were real soldiers, they don't just go out to agitate people,
do they? They go out to kill people. But
here, they weren't allowed to kill anybody, just torment people.
So that indicates to us these weren't literal military men
engaged in physical combat because they didn't kill anybody. They
just tormented people. So as you look at the description
of these locusts, John saw them. I'm sure he's never seen anything
like this. He was just looking at these
symbols and says, here's what it appears like to me. And I
think he was just describing if you could see a spirit, that
evil spirit that's out to no good. and can do anything that
God permits him to do. Here is what you would probably
see in those evil spirits. Look here in chapter 9 and look
in verse 11. And they had a king over them,
which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew
tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollon. This Hebrew word Abaddon means
destroyer. And the Greek word Apollon means
destroyer. And to me, there is no doubt,
brothers and sisters, who this is. It is the devil himself. He is the king. of the bottomless
pit. No mere man is it. The Lord Jesus
called him the God of this world. He called him the Prince of this
world. He called him a murderer. He
was a murderer from the beginning. The Jews called him Beelzebub,
the Prince of the devils, and he is a destroyer. He is up to
no good. He hates humanity. And He's over
these demons. They look to Him for directions.
He instructs them. He's wise. He has all this experience
of how to torment humanity. And just to look at this and
get a vision of this, it's terrible, isn't it? It's terrible. And
I don't know, I don't know if this is going on in other places.
I don't think it'd be going on here. We would know it, wouldn't
we? I mean, if it was this bad. But thank God it's limited. Wherever
it happens or whenever it happens, this trumpet of woe is limited
and it will not touch, it will not harm God's little children. Never will. Now here in verses
13 through 21 that I read to you, this is the sixth trumpet
of woe, but there's a blessing here too. Just before This sixth
angel begins bringing his judgment and doing what he is instructed
to do. Here in verse 13, And the sixth angel sounded, and
I heard a voice from the four horns of the altar, the golden
altar, which is before God, saying to the sixth angel, which had
the trumpet, any judgment came, there came
a voice from the golden altar which is before God." Now you
remember about this golden altar. It wasn't the burnt altar where
they offered the sacrifices. That was made out of brass. They
burnt the sacrifices. Here was the altar of incense.
When you went to the tabernacle, The priest went into the first
holy place, they called it. And there on the right side was
a little stand. And they burned incense on it
every day. And when the priest went into
the first holy place, which was just before the holiest of all,
that place was filled with aroma. Because they burned incense all
day long. Incense was burned on that golden
altar. And that's descriptive of the
intercessions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, look back in
chapter 8 again. I know you haven't forgot this.
But we read about this in chapter 8, and look in verse 2 of chapter
8. And I saw the seven angels which
stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. And
another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden
censer, And there was given unto him much incense, that he should
offer it with the prayers of the saints, all saints, upon
the golden altar which is before the throne, and the smoke of
the incense which comes with the prayers of the saints, ascended
before God out of the angel's hand." The Lord Jesus is there
in heaven today, and He prays for His people. He ever lives
to make intercessions for His people, and He puts His sweet
incense of obedience on His prayers. And the Father loves to hear
Him pray for His people, and He delivers us from any condemnation
that we incur because of our sins. That's a precious thought,
isn't it? But when judgment comes upon
this earth, the same Christ, instead of putting sweet incense
upon His censer full of fire, He does not put any incense on
it at all, but He turns and He throws the incense full of fire
upon this earth. So the same Christ that ever
lives to make intercessions for his people to God, that same
Christ brings judgments upon this earth. That's what he does. Before this
sixth angel moved a muscle, there came this voice telling him what
to do. And that angel never did a thing.
until he heard this voice from this golden altar telling him
what to do. And what does that tell us, brothers
and sisters? The same Son of God that lives
to save His people by His grace brings judgments upon this world
because of their sins. Spurgeon used to say that men
will be saved by Christ or they will be damned by Christ. Men
will be delivered from their sins by the Lord Jesus Christ,
or the same Christ will pronounce judgment upon them. Thou shalt
come, ye blessed of my Father, or depart from me, ye cursed. The Lord Jesus made this statement.
He said, The Father judgeth no man, but he hath committed all
judgment to the Son. And that's what we see here in
chapter 9 and verse 13 and verse 14. The Son of God speaks from
that golden stand and tells this angel to bring judgment upon
the earth. Now, that's both brothers and
sisters comfort. And it should secure this lost
world to death. We read about the grace of Christ
and we read about the wrath of the Lamb, don't we? There's mercy
in the heart of Jesus Christ. There's love there, there's grace
there, there's gentleness there, there's faithfulness there to
encourage every child of God. But there's judgment there, too.
There's justice there, too. And the same Christ that saves
His people by grace will be the very one that pronounces judgment
upon this ungodly world of unbelievers. In chapter 7, in verses 7 through
10, we saw the description of these locusts. And verses 13
through 21, there's this trumpet that sounds and the Lord Jesus
Christ instructs the angel as to what to do. And here in verses
13 and 14, the sixth trumpet of wool. And our Lord gives this
commandment. And here's what he says in verses
14. Loose the four angels which are
bound in the great river Euphrates. And these four angels, we said
they'd be prepared, and boy, they're devastating. You can
read this again when you get home, but these are devastating. The four angels, this sixth angel,
he looses these four angels that's in the great river Euphrates.
And the number of them is 200 million. And he sees their breastplates
of fire, and Jason, and brimstone, and one-third of the people in that part of the
world are killed. Now, I've had to rely awfully
heavy on some commentaries to understand what this means, but
almost all the old commentaries, as a matter of fact, every one
that I've read, without any exception, says that this judgment here
of this sixth trumpet is the establishment of the Islam religion
in this world. They're probably right. Muhammad
lived, when did he live? 570? I think he was born around
570. Died 62 years later. And he was the false prophet
that established the religion that we call Islam that's still
around today. And he makes mention here of
the river Euphrates. And if you get your mouth out
sometime and look at this river, it runs through most of the old
Arab states. You have Iraq, you have Iran,
you have Saudi Arabia, you have Turkey, you have Jordan, and
you have Syria. And this is the birthplace, and
still to this very day, the stronghold of the violent, wicked religion
we call Islam. And boy, you can read here about
the people that they killed and what they looked like. And if
this is so, then we'll read more about this when we get over more
in the book of Revelation. But this is probably predicting
what that wicked religion is going to do. And not long after
Muhammad's death, he established it. Nobody hardly believed him
at the time. But after he died, Islam got a hold. And man, they
began to go westward and spread out into North Africa. And then they took all of Asia
Minor. Remember where the seven churches
was? There's no churches there now. When Islam went in there,
they killed 200,000 Christians When they took that place over
and there's where modern turkey is now remember just a few weeks
ago when when they shot these rockets out of the West Bank,
and then they came in and and Killed so many of the Jews just
walked five or six weeks ago now, and if you've seen anything
about How they kill some people? They showed, they had some of
them on camera. One of them, they literally held
this mother down, cut her breast off, and was passing it around
between those soldiers. They killed this mother with
the children watching her, and then they got in the refrigerator
and got out food and sat down and ate while that woman bled
to death. I think it's very telling, and
it shouldn't surprise us, that the 6th trumpet follows the 5th
trumpet. The 5th trumpet unleashed all
of these wicked demons, and then the next trumpet you see Ishlam. And that tells us that Islam
is influenced by hell itself. They have no conscience. And
God has used that wicked religion to bring judgment upon this world. And boy, they've spread everywhere
now, aren't they? We had a president a few years ago, poor thing.
He said, Islam is a peaceful religion. I wish he would have
read the history of this religion. They're not peaceful. Right sure
they are. Just like the commentaries tells
us. And that's probably them. But conclusion, here in verse
20 and verse 21, we are told why these judgments are coming
anyway. God is a just God. He has never
punished any man arbitrarily. He doesn't make man just to damn
him. If God afflicts men, there is
a cause behind it. And He tells us here in verse
20, after this Sixth wall and trumpet has been blown. And the
rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet
repented not of the works of their hands, that they should
not worship devils." Isn't it very telling that if you're going
to worship devils, then I'm going to turn devils loose on you.
But they didn't repent of that. I don't know what it looked like
for them to worship devils. And they worshipped idols of
gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which neither
can see nor hear or walk." That is the first table, isn't it?
They are idolatry. God brought judgment because
of idolatry. You shall have no other gods
before me. And here was the world worshipping
devils and idols and refused to repent. So therefore God is
just in bringing judgment upon this rebellious world. And here's
the second table of the law. Neither repented they of their
murders, thou shalt not kill, nor of their sorceries, nor of
their fornication, nor of their thefts. I thought this was a
very interesting word. Sorceries. You know what the
meaning of that sorcery is? Medication. It has to do with
pharmacy. Ain't that strange when we look
around us today and we see the drug use? We see so many people
burning their life on drugs and they're out of their heads. I
have said this for years, and I earnestly believe this, brothers
and sisters, that this drug abuse that we see, especially among
younger people today, that's demon activity. When you see
somebody taking these drugs and go out of their head, and sometimes
they never return, that's of the devil. It's of the devil. And that's why the judgment of
God is coming upon this world to begin with. And as I read
and study these things, it just blesses me to think that God
has given me an interest in salvation. that He's put in my heart to
seek the Lord and given me grace to believe on Him and to never
leave Him. And I bless Him for that. Lord, we thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for the instructions. Thank You for opening our hearts to these things
that we may be prepared, we may seek You, and be established
in this present truth, and reminding us that this world is under your
judgment. Oh, Lord, help us to be faithful,
to tell a lost and dying world of salvation, of Christ our Lord
and grace that can deliver from the awful judgment and wrath
that Come up on this world and the worst is yet to come. Oh,
help us as a church. Oh, Lord, give us grace. Open
doors and give us grace to witness to our neighbors and our loved
ones and our families. Thank you for this dear people
that come here interested in your word. Bless it to their
hearts. Bless your people. Bless those
who are in great difficulty, struggling in their lives. Oh
Lord, don't let us bring shame on Your name. Don't let us give
occasion to the enemy to reproach You how we have utterly failed. But Lord, we look to You still.
We come to You still because You are so faithful. In Christ
our Lord's name we pray these things. Amen.