In the blood of the Lord Jesus,
even God's dear adopted children go through the storms of life. But these difficulties and whatever
troubles that God brings in this world or brings into this nation
or this state or county or city or into your family, they're
not judgments to you. And my message to you is it shall
be well. It shall be well with you. I
look at the world in which we live just like you do. I watch
the news a little bit. I see a lot of the vileness and
the ungodliness that's going on that's broadcast for us. And I think this world is ripe
for judgment. Don't you? This world is ripe
for judgment. And I see the storms that God
sends, all these hurricanes. You know what they are. They're
trumpet judgments. Trumpet warnings. You see, we
know this. Seven trumpets. God had seven
angels. He's appointed seven angels to
each of them. He's given a trumpet. The first
six are going to sound their trumpets. They're being sounded
every day. What do you think all these hurricanes
are? They're trumpet warnings. You're not always going to live.
You're going to die. You need to pay attention. What
about all these floods? Floods in Texas. Floods in Florida. What about the earthquake in
Mexico City? You know, every day there are
earthquakes throughout the world. And all of these are warnings
to the wicked. But, even God's people have to
go through these difficulties. But they're not judgments to
God's people. They're judgments on the wicked.
Announcing another greater judgment that is to come. but let it be known by all of
God's adopted children, it shall be well with you." I don't know
what God's going to do. I don't know what God's going
to do with this nation. Whatever He does is right. And it may very well be that
all of God's people scattered among the 50 states of this great
country. It may be that we'll have to
suffer some. And indeed, individually, we
do have our troubles and our trials, storms. But I've got a message for you
who are righteous, righteous through the righteousness of
Jesus Christ. Those of you who are legally
and fully accepted by a holy God due to the faithful obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have a message for you. Say ye to
the righteous, it shall be well with him. Whatever happens, it
be okay with you. All will be well because God
will work all things out for the good of His elect. It doesn't mean things aren't
going to be difficult for you. It doesn't mean you're going
to have a smooth pathway through life. You may very well have
great troubles that you'll experience, but it shall be ultimately well
with you. For they shall eat the fruit
of their doings. You see, you will reap the results
You will reap the rewards of the faithful works of the Lord
Jesus, who is your head and your representative. He was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. And we will reap the
rewards of that faithfulness. We will reap the rewards of His
obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. The reward
being everlasting life. So amidst all the difficulties
of life, when you go through these, when you go through the
storms, just remember, it's okay. All is well. All is well. God doesn't send judgments to
His people. All of our judgment has been
borne by the Lord Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. So I have a message for the righteous. It shall be well. It shall always
be well with you. The Scripture says, Job 5.19,
He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven no evil
shall touch thee. No evil can ever lay its hand
on you, dear righteous one. Children of God, evil means unkind,
hurtful, and destructive. Nothing destructive will ever
come your way. Nothing that will ultimately
hurt your soul will ever happen to you. God will never do anything
to you that's unkind. God has nothing but love in His
heart toward His elect. And all that He does for us is
for our good and for His glory and fulfills His eternal purpose. It shall be well with thee. Remember
that in the storms of life. All is well. We know the One
who's guiding the ship of grace and we know that He will conduct
us safely to the other side, it shall be well with thee. We
eat the fruit of His doings. And then He says, I have a message
for the wicked also. Verse 11, woe unto the wicked,
it shall be ill with him. Heavy judgments are coming your
way. I must be faithful and must be
honest to you if you're in unbelief. The wrath of God abides over
your head. That's what the Scripture says.
He that believeth not. The wrath of God is right over
you. It's only the mercy of God that
keeps you out of hell. You ought in your heart of hearts
to ask God right now. Lord, teach me the Gospel. Lord,
open up my ears and open up my heart to what this man is speaking
about. The salvation of my soul. That
which gives God the glory in salvation. Salvation all in Christ
Jesus. Salvation all by grace. Salvation
all in His substitutionary sacrifice. Oh God, teach me this Gospel.
Because I'm in a dangerous, dangerous position. I'm under the wrath
of God. If I'm an unbeliever, if you're
an unbeliever, if you're in your sins, you have no mediator, you
have nobody to speak to God for you, what an awful condition
is yours. That's why we persuade men, be
you reconciled to God. You will not come to a good end. If you live and die in unbelief,
live and die in your sinfulness, live and die godless and graceless
and Christless, you will not come to a good end. You cannot
come to a good end. Our Lord Jesus said, if you die
in your sins where I am, you can't come. You can't come. And you won't come. He will not
let you into His holy heaven. Those only who go to heaven have
been washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. They're robed in
His beauties, in His comeliness, in His righteousness. Nobody
else is going to heaven but those sinners saved by God's free and
sovereign grace. Oh, that God would work a work
of grace in your heart. Because if He leaves you to yourself,
If he leaves you to your will, if he leaves you to your ways,
if he leaves you to your thoughts, you will perish in your sins. Woe to the wicked, it shall be
ill with thee. For the reward of his hands shall
be given him. You have no, if you live and
die in unbelief, That means you have nobody to speak for you.
Nobody who has worked a work of redemption for you. Nobody
who's made satisfaction to God for you. All you've got is the
filthy works of your own hands. And God is going to reward you
for those. For the wages of sin is death. It always has been, and it always
will be. You see, final judgment will
be according to the strictest of justice. Even those who are
welcomed into heaven by God Himself will be received upon the basis
of justice satisfied in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who are sent away from
it, those who must hear those fateful words, depart from me,
I never knew you. Divine justice will be executed. You'll get just exactly what
you deserve. Understand this, at the judgment,
everybody gets what they deserve. Everybody gets what they deserve.
The righteous, we will get what we deserve based upon the faithfulness
and the obedience and the sacrifice of our representative in head,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll be rewarded for what He's
done. And those who die wicked will
be rewarded for what they've done. They have no head. They have no representative.
They have no Savior. It shall be ill. It shall always
be ill with the wicked. With that introduction, go back
to Revelation chapter 8. Here we read that seven angels
stand by, ready to obey the Word of the Lord, ready to obey His
commands. Each one has a trumpet to blow.
It's a trumpet of warning. It's a trumpet of judgment. The
first six trumpets are to be viewed as warnings and judgments
of God, which God sends to men throughout this Gospel era, throughout
this Gospel age. There's not a day that goes by
that God doesn't warn you that there's a judgment to come. If
you read the newspaper, you listen to the radio, watch the TV, see
all these calamitous things that happen throughout the world,
the disasters that go on. There's not a day that goes by
that God's not sounding the trumpet. There's a judgment to come. Hark
up! Better pay attention. How many
trumpet judgments has God sent to you? He sent to you. These are all providential warnings
which God sends upon men throughout this gospel age. God in mercy,
in mercy, He warns before He sends judgment. He doesn't have
to do that. But He does. If we have ears
to hear, and God's got to give those to us, We will hear this
message. You will not live. You must die. And you must face the God who
made you, the God of holiness and the God of righteousness.
These seven angels stand ready to obey the command of the Lord,
but with these seven angels, there's another angel. This is
the angel of the Lord. This is Christ Jesus Himself. This is the angel of the covenant,
the Son of God. He has a two-fold mission in
this passage of Scripture. First of all, He's the mediator
who represents His people and presents the prayers and the
worship of His people. to the Father upon the basis
of His life laid down, having satisfied the work of redemption
which the Father gave Him to do, He stands before the Majesty
on high as our Advocate, as our Advocate, as our Lawyer, not
to litigate our case as an earthly lawyer would do, but to advocate
for us by His very presence before the Father. And so one of the
hymn writers said, five bleeding wounds he bears received on Calvary. They poor effectual prayers they
ever, they ever plead for me. Forgive them, oh forgive, they
cry. Don't let these ransomed souls
ever die. He's our advocate. But secondly,
he stands there not only as the mediator of his people, but he
stands there as the one who's the judge. If you'll notice in
verse number five, the angel took the censer, he filled it
with the fire of the altar. What is that? You remember the
brazen altar associated with both the tabernacle and the temple. The fire represents the justice
of God, the judgment of God, the wrath of God. Now our Savior
has fully satisfied, appeased God's justice by His own death. Therefore He is our mediator
who intercedes for us with the Father. But this fire which represents
the justice and the judgment of God, He now begins to Throw
it to the earth. Cast it to the earth. These are
daily judgments and daily warnings. The fire of God's wrath someday
is going to fall in its absolute fullest fury. And all of these
judgments that He sends every day are just tokens of that final
judgment. You see, our Lord Jesus is the
Son of God and He's absolutely holy and He's absolutely righteous. He will never clear the guilty. He will never allow sin to go
unpunished. And he gives warnings of these
things. And here he is, he's pictured as hurling down balls
of fire upon the earth day in and day out. Oh, that God would
enable us to listen to these trumpets of judgment. Day after day, week after week,
month after month, Year after year, he warns, God does not
send judgment, ultimate judgment, without warning. God raised up a man by the name
of Noah. He said, I'm going to pour judgment
out upon this world. And Noah preached and he warned. for 120 years. Oh, the long-suffering of God. Oh, the mercy of God. Oh, the
forbearance of God. While men have their wicked fists
balled up in His face, while they spit in His face, as it
were, God sends daily mercies And He also sends daily warnings. You're not going to always live.
You're going to die. No wonder the Bible tells us
over and over again about seeking the Lord. Seeking the Lord. And I know the way it is with
men. I'm the same way. We get so wrapped
up in the things of this world, we forget about the things that
are really important. But that which is of great importance,
number one, is the glory of God. Who's interested in the glory
of God? And number two, the salvation
of your own soul. You are a never-dying soul. You
have a body. Your body is going to die. Your
soul is going to go on. It's going to go on living somewhere
in heaven or in hell. Your soul will go on. How is
it with your soul? And God sends every day these
balls of fire. He has taken the censer from
off the altar. A burnt offering. Our Lord Jesus
has earned the right to judge the world and execute divine
providence. And every day He hurls these
balls of fire to the earth, warning you, prepare to meet thy God. Oh, that we would listen. That
we would take heed. And yet, such is our spiritual
deadness. Such is our depravity. He's got
to give us ears to hear. He's got to give us a heart to
receive. Otherwise, all of these balls of fire, all of these trumpet
warnings, all of these judgments, they'll just go on and we won't
even pay any attention to them. In fact, that's the way it is
with men. Though God sends all the warnings,
who's listening? And yet they keep coming. And
you know, that's the mercy of God. That's the mercy of God
as well. Notice, He casts these to earth. There were voices and thunderings
and lightnings and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had
the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound the trumpet. They're
ready. All they're waiting on is word
from the King. And remember, this is the seventh
vision. The opening of the seventh seal,
excuse me. The opening of the seventh seal.
And this is the Lamb of God who was slaughtered. Who was butchered. The Lamb of God who was slain
for sinners. He's found worthy to execute
God's will, to fulfill God's eternal purpose in this world,
to bring to pass by His providence all that God has predestinated.
And I'll tell you this, the God who has predestinated everything
has also predestinated judgment. And I know I can't frighten you
into salvation. It's a work of God. But you need
to be frightened. You need to stand in awe of God. Here's our problem. Here's the
problem. With all men by nature, there's
no fear of God before our eyes. And you know the God that most
people hear about every day? He needn't be feared anyway.
The God that's proclaimed from the average pulpit is not a God
to be feared. But the God of the Bible, you
better fear Him. You better fear Him who made
the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that in them
is. You better stand in awe of Him who executes His sovereign
will throughout the galaxy. You better stand in fear of Him
who holds your life in His hands. I know God has set a boundary
that we can't pass. He controls our life. He's given
us a certain number of days. When we use them up, they're
gone. Set your heart to wisdom. Lord, teach us to number our
days, to set our hearts to wisdom. You know, the psalmist said that
in, was it Psalm 90 or Psalm 91? to teach us to number our days,
not to number our years. We do that. We have birthdays. He didn't say set your heart
to remember your years, but your days. Your days. Because they're
few. You're stepping ever nearer to
the precipice of eternity. What then? And so God in mercy sends daily
warnings to each of us. And oh may He send the Spirit
of grace through the Gospel to wake us up from our sleep of
death. And to pay attention to the Word
of God. During this gospel age, there
are things that happen in nature which ought to cause men to look
up to the God of glory and cry out for mercy. I know there's a lot of symbolism
in these, and I'll set these before you. But there's also
a lot of literalism in this. Destructions and devastations,
which are the forerunners of final judgment. These are but God's tokens of
His anger against sins and against His enemies. But let the children
of God not be dismayed when the calamities come, because it shall
be well with the righteous. Look at verse 7. The first angel sounded. The
first angel sounded. Each of these angels are sounding
these trumpet judgments. And to me, each of them is saying
this, the God of the Bible will punish sin. That's what every
one of these trumpet judgments are about. The God of the Bible
will punish sin. How is it with you? I know that
the God of the Bible will punish sin. I know it for three reasons
because the Word of God says so. God says in Exodus 34, 7,
I will by no means clear the guilty. That's what God said. I know God's going to punish
sin. He said I'm not going to clear
the guilty. He said, the wages of sin is death. The soul that
sinneth shall die. That's what the Word of God says.
Secondly, I know that the God of the Bible will punish sin
because He's shown that previous times. I mentioned the flood of Noah's
day. You don't think God will punish
sin? God saw that the imagination of man's heart was only evil
continually? He said, I'm just going to wipe
out. I'm going to wipe out all the population except for those
who know Me. And He sent destruction, He sent
death to a whole world of sinners. And everybody went to hell who
was not in the ark. I know God punishes sin. He opened up the heavens and
sent down balls of fire upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. You can't find those cities today.
They're beneath the Dead Sea. I know God punished sin. His
Word says so. He's shown it in previous times.
But I know it most of all because of what happened at Calvary.
When God's darling son hung on that cross, charged with all
the sins of His people, God didn't spare him. God didn't show him
any mercy. The Lord Jesus paid the debt
for all of His people. That meant enduring all the wrath
of God, all the justice of God, all the judgment of God toward
our sins. All the sins of all of God's
people, of all of the ages, all heaped upon the Son of God, and
then the judgment of God fell on Him. I know the God of the
Bible will punish sin. I know it because He says He
will. I know it because there are evidences, illustrations
throughout history that He's punished men for their sins.
And I know it because Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures. And if you die in your sin, you're
not going to get all free. You'll go to the judgment without
a mediator, without the blood, without righteousness, without
a great high priest. You're going by yourself and
then God's going to send you to hell. balls of thunder and lightning,
the balls of fire falling every day. Prepare to meet God, it's
what it says. Flee to Christ Jesus. Here's the first trumpet. It's
the judgment upon the earth's vegetation, hail and fire, mingled
with the blood of men. Somebody might say, I don't think
God would ever do anything That's unkind to people. I don't think
God brings the storms and so forth. Well, you need to read
your Bible. You see, you watch the television
like me and you see all those hurricanes lined up in the Atlantic. You know whose storms they are?
They're God's storms. And you see the devastation they
can bring about. You see the hurricane that hit
into Texas? Houston still, many parts of
Houston still having difficulties? You see what's happened in Florida?
You see what just happened in Puerto Rico? All those storms? Who do you think set those storms?
Well, I think the devil did those. God's the first cause of all
things. All the storms come forth from
His hands. The wind cannot blow apart from
the will of God. That's His storm. That's His
wind! That's what it is. It's His wind. All the floods
that happen, they're His. Here we have the first angel.
Hail and fire mingled with blood, cast upon the earth. The third
part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt
up. I've thought about this and I'm not sure I have all of the
answers and I don't profess to have all the answers of the symbolism
in the book of the Revelation, but I know this. These are things,
the trees and the grass, these are things we take for granted.
We think very little about. We went up into northern Michigan
and you see the trees are turning up there and they're so beautiful.
And we just assume every year at autumn, you'll see those beautiful
colors. The green grass. Oh, I love to
see a yard that's been freshly mowed. Looks so lovely. Things that we just take for
granted. God sends storms and he can take away a third of the
things that we take for granted, like the trees. Or He can take
it all away. He can take it all away. We're utterly dependent upon
God. And the Gospel that we have. The Gospel that we have. The
green grass of the Gospel. The pasture. The pasture from
which we feed. We'll always have the Gospel. And you, you think every week,
you say, we'll always go to church, I'll see you next Sunday. Will
you? Will the green grass always be
here? I tell you what God can do, He
can just burn up the grass. Take it right away. But it's
always, it's been here for years and years. Yes, and I know you've
just figured that there'll be another time for me to hear the
gospel. There'll be more trees, there'll
be more grass. Will there? God can send a bolt of fire from
heaven and just burn it up. Take it right away from you.
Then what are you going to do? What are you going to do if God
takes the gospel away? The first trumpet judgment. God
takes away things that we just take for granted. The second angel in verse 8,
sounded and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was
cast into the sea. This is the fall of nations.
Mountains are often in the Bible. Great individuals, great leaders
are likened to mountains. And the Lord casts them into
the sea, brings them down. He brings down one nation. He
brings down one great leader, lifts up another nation, another
great leader. A third part of the sea became
blood. The third part of the creatures
which were in the sea and had life died. A third part of the
ships were destroyed. God brings destruction. And you
see the destruction going on around you. Does it affect you? Watch this, the third angel sounded. There fell a great star from
heaven, burning as it were a lamp. It fell upon the third part of
the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. The name of the star
is Wormwood. Bitterness. The third part of
the waters became Wormwood. Men died of the waters because
they were made bitter. They drank of the waters and
it was bitter waters. Do you remember in the book of
Exodus when Israel was beginning their journey and they came to
Marah? The water was bitter. Bitter water. They couldn't drink
it. You know what made the water sweet? God told Moses, cast a
tree in. What's that tree a picture of? Calvary, substitution, satisfaction,
the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But without the gospel, there's
only bitterness. People are drinking the waters
of religion today. And you know what they are? They're bitter waters. They're
bitter waters. There's no life in it. There's
no life. Our Lord Jesus spoke to the woman
at the well. He talked about Himself being
the water. He said if you drink the water, this water, the literal
water, He said you'll thirst again. But if you drink the water
that I'll give you, you'll live! Within you, there's life everlasting! There's a sweetness to the water
of the Gospel, but you take the cross of Christ away, you take
the doctrine of atonement away, the doctrine of reconciliation,
you take the bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ away,
you're left with a bitter religion. That's in the world today. That's
what's in the religion of the world, and people are drinking
the bitter waters. As we would say, they're drinking
the Kool-Aid. They're drinking it, but there's
no cross there. There's no doctrine of reconciliation
there. There's no righteousness there.
There's no blood there. It's only bitterness. It's wormwood
is what it is. The religion of this world is
wormwood. But I remind you, it's a judgment
of God. It's a judgment of God. Because
you see, this star, where did it come from, this great star?
It came from heaven. Who sent it? God sent a strong
delusion. And I'm telling you, God has
sent a strong delusion to this world. Religion abounds. False religion abounds. And people
are deluded and deceived. It's the judgment of God. The judgment of God. And the fourth angel sounded,
and the third part of the sun was smitten, the third part of
the moon, the third part of the stars, so that the third part
of them was darkened. The day shone not, for the third
part of it in the night was likewise." What's this all about? God withholds
the light. He just withholds the light. What has to happen before you
to die in the darkness of sin? God just holds back the light. All God's got to do is just leave
you to yourself. You'll ruin yourself. Say, oh,
I believe in free will. If God leaves you to your free
will, you'll perish in your sins. And in His judgment, He sends
darkness. Now thankfully, He doesn't send
it everywhere. He doesn't send it everywhere. But He sends it to many places. He just takes the light away. What is it in Revelation chapter
1? What are the churches likened
to? Gold and candlesticks. What does
a candlestick do? What's its purpose? To give light. To give light. And then God just takes the light
away. Our hearts are darkened with
sin. You understand that? What if God leaves us like that? What if He leaves us to ourselves? If He does that, we'll die in
our sins. Oh God, don't leave me in the
midnight of my ignorance and my sinfulness. And then we get
to 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 trumpet of the three angels which are yet to
sound. Woe is a word of grief. It's
a word of sorrow. It's a word of wrath. It's a
word of doom to those who are the inhabitants of the earth.
To those whose roots are sunk so deep into the earth, they're
so attached to the world and to the things of this world,
and they're set in opposition to the Lord. Woe to you. Woe to you. As we will look Next week, as
we begin to get into chapter 9, these trumpet judgments will
keep warning men in greatest severity. The end is coming. How is it with you soul? How is it between you and a holy
God? Oh, may God give us grace to
flee to Christ Jesus. To believe Him. That one whom
to know is life everlasting. We need His grace, don't we?
We need His light. We need His mercy. And I want
to pay attention. I want the Lord to open my eyes.
I want Him to open your eyes. And see every day all of these
warnings that He gives. to everybody. And let the people
of God not be discouraged when you see these things and devastations
come upon the earth and see what's going on in religion. Just remember,
God's on the throne. It shall be well with you. Don't
be disturbed. Trust in the Christ who rules
all things. But let the wicked be warned. And if you're yet in your sins,
I pray God won't give you any rest until you rest in Christ,
until He brings you to Himself.