Journal Rev 9 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation are mine)
Scripture: “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and stone and wood (which cannot see or hear or walk) nor did they REPENT of their murders or their sorceries, or their sexual immorality or their thefts…” Rev 9:20-21
Observation: What kind of sociopaths/psychopaths were these people? Just calling them “sinners” or “enemies of the Lamb” sounds like I am sugarcoating these folks and not calling them out for what they are…
They are not agnostics, nor atheists. There is a good possibility they are people of a church or something…
Application: We are six trumpets in and three disastrous plagues affecting and/or killing 33% of mankind; at the current estimate of 7.8 billion worldwide as of 2021, that would be 2.6 billion people slain.
And what do the rest of the folks left do? They party…drugs, sex, and rock and roll as the saying went. Add a little Charles Manson here and there…and the picture starts to become clear.
But they also worship something, put on their church clothes, bow to an altar, burn incense…do “churchy”, respectable things. Tolerate, inclusion, continue to preach love and deny holiness and stuff like that…
(Note: To clarify, these remaining folks aren’t converting to the church of Satan any more than Israel did when they reverted to worshipping the Calf at the foot of Sinai when Moses didn’t come down in a timely manner—they thought matters taken up in their own hands was a worthy and smart thing to do. Stupidos, the lot of them (including Aaron)).
To understand the remaining and their asinine responses, I must remember the original Sin.
“(the serpent whispering)…For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you WILL BE LIKE GOD, knowing good and evil…” Gen 3:5
The implication is that “I can make up my own mind. I know what good and evil is, just like God. I don’t have to depend upon God to understand what is moral or not—I CAN DECIDE FOR MYSELF.”
This is the Sin that condemned all mankind: I don’t need God. Or like I heard my children say long, long, ago: “ME DO IT!!”
I shouldn’t be surprised. I see hurricanes, tornadoes, volcano’s erupting, tidal waves…wars, crime, murders, atrocities galore…and do I see churches busting at the seams? No. This world is being anesthetized…and when the trumpets sound and seals of the Judgment Scrolls opened—when there is no doubt that God is exercising condemning Judgment on the Earth, the inhabitants will be deadened to the Spirit of God.
I can write the stuff above because I know I am writing to the Face in the Mirror. I don’t need to preach to myself about the Gospel and get riled up about evangelizing, mission work and the like. What I need is to preach to myself about being fierce with the Face in the Mirror and start doing the things that I did with my First Love.
I need to get out of the milk phases of my Walk, and get busy with meat—
“About this we have much to say—and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time, you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE ORACLES OF GOD…you need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained BY CONSTANT PRACTICE to distinguish good from evil…” Heb 5:11-14
Prayer: Lord, I am riled up again by your word. My heart is pounding in me because I know I fall short.
I want to walk worthy of the calling you have called me to…
AMEN.
Ricky Two Shoes