Last week in Revelation chapter
eight, we saw sort of an introduction to the seventh seal judgment. You know, these seven seals we've
been talking about there. These are seven seals of judgment,
God's judgment on the earth against all sin and unrighteousness.
And this seventh seal is a revelation of seven trumpets. four of which
prepare during the time of tribulation, what the Bible calls the time
of tribulation, and I'm not gonna get into all the different views
of that, because we don't have time in one setting. I wanna
know what God has for us in this passage, as believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ for our comfort and our encouragement. The first
four trumpets are a preparation, you might say, getting closer
to the end, The second coming of Christ. You see, we believe
in the second coming of Christ. And that is something that is
unique to true Christianity. We believe that our whole salvation
is conditioned upon him and that he fulfilled those conditions
in his death, burial and resurrection to put away our sins and establish
righteousness. The very righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel. and we dwell in him safe and
secure. And so he died, he was buried,
he arose, he ascended unto the Father, he ever lives to make
intercession for us, which is the powerful, continual pleading
of the merits of his blood and righteousness on our behalf so
that we are safe and secure. And he told his disciples that
he's coming again. He said, I'm going to prepare
a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place,
I'm coming again. He's the one way, the truth and
the life for his people. And in these first four trumpets,
we're not going to get to all of them, even the first four.
The seventh, the first four is in the rest of this chapter,
beginning at verse seven. The fifth trumpet is in chapter
nine and the sixth trumpet is in chapter nine. and then the
seventh trumpet is on over in chapter eleven but the first
four are preparation for these last three which mainly talks
about the tribulation period the trouble and the title of
this lesson is Jesus Christ the only way of life because that's
what this these first four trumpets that's what they emphasize as
The message of these trumpets, you know, a trumpet announces
something. You know, there are trumpets
in the Old Testament announcing the coming of an army, announcing
the beginning of the day, announcing the end of the day and the night
coming and going to sleep. We hear about the trumpet of
Jubilee, which is the trumpet of joy. So it's a clarion call. And the message of this is flee
from the wrath to come. Well, where do you flee to? You
flee to Christ. You flee to what He accomplished,
who He is, is God in human flesh, the God-man, mediator, the one
way, the one mediator between God and men. And you flee to
Him as the Lord your righteousness, because that's what it takes
to avoid the judgments of God and His wrath. You see, Christ
took the wrath for His people. And so we're going to see a parallel
of this. These images that we're going
to see, for example, today in the first two trumpets, the images
that John sees in this revelation will find their meaning not in
the local newscast, all right? But they'll find their meaning
in the Old Testament. You know, so many people, when
they talk about these images, they'll go to the modern-day
technology. And they'll talk about atomic
bombs and they'll talk about military war machines. Things
like that. Randy jokes on cobra helicopters,
is that what it was? You know, things like that. That's
not what this is talking about. Now listen to me though. Now
there may be modern war machines that are used of God to bring
about his judgments of wrath and all of that. That's not what
this is talking about. You have to find these images, these symbols,
whatever they mean in the Old Testament. And mainly it all
comes under this, that the wrath of God abides on all who are
not found in Christ. Now that's the lesson. I mean,
you know, you say, well, I believe that locust there is a Cobra
helicopter. Well, you've got no biblical reason to think that.
That's just speculation. But what if you're right? Who
cares? Who cares if you're right? So
it's a Cobra helicopter. Still, if it kills me and I'm
not in Christ, it's God's judgment against me. So how are we going
to be safe from the wrath of God? In Christ, washed in his
blood and clothed in his righteousness. That's the only way. So that's
what this is talking about, and these judgments here, they start
here in this seventh trumpet, or this seventh seal rather,
and remember, who's worthy to open the seals? Only Christ.
You see, man can't figure this out. Man doesn't have the, he
neither has the intellect nor the spiritual mind to figure
these things out. This is of God. Christ is opening
these seals, and here in these trumpets, He's showing that he's
sending that clear message of warning and that we who are in
Christ are eternally safe from the wrath of God because of our
union with him. Now look at the first one, look
at verse seven. It says, the first angel sounded, the first
trumpet, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood and
they were cast upon the earth and the third part of trees was
burned up and all green grass was burned up. That's the first
trumpet judgment. That trumpet judgment, hail and
fire mingled with blood, reminds us of the plagues of Egypt. Well,
a lot of these trumpets remind us of the plagues that fell on
Egypt. You remember when the Hebrew children were in bondage
to Egypt, and God sent, what, 10 plagues, I think it was, and
the last plague was the plague of death, where God instituted
the Passover for the Jewish nation, You know, the blood of the lamb
on the doorpost, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Well,
this hail and fire mingled with blood describes, it does describe
physical disasters upon earth that bring death. That's what
the blood means. Anytime you see blood in the
scripture, it means death. We're saved by the blood of Christ. What does that mean? That means
his death. What that means is the accomplishment
and merit of what he accomplished alone when he died. So we talk
about the precious blood of Christ. We sing about the blood of Christ.
What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Now we're not talking about his, when we sing things like that
and when we see this in scripture, we're not talking about his literal
blood coming upon our physical persons to wash us, even though
there was literal physical blood shed on that cross, wasn't there?
Even before the cross, he sweat great drops of blood in the garden
of Gethsemane, didn't he? There was a real physical suffering
and death of Christ. that brought about his actual
physical blood being spilled on the ground. But it all means his death. So
when the Bible talks about hail and fire mingled with blood,
the hail and the fire, we can talk about physical destruction,
but what he's talking about is physical destruction that brings
death. The wages of sin is death. the soul that sinneth must surely
die. And there's no getting around
that in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Death is the only,
only consequence and judgment of God against sin. And that's
why Christ had to die for our sins imputed to him. That's why
he had to go through what he went through. unto death he was
obedient unto death even the death of the cross well if you're
not in Christ what's gonna have to happen that'll be your death
what the scripture calls not only physical death but the second
death and that's eternal damnation now that's what's going on here
he says hail and fire mingled with blood and they were cast
upon the earth this sin cursed fallen earth under the judgment
of God the judgment of death even the second death and you
don't have to turn I've got this referenced in your lesson Exodus
chapter 9 you read this sometime and I'll show you something is
real significant here in Exodus chapter 9 verses 22 through 26
that's where the hail and the fire fell on Egypt mingle with
blood and It talks about how only those who were out in the
open died. They were out there with no shelter.
They were out there with no covering. They were killed. What does that
tell you? Well, unless we're under the
shelter, unless we're under the right covering, which is what? Christ, our mercy seat, blessed
is the man whose sins are covered. What does that mean? That's referring
to the mercy seat. That's referring to Christ our
shelter, Christ our covering, Christ our hiding place. If you
don't have Christ, the wrath of God will equal in your death,
even the second death. And you read that back there
because it talks about how those who were out in the open, how
they were killed because they had no shelter. And that's a
great picture of how the only way that we can be sheltered
from the storm of God's wrath and be safe from the second death
is to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith. His
righteousness imputed. It's the only way. It tells us there in that Exodus
9 chapter, it says, only those in the land of Goshen were spared. Now, who was in the land of Goshen?
Well, that was the Hebrew children. Remember, that's where when, shoot, I can't think of it, my
mind went blank. Who is it? Jacob, Joseph's father. You remember when he came down,
when they had the famine. They were given the land of Goshen,
God's sealed ones. Remember we've seen in these
seal judgments, and we'll see it again, how the angels who
were instruments of God's judgment upon the earth were commanded,
not the ones who were sealed in their foreheads. All right? That sealing. What is that sealing?
What does it mean, their forehead? It means their mind. It means
their affections, their will, their heart. Sealed by the Holy
Spirit in faith in Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about.
And that's what the land of Goshen symbolizes here. The spiritual
lesson is that there's no safety from the wrath of God to those
who are not in Christ. That's the issue. All right?
Notice here, he says in verse 7, and the third part of trees
was burned up and all green grass was burned up. Trees and green
grass, what do they symbolize? Life. All right? All life on
earth is about to be obliterated. And it's not all at once yet,
see. This is not the final end because
only a third part, he says, Now, you remember back in Revelation
6, 8, it talked about a fourth part of the earth? Well, that
was a limited manifestation of God's wrath. But now it's become
a third part of the earth. It's getting worse. Getting worse. You know, we look around and
we see things getting worse, don't we, in this world. And
we sort of, we complain and gripe and we sort of despair about
that, but we shouldn't. We shouldn't. Because this is
the hand of God, folks. And this is what he said. Now,
there's nothing wrong with being sorrowful and sad, especially
for our loved ones. I mean, we know that and we weep. But the thing about it is we
need to understand as believers who trust God in Christ and who
believe the Bible that this world is not destined to get better.
I don't care who's elected president. Now, that doesn't mean we're
to be irresponsible citizens. We're to be responsible. We're
to be informed. We're to vote our conscience
and vote the right way, which I'm not going to tell you how
to vote. But what I'm saying is we have
to realize that it's not getting better. A third part of the trees,
in other words, life on Earth. And you know, we're living in
a generation today where there's a lot of people who put their
hope in this earth, don't they? The green trees and the grass.
There was one candidate who keeps saying that the greatest threat
to American society today is global warming. And I thought, are you crazy?
You know what the greatest threat to American society is? It's
the greatest threat to every society in this world since Adam,
and that's sin and unbelief. That's the greatest threat. Now
again, I'm not saying we should be irresponsible, even ecologically,
but we don't need to go crazy over it as if our life is sewn
up in this earth. And you know where the arrogance
comes from. Well, I'm gonna repeat a lot of this because I'm gonna
talk a little bit about it in the message. Man thinks that
he has the power and ability to save the world. Doesn't he? I've got news for you. We don't. I'll be honest with
you on this. I don't believe man has the ability
to destroy this world. This world was set in place by
God Almighty. This is the work of God. and all of the things that are
deteriorating and going down this is what the Bible teaches
it's the consequence of sin and the only way to escape the consequence
of sin is to flee to Christ and run to Him but a third part one
thing that I've got in your lesson here about this the fourth part
and the third part I was reading this last week and And a fellow made this comment,
and I thought there may be some validity to this. But he was
talking about back in Revelation. Now, you know, as we go through
Revelation, you know, there's a time span here, and people
get in trouble when they try to specify, you know, this time,
that time, how many years. It's symbolic. But we're going
towards where it starts out in the New Testament church, and
The church is persecuted and then the church becomes corrupted.
That's what I'm going to talk about today in the message. And
the world gets worse and worse and worse. God's judgments keep
falling and they get more severe. Talk about a fourth part and
then a third part. And then in the end, it's going
to be 100% gone. The people of God will be delivered. And this fellow I was listening
to, he talked about how the fourth part If you think about it, and
I don't think we have to be statistically perfect in this, but a fourth
part of the earth being destroyed is probably what we might call
pretty normal as far as the death rate. Especially back then, you
know, when they didn't have the medical procedures that we have.
But, you know, a fourth part of the world, people dying. You
know, that was probably pretty normal. In other words, people
really wouldn't be, really wouldn't take notice of that that much.
But then it gets worse. And here's the third part. This
kind of gets people to thinking. Maybe take notice, you know,
something's going on here that, you know, we need to take notice
of. And I thought about that in line of just exactly what
I was talking about, these ecological things. I mean, you know, back
when I was growing up, nobody worried about pollution and things
like that and global warming, all that. But people are beginning
to take notice. Things getting worse. And that's
when the third part comes in. That's enough that people Start
seeking answers. You know, hey, you know, this,
this, this thing's not going to last forever. What are we
going to do? Well, let's elect so-and-so president
because he's a, he, he believes that global warming is the worst
thing, you know, so he'll stop there. Let's not build that pipeline. Let's, let's figure this out
so we can save the world. It's not going to happen. And I know, again, we ought to
be responsible. Think about our children, our
grandchildren, all that. We want them to have a better
life than what we had. I don't know why. We don't have
that bad of a life, I don't think, do we? I guess we want them not
to do anything. I think that's probably when
the first, you know, we talk about, you know, kids not having
responsibility. I think our parents caused that
because we want them to have a better life. Well, my parents
had a pretty good life. I mean, we weren't rich or anything,
but we had food on the table, a roof over our head. What do
we want for our children? We want them to come to Christ,
don't we? We want them to believe the gospel. There's the only
salvation. It's not in ecology. So what I'm saying is, I think
that's pretty interesting, you know, that man begins to take
notice, here's a third part now, it was a fourth, nobody worried,
here's a third part, man takes notice, and he starts trying
to figure this thing out, how can I fix it? And what God is
saying is, you can't fix it. This is the work of God. And
that's how we're to look at it. All right, look at verse eight.
Here's the second trumpet. This is where I'm going to stop
today. But he says in verse 8, and the second angel sounded
as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea. Now, in the Bible, this is the
second trumpet. And in the Bible, and I've got
some scripture references there for you to understand this. You
can turn to them in your own study. But a lot of times in
the Bible, God uses a mountain to symbolize what? Man's refuges. Flee to the mountains. I guarantee
you when the flood came during Noah's time, they were looking
for a higher place to go, weren't they? They rejected what Noah
preached. And you remember what it said
Noah preached? Anybody remember? Righteousness. And where'd Noah
find righteousness? Well, I know this. He was a sinner
saved by grace. First thing you read about Noah
in Genesis 6a is Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, 6, 8,
and 9. He preached Christ. It's what Hebrews 11 teaches
us. Well, you can't get any higher than him. So you can flee to
the mountains, but the flood got him. So it symbolizes man's
refuges. It symbolizes man's power. symbolizes
man's kingdom, and I've got here, mountains sometimes symbolize
false religion and man's religious pride. There's a verse in Jeremiah
51 that speaks right to that. Again, you can turn to that in
your own study. But this mountain burning with
fire, what's fire? That's the wrath of God against
sin. Every time I see that, I think
about God is a consuming fire to who? To everyone who approaches
him without Christ. And I think about how Christ
took the fire of God's wrath in our place, the place of his
people. So he takes this burning mountain
under the wrath of God, he casts it into the sea. What's the sea?
The sea is a symbol of trouble, especially in the ancient world.
You remember back in, I can't remember what chapter it was,
but it talked about how by the grace of God, how the people
of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are described as
a glassy sea, the crystal sea. That's a calm sea. That's smooth
sailing. That's what we have by the grace
of God in Christ. But here the sea is what is normally
a picture of, and that's trouble. The trouble that man goes through.
What did Job say? Man is a few days and full of
trouble. The sea is a picture of darkness,
is a picture of death. And here this mountain, everything
that man trusts in, everything that man seeks safety in, refuge,
everything that man thinks gives him power is uprooted and thrown
into that trouble. It's all destined to be doomed.
And of course the lesson there is this. There is no, there is
no relief, safety or salvation from that trouble in any of our
own refuges. Christ is the only refuge and
there is none other. His righteousness is the only
refuge. His blood is the only refuge.
And so it comes, look at it, he says, and the third part of
the sea became blood, death. In other words here, it's not
just trouble, but it's trouble that brings death. It's all death,
the wages of sin. And then he says in verse nine,
and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had
life died. That's the extinction of all
life. All life is gone. There is no life without Christ. That's why he said, I am the
way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father,
but by me. And the third part of the ships
were destroyed. What are ships? They're manmade
devices or objects which are made to keep men safe from the
sea. Won't do it here. No man-made
object, no man-made religion, nothing that man does, nothing
that man creates, nothing that man thinks will be able to save
this world or save man. It's all. Now you see how this
is a preparation, see? And then the next two, we'll
get to them next week, the next two trumpets continue on with
this preparation, leading up to the last three, ultimately
leading up to that last, the seventh trumpet, which is where
you see in all these three the final destruction of the world
and the judgment coming at the second coming of Christ.