Father, I pray that as we gather, there's a part of me that says as you just give a benediction. Now, pardon me, as I get in trouble, I pray that you would just come and as we've been led in worship and singing to your throne, I pray now that we would hear a word from the throne as well by your spirit. I pray that you would encourage us in the gospel. In some sense, we look at the very end of time now, and Father, I pray that it would both encourage us and it would fuel us as we move in that direction. I pray for those who don't know you. I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death. I pray also that you would come and be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. Jesus name, we pray these things. Amen. Amen. You know, if you're here on any given day of the week, really, if you're on staff here, at the church, you often, unfortunately, for you, you would hear me singing in the halls.
And one of the songs, I don't know that sort of goes through my head very often, is the song, I thought of this morning, actually, when I was thinking through the events of this past week, it's been a rough week, hasn't it? Has it not? And the song that came immediately to my mind that I'm sort of constantly singing to myself is, love will show the way by a guy named Dave Wilcox. I'd sing it for you, but then it would go out on YouTube and American Idol would get ahold of it and I just don't have time for that. But what it also, I think the reason this always comes to mind is because I'm such a cynic, right? There's a lot of, you can preach a couple of sermons about why people are cynical, but I think one of the reasons people are cynical, one of the reasons I'm cynical, people I've heard often said, a cynic is an idealist who's been disappointed. You hope for the best, you expect the best and you're always disappointed and you think, well, I'll just avoid disappointment by always expecting the worst. Pretty simple, right? And yet, if the gospel's true, it must be different than that. So I'm not going to sing this, but Wilcox starts, he says, you say that you see no hope, you say that you see no reason we should dream that the world would ever change, you're saying love is bullish to believe because there always be some crazy with an army or a knife to wake you from your daydream and put the fear back in your life. And he says, look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify what's stronger than hate but they not arrange the stage to look as if the hero came too late, he's almost in defeat, it's looking like the evil side will win and so from the edge of every seat from the moment that the whole thing begins is love who makes the mortar and it's love who stack these stones and it's love who made the stage here, although it looks like we're alone in the scene set in shadows like the night is here to stay, there is evil cast around us, but it's love that wrote the play. You see, when you think about the events of the past week and you think even about everything we've looked at in the book of Revelation, the question is how do I make sense of it? How do I make sense of gross, egregious, evil? And you remember as we've looked at the book of Revelation, part of the church's job is to interpret the events for people around us and so when you see egregious evil we need to address it, we need to say something. Typically I think the church often says something like that's just a sign of God's judgment for teaching evolution in schools. I heard that this week. We don't know that but what we can say when we look at the events of the week such as they happened is that things that's not the way things are supposed to be. If you're here you're wondering, you know, what am I supposed to do with that? What I can tell you for sure is that's not the way things are supposed to be and whether you're a Christian or you're not a Christian your heart knows that for sure. As we look at the book of Revelation what the book of Revelation tells us over and over and over again is the way things are supposed to be. The book of Revelation starts all the way back in the book of Genesis. God created Adam and Eve and he put them in the garden and everything was perfect. It was Shalom. It was the way things are supposed to be but Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. By sinning in the garden they brought down a curse not only upon theirself but all of creation. Not anything in creation is ideally the way it's supposed to be and yet he promised even then that he would fix it. He would send one of each children who would bear the curse and who would redeem not only humanity but would redeem all of creation. That's our great hope and that person came in the person work of Jesus. When Jesus came he bore the sin of the world on the cross and he reconciled us to himself and not only us but all of creation so I don't know why God allows evil to win these small battles but what I do know that the promise of the gospel is that ultimately God will win and that's basically the text we're looking at today. The text we're looking at today in some sense could be the end of the book of Revelation. In fact it's a clean stop. If John had stopped here people would have thought man that's a great ending. He didn't but he takes us all the way to the end of history. Remember up to this point we've looked at the purpose of the book of Revelation that Jesus has won that Jesus will win and he is winning. We looked at the fact of the letter to seven churches. Now we've been looking most recently at the seven seals we looked at. Now we're going to look today at the seventh of seven trumpets and then eventually we'll look at the seven bowls of God's wrath and if you remember the seals and the trumpets and the bowls talk about judgment frankly on those who refuse to believe the gospel and in between all of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls are these interludes and the interludes give instruction for the church during these times when trials come and what the church is supposed to do every time it says is to bear witness to the personal work of Jesus that we're to take Jesus to the nations where to be a light to the world we're to be inviteers we're to be to bring people in so that they could hear the good news of the gospel. So there's a lot to look at this morning if we first I'm going to give you a review of the trumpets up to this point and then we're going to look at the kingdom of God and then we're going to jump into the text. If you remember the trumpets whether it's the seals or the trumpets or the bowls that are coming up remember I told you that at least my understanding of these is that they basically are redemptive history at least from the time of Jesus resurrection to the very end of time you'll see that today I hope and so it's the events that happen and so if we look at the first trumpets remember the first trumpet was a third of the earth was destroyed the second trumpet a third of the sea was destroyed the third trumpet a third of the waters were made bitter and many people died and then the fourth trumpet was basically darkness that a third of the heavens was cast down a third of the sun a third of the sun a third of the stars and they also were just like the plagues that you saw in Egypt there was a lot of play between the plagues in Egypt and the plagues that you see in the trumpets and you remember in the in the book of Exodus the plague of darkness was the final plague before the end in other words it's the final warning when darkness comes you know the next thing will be terminal literally the plague upon the firstborn and probably in the book of Revelation in these trumpets the same thing is happening that once this darkness comes it's a warning for those who have not yet fled to Jesus to do it now while there is time because you've heard me say over and over if you've been here there will come a time when there is no more time then we look at the fifth trumpet the fifth trumpet was these locusts that had long hair teeth like lion and they were human sized and they were sent throughout the earth for five months by Satan really straight from the pit of hell literally and they were the torment of the people of the earth not kill them just torment them and then after the torment for five months figuratively speaking then this massive army came that was so big John described it as two times infinity and remember I told you the only baby unless you're Chuck Norris don't even try counting that high but it was two times infinity and I think the point was it makes you it's supposed to make you afraid that this army will come to bring God's vengeance upon the earth and it kills many many people and there's still some people alive and you think those people who are alive that they would sort of get a clue and they would they would say okay everyone all these people have been killed by these like locusts and these army that with these huge horses maybe they will get with the program and they don't it says they love their idols more than anything else and so they followed idols rather than the living God and at that point you think well gosh what are we supposed to do now if you're part of the church and then we have another interlude right in verses chapters 10 and 11 you have an interlude that gives instruction to the church and basically to summarize 10 and 11 the church is to continue to bear witness to those people that were never there's never a time in the church's history both now or in the future when it's not supposed to be bearing witness to the person and work of Jesus and so as we get into the text here this morning when we look at the 7th trumpet the 7th trumpet is different in many ways than the rest of them and that the 7th trumpet signals the consummation of the kingdom of God okay the 7th trumpet all the other trumpets you know are about the plagues or plagues that come upon mankind or are these demonic locusts or this demonic army that comes and tortures people or kills people the 7th one is very complete and it's about the consummation of the kingdom of God and just to define this for you what do I mean by consummation consummation means to bring to completion or perfection or to fulfill or to wind up if you will in other words there won't be anything after this after the 7th trumpet that's it it's completely and utterly over everything that God planned for history going into the future is completely and utterly done right he's cleaned up the wood shop he's put away his tools a put goes in and he puts his feet on the chair it's done so what consummation means is to completely and utterly finish or fulfill and the 7th trumpet is about God's complete and utter finishing of what his plan is for human time when you get to the kingdom it's a little bit it's not more complicated but there's a little bit more explanation that's needed because basically there's two views of the kingdom in the Bible or at least there were two views one was a rabbinic view and the other was a new testament view and what I mean by the rabbinic view was basically what Jewish leaders of the day of Jesus' day what they thought was going to happen with regard to the kingdom of God in other words the way they interpreted the Old Testament so I'm going to give you a look at those pretty quickly so what's the rabbinic view the rabbinic view basically said because of the sin of Adam that what happened with this age was ushered in that came to be known as the old age because it would be in distinction from the new age in which sin and death and Satan and evil would basically define things in other words it was bad that Adam brought curse upon all creation and things were bad and if you were Jewish throughout history you didn't have to like look far to find out that that was actually the case constantly press constantly moved you know sent into exile constantly all these bad things seemed to happen right to the Jews and so by the time of Jesus' day what their expectation was they read the Old Testament and they expected that a Messiah would come but what they expected was this that Messiah would come the Spirit would send him and he would bring with him the knowledge of God peace justice joy love that they ate those all the things that you expect in the age to come but did you notice that the circles don't overlap in other words they expected that when Messiah came he would literally immediately usher in this new age of God's reign upon the earth that he would kill or or vindicate them and destroy all evil and immediately set up his kingdom for good that's why when Jesus came everyone was so surprised I mean think about it they were expecting that when Messiah came he would come and in their case he would he would destroy the Romans he would kick them out put his Messiah on the throne and he would take over the whole earth and then all of a sudden this out of work carpenter comes walking down the street saying the kingdom of God is at hand come on think about the expectation of what Messiah would do and what Jesus was and how little he met their expectations I mean we think about Jesus and we think wow they thought he was nothing he was he was nothing in their mind which is why it made it so difficult for them to accept him because his the way he would bring the kingdom was different in other words Jesus had the kingdom of God is here right now and they didn't believe in many healed people and he said there's some evidence right there boom they still didn't believe him you see he didn't meet their expectations because Jesus was doing something different and this is the New Testament view of God's kingdom because that because of the sin of Adam and everything he's in the Old Testament that the world is under the power of sin it's under the power of death it's under the power of evil it's turned over to the power of Satan but what happens is Messiah instead of coming outside of that he enters right into the middle of it that was unexpected you see they didn't expect Messiah would dirty his hands unless it would be dirty with the blood of his enemies they didn't certainly didn't expect him to dirty himself with our blood with our sin and yet Messiah came and when Jesus came he ushered in the kingdom of God and when he rose from the dead he sent his spirit and now the power of the Holy Spirit and the power the renewing work of the spirit in our lives and in all of creation and you notice how these circles are now that the old age and the new age overlap and you and I live right there that's why it's hard to be a Christian by the way if you're really trying to be a Christian if you're really trying to live out the gospel because what the gospel says is the gospel says on one hand you need to know you need to be a part of the world you need to be bearing witness to the personal work of Jesus you need to be part of renewing creation that the same thing Jesus does when he renews creation you and I ought to be doing that if you're an engineer at Boeing or you're a musician or you're a teacher do you view your job when you go in and say I'm renewing this area of creation for the gospel that I'm making this one little area the way it's supposed to be so on one hand you're supposed to be in the world on the other world you're not supposed to to participate in the world's idolatries in other words you're supposed to to call them out on their idolatries and call them out on their lies and so on one hand you're supposed to be in there on the other hand you're supposed to be calling them out now that's a very difficult place to be can you imagine but that's where we are supposed to be which is why in the book revelation over and over and over again, you hear about Christians being persecuted and tribulation coming upon them, but it only comes upon them because of their witness. And so we live in what theologians call the now and not yet. Has the Kingdom of God come? Yes, it's come now. And if you're part of the Kingdom of God, you ought to be living as that, as if you're part of the Kingdom of God renewing those areas of creation. And yet it's not yet come because we still overlap with evil. We still have to lose battles, if you will, to things like that happened in Colorado. And yet more and more if the gospel is true, the Kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord until it's ultimately done. And that's what you see in the seventh trumpet. What you see in the seventh trumpet is the power of sin, death, evil, and Satan completely exchanged for the Kingdom of God. In other words, in the seventh trumpet, there is no old age to overlap with. In the seventh trumpet, there is only the new age. And I guess then it would just be called the age. I mean, it's the only thing there is, that at some point the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ will overtake the Kingdom of this world once and for all and for good. Now that should be good news. You would think. Right? And if it's good news, the Kingdom of this world has been conquered by our Lord and by his Christ, why is this then a woe? Sort of depends on your perspective, doesn't it? If you watch any of the news reports about what happened in Colorado, it always amazes me after tragedies like this, that they'll interview people on the news and some people will be bitter and crying and angry and other people will quote the Bible and say, God took care of us or God guarded me. Even I lost my spouse, but God used him to protect me. They're somehow able to see through all of the hardness and the hardship to see that somehow God has a plan for them and embrace it. You see, the difference between Christians and people who aren't Christians oftentimes is the way they interact or react to the same events. And so the difference here, why is this a woe? This is only a woe if you're not part of the Kingdom of God. And that's actually very clear in the parables of Jesus. I'm just, let me read you a couple of them. Matthew chapter 13, the parable of the wheat and the tears of the parable of the weeds. It's called them my Bible. He says, he put another parable before them saying the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who's so good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to a master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said, then do you want us to go and gather them? But he said no less than the gathering of weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them into bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. And then he explains it after. The one who sowed the good seed is the son of man. The field is this world and the good seed is the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the son of the evil one. And the enemy who sowed them as the devil, the harvest is the clothes of the age and the reapers are the angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the clothes of the age. The son of man will send his angels and will gather out of his kingdom, all causes of sin and lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the son and the kingdom of their father, he who has ears, let him hear. I will read you one more of the dragnet. He says again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, but threw away the bad. So it will be at the clothes of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And I could have gone on and on and on and on. I put four here for you. You're going to be talking about the kingdom in your growth groups. That's why I'm giving you some of these. So what's Jesus' point here? The parable of the wheat and the tears of the wheat and the weeds really is a parable about the now and the not yet. Right now, the sons of righteousness and the sons of evil are side by side, but there will come a time when the kingdom is here in its fullness when they will be separated. And if you remember the whole book of Revelation continues to draw one distinction that is huge, that you are either in the kingdom or you're out of the kingdom. You either have the mark of Jesus upon your forehead or the mark of the beast on your forehead. You are either one of the redeemed, washed in the blood of the lamb, or you are one of the, quote, earth dwellers who rebels against Jesus. And so the question is, how does this not be a woe for you? It's either a woe or a blessing depending on your perspective. It's a woe if you refuse to trust Jesus. It's a woe if you say Jesus, I refuse to enter your kingdom by faith. I refuse to follow you. I refuse to make you lord over everything. If that's who you are, then it's a woe to you. But if you have done that and you continue to do that, it's actually great blessing for you. So that's the bottom line about the kingdom. And as we continue, let me give you an overview of looking at verse 15. Verse 15 says, in the seventh angel, blue is trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. So verse 15, in some sense, is a summary of all of redemptive history. It's a summary. And it's a summary done from going all the way to the future to the very end and looking back, what happened? All the way from Adam, all the way through, what happened was the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. It's a summary of the gospel, if you will, that Jesus at his crucifixion and resurrection took, went and ascended to the right hand of God and at that time, he actually took over the reins. He began to reign at that time. But here, the reign is actually bigger than that. It's the reign over all the cosmos and then what comes next is a rehearsal of what you just heard. In other words, you get a summary of the gospel in verse 15 and then in verse 16, 17 and 18, you hear now, how did that happen? What happened was the kingdom of the world became the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, but how did he accomplish that? That's what you hear in verse 16 through 18. It's a rehearsal of God saving deeds. And if you've ever heard me explain worship before, at the end of the day, all worship is, is a rehearsal of God saving deeds in history. That when they want to thank God, when it says to 24 elders, worship God, they don't make up something new. They just sing about what God has already done. And so that's what we'll look at. The first thing that lets look at verse 17, he says in 16, it says 24 elders who sit on their throes before God, fell on their faces and worship God saying, we give thanks to you Lord God Almighty, who was, who is and who was, for you have taken great power and begun to reign. Now, you know, I think I told you when I start studying for any given passage that I'm going to preach on, the first thing I do is I used to do it all by hand. I do it on my computer. Now as I go through and I type out the whole thing, word by tedious word. I type it out and I break it down. I think whether this is how it breaks down. And as I type this passage out, it bothered me because something was missing. Because you know in your head, you just keep going along and I started typing and something was missing. Have you figured out what's missing yet? We sung it already. But what's missing is actually a clue that tells us that the seventh trumpet is the very end of all time. What's missing in this passage is who is and who was and who is to come. We sung that this morning. That's in the rest of the book two or three times at least. That we worship the Lamb who was and who is and who is to come. But in chapter 11, we don't sing that. Why? Because he's there. In other words, there is no more age to come. There is no time. It's the very end. And at the very end, we worship the Lamb who was and who is and who is to come. We will just worship the Lamb who was and who is because he's right there in front of us. There won't be a time of longing for him to come. There is coming a time when you will actually be with him in his presence and in his reign. In fact, it says instead of that, it says who is and who was instead of saying who is to come. It says who is and who was for you have taken great power and begun to reign. In other words, only paraphrase that. Who is and who was and who is reigning even now. Like right now, it's the very end in the perspective of this trumpet. In other words, there's coming a time when there won't be any more time. You look at verse 18, the rehearsal. It says in the nation's rage, but your wrath came. At a time for the dead to be judged and for rewarding your servants, the prophets, the saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, for destroying the destroyers of the earth. By the way, chapter 18 is a rough paraphrase of Psalm 2 that we opened up with. And basically the explanation that we're given here for how did the kingdom of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and the kingdom of his Christ has to do really with God's wrath and God's reward. Simple as that. It's a thumbnail. In fact, it's very condensed here and if the book ended here, it would be complete. I told you, but if you continue on in the book, you actually get an explanation of what the seventh trumpet is. The rest of the book is an outworking of it in many ways. So how is God's wrath revealed? First of all, God's wrath is revealed at the cross of Jesus. That your wrath came. That in the person and work of Jesus, what Jesus did was live the life we should have lived and he died, the death we should have died and at the cross came the wrath of God. In the book of Revelation, by the way, the board wrath is the Greek word or gay from where we get the word orgy. In the book of Revelation, it's always used for end time wrath. I mean, it's the last bit of God's wrath that he's going to pour out before everything's done, but it's also used of the cross. Because at the cross, the wrath of God was poured out once and for all for those who had faith in him. Who else is the wrath of God poured out upon? Well, it's poured out in the book of Revelation on earth dwellers. Remember, earth dwellers is a technical term for those who refuse to trust Jesus. And so you basically are left with a choice. You either trust Jesus who will bear the wrath of God or you bear the wrath of God yourself. But at the end of all time, the 24 elders and all the redeemed will look back and they will sing about when God's wrath was poured out. Because God's wrath is something to be praised that it is completely and utterly spent. Either spent at the cross or will be spent on those who rightly deserve it. The other is reward. And Christians often, you know, you hear Christians discussing all the time, what is it reward? What is the final reward we're going to get? And I always say, what more could you want than Jesus? I still say that, by the way. But in the book of Revelation, what is the reward that the saints get? The reward that the saints get first and foremost is vindication. Remember, much of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls of God's wrath are really an answer to God's prayer, to the prayer of the saints. The ones who have been persecuted and in which they said how long until we are vindicated and God said, rest a little longer, they will be vindicated. That was one of the rewards of the saints for being faithful and persevering. But also they will experience the blessedness of the kingdom. I don't know exactly what that means, but it is what it is. It will be the blessedness of the kingdom to be in the presence of Jesus forever. Remember, I've told you the most horrifying, one of the most horrifying passages to me in the Bible is chapter 7 of Matthew when Jesus people come and say, didn't we cast out demons in your name and do miracles in your name and do all these things? And he says, depart from me. I never knew you. He doesn't say, be gone and be cast into hell, weeping part. The worst possible thing is to have been told to depart from Jesus. And so on one hand, the wrath of God has poured out on the other hand the reward is given to the saints. And the ultimate vindication, you notice it says in the last part of 18, it says for destroying the destroyers of the earth. That all those who thought they were in charge, who thought they were high and mighty and who destroyed the saints and destroyed the earth, God will destroy them. That leads us finally to the ark and lightning. Look at verse 19, it says, then God's temple in heaven was opened and the ark of this covenant was seen within its temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and earthquake and heavy hail. So how are we to understand this? Why does the ark of the covenant suddenly show up in the book of Revelation? Why does the ark of the covenant show up at the very end of all time? You remember what the ark of the covenant was? Those of you who watched the Indiana Jones marathon yesterday? I do. Yeah, there you go. Some righteous individuals here. There were certain commandments were placed in the ark of the covenant, Moses or Aaron's rod that butted in some mana. And the ark of the covenant symbolized God's presence among his people. But why is it here of all places? And on the other hand, why is the thunder in lightning and earthquakes? Because the ark in lightning, where it says there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and earthquake and heavy hail. 100% of the time in the book of Revelation, that means judgment. And both of these things, by the way, the ark of the covenant and all of these climactic events are what theologians call the oftenies. They're how God shows himself to people. Why do you have these here at the very end of the very end of the very end of time? And I think the reason is because the book of Revelation, if you remember, is prophecy. Remember the book of Revelation is a letter to churches, but it's also an apocalypse which reveals something. But it's also prophecy. And what prophecy always does is it tells us that there is some moral decision that must be made. That there's something that must be embraced or some faith that must be had. There's some sin that must be repented of. And I think the reason John includes this is because he's really leaving us at this part of the book of Revelation where it could end. He's leaving the reader with a choice. At the end of time, you can either have the mercy of God which is symbolized by the ark of the covenant, the presence of God which is symbolized by the ark of the covenant, the atonement of God which is symbolized by the ark of the covenant. Or you can have judgment. What's it going to be? You see, he's brought us through all of these trumpets. And at the end of the trumpets, you've got to make some decision. He really is bringing us through what I'm going to call matrix moment. If you're under 45, I hope you've seen the matrix. If you're over 45 and you want to be cool, you just see it too, I guess. Remember the matrix basically is about the fact that computers have taken over the world. That would never happen. And people don't even live in these little pods. They're just batteries for this big matrix in which they're slave. And someone breaks out of the matrix and begins to rescue other people from the matrix. And some people, their hearts know that there's something out there. They keep asking questions, what is the matrix? How do I get out of the matrix? Am I in a matrix? And there's a character named Neo and there's a character named Morpheus. And Morpheus sends for Neo and Neo finds Morpheus and he says, I've been looking for you my whole life. And Morpheus says, that's only because I was looking for you first, Presbyterian. And what is Morpheus promise Neo? He says, you Neo, you were born into a prison. It's just like Egypt, you're born into a prison. And I can help you escape, but you've got to make a decision. And the decision you've got to make is whether you're going to take this red pill or whether you're going to take the blue pill. And he says to him, he says, you take the blue pill and the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. And what he's talking about there is the truth. The truth about life, the truth about redemption, the truth about being enslaved to the matrix and Neo has to choose. Is it going to be the red pill? I want the truth or the blue pill. I'm just going to go on and live in the matrix fat, down and happy. And if you'd taken the blue pill, I guess the movie would have been over in a short film, but it wasn't. He took the red pill. And the question you have to ask yourself, when you leave here, you're going to take the red pill or the blue pill, except the stakes are much higher with the gospel. But the red pill is the truth. The truth about you is that you are utterly and despicably sinful. There's nothing you could ever do to please God. All of your goodness, all of your righteousness, anything that you think you bring to the table is disgusting. But Jesus is all of goodness, all of righteousness. And he says here, take my record. I died for you. Take my clothes, take everything I have and I'll take all of that stuff from you, red pill. Going about your life now, the way it is, and try and save yourself, try and follow your idols, follow whatever you want. And at the end of time, face the judgment of God on your own. What's it going to be? Think about that. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the gospel, the fact that every week that we get deeper into the book of Revelation, it seems to demand a decision. It demands a decision to follow you. It demands a decision if we're Christians, whether or not we're going to bear witness to you, but it demands that we be awake and alive. And so I pray that you would wake us up as a church, you'd wake us up to prayer, you'd wake us up to witness, you'd wake us up to mercy. I pray that you would have a spear of light to our community. Father, we pray these things in Christ's name, amen, amen.