The Book of Revelation - Part 21

23 Aug 2026 · this lesson on the church site

Taught by Dr. Keith Palmer, Grace Bible Church, Granbury, Texas — from the church’s Sunday School series on Revelation. These are lightly edited transcripts of the audio, posted for personal study; the teaching and its content belong to Dr. Palmer and Grace Bible Church. Listen to the originals and find his notes on the church website. Transcribed from the audio by AI. Edited only where the audio was unclear (all edits marked with *). Errors are possible — the recording is the authority.

Setting Up Exodus 7 (00:00)

Before you turn to autopilot and go back to Revelation, I'd love for you to stop and go to the other end of your Bible. Go to Exodus 7. I want to look at a couple of passages here, because as we come back to the book of Revelation, I want to appreciate Pastor Terry filling in last week and the chance to hear him teach. Remember what we're thinking about in Revelation: we're trying to get a handle on what this book is. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there are different views on how this book ought to be interpreted, and there are even different views on when the events of this book happen.

I'm thinking about this. I haven't totally committed to it, but I'm thinking next week is the week I'm going to do the big overview. We're going to summarize the different views on Revelation in three simple questions. Part of being the teacher when you're trying to come at something that's complicated and messy is figuring out how to make this book as easy and simple to understand as possible without watering down its message or making it overly simplistic. I think I can do it in three questions. So I'm building that, and Lord willing, next week we'll talk about it, and that will bring together everything we've talked about. You'll say, why are there so many different views? It comes down to how you answer three different questions.

Those of you who have asked, "Yeah, preterism is great, when are we going to talk about amillennialism?" I know, I know, I know. We're going to get to that. But one of the questions we're trying to figure out is when these events happen and how we interpret them. One of the big questions is what the rules for interpretation are. Are we supposed to understand Revelation just like we would any other book of the Bible? It's prophetic, it's apocalyptic. So does that mean we take our normal toolbox of hermeneutical tools, put it aside, and get a brand-new toolbox for how we interpret things? And how much symbolism are we looking for? Those are all really good questions, and they lead to the diversity of interpretations.

What I want you to see today is that the Bible helps us with that. We don't come to the book of Revelation and ask, "Okay, what tools do we use?" as if we're parachuting in for the first time. If you've been paying attention, Scripture has been preparing us for this final book. You know that because a lot of the imagery, the symbolism, the visions, and the language are not original. Jesus is giving a fresh prophecy, that's what Revelation is, but he's drawing on images his listeners would have been very familiar with from the Old Testament. We've talked about some of those: Ezekiel, Daniel, Deuteronomy. What I'm going to show you today is that the Bible borrows imagery for these trumpet judgments from two specific events back in the Old Testament. The first is in Exodus 7, and that's what I want to show you here.

The Plagues of Egypt (03:07)

Exodus 7 is about what? The plagues. Have you noticed, if you're reading the book of Revelation, some of the similarities between the judgments we see there and the plagues of Egypt? Have you seen that? We understand that the plagues of Egypt were more regional, more isolated to the Egyptians, whereas we've seen repeatedly in Revelation that this is happening, quote unquote, on the earth, on the whole earth. We see that with "those who dwell on the earth." So it's more global in Revelation and more regional in Exodus, but a lot of the things are similar.

Here's the question: how does the book of Exodus help us understand the nature of some of these judgments we read about in Revelation? I thought about this particularly this week: how much symbolism ought we to see in the judgments of Revelation? When we hear about hail from heaven and the sun turning dark, how much are we supposed to say, "Well, that's actually happening, that's a cosmological thing"? Or how much are we to say, "That might be symbolic of some other judgmental reality"?

What's interesting, looking at the images, let me ask you this, and you've got Exodus 7 in front of you: when Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, "You need to let my people go, or else," what's the "or else"? What are you going to do? What does he say? Let's look. In Exodus 7:14, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Pharaoh's heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water, and station yourself to meet him on the bank of the Nile, and you shall take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent, and you shall say to him, "Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you saying, let my people go, that they may serve me. But behold, you have not listened. Thus says the Lord, by this you shall know that I am the Lord."'"

Now, this is what Yahweh is saying through Moses to Pharaoh. This is God speaking to Moses, and Moses is relaying it to Pharaoh. If Pharaoh doesn't do this, what's going to happen? "Behold, I will strike the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned to blood. The fish that are in the Nile will die, the Nile will become foul, and the Egyptians will find it difficult to drink water from the Nile."

Okay, now look up for a second. What actually happens? Pharaoh says, "I don't know this God. I don't know who you are. Get out of my way. I'm trying to enjoy a pleasure cruise on the Nile today." Moses takes his staff and strikes the Nile, and what happens? It turns to blood. And what happened to the fish? They die, and tell me about the smell. You ever smell dead fish? Some of you, maybe in nursing environments, can imagine what it would be like to have a vast pool of blood, right? My point is that what God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, which seemed odd, actually happened. It was literally fulfilled.

Next one. What about the frogs? Exodus 8:2*: "Then the Lord says to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh and say to him, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs.'" I remember telling this to my daughter when she was a little girl. She loved frogs, and she said, "Oh, that's so neat." I said, "No, it's not neat, right? Because it talks about frogs in your cupboard, frogs in your bowl, frogs in your cooking pots." Frogs are great, but when they get in the way of dining, that's not good. This is way too many frogs. And what happens to the frogs? Pharaoh* refuses, and what happens? Were the frogs symbolic of some sort of weird judgment, or did frogs actually take over the land? They took over the land. So what we see in this text is that the judgments Moses told Pharaoh about, as odd as they might be, were fulfilled in a literal way.

And that happens throughout, even with the crazy stuff: the flies, the locusts, the hail from heaven shattering the land, and the darkness for three days. Even the events that seem clearly supernatural. Could we have an infestation of frogs? I suppose. Could we have an infestation of flies? I suppose. Could there be some disease that knocks out a bunch of cattle? Sure. But when you're talking about it being dark for three days, or hail large enough to shatter whole trees, what did Pharaoh say? What did the wise men say? What did the Egyptians say? "This is the finger of God*." And that was the point. It was literal and it was supernatural judgment.

Sodom and Gomorrah (08:14)

Follow me back to Genesis 19. Just back up a few pages. There's another image we're going to see in the book of Revelation today, not just imagery relating to the plagues of Egypt. Jesus uses another image in the trumpet plagues in Revelation, and that's Sodom and Gomorrah. You guys know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. These were two wicked cities back in the time of Abraham and Lot. You remember the account of Lot and that whole situation?

So what happens in Genesis 19:23? After God had warned the people and called Abraham's family to flee, "The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar, then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground." So we have the famous fire and brimstone from heaven. We look at that and go, did that really happen? Did that actually happen? Well, write this down: Luke 17:29, Romans 9:29. Luke 17:29, Romans 9:29. I'll just read it to you. In Luke 17:29, talking about his second coming, Jesus says, "But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all."

That's Jesus. What is Jesus affirming here? That the event happened just the way the account of Genesis says it happened. It was fire and brimstone from heaven that destroyed the cities. So again, the point is that these are supernatural acts of judgment that God inflicts exactly as he warned they would be. I think that helps us recognize that when we read the book of Revelation, we're seeing something very similar. These are supernatural acts of judgment with a similarity to what we read about in the Exodus plagues and in Sodom and Gomorrah, although on a much grander scale. Those two are among the most overt and horrible judgments the world has known.

What's the biggest judgment the world has known prior to the second coming and final judgment? The flood. Was that just a kid's story, or did it actually happen? It actually happened. It was a cataclysmic worldwide flood that literally destroyed all of humanity except Noah and his family. So we see a congruity in how these events are presented, even events that sound more symbolic because they're supernatural, odd, and extreme. The pattern we've seen in Scripture is that those things are fulfilled quite literally, according to how God said they would be. Now, does that mean there's nothing symbolic in the book of Revelation? That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is we have a pattern of fulfillment of similar judgments that are

supernatural in nature and are fulfilled more or less the way that they're intended. So Grant and then Sheila. Yeah, that's right. There's archaeological evidence that speaks to a lot of these things, affirming the biblical story. Yeah, Sheila, that's right. The signs and wonders are to authenticate the messenger and to authenticate the gospel, to demonstrate in the face of Pharaoh that Yahweh is the true God. That's absolutely correct.

So, David, did you have a question? Yeah. So David is just saying it's also significant that each of those plagues was designed to refute one of the Egyptian gods: the gods of the heavens, the gods of fertility, and so on. And that Genesis is designed to show that judgment. So, yes, Ruth. That's right. Ruth is just saying that back in Isaiah there are prophecies, and of course other books foretell these coming judgments, the luminaries and other cosmological events and things like that. So this is not the first time we've read about these things.

We saw the congruity even between what Jesus talks about in Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation, the judgment of Revelation. So what's the point? The point is that we have supernatural acts of specific judgment in the plagues of Egypt and in Sodom and Gomorrah, and we're asking the question, how did these events occur? The answer of the Bible is that they occurred exactly as God said they would, and the fact that they're extreme or odd or unprecedented is the point. These are horrific acts of God's supernatural judgment on fallen humanity. If you think the flood was bad, and you think Sodom and Gomorrah was bad, and you think the plagues were bad, wait till the Day of the Lord. Wait till the ends of the earth. These things are just the foretastes of what's going to happen. So again, we're trying to let the Bible interpret itself in the book of Revelation, and I think these events and the imagery that undergirds a lot of what we're seeing give us clues about how we are to take the book of Revelation.

The Seventh Seal (14:29)

So, coming back, you can grab your notes there. Here's our diagram giving us the bird's-eye view of the book of Revelation. Last time we talked specifically about the three main views on the timing of when the events in Revelation happen: the Preterist view, the Historicist view, and the Futurist view. Hopefully you've been reviewing this. We will probably come back next Sunday, and I'll try to understand Revelation in one message by looking at three questions. Hopefully I can get prepared for that, and we'll talk more about these then.

But for now, let's turn back to where we left off in chapter 8. Revelation chapter 8. Remember this is the seventh seal. Remember the imagery: the Lamb that was slain is the only one worthy to take the book and open its scrolls, and as Jesus comes and breaks each of these seven seals in succession, it unleashes a season of judgment upon the earth. Then there are things related to the martyrs. We talked about the 144,000 and what not. Now we've gotten to the seventh seal, the final seal on the scroll, and the Lamb breaks the seal. And what happens? There's silence.

You know how in an action movie the soundtrack drops out and the spotlight is drawn particularly to the events? The nuclear cloud is in the distance, and it just makes time stop, as it were. That's what happens as the Lamb breaks the seventh seal. We say, well, why are we stopping? What's so bad about this? Yes, judgment's going to be bad, but remember that the pause directs our attention, as listeners, to the prayers of the saints going up to God, saying, how long will these things go on? When will the consummation of the ages occur? When will final judgment occur? That pause allows us to focus on God's answer to the prayers of the saints.

The Seven Trumpets (16:39)

Remember, seal number seven is broken up into seven trumpets and seven bowls. So we're going to extend this out with seal number seven. We saw last time there's silence in heaven. The angels stand ready. They're given seven trumpets. The prayers of the saints are offered. There's fire from the altar thrown to the earth. We saw that last time: thunder, lightning, and an earthquake. And the seven angels are ready to sound the trumpets, so we see them positioned there.

Again, we have to ask questions like, do people on earth see the angels? Do they not see the angels? To what degree is the trumpet... I know, but the point is they are about to unleash more rounds of judgment upon the earth. Okay, so trumpet number one, verse seven. Here's where we see some of that imagery.

Trumpet One (Revelation 8:7)

The first sounded, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

Some of you technical people are probably taking notes here, because every time we get a new round of judgment, you're scratching your head, going, how much of the earth is left? It's interesting. I read an article by some nerdy former engineer who actually traced through all of these things, and it's interesting how God leaves just enough of the earth available for the next judgment. But suffice it to say that by the time we get to the latter chapters of the book, there isn't much of the earth left that is untouched by judgment.

So here we're seeing hail and fire mixed with blood thrown to the earth. What's some of the imagery we see there? Hail and fire: where do we see that in Scripture? Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Where do we see hail? Back in the plagues. Okay. Any other fire from heaven we've seen? Elijah, right? On Mount Carmel. Those of you coming to Israel with us in the spring, we will visit Mount Carmel, and you'll get to see that location, the famous standoff. And the result of this is a third of the earth, a third of the trees, and all the green grass burned.

So yes, we have imagery of:

Sodom and Gomorrah
The seventh plague in Egypt, the hail
Jerusalem's destruction, mentioned in Ezekiel 10
The destruction of Gog and Magog back in the book of Ezekiel

Now, interesting: those locations should sound familiar, because Gog and Magog are going to show up in the book of Revelation as well, probably representing different entities, but the names are the same, similar to Babylon and other things we're going to see here. So there's imagery here that Jesus is using behind this destruction. So trumpet one, again: hail and fire mixed with blood.

I've been messing around with some AI here, so what do you think? I know ChatGPT is not going to get it right. Okay, don't get your theology from ChatGPT, right, students? Right, we talked about that. We did an exercise. Why do you not want to ask ChatGPT all your counseling problems? Do you remember? Thank you. Yes, it is wrong. Thank you. One of our older students answered there. Where are our young theologians? Why do we not want to do that? They have a naturalistic point of view. We saw this week that if you ask ChatGPT, "Where does my anxiety come from?", it answers according to a materialistic anthropology, which means you don't want to get your counseling advice from it, right, Pam? Right, we don't want to do that. Okay, how did I get off on that? Oh, ChatGPT, that's right.

So it is interesting for images, but even if it's 10% correct, is that not the most horrible thing you've ever seen? Fire and hail mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. Even if you take that symbolically, it's still really bad. The imagery here is what John was seeing. Even if it's meant to be taken more symbolically, this is what John is seeing, because that's what he's writing. Horrific acts of judgment.

Trumpet Two (Revelation 8:8)

And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood, and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

So what do we have going on here? Again, it's similar. Where do we see a mountain burning with fire in Scripture? John. The mountains fall into the heart of the sea. That's right, in the Psalms, very good. Where else do we see maybe a mountain on fire? Sinai. Right back to that same imagery. Sinai is on fire because Yahweh is there. We see these trumpets using similar language to describe the judgment of God coming: the fire, the brimstone. So this great mountain is thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea becomes blood. Where have we seen that? Back in the plagues of Egypt, the Nile becoming blood. In this case we're not talking about a river. We're talking about the oceans, the seas

Imagine trying to navigate your boat through an ocean filled with mountains on fire that are falling from heaven, and bloody water... I mean, okay. Even if you take that to its most symbolic end, I think we can all agree that's really bad. It's affecting creatures and ships and people on the earth. Again, we see similar imagery here: images from the first plague of Egypt and from Sinai, in these trumpets. What do you think? You don't want to be there. Yeah, me neither.

Now, remember, let's put ourselves back in John's sandals for a minute. John was told, come up here and see this vision. In some sort of vision experience, John is taken to see the throne room. Remember the 24 elders, the four living creatures, the One who sits on the throne, the Lamb, the martyrs, the souls of the martyrs under the throne. They're still there. And he's seeing these visions of judgments taking place. Those seven angels have lined themselves up, and they begin to blow their trumpets successively, and with each trumpet blast another round of judgment is unloaded.

So ChatGPT thought the hail was coming from the trumpet. The Bible doesn't actually say that, but that'd be horribly amazing if that's how it worked, right? The other thing that's interesting: I kept telling it, this is worldwide, make this worldwide. AI is limited. So picture this. This looks like a beach somewhere, right? Or once was a beach. Remember, this is happening globally. John reiterates: on the whole earth, on the inhabitants of the earth. It's not a regional plague like in Egypt. It's a global, cataclysmic event. How do we know that? Because John is going to say a third of the ocean, a third of the sea creatures, a third of the inhabitants. So he's giving us metrics. Even if we don't take those super literally, the point is that he's saying it's having an effect on a global and massive scale.

Trumpet Three (Revelation 8:10)

Where are we here? Number three, chapter 8, verse 10. And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch,

The Judgment on a Third (26:04)

And it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of the waters. Let's just stop right there. What do you think about a third, a third, a third, a third? What do you think about that? Three thirds might be a whole. Yeah, okay, right, maybe we're adding up. Why do these judgments seem to be limited to a third?

The Trinity. Yeah, you can think about that.

Because if any one of these was allowed to be completely global, what would happen? It's over. So notice the precision. Let's go back to Exodus 7. The Israelites and the Egyptians are both under these plagues. What did God do for his people?

He protected them, didn't he? Carl is saying that particularly in the three days of darkness, the Scripture says it was light over the Israelites. So we see God making a distinction. Other plagues, they more or less endured, right? But the point is God is making a distinction, and in that case he's protecting his people.

This is important too. Usually when we see destruction on a grand scale, we don't see precision. And yet what do we see? Our God is completely in control, isn't he? He knows exactly what he's doing. He's limiting the severity of some of these because these are successive events of judgment. It's not like one big spiritual atomic weapon and boom, all of humanity is gone. It's a precision-guided judgment, and that shows us again that this is calculated and intentional.

Why else might God be extending this season of judgment rather than ending it all in one swoop?

Yes, it's a warning, isn't it? We saw back in the previous chapter that there are people being saved from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation as they see the events of judgment happening and turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Remember what Paul told the Romans, and this is long before? God's kindness and forbearance and patience does what to his wrath?

It holds back his wrath, giving people time to repent. Even as we approach these latter days, the judgments come in waves and they're limited in scope. It's not one dramatic end. I think it's a mercy, giving people on the planet when these events are happening opportunities to repent. Is that mercy going to be completed at some point? Jesus comes... Yes, we know there's a final judgment coming, but I think it comes in stages like this on purpose.

Was there another hand? Lacey, and then Sheila. That's a great question. Is it the same third of the earth, or are we going to destroy the sea creatures over here but the ships over there? I don't know. That's a good question. There's nothing in the context that says it has to be the same necessarily. That's interesting.

It is God's grace that each of these successive judgments gives some people time to repent. Okay, let's keep reading.

The Third Trumpet: Wormwood (30:12)

Revelation 8:10. "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of the waters. The name of the star is called Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters because they were made bitter."

So a great fiery star. The word for star here is broad enough that it could be a meteorite, or it could be something of that realm, but a fiery star comes and smashes into the earth, and it says here it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of the waters.

What's the difference between the seas and the rivers and springs? Fresh water versus salt water. We see the effect: the seas, the salt water, killed a third of the sea creatures and inhibited the ships in some way. Here the drinking water supplies are in jeopardy, as it tells us.

The name of the star is called Wormwood. Let's talk about Wormwood. What famous book talks about Wormwood?

The Screwtape Letters. How many have read it? C.S. Lewis borrowed this imagery.

What actually is wormwood? It's a plant, an herb. Probably some of you use essential oils, and there is a wormwood essential oil. I'm thinking about that this week. The oil is harvested because, not just today but historically, it has been thought to have medicinal value. Depending on which century you're studying, it depends on what they thought it was good for. In the first century, they thought it had gynecological benefit, believe it or not. That's your first-century medical insight for the day.

It's an herb used to make medicine, but it also contains traces of a toxin. I was reading a study where, if you give it in moderate doses, it can be used medicinally. If you give it in higher doses, it can be fatal. It produces seizures and convulsions. I was reading an article where they gave higher doses to mice, and within one minute they convulsed. Within one minute, their convulsions became so extreme that they died because of the toxin in it. So lower amounts, no harm, no foul. Higher amounts, it can be fatal.

For my master gardener friends in the congregation: you like the Latin name there? That's our plant, our herb, wormwood. What's interesting is that in higher doses it can be fatal, and apparently that is what's happening here. Assuming wormwood represents the actual plant and its actual chemicals, a third of the waters became wormwood, became bitter, and many died from the waters because they were made bitter. Is that natural? Is it supernatural? Is it both? We can take it either way.

Isn't that interesting? That's what a modern generation would do, right? "Hey, look, a meteor from heaven." It reminds me of when my daughter was in Israel a year and a half ago in the spring, and the Yemeni terrorists started firing ballistic missiles at the airport in Tel Aviv. One passed right over the little dormitory where she and her fellow students were staying, and we started getting alerts in the middle of the night. "Hey, Mom, we're in the bomb shelter." She sent us a video, from last spring, where one of her buddies has the camera. Here comes the ballistic missile from Yemen, and they're like, "Wow, oh my, wow, oh my." Then you see the Iron Dome response missile, and there's going to be an intercept. "Oh wow, this is amazing, look at that." Then somebody in the background says, "Maybe we should get in the shelter." He's like, "Oh yeah," boom, and then it's done. That's our generation.

So many died from the waters because they were made bitter. Interestingly, the Bible often links bitterness and drinking bitter drinks to judgment. You can think of the time of Moses and the Exodus as one example.

The Fourth Trumpet (35:21)

Let's do one more. Trumpet number four, Revelation 8:12. "And the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened, and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way."

The Greek text here is a little obscure, but what John seems to be describing is that these luminaries are changed so that only a third of them are struck. They're darkened by a third or two-thirds, depending on how you take it. The point is you've only got partial daylight, and then partial light from the moon at night and from the stars. Even trying to imagine what that must have been like, where have we seen the sun darkened in Scripture?

The crucifixion
The prolonging of the day
Joshua, where the sun stood still

So we see times in history where what we're describing here is not the exact same thing, but similar things have happened in a way, just like the plagues, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, that seem to be actual history. What John is seeing is actually happening in history. We get a third of the daylight, a third of the moonlight, and that seems to be the intent here.

We had a solar eclipse not too long ago. Is it eerie when at high noon all of a sudden it gets dark? That's for a few minutes, and the totality is only a little over a minute, right? Where are my astronomer friends? The whole thing takes hours, of course, but it's eerie when the moon gets fully aligned with the sun and completely blocks its light, and you get the little ring, and we go, "Wow." And that's a natural phenomenon. Imagine if that happened and it stayed.

Imagine looking up at the stars at night and two-thirds of them are missing. Imagine looking up at the moon and it's not a crescent running through its normal lunar cycles, but it's just stuck. What's the point of this? God is enacting judgment in the cosmos in a way that we're supposed to look at and say, "This ain't natural." Like the wise men of Egypt, humanity is supposed to see, "This is the finger of God." And we've seen that. Remember a couple of chapters ago? What are the people doing as these judgments happen? They're running to the mountains and the hills, and what are they saying to the rocks? "Fall on us and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." What did Psalm 2 say? "His wrath may soon be kindled." Well, here it is.

We can talk about whether Christians are going to see this or not, but just take yourself out of that eschatological precision realm for a second and say: this will be an absolutely horrific day when God begins dismantling the cosmos as we know it, undoing the consistency, the predictability, and the regularity of these natural laws and the movement of the luminary bodies.

The Eagle's Woe (39:25)

Revelation 8:13. "And then John says, 'I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, crying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound."'" Eagles in Scripture often indicate sudden judgment. In the book of Revelation, "those who dwell on the earth" refers to unbelievers.

So there's this pause as these events are going on and people are trying to make sense of them, and this eagle comes through announcing that judgment, and that the worst is yet to come. "His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are those who take refuge in him." Are you doing that?

Father, thanks for this book that is sobering and horrible

Closing Prayer (41:30)

...and just unprecedented in terms of the judgments we're seeing. John can hardly put these things into words. Father, I thank you for the gospel. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for a Savior who came to absorb the wrath of God for us and to stand in our place. We know that these events represent the very judgments that we all deserve, and we thank you that Jesus has taken our place as we have trusted in him.

Father, again, let these events focus our mission. Our goal in being here, as we thank you and praise you for these mercies, is to share what we know, to warn people that we love, and to call men and women to repentance. So Father, in the midst of judgment after judgment after judgment, let us not get caught up in exact precision of our chronologies and our eschatological models. Help us to take away that you are coming, your wrath is coming, and people need the gospel. And you put us here to connect the gospel to people who need it. Make us faithful. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

* = the audio was unclear here and the words were reconstructed from context. Scripture read aloud is in red.

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