Revelation 8-11

Good morning, Saylorville! If you brought a copy of scripture with you this morning, you can find the book of Revelation and the 8th chapter. Revelation chapter 8. We’re actually going to be taking up four, we’re looking at four chapters today, so buckle up, okay? And because we’re getting into the midst of the Tribulation… and I once… because I wanted to avoid preaching a series or a message on every single chapter on the Tribulation years ago, I preached one message over 10 chapters. Yeah, went over an hour, and nobody talked to me afterwards. So I’m going to try not to go that long today, if that’s OK with you.

But I got to start with a question here. How many of you have played Jenga? Okay, so that’s most of us here. So I brought my yard Jenga with me, and my friends have already been playing it, as you can see, as it’s already taller than it was when it went up, and you can see a picture of what it was before. And so that Jenga is my object lesson today. It’s taller than it was before, but it’s not necessarily stronger.

I think sometimes we think because there’s more activity in our life, we’ve gained more knowledge, we’ve got a lot more money, by the way, 2024 was a great year for the stock market. You guys made out like bandits! I mean, we think that’s making us bigger and stronger, but not necessarily stronger. The church too is grown. The Engage Network, the collective group of eight churches have grown exponentially!

And yet on the other side of the ledger there is war. There’s literally over 100 conflicts going on in our world right now. And we, you know, over the last several years, evil men have crossed over our borders in untold numbers. We still wait to see what that’s going to look like here as it begins to unpack itself. Natural disasters with hurricanes, and floods, and tornadoes, and now fires in the LA area, (We need to be praying for those individuals there) and political hatred. Nothing new there. And then there’s the church. I wonder sometimes if to God, the church is a little bit like that Jenga right there, getting bigger, getting taller, not necessarily stronger. And in fact, we might be pretty weak.

Some of you individually, you’ve known the Lord for a long period of time, and you’re getting taller, so to speak. But are you getting stronger? What if I told you that the world doesn’t need more miracles? It needs more witnesses. And what if I told you the church doesn’t need more programs. It needs more power? And what if I told you that God doesn’t desire more starters. He wants more finishers. And that is my prayer for you today as we look at some of these daunting chapters in the bible. So pray with me, would you please?

Our Father in Heaven, as we open up Your word in the guts of this book on the unveiling of Jesus, we’re not gonna see that unveiling today. In fact, Lord, what we see, there is a lot of darkness, a lot of heaviness, and yet there are bright lights within it, and I pray we would see those, and You would give us practical application, Your Holy Spirit will work in our midst. And I pray for those that are here in this room and those who are watching online who do not have a personal relationship with You, that today they would enter in and go from darkness to light. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name, amen.

So if you’ve been with us, you know that we’re going through Revelation, and the first three chapters were all on the church and how the church needs to ready itself. There are different kinds of churches in every era. And that gave way to chapters four and five where the scene was in heaven. And in chapter five, Father God has the title deed to the earth in His hand, and the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, comes and snatches it from Him and begins to unseal this seven sealed document. And as He does, every seal has a judgment. At the end of the seventh seal come seven trumpets. We’ll see that here today. And when the seventh trumpet is announced, seven bowls. So the seals, trumpet and bowl judgments of Revelation occur in sort of rapid fire staccato fashion. And they also… there is an increasing severity with every one of them both to the economy, the ecology, and the humanity of Earth.

And so these trumpets start to blow. By the way, it’s a trumpet sound would not be new to a Jew especially during the wilderness wanderings. They announced certain things. Trumpets had basically three purposes. One was just to gather the people. Another one would be to announce special events; celebration, feast, maybe a king coming. And the other one was to prepare for war, and that’s the one we ought to be focusing on here, because we’re talking about war that’s gonna bust out on earth like never before.

And so the trumpets in Revelation reveal four things we’re gonna see today. And the first is a stockpile, a stockpile of prayer in heaven. That’s in chapter eight.

I was thinking about Jonah. Remember the story of Jonah? At the very beginning, God says to Jonah, ‘Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh because their wickedness has come up before Me.’ And the wickedness of man does pile up, but we’re talking about piling up something else this morning.

One of the pretexts of the war with Iraq about 20 years ago, if you’ll recall, one of the pretexts for going to war was to find those weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had… Remember that? — Only when we went in there, what happened? We couldn’t see them. He either got rid of him… whatever.

Listen, while we can’t see these weapons that we see in chapter eight here, God’s people are stockpiling weapons in heaven in the form of our prayers. Let me show you what I mean. Chapter eight, verse one.

Revelation 8:1-4

1“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.”

(This is sort of a collective gasp takes place in this place of praise. Suddenly, it’s like they see what’s about to incur. They see what’s about to be meted out on earth and there’s a gasp.)

2 “Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets” (notice from the seventh seal, come seven trumpets. Out of that seventh seal come the trumpets. They were given to them in verse three) “were given to them.“

3 “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer (watch this) with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne,”

4 “and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.“

…By the way, prayer… incense in the Bible… Psalm 141:2 that I just thought of this just now. David said, ‘Let my prayer come before you as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!’ I just thought of that! So incense and prayer are… they go together. And so the smoke that rose symbolizes, watch this, it symbolizes righteous, the righteous prayers of the suffering saints who are praying for justice. You remember when we were in Revelation chapter six those that were beheaded in the Tribulation? Remember they were asking God to bring… ‘When are you gonna bring justice?’ Remember that? It may simply be referring to them, but I think it’s probably more comprehensive than that. And then what happens is, as this trumpet goes forth that these judgments occur, and a third of plant life, the trees, a third of the water is destroyed, a third, a third, a third, a third, a third… thirteen times It says a third in this chapter. Now, a third of the earth, a third of all the plant life, a third of all the waters are destroyed or contaminated. Now, a third is a lot, right? But it’s not total. So there’s almost baked into it a divine mercy where God is beckoning us and beckoning them and the midst of this tribulation to repent and turn to Him.

And I don’t know if these judgments symbolize events, and judgements caused by man like nuclear, biological, or chemical, or if they’re direct acts of God Himself. I think it’s probably an add mixture of both. For instance, in [Revelation] verse 11, it refers to a star called “Wormwood.” In fact, just like verse 10 says,

Revelation 8:10-11

10 “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.”

11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, (or bitter) and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.”

Now, Wormwood is actually a plant. It’s an actual plant. It’s a plant that if you ingest it, it will make you very ill, violently ill. It could even kill you! — And it contaminates a third of the waters. Now that makes me wonder if this is nuclear or chemical in fashion. I can’t speak definitively, but did you know there’s a city in this world called Wormwood? It was a spectacular city at one time. Yeah, we don’t call it Wormwood. It’s a Russian name. It’s the Russian city Chernobyl. The Russian word Chernobyl means “worm wood.” And if you know anything about Chernobyl, in 1986 their nuclear reactor melted down… killed hundreds of people. It’s still killing people! — 40 years nearly later, and nobody lives in Chernobyl. Look at verse 5.

Revelation 8:5, “Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.”

These are the righteous prayers for justice on earth released from heaven itself, like spiritual nuclear bombs onto the earth!

You know in World War II we dropped a couple of bombs in Japan, remember… Did you know that each of those bombs had a name? They named them. Now if we were to name this bomb, it would be called “the Prayers of the Saints,” as God dispenses His divine judgment. And even now, righteous prayers can move mountains, change governments and melt hearts.

We lead a Reformation tour on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation a few years back. And while we were there, we were in Geneva, and we went to the famous Reformation wall where there’s a great tribute to the great Protestant men of God who brought us the Reformation like John Calvin and John Knox. John Knox was the man that Queen Mary of Scots, who was otherwise known as Bloody Mary, because she hated the gospel, but she also said,

“I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” Mary, Queen of Scots a.k.a. Bloody Mary

Listen! Our prayers are the spiritual fission and fusion combined in heaven to be combusted on earth in the day when God executes His divine justice!

Some of you are stockpiling a retirement right now. You had a good year last year! — Really rolling it in! By the way, I’m not against saving money. The Bible even talks about that. It’s a smart thing to do. But if that’s where your reliance is… I just talked to somebody moments before the service who said, “You know, I’ve always trusted the Lord all of my life with my money, but now that I’m older and I have a lot of money, I’m wondering if I’m trusting that more.” Great question! — because when we get to the 18th chapter, it’s all just a Jenga. That’s all it is. Because it’s all going to come down. It’s all going to collapse. You say, ‘Well, that might be, but I’ve got silver and I’ve got gold.’ That’s not going to do you any good, either. That’s the reason why the writer of Hebrews [12:26] said, ‘Once more will I come,’ God says, ‘to shake the heavens and the earth so that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.’ Too many of us are building our lives on things that shake. Are you laying up treasures in heaven? Good! That’s a safe place to put your real treasure. But, if you’re a woman of God, if you’re a man of God, you’re stockpiling more than just treasure in heaven. Let’s move on.

The Trumpets in Revelation in chapter 9 teaches about the agony of hell. There’s a moment in Jesus’ life where He sends out 72 followers and they go into all these cities and the results are spectacular! People are coming and believing in Jesus as the Messiah, they’re casting out demons, and they come back to Jesus and they say,

[Luke 10:17] “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”

Do you remember what Jesus said to reply to that? It’s very odd, and you almost pass by it. He said,

[Luke 10:18] “…I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.“

Have you ever read that? What was He talking about? I think He’s talking about either when he fell from glory originally, or maybe even something to do with the book of the Revelation. Look at chapter nine, verse one.

Revelation 9:1-

1 “And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given (the star is a “he.” The star is a personage. “He” was given) the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.

2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power (these locusts) like the power of scorpions of the earth.”

Now notice this star is a person, and it’s Satan. He’s the fallen star. And he’s given a key to release the worst of the worst of the demon world. And I know what you might be thinking, “Well, aren’t they all real bad?” Well, do you remember, I’ll answer that question with this. You remember the story where Jesus gets out of a boat one day and he meets this Gadarene demoniac? [Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39] He’s a man full of demons. He’s cutting himself, lives in caves… Remember that story? And He interacts with them because he’s full of demons. He says, “What’s your name? “He says, ‘My name’s Legion, ’cause there’s a whole bunch of them in me.’ [Luke 8:30] And now Jesus is actually talking to the demons themselves. Do you remember that? Do you remember what those demons when they recognized that Jesus was the Son of God? Do you remember what they begged him? They begged him, ‘Don’t send us to the bottomless pit!’ Aren’t they already hell bound? In Jude 1:6, we’re told in Jude’s little postcard that there are demons that have been put in the bottomless pit, chained, not let out (and aren’t you glad!) until this time, and this is when they’re let out.

In the tribulation, the demons in that pit will be released and they will inflict what can only be described as a kind of hell on earth! And in fact, it actually illustrates hell! Look with me at verse four…

[Revelation 9:4-5]

4 “They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

5 They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.”

I had a professor in my Bible college days who was a missionary in Africa. And he spoke of big, powerful, strong African men who were stung by scorpions. It would literally put them down. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would be so excruciating for some time! That’s the pain we’re talking about here, and for five months! Look at verse six.

Revelation 9:6, “And in those days people (who are stung by the scorpions) will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.”

Look at that again. “They will long to die, but death will flee from them.” This is an illustration of hell! And you can read the rest of this chapter on your own… not now, but later. It’s enough for you to know who their king (Little k)  is. Look at verse 11 where it says,

Revelation 9:11, “They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. (That would be Satan) His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.”

That means “destroyer.” What’s the point of this? The point is this. Hell is real! Satan is real! He would like to drag as many into that place that is forever as he possibly can!

And the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, just before the 20th century began, so over 100 years ago, sounded like a prophet when he said this, and I quote,

“The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.”

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

And aren’t we living in that generation?

I was called to an emergency room a number of years ago. A friend of mine’s dad was on the table. He was dying but still cognizant, still coherent rather, and he had an oxygen mask on and I’m pleading, I preached the gospel to him before. Now I’m pleading with him again because he’s dying! And I looked at him and I said, “Don! Don!”… and I shared the gospel. “Do you want your sins to be forgiven?” — And I’ll never forget. He reached up and grabbed his oxygen mask, pulled it over and he goes, “Well, hell yes!”—and it about knocked me over!  I said, “Don, I’m trying to get the hell out of you!” (congregation laughing) —And right there on that table, he wept and placed his faith in Jesus… And then lived for several more years! — and would say that that was the day he placed… his faith in Jesus.

Some of you still have hell in you. You’re pent up by your sins, and only Jesus can release you from it. You’re like this Jenga. You’re going on with life, things are going good… but it’s all gonna come down.

Thirdly, these judgments of trumpet judgment give us a taste of the truth. That’s chapter 10. If you make your way over there, just in chapter 10, it says,

Revelation 10:1-3

1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.

2 He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land,

3 and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded.”

We’ll stop there. Here is this mighty angel. He’s got every sphere taken care of. He’s got the sea, he’s got the land, he’s from heaven, and he’s describing, he’s announcing in this chapter, He announces the mystery of God. I think that’s in verse 10. No, it’s a little bit before that. Anyway, he announces the mystery of God that’s about to be fulfilled which includes both the joys of eternal life for the saints and the horrors of unrestrained wrath from those who are and still rejecting God. Look down to verse 9.

Revelation 10:9a “So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll.”

So John is like, he’s like he’s been in the audience. He’s seen this vision. Now, he’s kind of like when these individuals, you’re at a show where he’s called out of the audience… like Pastor Kurt who’s in this room this morning. Well, he was telling us that he was down in Branson one day at a show and they called him out of the audience and did whatever, something silly. (You’re not gonna get me up there in one of those! I’m just telling you right now!)

But John now goes from an observer to an active participant and he’s told, look what he’s told, he says, the angel says,

Revelation 10:9b, “… “Take and eat it; (That is the scroll and) it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”

Now this is a little scroll. I don’t know why it’s little other than the fact that John has to eat it, and it’s gonna be sweet in your mouth and bitter in your stomach.

Just the other day my wife and I, we thought we’d have a snack, and popcorn sounded good to me. So I made up some popcorn and I had butter on it and everything else. I put some caramel stuff in there, and it was delicious in my mouth, but let me tell you. When it got to my stomach… not a good thing!

And we’re not told what caused the delight in his mouth to turn to bitterness, but it might be John’s perception of the justice of God being meted out on the earth, that which caused the heaven to shut up for a half hour in chapter [8:1]. I don’t know. But I would say this. I would ask you, how many of you can honestly say (don’t raise your hand) that there’s somebody in this world you hate… you hate them! You despise them! They’ve done something to you and you’ve tried everything to try to reconcile the matter and they continue to live their evil life. They’ve done evil to you, and when you pray for them, all you can do is pray against them. And you pray for bad things to happen in their lives! I’m guessing that quite a number of you have somebody in your mind right now. And maybe you haven’t gone to that extent of praying against them, and maybe you have. When you pray like that, that’s called an imprecatory prayer. You read a few of these in the book of Psalms and they’re nasty. They’re like… I’m not going to quote any of them, but I would say this to you, because I have prayed an imprecatory prayer only a couple of times in my Christian life, but I have done it a few times. And I have stories I could tell of those who have prayed those type of prayers with spectacular answers. I would say this to you who have someone in your mind that you can’t stand, you hate, and even possibly pray against. I would say this to you before you pray that prayer. You need to ask yourself, ‘Do I really want this kind of end for them? Is this what I want for them?’ Remember, you yourself, if you’re a Christian, are a vessel snatched from the fire. Either way, the truth of God is both delightful to taste, and it’s nauseating sometimes, isn’t it? I mean, the truth cuts both ways, delicious and horrific.

Not every promise of God looks good on a coffee cup! But in heaven, I am convinced for those of us who are going there, in heaven the justice of God meted out on earth will all make sense. We won’t ever question the punishments of God, be it temporal or be it eternal, because we’ll be in a place where all of those evil ways in which we think have gone away, the former things will be gone. Aren’t you glad?

One more thing about these trumpets I wanna share with you, and that’s the power of your witness. I want you to go to chapter 11, and there’s a temple in the scene. In fact, verse one says,

Revelation 11:1a,  “Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God…”

Now, if you’re a futurist like I am in this church, if you believe that the book of the Revelation is futuristic, it’s all still to come, then you believe there’ll be a future temple. Anybody here ever been to Israel? Or you’ve seen, you’ve seen documentaries on Israel? Have you ever visited the temple there? Go like this… No, because it’s not a temple there… but there will be a temple there if you believe the word of God. God. The futurist believes there’s going to be a temple in Israel. In fact, the apostle Paul, speaking of this very time frame, said to the Thessalonians… well, let me show you. Go to second Thessalonians chapter two. Here’s what he said.

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4

3 “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day (the day of the Lord) will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, (and I think we’re living in that right now) and the man of lawlessness (that’s the anti-Christ) is revealed, the son of destruction,

4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the (what? the) temple of God, (the future temple of God) proclaiming himself to be God.”

… which is what Jesus said in Matthew 24 is the abomination of desolation.

Now back to Revelation chapter 11, look at verse 3.

Revelation 11:3, “And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, (basically three and a half years) clothed in sackcloth.”

Where are these two witnesses coming from? I don’t know, but I’d like to be one of them! I mean, these guys are like superstars! They’re like superheroes, these guys! They come… I personally believe that these two individuals are going to be the men God will use to save the 144,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel who will evangelize the world. We saw that last week. And, well, look at, I said verse three, look at verse four.

Revelation 11:4, “These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.”

This recalls Zechariah’s vision. Remember, Zechariah said it’s…

Zechariah 4:6, “… Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD…”

Zechariah had a vision of olive trees and lamp stands that depict the Holy Spirit’s perpetual feeding of the saints. He’s the one we’re supposed to be living in the Spirit, right? walking in the Spirit, being filled constantly with the Spirit of God so that we might have His power.

And who are these two guys? Who are these two witnesses? Well, we don’t know because we’re not told, but I think there’s at least, in my mind, they could easily be Enoch from the Old Testament [Genesis 5:24] and Elijah from the Old Testament [2 Kings 2:11-12]. I think it could be both those guys, and here’s the reason why. Because Enoch never died. The Bible says ‘he walked with God and God took him.’ Elijah never died. Remember the chariot, it came down to whisked him away? And the Bible says, [Hebrews 9:27] ‘It’s appointed on the man once to die and after this, the judgment.’ Everybody’s got to die. They never died. I think it’s Enoch and Elijah. Either way, I mean what these dudes are doing is amazing! I’m just gonna read it to you. You’ll see some of the, we’ll put it up on the screen, verse five. Look at verse five.

Revelation 11:5-9

5 “And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.

6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. (I’m signing up for this job! But then, verse seven)

7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,

(It goes on to say this.)

8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, (that would be Jerusalem) where their Lord was crucified.

9 For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb,

Now, how is it that everybody in the world can look at these two now dead witnesses? And the answer is it couldn’t have happened back when this was written in 90 to 100 AD, but it could happen now, can’t it? It could happen now through satellite, easy… easy! But it’s pretty short lived. I mean, actually what happens is that they’re so excited about these guys dying. It says, verse 10,

Revelation 11:10, “…and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, (Happy Dead Witnesses Day!) because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.”

But their party is short-lived. Look at verse 11. There’s three and a half days there.

Revelation 11:11, “But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.”

You better believe it! Wow! These are the two witnesses. Instrumentally, evangelizing this God forsaken world.

John Knox, who I referred to earlier, “whose prayers, Bloody Mary feared,” He wasn’t just a prayer warrior. He was an evangelist. He was a witness. He famously prayed,

“Lord, give me Scotland or I’ll die!” John Knox’s prayer

… And the result was the Scottish Reformation that changed the world! And John Knox, when you see pictures of him, artists depictions or statues, he’s always raising his hand or he’s pointing. It’s really unusual, but that just tells us that John Knox was so passionate for the gospel! Our world, with all of its advancements, our country with its dynamic economy and our churches, even with their tremendous growth and you as an individual, with all the stuff that you have in your life, all that focus you put on in your life; your finances, your retirement, your vacations, your house, all of that is about as secure as this Jenga. And it’s all coming down someday. Again the writer of Hebrews said,

Hebrews 12:26b, “…Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” (Why?)

12:27b, “…in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.”

Some of you are building your lives on things that shake that will not hold up under pressure, that will come down in the end. You’re like the guy I talked to just an hour ago who said, “I once was trusting in the Lord, but now that I’ve got a lot of money… not so much.”

What we really need, what we really need is this. Our world does not need more miracles. It needs more witnesses. Will you commit yourself to being one in 2025? I mean fire’s not going to come out of your mouth, but truth can and truth changes people’s lives. The Word of God does that and it will do with others. Our church doesn’t need more programs. It needs more power! And the power from the early part of this message comes from prayer.

And this Thursday, starting this Thursday and beyond every Thursday at 6 a.m. right in this room, and at 8.30 a.m. the saints of God are gathering and pouring our hearts out for people, for souls, for people to get right with God, for things to change, for the glory of God. Will you join us? Because the church doesn’t need more programs. It needs more power! — and power comes through prayer.

And finally, our God doesn’t desire more starters. He doesn’t want more starters. He wants more finishers! Those who finish well… did you catch the very end of the very lives of the two witnesses in verse seven?

[Revelation 11:7, “And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them…”]

It says, “when,” and not until then, “when they had finished their testimony.” That’s when they were taken out. Have you? You haven’t finished your testimony. You’re still breathing. Make it count! Make it count!

Too many of us love to start something. We make commitments to this like your resolutions and they just fizzle out. God’s not looking for more starters. He’s looking for more finishers. Will you commit yourself to the things of God until you hear Him say what He says to these individuals after laying there. Everybody’s staring at them dead! Verse 12 says,

Revelation 11:12, “Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.“

Be faithful unto death. God will give you a crown of life. And you, if you know Jesus, will hear His voice someday say, “Come up here.” Let’s pray.

Our Father in Heaven, we thank You. Thank You for these truths which are hard and we’re bound to preach them. I’d say happy to do so, Lord, but I I wasn’t all that happy about getting into this. But I do pray, Lord, that it will cause a true fear to enter into our minds, enter into our hearts, those of us who know you and love you. And we will think about the people around us in their destinies apart from you, and compel us, Lord, in love to be true witnesses for You. Lord, we need power. And it’s not just gonna come from information, though we need your Word. It’s gonna come through our dependence on You through prayer. And someday you’re gonna unleash those prayers on this earth and they’re gonna be like spiritual bombs, so to speak. But God, I pray that You would make us a people who trust You now! And Lord, help us not to just be good starters, but great finishers!

There are some here in this room, there are some watching online, Lord, who have never entered into a relationship with You. You know who you are. You’ve never humbled your heart. You’ve never put aside your pride. You’ve never repented of your sin and you’ve never placed your faith in the One who loved you, died for you, rose again for you. That’s Jesus. Why don’t you do so? Meet Him as the Lamb who died for your sins so that you won’t have to meet Him as the Lamb who brings wrath in this world and into eternity for those who reject Him. God, we pray all these things in our coming Savior’s name. And all God’s people said, ‘Amen.’