FBC Morning Light – December 21, 2022

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. Now, here we are, the 21st of December, just a few days away from Christmas.

How many times have you heard this question in the last few days? Are you ready for Christmas? Are you ready?

Of course, the implication is, have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done? Do you have all the packages wrapped?

Have all your meals planned, your cookies baked, and all that kind of stuff? Let me ask you a different question about that.

Are you ready for Christmas? Are you ready to worship and serve our

Lord Jesus Christ, who became flesh, that he might die for our sins?

I hope you're ready to worship him. Today, we want to look at a passage of Scripture where there are throngs of people who aren't.

Let me show you what I mean. We've seen the same kind of phenomenon in other places in the prophetic writings.

In Revelation chapter 16, mankind faces the severe wrath of God for his refusal to turn to him, his defiance of his word, and so on and so forth.

God expresses that wrath in a variety of ways as these bold judgments are poured out.

Notice what some of these are. In verse 2, man experiences terrible physical afflictions.

It says that a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast.

A foul and loathsome sore. In the next verse, in verse 3, there's a dearth of certain kinds of food.

It says, the angel poured out his bowl on the sea, the sea became blood, and every living creature in the sea died.

I don't know how you feel about seafood, whether it's grouper or halibut or flounder or cod or trout or salmon or shrimp or lobster or whatever that seafood might be.

I don't know whether you like it or not. Most people like some kind of seafood. There are some places on this planet where they absolutely rely upon seafood for survival.

What happens when there's a total dearth of their primary source of food?

There's starvation, there's hunger. In verse 4, a corruption of the water supply.

It says, the third angel poured out his bowl and the rivers and springs of water, they became blood.

Just a total corruption of the water supply. It's not something you can drink. Furthermore, in verses 8 and 9, another form of God's judgment that comes on the earth is intense heat from the sun.

This fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. Power was given to scorch men with fire, and men were scorched with great heat from this heat of the sun.

You talk about wringing hands over climate change. This is one way

God expresses his judgment in the bringing of an intense heat. In verses 10 and 11, this physical pain and misery.

It says, the kingdom became full of darkness. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, this terrible and intense pain.

Yet, for all of this, all of this, verses 9 and 10 tell us, they did not repent or give

God glory. It's repeated in verse 11 and intensified, where it says, they blasphemed the

God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they did not repent of their deeds.

Later on in the chapter, in verses 18 and 21, you see another form of God's judgment on the earth, and that is devastating weather events that leave people cursing

God rather than repenting before him. Verse 18 says, there were noises and thunderings and lightnings and a great earthquake, such a mighty great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.

In verse 21, great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent.

That's pretty heavy. How did man respond? Oh, we're sinners.

Have mercy on us, oh God. No, no. Instead, men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since the plague was exceedingly great.

Nothing's going to change. Nothing is going to change. Even today, when some devastating catastrophic event happens, whether it's a plague of a pandemic or a weather event that causes widespread destruction, there are plenty of people who want to shake their fist at God, say, where are you?

Why didn't you stop this? They blaspheme him. They pause and consider, perhaps

I need to repent of my sins. No, not at all. I trust that we as the people of God are not like this, that we are quick to repent.

When God does have to chasten us, we recognize it quickly and we turn from our sin and we repent of it fully.

Our Father and our God, we are grieved at the way most people respond to your righteous acts of judgment and punishment and chastening.

Lord, I pray that we would not be like this. I pray you give us a tender, sensitive heart that repents quickly when convicted of our sin, and this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday, and I trust the