OCT 29 2023 | The Seven Trumpets of Revelation S1E3 | The Sixth Trumpet

Sea Change Church · The Seven Trumpets of Revelation S1E3 · "The Sixth Trumpet" · October 29, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Revelation nine 13 through 21. The six angels sounded his trumpet. And I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the six angel who had the trumpet released, the four angels who were bound at the great Euphrates river. And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour end day, end month, end year, were released to kill a third of mankind.

The number of the mounted troops was twice, 10,000 times 10,000. I heard their number. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this. The breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horse resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouths.

The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood idols that cannot see, hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or thefts, the word of the Lord.

Right on. If you have your Bibles open to Revelation nine 13 through 21. We're at the six trumpet. We've been going through the seven trumpets, and uh, we are on the, uh, six, which is part of, uh, two sets of the trumpets. As I mentioned earlier, you have to go back to hear through this, but the first four trumpets were climactic. You see them in regard to climate.

You see them in the destruction of the earth. Uh, and then you see a break where an eagle flies around, if you remember, and it says, whoa, whoa, woe. And it says, uh, you know, woe to those three woes that have to suffer through the next set of trumpets. So this is a second set of trumpet judgements that we're talking about, and it's an interesting set in that it has some really unique, um, components. And one of those components is geographical. Another is, uh, angelic. You see, uh, these angels, not just the angels that are blowing the trumpets, but you see, uh, another set of angels that have been bound near a river where we actually know where it is. And we're gonna look at that river today.

We're gonna look at what God's word says in these trumpets. Uh, one of the things I put at the top of the notes is this, we need to understand and interpret apocalyptic literature correctly, not as a puzzle to be solved, but as a message to be heard. Elliot spoke, I went to his Bible study last week. I love Elliot's Bible studies, and I went to it and he spoke about when the trumpets were being blown, one trumpet would blow, but it wouldn't stop blowing.

And then the second trumpet, and then the third trumpet to the end, you have all the trumpets that are blowing and they're blowing in, you know, together in harmony and in rhythm. And so we see this trumpet being added to the mix. One of the things, uh, I really want to do, and I feel called to as a pastor, is to preach pragmatically. And, uh, that's what matters to me.

You can spend a lot of time on YouTube and I encourage you to go watch a bunch of videos and find out what red and blue and the color of sulfur means and all of these things. But what I wanna do is I want to give you something that can actually, um, change your life, uh, more than just being something that's informational and interesting. And so, I got a word today that I want to put, and I ask the Lord, what do I, what do you want me to say to my congregation?

What do you want me to say to this congregation? And that's really what is most important to me. We could, we could go, you know, uh, chase a bunch of rabbits and figure out some really cool stuff, but what God has to say to you as a group, and that's where I spend the amount, most of the amount of my time as I'm going through scripture. God, what do you have to say to our people?

What do you have to say to this group of people, LA Jolla Christian Fellowship at this time, and perhaps anyone who was online, it's one word today. I've been giving people a word each week, uh, to kind of sum up the paree or this piece of scripture. And the word is boundaries. If you, uh, have a pen right on the top of your notes, boundaries.

And I have two main points today and, um, that we're gonna get through. And the first is this, God's boundaries protect and define us. God's boundaries protect and define us. Scripture's really clear about boundaries, a lot of boundaries. And if you don't have boundaries, if you don't have borders in your life that protect you, then not only are you an unprotected, but you don't have an identity that you don't know where you begin, where others end boundaries are critically important.

They're important for individuals, they're important for nations. If you're gonna understand and have identity and definition, these things are important. So the first one is this, God's boundaries protect and define us. The question is, how you doing with God's boundaries? Number two, idol worship has consequences. We see idle worship here at the end of the scripture at the end of this passage.

And in a really tragic verse, we'll get to it. Verse 20, I'll read it right now. The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols and gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood idols that cannot see or hear or walk, nor do they repent or their murders or magic arts or sexual immorality or their thefts. What's interesting here, we get, we're getting to a, we got to a place in history where no one else will repent. Not one person, God has been shaking the tree, seeing what fruit would fall off the tree that he could glean for salvation.

That's why God brings tribulation. He could end it all at once if he wanted to. He doesn't because these tribulations are a grace for people that won't listen. And with each tribulation, people are coming into the kingdom of heaven. They are repenting. We are at a place in the scripture where things are gonna change because no one else will repent. And you see this next trumpet, the seventh trumpet is Jesus being revealed.

It's a complete different story as opposed to the tribulation. It's not the same type of tribulation. So God's boundaries protect and define us. And number two, idol worship has consequences. Let's go to verse 14. It said to the sixth angel. Now this is a voice. What said, lemme just actually I'll read all the way through it.

It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet released, the four angels who are bound at the Great River Rads. Who said what? Said, well, there was a voice coming from under the altar, right? It said, um, the sixth angel sounded trumpet. I heard a voice. This is John speaking, coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. So excuse me, not under the altar, but from the horns of the altar, there was actual, like, um, giant horns. Like you think of a steer, some of some of y'all from Texas.

And I threw y'all in there on purpose. 'cause I, that's ana of me and I don't say that word. But nonetheless, some of y'all are from Texas and you have, you've seen these giant horns and uh, they have them at football games. These are on the altar of God. If you see these. And these horns were things called the horns of the altar where you could run for mercy. They were in the temple.

And if you would run and you would grab onto the horns of the altar and someone was trying to get blood guilt and kill you because you had done something wrong, you could get mercy. They couldn't kill you when you were grabbing to the horns of the altar. It is also a place you will see if you search horns of the altar, where when they did the blood sacrifices, they would take the blood first and they put a little bit on the tips of the horns of the altar, and then they would pour the blood out from the sacrifice at the base of the altar. So we believe this is God's voice coming from a place of, of mercy, but also a place of judgment. Because two things can be true at once.

God is a god of mercy, but he is a God who also has to judge. And so we see it says to the six angels who had the trumpet released, the four angels who were bound at the Great River Euphrates. Now, as I was praying over this scripture saying, God, what do you want to say? I, I'm fascinated by the angel bit. I I think angels are cool. I like angels.

I wanna, I I I'm interested in them. I did a, a whole thing in my spiritual gifts, uh, spiritual warfare class over the summer, a whole episode on angels. And it really awoke me that angels are, uh, in use today. They're in play. They're on the playing field. We can pray. They, they're messengers, they worship. Um, they serve human beings for God's purposes.

You can pray and ask God to have angels. And so you can listen to that if you want, but it really hit me. And then the word that kept sticking out to me, which was weird, was Euphrates. And I was like, man, that's so weird. Like, there's so many things we can look at in this passage. There's angels in colors and teeth and tails that are doing weird things and all this stuff. And God gave me the term Euphrates. I'm like, it's just a river God. Why would does this keep coming up?

So I began to research it. I began to take the Holy Spirit up on his offer and research it. I found out that the, the Euphrates River is mentioned 52 times in scripture. That's a lot. That's a lot. I don't know how many times Galilee is mentioned, um, I should have looked that up. But the Euphrates seems to be important that if there's 66 books in the Bible and you got 52 mentions, that's all, that's a heck of a lot of mentions.

And I began to look up the different times that it was used. And I, I realized that the River Euphrates is more than just a river to God. You'll see in your notes in the box, the Euphrates is a historic boundary in the physical realm. That's important. Circle physical realm. 'cause there is physicality and there are exact moments.

We're gonna talk about things beyond metaphysical. We're gonna talk about physicality today. Things that matter in the physical realm. And it serves, it serves in Revelation as a profound spiritual line of demarcation, vividly illustrating the line between good and evil. It reminds us that every day we stand on the banks of decision, faced with the critical choice to cross into the territory of the righteous or wander into the shadows of moral compromise. 52 times, lemme give you a few of them. It's mentioned in the Garden of Eden.

So a lot of people are like, well, the birthplace of of mankind is somewhere in Africa or up near Egypt or whatever. Not according to the Bible. According to the Bible, it is over closer to modern day Iraq and Iran where these four rivers come together and it mentions these rivers. And in Genesis two 14, uh, when it just gets talked about, the third and the fourth River, the name of the third river is the Tigris. Uh, it runs along the east side of Asher. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

And so the Euphrates is there, uh, and that is the river. And so we, we believe, according to the Bible, tells us that along that river is where the garden of Eden was. Now, you might remember talking about angels. We have these angels that are bound up and they're on assignment. Last week we talked about assignment and we see these angels that are bound up, uh, here of 'em. There's four angels that are bound there. Uh, and it says in verse 14 to the six angels who had the trumpet release, the four angels who were bound at the Great River Euphrates.

Now are these da demons or angels? Well, we know that any nowhere in scripture demons have the ability to kill human beings. Demons do not have the power of life and death. You say, what about job? Well, actually it was the natural, you know, his kids died. It was actually the natural catastrophe that killed the children. It wasn't the demons. And so God can give angels, angels of death if he wants the power to do this.

So we know that they're actually God's angels. They're on God's side. And we see that they're bound up here. Now, why do I mention that again in regard to the Garden of Eden? Because you remember there was an angelic being that was brought out at the Garden of Eden. Remember, you remember that after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, what happens?

It says in Genesis two 14, or excuse me, Genesis 3 24, after God drove mankind out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden, a cherubim. It says, in a flaming sword, flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. So we see that God has strategic angels that have been placed in this place. I actually had this weird theory when I was in junior high when I first heard this, and I haven't really gone off it, that the Garden of Eden is still there.

You just can't see it. And I thought it would be the best Indiana Jones ever if he got there and he got to get into the, into the Garden of Eden and the snakes there, right? So somebody can AI that one up and make a, a, a movie, make a bunch of money. Why I say that God has angels on assignment for certain purposes and certain reasons. And so this Euphrates is important.

It's also important in regard to the end times. But things are happening in that part of the world. And when you see things happening in that part of the world, you see the beginning of of times starting at the river Euphrates. And you're actually gonna see in a moment here how the Euphrates is talked about in Revelation in regard to the end time.

So the Euphrates is a boundary line, line of demarcation that God actually uses prophetically and also physically to talk about what's happening, to show what's happening in the world and to give us a sense on how we should live. So the first one we see in the Garden of Eden. Now follow with me. We also see that the promised land, actually the Israeli promised land, goes all the way. If you look at the boundaries, it isn't just where modern Israel is today. It goes all the way to Euphrates.

I mean, that's, that's in Iraq, okay? The other side is Iran of the EU of Euphrates. Didn't get the map up there today, but Israel proper, if you were to look at the original boundaries that were spoken about in the Bible, it actually goes from somewhere just below Turkey and then all the way down into Saudi Arabia. It goes all the way out through, um, Iraq and all, you know, all the way there and a little bit into Egypt. It's a massive piece of land.

I tell you this for a reason, and you're gonna see here in, in, um, Exodus 2231, God says to the Israelites, I'll establish your borders, circle borders. 'cause that's the key word here, boundaries and borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. That's way down low. Uh, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. So you're looking at the promised land. The actual promised land goes into, um, Iraq, which is most, most believers don't think that.

They look at modern day Israel that was given after 1948 World War ii. And they see that. But God has actually had much more land that they've never been able for one reason or another to completely take. I will give it into the hands of the people. I will give it into your hands, the people who live in that land, and you will drive them out before you.

And so we see something that's interesting with this boundary, that the, the promise of God lies within boundaries. Lemme say that again. God gives a promised land and that promised land is not, um, go take everything. The promises of God often lie within boundaries. And if you are going to receive the promises of God, I would actually say this, the promises of God for your life, all promises of God lay within boundaries.

Because if we exceed the boundaries that God has put in his scripture, we will never gain the promise that God has put into our life. Some of us have not received the promises of God in our life because we continue to traverse and go over boundaries that God has put there. And God says, until you live within these boundaries, you will never receive the promise.

And that's a word I felt like the Lord had for this congregation about in regard to boundaries. God's promises lie within the boundaries. And we see that as well with Israel. And there speaking about that self-control. Proverbs 25 28 says, like a city whose walls are broken through as a person who lacks self-control. And so these boundaries are important and boundaries are important to God.

And so as I'm reading through this, I'm like, God, there's a lot of rich stuff here we can get at. But he kept bringing it back to you, Freddy. He kept saying, I want you to tell the people that my boundaries matter and I want to honor my boundaries. And I want them to honor my boundaries so that they can receive the promises that are within the boundaries that I have given them. Actually, as you look at the Euphrates, there's some more information on the Euphrates.

Abraham actually comes from east of the Euphrates. He comes over from Iraq, India side. If you look at Joshua 24 14, uh, sorry, uh, Joshua 24, 3, it says, but I took your father Abraham from where, from beyond the Euphrates River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. As I gave Isaac. Most people don't know that there was this boundary line that shows from crossing in the place where people worship many idols. They, they continue to worship idols. They keep getting more and more idol idols.

There's no limit. Abraham has pulled outta that place. He crosses his Jordan, so to speak, in the same way that Israel had to cross another body of river. He crosses the Euphrates. He's the first one. He is, was brought over the Euphrates into this place of promise. Once again, I wanna say that many of us have Euphrates in our life, or Jordans in our life.

And we live in the wilderness because we choose. It's more comfortable sometimes living in a wilderness. And the promise takes courage to take your promise. It takes the courage to break through and to cross over or to forward some of the things that stand in our way. And so we see that there. Uh, the other thing we see is in Joshua 24 14 in regard to the Euphrates.

Is this the land? It was a land of false gods. Joshua 24 14. Now fear the Lord and serve him with all your faithfulness. Throw away the God your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. You see, they're bordered the Israelites. The promised land was bordered by multiple false gods on both sides.

They were bordered on the one side. By on the other side of the Euphrates, it says that there was multiple gods there. If you've ever looked at Hinduism, I mean it's many, many gods. Uh, and that has some roots that go back to that. The Egyptians on the other side, but even their own ancestors lived and were a part of that.

And you see Abraham making a break when God calls them to break the generational curses of the past and to step into new truth. And some of you, God is called to be generational breakers. Some of you, God is you are breaking the chains of what came before you. You are crossing that Euphrates and you are stepping into a new and promised land. And so God has called us to that. I know it's a lot of Euphrates.

This is what God told me to say. And then finally, this is really interesting in regard to the end times. 'cause I'm not like, I have people always telling me for years, we're in the end times, we're in the end times, we're in the end times. You can make a good argument for it today. I mean, at this point, with Israel being, you know, on both sides and the things that are happening, we saw hyperinflation was one of the things you saw, war, murder, that was all part of the bulls and the judgments that were, uh, being the seals, excuse me, that were brought up. You could make a good argument.

But here's one that's interesting and it has to do with the ufs. In Revelation 16, it says, the six angel poured out his bull on the great river Ufs. And it's water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east. You will see when the end times comes, the Euphrates will dry up. There'll be no, none less. Actually, it's actually has half the capacity right now that it had in 2013, half the capacity. Uh, that's according to the, uh, Iraqi study that I looked up, that it is beginning to dry up.

And why is that important? What happens when the boundary lines draw, get taken away when you, when you muddy the, you know, get rid of the boundaries in your life, all of a sudden the things that you don't expect will cross those over. I think it's impossible. We, we often think when it comes to the boundaries in our life that we can, we can violate the boundaries this way and nothing's gonna come back this way.

That is not the truth of scripture here. And it says that all of a sudden, this line of demarcation that talks about what is holy and what is good versus what is not will be, will no longer exist and a way will be made for the kings of the East to come an attack. I mean, if that isn't true, if that isn't a metaphor for our lives, I don't know what is. I mean, that's an incredible metaphor because we, we tend to break down these boundary lines every time we, we step into something we know we shouldn't do.

We take another brick off the wall of protection and we begin to break that down. And we want to open, we want to begin to build that back up. We'll talk about that in just a second. And so we see this as an incredible thing. That God boundaries protect and define us. That's the word the Lord had for you today. Uh, we'll, we'll dive into that.

Second one is this idol worship has consequences. If you go to verse 15, and the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind, a third third, that's, that's bubonic plague. 1600 stuff. Um, some cities were 50% third, you saw what happened a few years ago with Covid.

It sure wasn't a third, I'll tell you that much. Um, you look at the reaction with that when God begins to move, but then you see this tragic verse in nine 20 that even after all that no one would, would, would still repent. And so we see a couple things here that I think was interesting. First thing that really stuck out to me is in verse 15, uh, it makes it clear that, that the, there is timing in the passage that is not symbolic, but rather specific.

It's easy to look at the Bible and to put it in these real gray symbolic terms. Well, that'll happen someday. A day is like a thousand years with God. There's all this, you know, um, you know, and it allows us a sense of comfort often to kind of push off decisions for later that should be made today. I dunno if you ever saw that episode of, of, um, the Simpsons.

It's one of my favorite. And, and, uh, Marge comes up to Homer and she goes, Homer, You can't keep eating mayonnaise and drinking vodka all day. You're gonna kill yourself. And he says, that's a problem for future Homer. I thought, you know what? How often do I do that? That's a problem for future Adam. One day future Adam is gonna be present, Adam.

And I think God is oftentimes calling us to make these decisions today. And in that moment, if you see this, this is really specific wording, if you go to it, um, in that verse right there in verse 15, and the four angels who had been kept ready for what? This very hour, this very day, this very month, this very year were released like that.

You see, he's gonna come like a thief in the night. And like I said, we can do a bunch of symbolic, we can go look, what, what does the red mean? What does the blue mean on the, you know, what do the tiger's teeth mean? Or what lion's teeth mean? And all this stuff. But I'll tell you what matters. Are you prepared? Are you prepared? And expectant, not prepared outta fear, but like the prodigal father waiting for his son to come home, we are on the front lines waiting for Jesus to return expectant and ready to see him wanting to see him. And so we see that here in that passage.

So that's the first thing. You see this actually this really specific time that we see in that picture. The other thing I see is, is why is the angel of the Lord attacking? See, because people have begun to, to give up the true God for a lie. And go. If you would go to, um, the end there on verse 20, the rest of mankind were not killed by these three plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands. They did stop, not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood idols that cannot hear, see, or walk, nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual morality or their theft. So you see a few things. One, you see people actually having real idol worship.

And there's a lot of that in the world. I know we're, we're way too modern and scientific to worship idols and to believe in things like that. But the amount of idol worship that is coming up, the amount of crystal rock worship, I mean all these different things, the metaphysical stuff, the paganism that is coming in our culture, there's a void, a vacuum, you know, a place in that is, you know, a gods shaped vacuum in every one of us. And it will be filled with something.

And eventually you will see that, you know, cultures will go back to their roots so often. And you see that actually happening today. I mean, just, I'd say this regularly. Just go to the bookstore. There's, is it a Crown Books or Barnes and Noble, whatever it is over in Mira Mesa. Just go there and go to the witchcraft section. There's a section, they got lock on it. I guess witch is steel and so makes sense, right?

I can't just cast that thing open and then just take it or whatever, but whatever. Go look at the witchcraft section. Go look at the, the, the young adult fiction. It's a train wreck. Go look at it's all witches and demons and sexual immorality. It's like everything that is said here, you actually see that we get to a place where, where God just, he's just had enough. He's just, he's so patient. God is so patient and so kind.

But we see there's actually this and these things. What do they lead to? They lead to spiritual death. You know, Jesus says, you know, don't be afraid of the things that can kill the body. These angels are killing the body, but be afraid of the things that can kill your soul. You see, Satan just wants your soul. He doesn't care if you die tomorrow, next week, three weeks from now, you live 50 years. He just wants your soul.

Satan wants souls and he wants to entice people to bow down and worship those things. So there's a few, couple takeaways, but I i, I just wanna take a moment and just, and, and just give you a second to resonate with how sad verse 20 and 21 are with all that tribulation in people's lives, they still would not repent. I mean, all of that.

They still would not repent. I mean, that is so tragic. And I guess I would say don't let that be us. Don't let that be me. And I've gotten in that place where sometimes it's just everything's symbolic. Everything's, you know, a little bit further down the road. It's all gonna happen. It's all gonna happen when it happens, you know? And, and it doesn't really mean that. And there's no urgency.

I was with an organization this week and one of their core values is urgency. I was like, man, you know, I wanna balance that with rest and Sabbath, but man urg, I could use a little more of that. I could use a little bit more urgency. And I want us to be urgent about the cause of the gospel. Why do we put a bunch of snow? I'll just tell you straight up, why do we bunch of put a bunch of snow in La Jolla?

Because we want people to experience, to let that be a gateway to know Jesus Christ and who he is. Listen, my brother, the reason I'm standing here today, and you've heard this before, is because Chris Conrad invited my brother to Disneyland at Bryan Breyer Patch Elementary School in 1979 on a blacktop. That's why I'm here today.

One kid invited somebody because of a Disneyland trip. Don't think that a snow event can't win someone's soul. And this is sad passage. You wanna be praying for these people, especially, uh, as we're coming into the, um, Daniel Fest. Now, just to, to close, here's a couple practical take takeaways. Number one, take measure of the boundaries of your life. I'm part of a Joshua project.

It's a men's group. We've done this before. And we encourage men in the Joshua Project to go and survey the territory of their life. What has God given you? God might have given you more in your marriage than your taking. Why have the Israelites never taken the land all the way to the Euphrates, even under Solomon? 'cause they were never completely faithful to God.

That's what the Bible says. I'm not telling you, I'm just saying that's what the Bible says. There is territory for your friendships. There is territory for your prayer life. There is territory for your relationships, for your business. There is territory for your finance. There is territory for every element of your life that God wants to show you. Where there is no vision, people will cast off restraint.

We want to get vision. And so ladies and gentlemen and men sit before the Lord and say, God, how much more in my relationships with my children, do you want to give me emotionally? How much spiritual authority? How much? How much wide, longer do you want to make my stride when I walk for you? God, give me more territory. Survey the boundaries of your life.

And then once you find those boundaries of your life, put up protective boundaries around that. And do not cross over those boundaries. Do not let things encroach upon your boundaries. I would say reestablish the boundaries of your life. Has alcohol taken too much from you? Has anger, has fear, whatever these things are that can step in, begin to reestablish the boundaries of your life. That's the first one.

And the second one is, destroy your idols. Destroy your idols. I, I was so good at throwing my idols away and then going and getting 'em back. I can't tell you how many times I like threw marijuana and bongs and everything into the, you know, ocean. I'd be like knee deep in the water the next day like looking for my bong. You know what I mean? I'm serious. I was a stupid addict.

I got worse stories than that. I ain't gonna tell 'em. I'm like, oh, I actually did ruin it. I ruined that marijuana. I can't use it anymore. Eventually though, I don't know how, somebody said to me this week, they said to me this week, they said, you know, I just need something that God to do, something that, that he did with you.

He just took it away from you. I said, what? God did not take away my addiction. I had to fight. And it was months and months of like barely hanging on with a claws, going to Bible studies. Just, you know, inculcating myself in Bible studies and friends and calling for and doing everything I could to just survive 'cause I was gonna die. I said, don't tell me that. Don't tell me you're waiting for God to give some miracle.

He's gonna take it away. I said, God never took it away. I walked away with his grace and I could walk back. I don't wanna walk back. Do you want what God has for you? Do you want to live in the land of your promise? Do you want the promise it's gonna cost? It's gonna cost us. You need to destroy the idols. Whatever it is. If it's your phone, it's worth not having a phone.

If you're not gonna be sitting there looking at porn all day on your phone, it's worth not defining yourself like that. To say, I don't need a phone. You can live without a phone. We did it in the 1970s. You can still do it today. Whatever it takes. Gouge out your eye. Jesus said, don't gouge. I didn't tell you gouge out your eye. I don't mean that.

We gotta destroy our idols, right? We gotta get serious and destroy our idols. Whatever those things are, we gotta go after it. This is the call of God. You see the people that lived on the east side of Babylon, the east side, 'cause Babylon. Where was Babylon? It's on you. Fred's what side do you think it's on? West side or east? East side.

God has called us to be a church that lives in the promise. Amen. Let's stand.