Revelation chapter eight. The
title of the lesson this morning is Four Trumpets of Judgment.
There are seven of these trumpets. We're going to look at four of
them this morning. I've said this before. Let me remind us
again that these trumpets are not the last trump, the trump
that will sound when our Lord returns. These trumpets reveal
God's judgment against sin and rebellion here on earth. This
is what the Lord's been doing in all of human history. This
is not just something that will happen in the day our Lord returns,
but this is what our Lord has done throughout all of human
history. And these trumpets don't refer
to specific individuals or specific time periods or events in history.
It's figurative language that shows us throughout human history
how God has dealt with man's sin. Now, we might see some specific
instances where we see, well, this is what the Lord did. Maybe
we do. Maybe we don't. I don't know.
But this is not talking about one event or one time period. It's teaching us how God deals
with rebellion and sin in this world. Now, the first five verses
we looked at last week, We saw the intercession of Christ for
his people. We saw how that when Christ makes intercession for
his people, there's a basis for his intercession. He makes intercession
for his people based upon his sacrifice for the sin of his
people. And because it's based upon his sacrifice, his intercession
is always accepted of the father. It's always successful. Now in
the rest of the chapter, this is what we're going to see. that
there's no hope of life, there's no hope of mercy, there's no
hope of salvation outside of Christ, outside of his sacrifice
and his intercession for his people. And the sound of these
trumpets represent the gospel. Often throughout, all through
the scriptures, the sound of a trumpet represents the sound
of the gospel being preached. To a believer, that's a sweet
sound. It's the sound of grace and mercy
and life and peace and freedom in Christ. And to the unbeliever
that sound, the sound of the gospel is a sound of death unto
death. It's death and judgment outside of Christ. So verse six
of Revelation chapter eight, here's the first trumpet. And
the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves
to sound. And the first angel sounded and
there followed hail and fire mingled with blood and they were
cast upon the earth. And the third part of the trees
was burnt up and all the green grass was burnt up. Now the sounding
of this trumpet reveals God's judgment against sin and unbelief
in general. Sin in the last day, in judgment
day, is going to be judged with eternal death. But you know,
oftentimes in this life, God judges sin too. Sinners who refuse
to bow to him, God deals with them. God will just remove a
man or a woman from this earth just suddenly because of their
sin and rebellion against him. And Scripture's filled with examples
of that. You remember Nabal? Nabal who
refused to give David and his men food? While he was just eating
at a feast, he just died. King Saul suddenly was killed
in battle. Herod, at the height of his pride
in front of everybody, bragging on himself, just suddenly died.
That's God just killing men, taking them out of this world
in an instant, because of their rebellion. The grass here that
was destroyed represents all flesh. All flesh is this grass
that withereth and fadeth. And all flesh is going to be
destroyed. Now look over in Exodus chapter 9. The hail and the fire
that fell here represent God's judgment against sin. It represents
God's judgment against a refusal to bow to God's command. Now
you remember in Egypt, The hail and the fire was one of the plagues
on Egypt. Egypt represents sin, bondage
to sin. And so for their refusal to believe
God, to bow to him, God sent this hail in Exodus 9, verse
17. As yet, exaltest thou thyself
against my people, that thou will not let them go? Behold,
tomorrow, about this time, I will cause it to rain a very grievous
hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof,
even until now. Send therefore now and gather
thy cattle and all that thou hast in the field. For upon every
man and beast which shall be found in the field and shall
not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them and
they shall die. He that feared the word of the
Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle
flee into the houses. And he that regarded not the
word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field.
And the Lord said unto Moses, stretch forth thine hand toward
heaven, that there may be hail and all the land of Egypt upon
man and upon beast and upon every herb of the field throughout
the land of Egypt. And Moses stretched forth his
rod toward heaven and the Lord sent thunder and hail and the
fire ran along upon the ground and the Lord rained hail upon
all the land of Egypt. So there was hail and fire mingled
with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it
in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail
smote throughout all the land of Egypt, all that was in the
field, both man and beast, and the hail smote every herb of
the field and break every tree of the field. Now, God told them,
if you do not let my people go and you don't bring your servants
and your cattle out of the field, they're all going to die. Now
anyone who died in that hailstorm had nobody to blame but themselves.
It was their own fault. They didn't believe God. That
was God's judgment upon them for not believing Him. It was
their own fault, wasn't it? And everything out in the field
was destroyed. I mean, you imagine, I've seen
hail and it's kind of frightening. You imagine hail mingled with
fire and the fire running along upon the ground. That is such
a frightening sight. But you know, always in the midst
of judgment, there's mercy. Look at verse 26. Only in the
land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no
hail. God spared his people. His judgment
against unbelief didn't pour out upon his people. And our
text of Revelation says the exact same thing. Only a third part
of the trees were burned up. God reserved mercy for a remnant.
He has a remnant that he elected according to his grace. And those
people are not going to be destroyed because Christ, their substitutes
already been destroyed. Now, everyone outside of Christ
is going to be destroyed because God's wrath is upon them. John
said all the grass was destroyed. Grass is the flesh. All flesh
has got to be destroyed. All of it's going to be destroyed.
Everyone who is in Christ is saved from God's wrath because
Christ was already smitten for them. And since Christ was smitten
for them, God's blessing is on them. He's never going to put
his judgment upon them. That's the first trumpet that
sounded, just reveals God's general judgment against unbelief. All
right, here's the second trumpet back in our text, Revelation
8 verse 8. And the second angel sounded,
and as it were, a great mountain burning with fire was cast into
the sea. And the third part of the sea
became blood. And the third part of the creatures which were in
the sea and had life died. And the third part of the ships
were destroyed. Now the sounding of this trumpet
reveals God's judgment against false religion. False religion
that builds itself up by lying upon God and when they do, they
kill the souls of the people who believe them, who follow
them, who try to hide themselves in that mountain. Now I'll show
you that's exactly what that means in Jeremiah chapter 51. We always need to remember this.
The best commentary you can find on God's Word is God's Word. If we were left to know what
this mountain meant, we'd be wrong. Whatever it is we make
up will be wrong. But here in Jeremiah 51 verse
24, God tells us exactly what that mountain is. And I will
render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all
their evil that they done in Zion in your sight, saith the
Lord. Now, Babylon represents in scripture
false religion and God calls their religion. It's evil. It's evil. There's not some good
things in it. It's evil. That's what Babylon
represents. And look in verse 25, what God
says about them. Behold, I'm against thee. O destroying
mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth, and
I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from
the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. Now the Lord
calls Babylon. Babylon represents the religion
of the world. It represents free will religion.
God calls that religion a destroying mountain. A mountain that destroys
everybody who's in it. A mountain who destroys people
who believe it, who try to make that their refuge, They're all
destroyed. God says, I'm going to stretch
out my hand in judgment against that mountain, and I'm going
to destroy it with fire. It's going to be rolling down
and flattened. That's the exact same mountain
John describes in our text, a burning mountain. And the destruction
of that mountain is going to be complete. Look at verse 26.
And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone
for a foundation. There's going to be nothing left
of that mountain to build with, a corner or a foundation. But
thou shalt be desolate forever, saith the Lord. And you know,
God does, from time to time, you see him destroying and disrupting
false religion in this world. But one day that destruction
is going to be complete. In the day of judgment, it'll
be complete, utterly wiped out. And I can tell you why that is.
Why is that necessary? Because man's religion is a religion
of pride. Just full of pride. You know,
by nature, you know this is true. We think a whole lot more of
ourselves than we should. By nature, we think, you know,
there's some good in me. Everybody says that man's totally
depraved, but now there's some good in me. We think that, even
though God's word says the exact opposite. By nature, we think
we have some capacity to do something spiritual. We've got a capacity
to decide to be saved. You've got a capacity to do spiritual
things that God will be pleased with. We think that even though
God's word says the exact opposite. Now, why do we think that way?
We're full of pride. I mean, who do we think we are? The only reason we think we can
disagree with God is we're too big for our britches. We think
we're just a whole lot bigger than we really are. How full
of pride do we have to be to disagree with God so much we
make up a different gospel? I mean, we just change it completely.
The only reason that we would dare contradict God is we're
filled with pride. We've got way too high a view
of ourselves and way too low a view of God that would cause
us to change, just make up a different gospel. It's no wonder when God
gives us a list of the things that he hates, pride is the first
thing on the list. God hates it and he's going to
destroy it. God will destroy that religion
of man's pride. And sometimes God does that now. He just he takes people out of
this world while they're trusting when they seem that they're in
the height of their strength and their glory and they're they're
in the height of their refuge of lies. God just removes them
from the earth immediately, suddenly. I don't know why necessarily
he does it or why he doesn't always do it. I don't know. That's
the Lord's business. But I know one reason he takes
those people out of the world so suddenly sometimes. It's so
that more people won't be destroyed by This is a destroying mountain. God's not going to let it destroy
forever. This is a destroying mountain. That's scary in and
of itself. And this is a destroying mountain. If we find ourselves drawn to
that mountain, we'll be destroyed. And God's destruction of it.
That sounds very scary, doesn't it? The mountain burning and
falling into the sea and causing the sea to turn to blood. I mean,
that sounds so awful. But you know, God's people, have
nothing to fear. You don't have to fear this trumpet
at all. Those who trust in Christ never have anything to fear.
John said only a third part of the sea was turned to blood.
Only a third part of the, I guess, fish or whoever was in the sea
that had life died. Only a third of the ships were
destroyed. Everything wasn't destroyed. Why not? Because God
has a people. He has a remnant according to
his election of grace. God chose those people in grace. This is the election of grace.
Well, God's not going to change his mind and cast them out. Those
people could never die. Christ is the object of their
faith. Their faith is not found in that
in that destroying mountain. Their faith is found in Christ.
And they can never be ashamed. They can never be found guilty.
That whole mountain of false religion is going to be destroyed.
But the foundation of God's not The foundation of God always
stands sure, having this seal. The Lord knows them that are
His, and He's not going to allow them to be destroyed. The believer
who has faith in Christ got nothing to fear. So when it comes time
for the death of these bodies, the believer doesn't have to
fear. We don't fear the death of these bodies any more than
we fear laying down and going to sleep at night, knowing that
we're going to wake up feeling better in the morning. You don't
have to fear sleep at night. The believer doesn't have to
fear the death of these bodies. It's just sleep. We're going to lay
it down for something better. We don't have to fear judgment.
The believer doesn't. Because Christ has made his people not
guilty. An innocent man doesn't fear judgment. We don't have
to fear this mountain being destroyed because a believer has a good
refuge. We already have a refuge. It's not that mountain, is it?
No, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Son of God Himself. I believe that's safe refuge,
don't you? We got nothing to fear. We're secure in Christ,
against God's judgment, against false religion in this world.
All right, verse 10, here's the third trumpet. And the third
angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning
as it were a lamp. And it fell upon the third part
of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the
star is called Wormwood. And the third part of the waters
became wormwood. And many men died of the waters
because they were made bitter. Now the sounding of this third
trumpet reveals God's judgment against false prophets. Here
this star falls from the heaven and causes all this destruction.
What's that star? Remember back in chapter one,
God told us what the stars are. The stars that were in his hand,
he said, represent his preachers. Well, this star that fell, It
wasn't in the hand of the Lord, was it? If it was in the hand
of the Lord, it would never fall. Because those who are in the
hand of the Lord, no man can pluck them out of his hand. No
man can pluck us out and we can't jump out. We're going to be kept
in his hand. So this star that fell was just
a star up in the sky. And it was a great star that
fell. That great star represents false
prophets. They're not in the hand of the
Lord. They're just up there in the sky for a while. And it's
a great star. This false prophet, many of them
grow so famous, they grow so bright, they're seen all over
the world. But eventually, they fall. They're
going to fall eventually. I know they seem strong and mighty
and wealthy and powerful and they've got such a grip on people.
But they'll eventually fall. Because they're not upheld by
the hand of God. They're not God's servants. They
will eventually fall. Eventually their heresy was going
to be revealed. Apparently, or eventually their
wicked motives are going to be revealed. Sometimes we see this
happen in this life, don't we? How many famous TV preachers
and these televangelists and all, how many times just in the
past 25 years have we seen them just fall in disgrace? Sometimes
that happens in this life. But I'm promised you this. One
day they're going to fall and their destruction is going to
be complete. In the day of judgment, they won't be accepted. They'll
fall. And the name of the false prophet tells us about the character
of his message. The character of his message.
His name is Wormwood. That word Wormwood means bitterness. The false prophet, whoever he
is, in every generation of all human time, their message is
a bitter message. It's a message of men's works.
Don't you reckon that it would be so bitter to come in here
every Sunday and every Wednesday and have somebody up here just
harping on everything you've done wrong this week and how
you've got to do better. Wouldn't that be bitter? It would
be so bitter. The message of man's works. How well we can
do. How well we can live. That's
a bitter message because we always fail. Preaching the demands of
the law. Even God's servants can temporarily
fall into this thinking, boy, we've got to straighten everybody
up with the whip of the law. That's bitterness. That's a bitter
message. The message of trying to keep
everybody in line by church discipline. I had somebody ask me one time,
what do you do about church discipline? I said, I preach the word. The
answer to what do you do is always, we just preach the word. How
are people going to be saved? We preach the word. How people
come to know Christ? Preach the word. How are God's
sheep going to be fed? We preach the word. How's somebody
going to grow in grace? We preach the word. How do you
handle discipline? Preach the word. The word handles
every need of God's sheep. We just preach the word. But
this message of bitterness, whatever it is, it's anything other than
Christ, anything related to us. Everyone who drinks that water,
everyone who believes that message and swallows it, everybody who
drinks that Kool-Aid is going to die. It's a bitter message. I tell you why they die, because
they're drinking something other than Christ, the water of life.
Man's sin, man's religion is just like the bitter waters of
Mara. Remember the children of Israel
came out of Egypt and they'd been going on for days without
water and they were grumbling and what are we going to drink?
And they saw this oasis. They're so excited they ran up
to it. But the waters were bitter. They couldn't be drunk. They
were just awful. And Lord told Moses, Moses, see that tree over
there? Moses said, no. Never noticed it. I didn't see
it before. God said, you take that tree and cast it into the
water and the water will be made sweet. And he did. Those bitter
waters that could not be drunk were now made sweet when that
tree was thrown into the water. You know what that tree is a
picture of? It's a picture of Christ, the tree of life. And
when Christ is the subject, when Christ is the heart of the message,
when it's all about him, that message won't be bitter. It's
going to be a message that's sweet. It's going to be the sweet
message of grace, the sweet message of forgiveness, the sweet message
of atonement, the sweet message of sure salvation. And people
who drink that water, people who believe that message, they're
going to live. But this false prophet that John
wrote of here, he represents every false prophet, not just
a specific individual, but this is just every false prophet.
Every false prophet eventually is going to fall. Sooner or later,
they're going to fall. But and everybody who believes
them, they're going to die. They're going to be destroyed
with them. Well, that sounds frightening, doesn't it? What
will keep a child of God from following after that false prophet
and being fooled and being deceived and drinking that water, drinking
that bitter water, believing his message? Look at Mark chapter
13. It won't be our strength. It
won't be the strength of our faith. It won't be how smart
we are that, you know, we're so smart and so, you know, well
founded in doctrine that we can't be deceived. It's not going to
be anything about us. Only the Lord can keep his people.
Mark chapter 13, verse 21. And then if any man shall say
to you, lo, here's Christ or lo, he's there. Believe him not.
For false Christ and false prophets shall rise and shall show signs
and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect,
if it were possible. So obviously then it's not possible
that the elect be deceived. But take ye heed. Behold, I foretold
you all these things. But in those days after that
tribulation, the sun shall be darkened. The moon shall not
give her light. The stars of heaven shall fall
and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. Don't be deceived. Don't be scared by that. I'll
show you what that means here. John's going to tell us exactly
what that means in just a second. And then shall they see the Son
of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then
shall he send his angels and shall gather together his elect
from the four winds from the uttermost part of the earth to
the uttermost part of heaven. You see, it's the Lord that kept
his people. He's the one who keeps them.
He's the one that doesn't allow them to be destroyed. And He's
going to keep them. He's going to gather them all
out. John says the same thing in our text. The wormwood only
destroyed a third of the waters, just a third. The Lord always
has a remnant that He chose to Himself, that He's going to keep,
that He's going to protect. And one day, He'll gather together
to Himself. Right? Verse 12, back in our
text, Revelation 8. Here's the fourth trumpet. And
the fourth angel sounded. and the third part of the sun
was smitten, and a third part of the moon, and a third part
of the stars. So as the third part of them
was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and
the night likewise." Now people use these verses to try to scare
people half to death. This is not speaking of a literal
event. The sounding of this trumpet
brought great darkness upon the earth, great spiritual darkness
upon the earth. Well, that's not something that's
going to happen sometime out in the future. That's our day. This is our day. And you know
what? Enoch would have said, this is
my day. Noah would have said, this is my day. Moses, Abraham,
Jacob, Isaac, they all would have said, this is my day. Paul
said, this is my day. We say the same thing. You know
why? It's always been this way. Man is born in spiritual darkness,
great spiritual darkness, and we need light. Well, the sun
that's darkened, what does that mean? I can show you Malachi
chapter four, the last chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi
chapter four, the sun being darkened. The sun in scripture almost always
represents our Lord Jesus Christ. Malachi four, Verse 12. But unto you that fear my name
shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. See, this son is speaking of
a person. The son of righteousness shall
rise with healing in his wings and you should go forth and grow
up as calves of the stall. The son represents our Lord Jesus
Christ and you know light. represents Christ. It's spiritual
light, Christ, the light of the world. Look at another scripture,
Luke chapter one. Light also represents the gospel
of Christ being preached. The gospel which reveals Christ
is light. Luke chapter one, verse 76. Thou child shall be called the
prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the
Lord to repair his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his
people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy
of our God, whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us
to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. The preaching
of the gospel gives light. because the preaching of the
gospel reveals Christ. Well, when this fourth trumpet
was blown, a third part of the light was taken away from the
earth. And darkness, just the heresy and wickedness of man's
religion, the darkness of that just engulfed religion. There
were fewer churches than ever before. That's what the moon
represents, the third part of the moon. The moon represents
the church. You know, you see the moon up
in the sky and sometimes it's very bright, but it doesn't have
any light in itself, does it? Why is the moon so bright at
night? It's reflecting the light of the sun. That's what the church,
we don't have any light in ourselves. The only light we have is Christ
and we preach the gospel. We're reflecting his light. There
are fewer churches. Since there are fewer churches,
there are fewer preachers. A third part of the stars are
taken away. That's God's preacher. Some of them are taken away and
gone, not replaced with another man. And the thick darkness of
night just filled religion. When it should have been day,
when it should have been light, there's darkness. Because all that was
left was religion without Christ. There's no light. And when there's
no light, there can't be any light. But now listen, God has
a remedy. God sent the gospel to His people. His Son comes to the hearts of
His people. He's not going to leave them
in darkness. How can they be in darkness if they have Christ's
light? It's impossible. You cannot be in darkness if
you have light. Look at Exodus chapter 10. This
was pictured for us, this darkness was pictured for us again in
the plagues of Egypt, in the plague of darkness. Exodus 10 verse 21. And the Lord said unto Moses,
stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness
over the land of Egypt, even darkness, which may be felt.
Now that's the darkness of unbelief. It is so thick, it can be felt. I mean, you can feel it, can't
you? Verse 22. And Moses stretched forth his
hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the
land of Egypt three days. And they saw not one another.
Neither rose any from his place for three days. But all the children
of Israel had light in their dwellings. For three days, the
Egyptians, those who refused to believe God, they couldn't
see anything because of the darkness. And that's what the darkness
of unbelief is. When we're in unbelief, we can't
see. We can't see any spiritual truth.
You see Christ in those verses and you want to tell somebody,
can't you see? No, they can't. Not until God gives them light,
they can't. When we're in darkness, we can't see what we are. We
can't see who Christ is. We can't believe Christ. We can't
see Him. We can't come to Him because we don't see Him. But
everybody that belongs to Christ, they have light. They see. They
see who Christ is. They see their need. So they
come to Christ. They rest in Christ. Thank God
He has a remnant. If God didn't have a remnant,
a people that He reserved to Himself, we'd all be left in
darkness. The darkness of rebellion. The
darkness of unbelief. That's the darkness that we're
born in. If God didn't do something for us, we never would have seen.
How many, how many, how many? I know how many. 100% of everybody
who believes sitting here this morning, 100% one day could not
see. They, I mean, you might, you
might be like me. I tried, I tried to see. Couldn't do it. And then one
day, You saw. I see, I know what I see, what
he's saying, I see what he's been saying to me for you, I
see. And you can't not say Kenya. What happened? God gave you life. God gives his people life. You've
got light to see. You've got light to see Christ.
You've got light to see who you are, so you cannot trust in yourself,
but you've got to go to Christ. You've got to keep going. Peter
said, to whom coming? I don't just come to him one
time. I keep coming to him. I need him every hour. If you've
got that light, thank God. God gives that light to the people
he reserved to himself. He won't leave his people in
darkness. Lord willing, then, next or two
weeks from now, we'll pick up there and look at the other trumpets
that sound. Lord bless you.