Introduction: Something very interesting about us is our ability to doubt for the future what we say we believe happened in the past. We read of events — acts of judgment — that God says will come upon the earth in the future, and many want to allegorize those descriptions of judgment because they seem fanciful. Yet, in most cases, what God says is COMING upon the earth, are things very similar to what we know God has already done. The future promises of judgment, in many cases, only differ in intensity and scope. Once again, we are reminded that the enemy of our souls wants to convince people that things will continue forever just as we have always known them to be — even though God says a great change is coming. Last week we saw (1) Silence in heaven (2) Preparation in heaven and (3) warning signs on earth. This morning, we see what happens when the angels begin to sound the trumpets of judgment. The seven trumpet judgments are unleashed by the opening of the seventh seal. Today we see what happens when the first four trumpets sound. And something that I want us to note is how God’s judgments are strategic with respect to man’s sinfulness. God’s judgments strike right at the heart of common manifestations of man’s sin and rebellion. TO PUT IT SIMPLY, GOD OFTEN TAKES AWAY PRECISELY WHAT MEN BOAST IN, OR SET THEIR HEARTS ON, SO THAT THEY ARE TEMPORALLY WOUNDED BEFORE THEY EVER ARRIVE AT ETERNAL DESTRUCTION. They are WARNED by God’s judgments in the present about eternal loss so that they are without excuse. In other cases, they are simply warned by God’s message. God’s patience and common grace blessings are known by them even as God’s MESSAGE warns them not to place their hope on those things. ESV Romans 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man-- you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself-- that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. As the first four trumpet judgments are released, we see God striking right at the heart of common manifestations of man’s sinfulness. I. GOD STRIKES AT MAN’S IDOLATRY One of the things that characterizes idolatry is man’s worship of what God has made in the place of God Himself. Idolatry is a substitution. Choosing what is temporal in the place of what is eternal. Choosing what is finite in the place of what is infinite. Choosing what is sinful in the place of the One who is perfectly holy. Choosing what was created in the place of the Creator. ESV Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. ESV Acts 17:23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.' 29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."