Our message this evening is going to be from Revelation chapter 9, and we're going to be in verses 13 through 21. Revelation 9, 13 through 21, and the title of the message is Hell's Army. And before we get into that text, I want to begin with a couple of verses from James chapter 3. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life and is set on fire by hell. We're working through John's vision of the seven trumpets in Revelation. And we've already been through the seven seals, and now we're working through the trumpets. And we've already looked at five of the seven trumpets. We're gonna look at the sixth one today. As we look at this sixth trumpet, I want us to keep in mind that what we're seeing is a symbolic vision that represents something else. And also, we need to keep in mind that what we're seeing isn't necessarily a future event that hasn't happened yet. Most of the visions that we're seeing are representative of things that are ongoing. They begin with the fall of man at the beginning of history, and they'll continue until Christ has put all of his enemies under his feet on the last day. So what we're looking at, when we saw the Lamb begin to break the seven seals on the book of history, that's from the beginning, and it goes all the way to the end. The same thing with the trumpets. The visions are arranged in cycles. so that we can look at these cycles superimposed on the backdrop of human history, and we can see how God's purpose is being worked out in time and space. And he's working it out by his active engagement with the created order through the agency of his messengers that he sends. He sends these angels, these messengers, to do this and to do that. The cycles are illustrated with complete sets of seals, complete sets of trumpets, and complete sets of bowls. In the beginning, in the breaking of the seals and the blowing of the trumpets and the pouring out of the bowls, we see God's providence is being executed in the world with the ultimate purpose of destroying his enemies and reconciling all things to himself in Christ. That's the story of Scripture. That's the story of the Bible. And that's the story of Revelation. So, last week we began to look at the last three trumpets. The first four were displaying manifestations of the curse that man's sin has brought on this world. And it was being put on display through decay and destruction of the visible created order. And then the last three trumpets illustrate the direct effects of the curse on fallen humanity. And these last three trumpets were introduced by an eagle flying in midheaven and saying with a loud voice, whoa, whoa, whoa, to those who dwell on the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels, I wanna emphasize messengers from God. These messengers from God blow the trumpets and each one of them blowing the trumpets introduces a new woe, something that's being carried out. And it's important that we remember what woe means. especially in the context that it's being used here in this part of Revelation. Woe is an expression of grief and anguish over judgment, calamity, cursing, and misery. And it's particularly used here as an expression of lament. Now, it can be used as an expression of lament over my calamity. My judgment, my misery. But in this case, it's particularly used here as an expression of lament over those. It's a lament over those who are blind. They're blind to their own wretched and helpless condition. And the woes that are in view in the last three trumpets are explicitly associated with those who dwell upon the earth. This designation is used in Revelation as a contrast to the church. You have those who dwell upon the earth, and you have those who have the seal of God on their foreheads. It's the two groups of people in Revelation. Revelation only has two groups. It has those who dwell upon the earth, or the wicked, or the unrighteous, or there's a lot of different terms, but it's mostly those who dwell upon the earth in Revelation. And then you have those that belong to God, those that belong to Christ, those that follow the Lamb. And that is those who have the seal of God on their foreheads. That's the two groups. And so the ones that are the recipients of these three woes here at the last three trumpets are those who dwell upon the earth. So the fifth trumpet that we looked at last week heralded the falling of a star from heaven. And this star was given a key with which he opened the bottomless pit. Smoke went up out of the pit and it darkened the sky. And a cloud of locusts with stings like scorpions came out of the smoke. And they had the ability to torment people, but only the people who fit that category of those who dwell upon the earth. And they do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So these locusts that were released, they only have the ability to torment those who are outside of Christ. Those who dwell upon the earth, unregenerate fallen man. Well, I made the case that the star that fell from heaven was a picture of Satan. The key that he used to open the bottomless pit was representative of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Really, it was the lie that there is fulfillment to be found beyond or apart from what God has provided. He offered Eve the fruit and he told her, you will be like God, knowing good and evil. There's something God's holding out on you. There's fulfillment, there's satisfaction, there's enjoyment. There is status to be reached beyond what God has given you. That's the key that opened this bottomless pit. And the locusts illustrate the operation of the fleshly desires, passions, these passions of a human heart that has an infinite capacity to be filled trying to fill itself. You have an infinite heart trying to fill itself with finite things instead of the infinite God that it was created for. Well, that was the vision there in the fifth trumpet. So this week, we're going to look at the sixth trumpet. So now we're gonna read our text and then we'll pray and get started. So it says, then the sixth angel sounded, and heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God. One saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. And the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released so that they would kill a third of humankind. The number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them. And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them. The riders had breastplates the color of fire and hyacinth and of brimstone. And the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons and idols of gold and of silver and of brass and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts. So when the sixth trumpet sounds, John hears a voice that comes from the four horns of the altar, which is before God. Well, there's only one altar in heaven. We've talked about that before. And this is the same altar from chapter eight, verse 35, at which the Lord offers up the fragrant incense of his perfect life and atoning sacrifice, and he adds to it the prayers of the saints, and it goes up before God as a pleasing aroma. The altar in the temple in Jerusalem had four horns, one at each corner, so they've got a horn coming up off of it, so if you can imagine, If there was a horn coming up here and a horn there and a horn there, probably to keep the sacrifices from falling off the altar when they set them up there, when they're burning them, offering them up as a burnt sacrifice. But that's what they had. They had four horns on the altar. And so from the horns of the altar, John hears a voice, which signifies that the voice is coming from the altar itself. It's coming from inside the horns. Well, the sacrifice is the Lord. The altar is the Lord. So John is indicating that the one speaking and the one commanding what to be done is the Lord himself. And the command that the Lord gives is release the four angels. And once again, I'm gonna emphasize messengers because it's something that I've really thought about as we discussed this from Revelation. We have images that come to mind when we think of an angel. Most of us, when we think of an angel, we see something we've seen painted on the wall in a cathedral or something like that or something, illustration in a book. What we see is something like a man with wings. And a halo, yeah. You see a blond-haired, blue-eyed man with wings and a halo, and that's an angel. Well, that's not, that's a mythological creature, is what you're seeing. So, angels are simply messengers. that God sends to accomplish his purposes. Actually, the Bible teaches that wind and lightning are angels sent from God to accomplish his purpose. Listen to Psalm 104. In Psalm 104, in verse four, it says, he makes the winds his messengers. Flaming fire his ministers when you say well that says messenger. It doesn't say angel well, that's true, but if you go over to Hebrews and the New Testament interprets the Old Testament for us and you go over to Hebrews and Hebrews chapter 1 the author of Hebrews tells us that that of the angels, in Hebrews 1.7, it says, and of the angels, he says, who makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. Wind and lightning are angels. They're messengers from God sent to accomplish his purpose. God sends all sorts of things to accomplish his purpose. And so we need to get the idea out of our head that this is the reason why. It also says that some people by showing hospitality to strangers have entertained angels unawares. It doesn't mean some fantastical mythological creature. It means that you've entertained, you have shown hospitality to God's messengers who he has sent. If God sends somebody to you with a purpose, that's a messenger from God. So anyway, I'm not gonna kick that horse too much. But I do want us to have that understanding in mind as we read these things that we need to make sure that we think and we don't just assume presupposed pictures that we have in our minds whenever we think about these things because of culture or mythology or anything like that. So let's get back to our study. So the Lord says, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. Well, this is not the same four angels from chapter seven, verses one through three. And if you remember in chapter seven, verses one through three, there's an interlude between the sixth and the seventh seal. And there's four angels points of the compass. They're standing at the four points of the compass and they're holding back the winds of final destruction from coming on this physical realm until what? Until all of the bondservants of God have been sealed on their foreheads. And the point of that text is the same as 2 Peter 3, 3 through 9. The point is, the Lord is patient. And it is his will that every single one of his sheep be brought into the fold. That means it's going to happen. The end will not come until that is accomplished, until the Lord brings every single one of his lost sheep into the fold. And that's what we saw back in, chapter seven, verses one through three. Well, that's not what's in view here. The vision here is that these four angels, which are bound at the Euphrates River, are to be released into the world so that they would kill a third of mankind. That's what it says. Let's just read it. Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates, and the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released so that they would kill a third of mankind. So, that's the vision. What we're seeing in these trumpets is a kind of a spiral of escalation. The first four trumpets had to do with nature, the created order. The fifth trumpet began to illustrate the direct effects of sin on human beings. It started with the locusts of desires that torment and dominate the hearts and minds of people who haven't yet come to find their fulfillment in Christ. They haven't been reconciled to God in Christ. And those locusts of desire prey on them and torment them in their hearts and minds. The locusts have the power to torment. They have the power to cause mental and emotional anguish. But they don't have the power to kill. But let's look at verse 16 here. These have the power to kill a third of mankind, and the number of the armies of the horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them. So with the sixth trumpet and the release of these four angels, we see another plague, and this one does have the power to kill. Now listen to We're gonna refer a couple times to James this evening, but I'm gonna go there now to James chapter one, verses 13 through 15. I think I read this last week. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust, that locust. that desire that has that stinger. Then, when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. So you can see a spiral effect, a downward spiral. That's the natural progression. If the locusts are the desires of the flesh, these armies of horsemen that we're looking at here in this text are simply the sins that are committed in pursuit of those desires. So you have the desire, and then when that desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. You have this locust, and it's tormenting you with desire, and when you act on that desire, being as pictured as this horseman that is causing, that leads to death. So where does the imagery come from? Well, the Euphrates River, and actually I'm gonna go to another slide than this one, because I'm gonna show you where the Euphrates River is. You can kind of see it here, but I've got one that shows it really good. All right. So here's the Euphrates River. And you can see where it begins up there in the mountains, and it comes down through Syria, and then down through Iraq, and then down into the Gulf down there. And so that's the Euphrates River. Now, with that picture in mind, I'm going to go back to the other slide I had. And you can see it there on this slide as well. So, the Euphrates River has both biblical significance and it has immediate relevance to the original recipients of Revelation. The people that first got to read Revelation, when John sent it to the seven churches, and then when it was distributed to the rest of the churches, Not only would there have been biblical significance to the Euphrates, but there would have also been immediate relevance. In the history of Israel, invasion, oppression, and exile came from beyond the Euphrates. And you can kind of see it on the map right there, how it runs down through there. And beyond that is where this came from. Nineveh, which was the capital of the Assyrian Empire that wiped out the northern kingdom of Israel, it was located northeast of the Euphrates. There's Nineveh right there. The end of that arrow. And then also Babylon, which was the capital city of the Babylonian Empire, which destroyed Jerusalem and carried off Judah into exile. It was located east of the Euphrates. And you can see it right there. Right on the east side of the Euphrates. So they've already got that picture in their minds from a biblical perspective. But, For the citizens of the Roman Empire, there would have been another perspective. There would have been another immediate concern having to do with Euphrates. And that's visible here. Because you see that? That big country right there, that's called the Parthian Empire. And that was who the big threat was to Rome on the eastern border. It was the Parthian Empire which was renowned for its armies of mounted archers. People in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire feared constantly raids from Parthian cavalry. They would come across in the villages and the outposts along the border between the Roman Empire and the Parthian area. were constantly being attacked and raided. And so the people that lived in those areas had a constant fear of that. And after the great fire of Rome in 64 AD, which was right around this time that this was written, pretty close to it, Nero But after Rome burned in 64, a lot of people blamed Nero. Some people even thought he might have set the fire so that he could build a new castle, build a new home for himself and do some construction projects. And the area that burned was slums. That's where it started. So they just thought Nero just decided to wipe out everything he didn't like so he could go back new. He became very unpopular. And he also had a lot of political enemies that used those kind of things against him. And to make a long story short, he was condemned by the Senate as an enemy of the state. He was declared to be an enemy of the state. And he fled Rome. And eventually he committed suicide in June of 68 A.D. After his death, there were rumors that floated around Rome, the city, and continued that he wasn't actually dead, but had escaped to the east, to Parthia, and that he was planning to return, leading an army of Parthian cavalry and reconquering the Roman Empire. That was the imagery that John's readers would have had in mind when he pictures this army of horsemen from the Euphrates attacking would be this huge, devastating military force that just is able to strike quickly and wreak havoc wherever they go. Well, actually the image would be that it would have invoked in the minds of his readers is hundreds of millions of these horsemen. He said 200 million. That sounds kind of like a swarm of locusts, doesn't it? 200 million deadly horsemen sweeping across the world, killing people and causing harm and terror. Well, at this point, we have to remind ourselves that the vision is symbolic. John is not talking about, the vision is not a literal, physical 200 million horses sweeping across the Middle East. It's symbolic. It's not meant to cause us to get bogged down into geography. And it's not an army of physical human cavalry. And its source is not the literal, physical Euphrates River. The army that John sees is like an invading army, sweeping in from the east, except that it's much worse than that. It's much worse than an army of cavalry. So let's look at verses 17 through 19. And it says that this is how I saw the vision the horses, and those who sat on them. The riders had breastplates the color of fire, and of hyacinth, and of brimstone. And the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceed fire, and smoke, and brimstone. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire, and the smoke, and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm. It's not the riders that are the threat in this vision. The riders are just there for decoration. It's the horses that are the threat. The horses are the vehicles that are bringing harm and woe to those who dwell on the earth. And the problem is the horse's heads. Actually, it's their mouths and their tails. The horse's heads and mouths, though, they actually look like lion's heads and mouths because they're not literal horses. They're symbolic and they're meant to convey the imagery of something that devours and consumes. So out of the horse's mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone. And these are the plagues by which they kill a third of humanity. Well, their tails are like serpents with heads. And they identify the horses and their power with the great dragon, the serpent of old. Listen to Revelation 12, verse nine. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. See, the serpent tails with heads, they identify these horsemen, these horses, with Satan, with that dragon, with that serpent of old. And the horse's power is the power of the serpent. That's what it says. Well, what's the power of the serpent? It's the power to deceive. He deceives the whole world. It's that same power that he's used to steal and kill and destroy from the very beginning. Listen to John chapter eight. He's talking to the religious leaders and he says, you are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies. So Satan is a murderer and the way that he committed murder was through deceit. through the lie. And that's the same power that these horses carry. They deceive their victims into believing the same old lie that Satan convinced Eve of in the beginning. We talked about that a little bit already. You can't decide what is good and evil for yourself. You can be your own God by turning away from the Lord and pursuing fulfillment on your own terms. That's the lie. That's the power of this swarm, this army that is pictured here as sweeping across the world. Well, they have three plagues coming out of their mouths. The three plagues coming out of the horse's mouths are the fruit that the lie produces. Just like the rest of the vision, the three plagues are not photographs. They're symbolic images meant to represent something else. So what do they represent? Well, to figure out the answer to that, I think we need to remember the concept of recapitulation that's taken place all the way through Revelation. Back in Revelation 5, we saw the Lamb receive from the right hand of the Father the sealed book of history. Everything that happens from the fall of creation to the consummation of all things in Christ is contained in this book. And the Lamb receives it from the hand of the Father. And then in chapter 6, when the Lamb began to break the seals immediately, this is immediately following the lie. bringing the fall of man, the key that opened the bottomless pit. Immediately following that, the seals began to be broken and the first four were pictured as horsemen riding forth and wrecking havoc among those who dwell upon the earth. The first plague pictured coming out of the horse's mouth in this vision is fire. The first and second horsemen in the vision of the seals are conquest and war. James 4 verse 2 says you lust and desire and do not have. Or he says you lust, which is desire, and you do not have, so you commit murder. So you desire and you do not have, so you commit murder. You're envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. Rather than seeking fulfillment from God, what does fallen humanity do? Well, we seek to be fulfilled on our own terms. We try to do it ourselves. Fallen humans strive to obtain the fulfillment of their desires themselves, and they do it through conquest. emotional conquest, psychological conquest, sometimes even through physical attack and even murder. But people that are out there, a corporate raider is engaged in conquest just like a military commander who's striving to take over a country. Human beings in their fallen state are striving to grasp more and more. And that conquest and the war that results from it, that corresponds to the fire. The fire that comes out of the horse's mouth. That's the first plague. The second plague coming out of the horse's mouth is smoke. Well, the second seal, the second horseman back in chapter six represents war. The fires of war and conquest produce smoke. which brings darkness, even darkness to the point that vision is completely obscured if the darkness is thick enough. Spiritual darkness upon the earth and spiritual blindness in the hearts and minds of those who dwell upon the earth is the second plague, the smoke, the cloud that veil, our understanding is veiled, it's clouded. Well, that's the second plague. And the third plague is brimstone. Brimstone is symbolic for suffering and torment. Listen to Revelation chapter 14. In Revelation chapter 14, verses nine and 10, it says, then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. So the third plague is brimstone, symbolic for suffering. Well, the third horseman, back in chapter six, is famine. And the fourth horseman is riding an ashen or a green horse, which symbolizes pestilence and disease. And that rider's name is death. The fire of conquest, in order to fulfill our desires, produces darkness, blindness, suffering, pestilence, and sickness, and the end result is death. That's the place. But it's limited to those who dwell upon the earth. It's not for those who've been sealed by God. Romans 6.23 says, for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And also, I'm gonna read from Philippians chapter three. concerning these same things. Philippians chapter three, verses 17 through 21. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven. So there's the contrast, those who dwell upon the earth and the citizens of heaven, from which also we eagerly Wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Now let's look at verses 20 and 21. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts. And that is the reason for woe. That's the reason why verse 13 back in chapter eight says woe to those who dwell on the earth. That right there. The worst thing about being deceived is that you're deceived. The worst thing about being spiritually blind is that you don't know that you're spiritually blind. First Corinthians 2.14 says, but a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them because they're spiritually appraised. Appraised means discerned or seen. He can't understand it because he can't see it. He can't believe it because he can't see it. I want us to consider these Old Testament passages and see if it doesn't resonate with what John wrote here in verses 20 and 21. I'm gonna start in Psalm 115. Psalm 115, I'm gonna read verses one through eight. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, because of your lovingkindness, because of your truth. Why should the nation say, where now is their God? But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak. They have eyes, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear. They have noses, but they cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot feel. They have feet, but they cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them. And then Psalm 135, verses 15 through 18. The idols of the nations are but silver and gold, the work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak. They have eyes, but they do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear, nor is there any breath at all in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them. Yes, everyone who trusts in them. I think the Lord is trying to tell us something. Isaiah 44, verses 12 through 20. And this one really hit home to me. I remember it really hitting home to me years ago when I first read it and really got a handle on it. Because I saw myself in this passage. I'm gonna start reading in verse, Isaiah 44, I'm gonna start reading verse 12. The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, fashioning it with hammers and working it with his strong arm. He also gets hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and becomes weary. Another shapes wood. He extends a measuring line. He outlines it with red chalk. He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of a man so that it may sit in a house. Surely he cuts cedars for himself and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn. So he takes one of them and he warms himself. He also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it. He makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over this half he eats meat as he roasts and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, aha, I'm warm, I have seen the fire. But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it in worship. He also prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. They do not know nor do they understand for he has smeared over their eyes so they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend. No one recalls nor is there knowledge or understanding to say I burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination. I fall down before a block of wood. He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside, and he cannot deliver himself, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand? See, John has all of these passages in view when he writes this text in Revelation, but This passage from Isaiah is particularly relevant to the picture that the Holy Spirit is showing us. Fallen man is blind to his true need, and he's blind to the identity of the true meter of his needs. He thinks the tree that he planted and grew is what provides him with warmth and a cooked meal. If he makes lumber out of it, a home. Etc. So he worships the work of his own hands. He made the tool that he carved the wood with. And he grew the wood. I was that man for years. I thought it was my good job that was meeting my needs and providing for my family and all the hours I worked. When the Lord saved me, I realized that it was God who gave me the tree. It was God who gave me the know-how to cut it up and what to use it for and how to do it and the will to do it. That all of it comes from God. But see, humanity doesn't realize that. They don't repent and turn to God. Even though we see all around us in the world the results of sin, the suffering, that sin brings. We see war and we see pestilence and famine and sickness and strife and depravity. We see it all around us. We know there's something wrong. Everybody knows there's something wrong. But instead of repenting and turning to God to meet our needs, John says the rest of mankind who have survived so far, they didn't repent. of worshiping the works of their hands. These works that can neither see, nor hear, nor walk, nor speak. And they didn't repent of their murders, or their sorceries, or their immoralities, or their thefts, or all this stuff. All these sins that we engage in trying to achieve our desires, get what we want. Instead of repenting, they just kept right on going, because they're blind. They're spiritually blind, just like those idols, just like those things that they're worshiping and trusting in. They can't see, and they can't hear. Which, you know, that really ought to give us a lot of sympathy and a lot of grace for people who maybe don't act like we think they ought to act. Maybe people who don't trust in the Lord, because the reason why they don't trust the Lord is not because they're more sinful naturally than we are. It's not because they're any worse. One of the reformers, when he was sitting in the Tower of London one time, he saw somebody going to the execution, I think. He wrote in whatever he was writing there, but for the grace of God, go I. And he said his name. He wrote his name down. Well, you know, the truth is, that's the way it is for all of us. If we see somebody falling off a cliff into sin or depravity or something, and we don't, it's not because we're any better than they are. It's because God has Give us eyes to see. And he showed us something better and he's freed us. He set us free from the control of these locusts. And so we're not tormented by them anymore. And we don't engage. We're not victims of those horsemen, those sins. We don't actually do those things that bring about death because the Lord has delivered us from. That's the only difference. That's the difference between those who have been sealed and those who dwell upon the earth. So for us, the good news for all of that is though, what we read earlier, Christ is, he's going to deliver every one of his sheep. He's gonna do it. And the end is not gonna come until it's accomplished. So in the midst of all this, We have hope that we can look forward to that not only is the Lord gonna, well, that text that I love to quote from Paul, that he said, I'm confident, I know this, that the Lord will deliver me from every evil deed and bring me safely and securely into his glorious kingdom. To him be the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy And for these pictures that you've given us, and for this truth that you've shown us in your word, that you are sovereign, and you are God, you are good, and you are working all of these things out together with the purpose of putting your enemies under your feet, and bringing all of your sheep into your fold. Lord, we thank you for this truth, in Jesus' name, amen.