Attempting to Demystify Revelation: Week 5

It's a little background. Revelation is a New Testament letter that was written during

the first century and was written by one of Jesus' followers named John. And

John wrote this letter to Christians in the Roman Empire, and most scholars agree

that John was alive during one of the most destructive natural disasters in the first

century. I'm referring to the volcano Mount Vesuvius that erupted and destroyed the city

of Pompeii without any warning. The volcano erupted, and lava and fire and

smoke and all of that came pouring down onto the city, killing nearly all

of the inhabitants of Pompeii. And you could even find archaeological remains of humans

who died instantly. Many of them died in bed in their homes, sitting

at the table like it was instantly, no warning. And scholars believe that

John was alive that event. And it's possible that given the geography, John

may have even seen some of Mount Vesuvius in the distance on the horizon across

the ocean, as possible he might have seen that. Now, I've never

seen a volcano erupt but I have visited a volcano When I was in Nicaragua

a few years ago, our group got to climb to the top of a

volcano called Sierro Negro, and it is an active volcano. And before we

set out on the climb, our guide gave us a warning about climbing on

the volcano. Now, you would think that the only warning necessary about a

volcano is do not climb the volcano, but that's not the warning we got.

He warned us about dehydration. He said we'd be out in the sun,

we'd be sweating, we'd be working, and dehydration was a real threat,

and so he gave us some advice. The advice was to take a

pinch of salt and put it in your mouth or under your tongue, because

the salt in the sodium helped the body retain water, and so as you're

sweating, you could keep more of those electrolytes and more of that water in

your body. But our guide warned us that a little bit of salt goes

a long way. And so we set out on our climb and we were

working hard, and we were going up the mountain. We were in the

sun, we were sweating, and we were out of breath and there were

people in our group that were sucking down salt like it was candy, as

if it gave them like superpowers to get to the top of the mountain.

And we got to the top and we took a group photo and we came

back down safely. But later that evening, there were a few people in

our group that were a little bit uncomfortable. They had some stomach pains,

some cramps, and a few of them were unable to use the bathroom.

You see, that salt retains water, so they were all blocked up from

all the water that they had taken. They did not listen to the warning

that they got. Today, I want to talk about warnings. Don't you

wish that life came with a warning for all the pain and the suffering that

we experience. Don't you wish there was a warning that before you get disappointed

or before you get let down, that you had some kind of warning.

I mean, we don't get an alert on your iPhone that you're gonna lose

your job at work. You know, the weather man doesn't predict that you're

gonna have a breakup, or your marriage or your relationship is gonna end.

We don't have a warning when there's a devastating financial loss, don't you wish

that you had a warning for the pain and the suffering of this life?

As we look at Revelation chapter eight, Revelation chapter eight gives us a warning

about what we experience in this life. Look with me at Revelation eight,

starting in verse six, Then the angel took the censor and filled it with

fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth. And there came peals

of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Then the

seven angels who had the seven trumpets, prepared to sound them. Revelation chapter

eight introduces us to a theme that continues through chapters eight, nine, ten,

and eleven. It is this the seven trumpets, and this is what

we're talking about today, the seven trumpets. Moving on to verse thirteen,

we read woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the trumpet blasts about

to be sounded by the other three angels. This word whoe, it's repeated

three times, whoa, whoa, whoa. In the Bible. Whoe means

warning, So you could replace this and say warning, warning, attention,

whoe warning. The seven trumpets are a warning. The seven trumpets are a

warning system, an alarm system. Last fall, our church was gathered on

a Monday evening for our study groups that we do in the fall, and

all of the adults were in classrooms and groups learning, and all of our

children were in kids ministry with our childcare workers. Now, I'm really thankful

for our childcare workers because they are trained for nearly anything. And without warning,

while we were in our sessions, the fire alarm in this building went

off, and our trained children workers gathered all of our children and marched them

out of the building safely outside, away from any danger. And I'm also

thankful that it was a false alarm. There was another event happening on our

campus and a young boy from that event thought it was his responsibility to test

our emergency preparedness by pulling the fire alarm. And I'm really thankful that we

have security cameras so we were able to have a informed conversation with this young

man and his parents. The trumpets are like a warning system. They're like

an alarm system. Now, if you have lived in Indiana, what warning

sound do we hear? Most often? It's a tornado siren. If you've

lived here for any amount of time, you've probably heard some tornado sirens.

And have you seen the storm chasers, those vehicles that drive into the storm.

They've got like the steel plates on the outside and the hydraulic pylons that

drive into the ground to with stand three hundred mile an hour winds. You

know, don't you wish that life came with a storm chaser vehicle for all

the problems and pain that we experience. Now, if you live in Indiana

and you hear these tornado sirens, you probably have some kind of a plan

if you are in danger of a tornado, maybe your basement or some kind

of shelter. You know, in my house, the safest place in the

event of a tornado is the whole bathroom because there's no windows. It's the

interior of the house. And I've learned that you can lay down in the

bathtub and pull a mattress over yourself in case there's a terrible tornade. Now

here's the thing. My bathtub is only big enough for one person. So

I told Lauren it's first come, first serve if there's a tornado. I'm

just kidding. In ancient times, trumpets were like a warning system like a

tornado siren, like a guard might be on the tower of a city looking

out for a threat or an enemy, and they might sound a trumpet as

a warning. The trumpets are warnings, so let's keep reading. In Chapter

eight, verse seven, the first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came

hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth.

A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees

were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second

angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze,

was thrown into the sea. Now many scholars believe that trumpet number two,

this mountain that's all ablaze, is actually describing the volcano Mount Vesuvius that erupted

in the first century, destroying Pompeii. They think that's what this might be

referring to. And that leads me to share that there are so many ways

that scholars have interpreted the seven Trumpets, so many opinions about what each one

means. There are some who say that all of the things in the trumpets

are in the past, they were a part of history. Some scholars say

all of the trumpets have to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple

being burned in a d seventy. There are some scholars who look intentionally at

like trumpet number five and they believe that trumpet number five refers to the rise

of the islam religion in the East. And then there's other scholars who say

that the trumpets are all about future events predicting the end of the world or

signs of the end of the world. They say that trumpets three and four

could be describing a nuclear disaster or some kind of ast that comes and hits

the earth. There's all of these interpretations. I want to share how I

interpret the seven trumpets. Here's how I interpret the seven trumpets in Revelation eight,

nine, ten, and eleven. The seven trumpets are warnings globally and

personally. The seven trumpets warn us about global disasters that we have seen in

the past, disasters, destruction, death, disease in the past. They

also warn us about things in the future, that there will be death,

disease, destruction, and catastrophe in the future. These are global events,

but it also warns us about personal suffering. The trumpets warn us that we

will experience disaster and disappointment. Personally, the first six trumpets warn us that

we will suffer. It's personal warning. Now, you can read the trumpets,

and you can read this text, and you can kind of shrug your

shoulders and say, well, this is probably just talking about things in the

future, things that are beyond my lifetime. Yet it's really not that big

of a deal to me. I don't want us to shrug our shoulders,

because I believe there's a personal warning for all of us in these trumpets,

in this text, the first six trumpets warn you and me that we will

suffer. I'll talk about the seventh one in a moment, but these first

six tell us that we will suffer. The first trumpet describes the loss of

material resources. A third of the trees were destroyed, a third of the

vegetation, the grass resources were destroyed. Now you might read that and think,

oh, that could be a famine, that could be economic collapse globally.

But what about on a personal level, what are your most valuable resources?

What are your most valuable assets? Your home, your income, your

investment portfolio, What are your assets your resources? The resources of this world

are prone to be destroyed by this world as a preacher, some of my

most valuable resources are my books. My library is my valuable resource. And

Bible commentaries are not expensive. These scholarly books are not cheap. They're yeah,

they're they're very expensive. They're not cheap. And so over the years

I've collected these books, hundreds of books to make up my library. In

fact, I even have an Excel spreadsheet that catalogs some of the most expensive

ones. And many years ago, one night, Lauren woke me up in

the middle of the night without warning because our bathroom sink was overflowing. And

I got out of bed and the carpet was soaked. And then I went

down to the main level and it was coming down through the ceiling. The

chandelier in the dining room was like an electric water fountain. And then I

went down to the basement where my home offices, where my library was,

and my books were like a cascading waterfall of theology, and they were all

destroyed and they were ruined. I lost my resources. Now you will suffer

the loss of something way bigger, way more important than books. Getting evicted

or a house fire can displace you. Losing your job can cripple your income.

I remember growing up in my hometown. The steel mill employed many people

in our hometown, and I remember in high school there was a dispute between

the union and management, and labor was locked out for a long time as

they were trying to solve these disputes. And I remember going by the entrance

to the steel mill and seeing those who were on the picket line and they

had their signs and they were locked out. And I remember seeing one of

my good friend's dad, they are locked out. He was not getting a

paycheck, he was not bringing home resources to his family. This world,

there's a warning here that you will lose your resources. The fourth trumpet in

Revelation eight, verse twelve, it describes that a third of the sun was

struck, a third of the moon, a third of the star, so

the third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light.

Now you might read that and think, oh, that's describing like a

global solar eclipse or something, but think personally, when you suffer the loss

of something that you love, it's like the light is dimmed in your life.

When you've been betrayed, or you go through a break and it feels

like the sky could be falling. When someone lets you down, it might

feel like the end of the world. If you've lost trust with somebody,

you see there's a personal warning that we're gonna suffer. And then notice what

we read about the fifth trumpet in chapter nine. It says the agony,

the agony they suffered, was like that of the sting of a scorpion when

it strikes. During those days, people will see death but will not find

it. They will long to die, but death will elude them. Have

you ever suffered so greatly that you felt like death was the only option.

There is pain and suffering in this life that leads some of us to despair

so greatly that death seems like the only solution. There are those who have

suffered the agony of losing a spouse or a child. There are some who

have felt a torture of grief, the agony of shame, the pain of

regret, and it leads some to say that they don't want to live anymore.

When you hear the word cancer, it feels like a piece inside of

you has died. When you're told that it's time for hospice, that can

feel like a death sentence. But friends, I want to say although there

is suffering, and although there is pain, there is hope. We have

a reason to hope, and that is trumpet number seven. If you turn

to Revelation chapter eleven, we introduce to the seventh trumpet. Verse fifteen says,

the seventh Angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven

which said, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord

and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. And the

twenty four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and

worshiped God. The seventh trumpet promises salvation. The first sixth trumpets tell us

we will suffer, but the seventh trumpet promises salvation. There is a Messiah.

There is a savior. His name is Jesus, who rescues us from

suffering, who saves us out of our pain, Jesus who defeats evil and

conquers sin and has beaten the grave. It's Jesus. Our hope in our

pain, our hope in our suffering, is all in Jesus. The seventh

trumpet promises that we have a savior, we have a hope. We will

only be saved if we heed God's warning see Revelation eight, nine, ten,

and eleven. These seven trumpets are God's way of trying to get your

attention. God's trying to get our attention. Look at Revelation chapter nine,

verse twenty. I think this passage is the most critical to understanding the Seven

Trumpets. Verse twenty says the rest of mankind, who were not killed by

these plagues still did not repent, did not repent of the work of their

hands. They did not stop worshiping demons in idols of gold, silver,

bronze, stone, and wood, idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual

immorality, or their thefts. Repent is a Bible word that simply means to

change. It comes from a Greek word that means to change your mind,

or change your purpose, or think differently. And so what we see here

is that these people, they saw the warnings, they saw the destruction,

they saw the devastation, they saw the death of the trumpets, but they

did not repent. They did not change. They did not change their ways

or turned to God. They stayed in sin. They did not heed the

warning. You see, God is trying to get our attention so that we

will change. You may know this story, But there was a small town

that was preparing for a big storm and there were threats of major floating in

this small town, and there was a state of emergency declared, and the

radio broadcast announced that everyone in the small town should evacuate. But one man

did not evacuate. He stubbornly wanted to ride out the storm in his home.

He'd been through storms before, and he said that he trusted in God

to get him through this storm. And so the storm came and into the

night, the waters began to rise into beyond the streets and rise into this

man's home. And then a motor boat came by and offered to help give

him a ride to safety, and he said, no, I'm good.

And throughout the night the waters continued to rise until the morning the man was

stranded on his rooftop to get away from the rising flood, and then a

helicopter came by and they offered to lower a rope down to the man and

he said, no, I'm good. Sadly, the man drowned and died,

and when he got to heaven. He said, God, I trusted

in you to get me through the storm. What happened I don't understand.

And God said, well, I sent you a news broadcast, I sent

you a motor boat, and I sent you a helicopter. What more did

you expect? Now that's a really silly story. But has God been trying

to get your attention? Has God been sounding the alarm? Have there been

warnings to get your attention to change, to repent? You see, nobody

wakes up one day just randomly and decides, you know what, I'm just

gonna ruin my life and start a new addiction and hurt my relationship with my

loved ones. No, there were warnings along the way, an experiment here,

those friends here, that party there. Nobody just randomly decides, you

know what, today would be a great day to break up my marriage and

commit adultery. But there were warnings along the way, the flirting, the

texts, the late hour conversations. You see, God is trying to get

our attention. There are warnings, and you may be hearing what I'm saying,

and you may not seriously think about what happens after you die. You

might be yon and healthy and your relationship with God. Your status with God

is not a big priority right now. Or maybe you're living in the pleasures

of sin and you're enjoying the pleasures of sin, but you have not thought

about the consequences. I want to tell you you don't know when death comes.

Let me tell you about a modern day trumpet in my life, a

warning in my life. I think about this story often. I knew a

young man named Nick who was my same age. And Nick graduated from high

school. He went off to a prestigious college, and then he went into

medical school to become a brain surgeon. And Nick graduated from medical school,

and he fell in love with a young woman and he proposed to her,

and they had plans to get married after Nick finished his medical residency. And

while he was in the last year of his residency, one night, they

were out to dinner and Nick collapsed unresponsive. He was young, he was

healthy, he was fit. They rushed him to the hospital and the doctors

tried to help him, but Nick ended up passing away. Those complications from

a certain type of brain aneurysm. There was no warning, no warning.

He was twenty eight or twenty nine years old when he passed young and healthy,

its whole future ahead of him. That story has been a personal warning

in my life. This guy was my same age. It's a reminder that

we're not guaranteed tomorrow. We don't know what this life will bring. And

so when we look at the trumpets, when we look at the story,

I want to tell you, repentance is the only response to God's warning.

Repentance is the only response to God's warning, repenting, turning changing. You

can be saved if you will turn to God. Because we read later in

Revelation chapter twenty that judgment is coming. Twelve says I saw the dead,

great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened.

Then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the

dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they

had done. We will be judged, Our sin will be judged, our

failures will be judged. And if your faith is in Jesus, if your

confidence is in Jesus, then we have nothing to fear on the day of

judgment, because Jesus took all the judgment when he died on the cross.

You see, when Jesus died, he became your substitute all your sin,

all your failures, all your mistakes were put on Jesus, and he paid

the price so you can be forgiven. When he rose from the dead,

he secured your eternal life, so that when the day of judgment comes,

we can stand clean because jesus Is righteousness is credited to our account, and

we will celebrate the judgment of God. Here's why we celebrate, because when

God judges the world, every wrong will be right, every injustice will get

justice, every abuse will be avenged. God's justice and his wrath will be

poured out against all evil, and he will be victorious. And so we

celebrate that because Jesus has taken our punishment. But if you have not put

your faith in Jesus, if you have not repented and turned to him,

it will be a scary day. Repentance is the only response to God's warning.

So what can we do? We repent And so here's my message today.

Here's my message. If you want to repent, you need to be

right with God. How do you be right with God? You gotta change,

You got to clean up your life. You want to make sure that

you go to heaven. You gotta do some real work. You gotta fix

your life. You gotta make sure you go to church, read the Bible,

and give money, and make sure that you change. Whoa, whoa,

whoa. I hope you've got alarm bells going off after you just heard

what I said there, because that is not the gospel, that is not

the message of Jesus. But how many of us have heard something like that

before? How many of us have heard something like that before in church or

even said something like that to ourselves. You got to clean up your life.

You gotta fix your life. You gotta do better, work harder,

show God. When I talk about sin and judgment, I am not trying

to shame anyone. I don't want to condemn anyone. I'm not trying to

intimidate you. I'm trying to love you. Because God does not want anyone

to live in sin. God does not want anyone to live in brokenness and

shipwreck their life. God does not want anyone to die in sin and be

condemned to hell. That's why God sent his son Jesus. Jesus made a

way to set us free. God loves us, He wants to rescue us

out of sin. Repentance is not behavior modification, but so much many of

us have confused salvation with behavior modification and just got to clean up my life.

I got to fix my life. I gotta get it all together and

show God that I'm worthy. I've been open here before about the sin of

pornography in my life, in my past, and when I was stuck in

that, I was so ashamed. I hated it, I hated myself,

and I hid it. It was a secret. I didn't anybody to know

about it, and I believed that I wanted to be right with God,

and so I worked really hard to get right with God. I tried really

hard. I wanted to show God that I could clean up my life,

that I could change my life and say, look God, here I am.

I fixed it. But you see, I was focused on my behavior,

and nothing changed. The harder I tried, the worse it. God.

I might do good for a little bit of time, but then go

back into sin, and then I'd feel more shame and more hate, self

hate. You see. The problem was my prayer was God, change my

behavior, and nothing changed until my prayer changed. I said, God changed

my heart. Literally the words I said was God, take control, and

you may be here today listening, and that is the prayer that you need

to pray today. Because you've been living in sin, You've been stuck in

brokenness. You're hating yourself, you're hating what's happened to you, and you've

been trying and spinning your wheels to fix it on your own. And today's

the day that you say, God take control. You See, repentance is

not behavior modification. Repentance is heart transformation. When I was living in that

addiction, I was focused on my behavior, but I couldn't change my behavior

until my heart was changed by the spirit of God. And I said,

God, change my heart. God doesn't want clean behavior. God wants a

surrendered heart. See, here's the thing about repentance. The enemy will tell

you that repentance is not freedom. The enemy, the devil, will tell

you that freedom is doing whatever you want, whenever you want, however you

want, with whomever you want. That's freedom. The enemy says sin brokenness,

whatever you want, that's freedom. And if you turn to God,

you're giving up your freedom. That sin is independence. I'm saying I want

to be independent of God. It is autonomy. Hey, I'm my autonomous

agent. I'm doing what I want, but it is not freedom because it

leads to bondage and slavery and brokenness and grief and shame. Repentance opens the

door to freedom, to a life in the spirit of God. And so

today I want to give you a template for practicing repentance, even if you've

been following Jesus for decades. As Christians, we never outgrow repentance. In

fact, the Christian life is a lifestyle of repentance. The longer we follow

Jesus, the more we repent. Believe, if you follow this template,

you will avoid confusing repentance with behavior modification. So what does repentance look like?

Step one? Change your heart. Each morning when I spend time with

the Lord in prayer, one of the things that I pray is God,

search my heart and show me if I have any sin that I need to

confess. Palm one thirty nine says, search me, God and know my

heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any

offensive way in me. You see, I want God to change my heart.

Want God to show me. You see, when you open your heart

to God, he will not condemn you. He will convict you. The

devil condemns shame condemns. But the gentleness of God, the kindness of God,

will help you see your error and change. Revelation three nineteen tells us

those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline, so be earnest and repent.

It's out of love that God corrects. In Revelation chapter ten, an

angel gives John a little scroll, which is the Bible, the word of

God. In verse ten, John writes, I took the little scroll from

the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey. But

when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. See God's word is

sweet. It it encourages us, it inspires us, it comforts us.

It's sweet. But if we've got unconfessed sin, his word can convict us,

and that can feel a little sour. But when we repent, we

change. It's the kindness of God that brings us to repentance. Allow God's

word to direct you. Change your heart. Second step is change your mind.

Change your mind. When you invite God to search your heart, he

might reveal something that needs to change. So your heart is the motivation,

but the mind is the change agent. Onirse John one nine says, if

we con fess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our

sins and to purify es from all unrighteousness. I want to tell you something

that I'm not proud of, but I want to. I want to try

to be honest and vulnerable. Not long ago, someone here within our church,

a friend, approached me and confronted me because I had unintentionally, but

I had hurt their feelings by the way I spoke to them in front of

other people. And this person told me that their first reaction was to type

me a strongly worded email, but they decided not to do that and they

wanted to speak to me face to face as Christians. And immediately I felt

guilty. I remembered exactly the situation and that was not my intention. But

but I had hurt their feelings and offended them, and so I had to.

I had to confess that and ask for their forgiveness and apologize. And

I'm so grateful for their kindness to and share that with me. See,

when the Lord reveals sin in your life, you have a choice to make.

You can decide that you're gonna You're gonna get defensive, You're gonna justify

what you're doing. Try to save face. You can try to hide it.

If it's the secret, private thing, you can minimize it and say

this isn't a big deal. You know, I don't need to worry about

this. Or you can own it, own it, confess it, learn

from it, and change. Repent. And you might be wondering what happens

if we don't repent, What happens if we don't change. Let me tell

you what happens. If you ignore sin, you will lose joy, you

will lose peace, you will become more irritable, you'll become more paranoid,

and even your physical body might be affected. In Psalm thirty two, David

writes, in verse three, when I kept silent about sin, he's talking,

my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and

night. You're was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped as in the

heat of summer. See, if you ignore God's invitation to confess and repent

from sin, your heart will become hard to the Lord. Your ears will

become death to what he wants to say. But if you choose to repent,

God will forgive and restore. The next verse, David writes, then

I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover my iniquity. I said,

I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt

of my sin. Repentance moves from heart change to mind change, and finally

it moves to our actions. The last step is change your behavior. We

do have to change our decisions and our actions, but behavior is the last

thing that gets changed. You. See, if you try to start with

just changing behavior, you're gonna be stuck in a cycle of whack a mole.

You know that game with the arcade where you got the mallet and the

one mole pops up and you whack it, but then two more pop up.

We're here and you're in this cycle of trying to keep your behavior in

check. Try to keep your behavior under control, and that's where the devil

keeps you trapped in a cycle of shame and self loathing. See, we

change our behavior, but it's the last thing. After a heart has changed,

after a mind has changed, then it's natural to change your actions and

decisions. Again, I'm not proud of what I'm going to share. I

want to tell you how the Lord is doing this in my life. So

there was a time where I said something to a friend of mine that was

dishonoring to the Lord, and I didn't think anything about it in the moment,

and then the next day, when I was asking the Lord search my

heart, he showed me, Hey, what you said that was actually really

dishonoring. It wasn't as funny as you thought it was. And so then

I called that friend and I confessed that and said, hey, I think

what I said was dishonoring, and I just want to tell you that.

And then I just made a decision. I'm going to change. I'm not

gonna say things like that that dishonor the Lord. Not long after that,

within the next week or two, I was in a very similar conversation,

in a very similar situation where there was a momentary temptation to say something almost

identical that would dishonor the Lord. But it wasn't even a temptation. I

said, Nope, I've made a decision not going there not saying that.

Nope. Done. You see, when your heart has changed and your mind

has changed, then your action's choices, your behavior. It's a natural flow.

Acts three nineteen says repent then and turn to God. So that your

sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

Friends, when I talk about repenting and turning from sin, no one

here should feel condemned. I'm not trying to shine a spotlight on anybody.

We've all got sin that we need to turn from. See, I'm sharing

this not to make you feel guilty. I'm not trying to shame you.

I'm trying to tell you that there's refreshing from the Lord. There is freedom

in the Lord. When we turn from sin and we repent, then He's

gonna refresh, He's gonna restore, he's gonna renew you. That's what I

want for you. I want you to have a life that is full in

the Lord. And so that's why the question today is what do you need

to repent from? What do you need to turn from? You? See,

there's nothing that I can say with my words to convince you to repent

or to change you. See, I can't give you a great motivational speech

to inspire you. This is not a motivational speech. Only God can speak

to our hearts today. Only the spirit of God can reveal where we need

repentance and forgiveness and So that's why we're going to enter a time of response

right now, an opportunity for us to respond and to listen and to respond

to what God is said. So I want to invite you into a posture

of response. You're welcome to buy your head or to close your eyes,

whatever you need to do. Maybe put your hands palms open in front of

you. But in this response, I'm gonna read the verse that we read

from Revelation nine twenty, and I'm going to pause and ask some intentional questions

and give you space and opportunity to search your heart and hear from God.

Revelation nine twenty says the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these

plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands. Do you need

to repent from something you've done with your hands, holding on the worldly position,

holding on to your status, your career, grabbing money, wealth greedily.

The text says they did not stop worshiping demons and idols. While you

may not have a little gold statue in your home, are their modern day

idols? Do you need to repent from worshiping your popularity, seeking approval or

people pleasing, or even maybe worshiping an important person or relationship in your life.

Next, the text says they did not repent of their murders. Have

you treated someone violently? Have you hated someone in your heart, wished them

dead, or held on to bitterness? Do you need to repent? They

did not repent of their magic arts. Maybe God is showing you that you

need to repent from a false religion or evil practices, fortune telling, horoscopes,

things like that they did not repent of sexual immorality. And finally,

it says they did not repent of their thefts. Have you taken something that

didn't belong to you, or taken advantage of someone, or stolen someone's trust,

or behave selfishly? If God has brought anything to mine today, would

you just tell him that you want to repent from it and ask for his

help and his grace to change. And let me read again from Acts three

nineteen. Repent then in turn to God, so that your sins will be

wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. The Lord

wants to refresh you. The Lord wants to renew you. He does not

judge you, he does not condemn you. He does not reject you.

He welcomes you with hope in arms. He wants to wipe away your tears.

He wants to wipe away the guilt. He wants to wipe away the

shape. He will refresh you. That's the invitation of repentance today. And

so God, we end today by saying, we need you, God,

we love you, We thank you that you have sent Jesus to change us,

to save us. And so God, I pray for each person here

that we will walk out of here with more confidence because of your grace,

closer to you, because of your love, that we will know that we

are forgiven, we are redeemed, and we are renewed, dude, because

of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And we pray all this in

his name. Amen. Amen,