Lord, what a day, what a day that you have made, Lord.

We rejoice in you and we celebrate you for who you are.

We thank you for this time of worship where we can lift up your praise, Lord.

And would you be with us now as we get into the study?

Would you speak to us clearly, Lord, and I pray that our ears

would be open to receive and hear loud and clear what it is that you have for us this morning,

Lord. We thank you so much for this time in your word. In Jesus' name we pray.

Jesus' name. Amen and amen. And good morning and welcome. You can be seated seated I'm going to ask you to stand in a moment

but I need to let you know that we're actually going to be covering the entirety of Revelation chapter 9

I tried to, but it didn't work.

So this is a chapter that kind of has to be taught at the same time.

It cannot be divided up. So I say that to say this. You might be standing for a while,

so if you don't want to stand, no worries. If you do, stand for the reading of God's word. But if you

want to remain seated, that's fine too. We won't look at you.

So now John is continuing to write, describing what he's seeing.

And we're in the trumpet judgments.

And these are the last three of seven, which are really the worst to come, so to speak.

We're told verse one, the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen,

past tense, from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss.

Then, verse 2, he opened the abyss. Smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace.

The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the abyss.

And out of the smoke, locusts came down upon the earth and were, notice, keyword, given power

...