Well, thank you very much for, uh, making me welcome again, and, um, we've got quite a slab of the book to cover tonight. Um... If we go back to the outline of the book of Revelation, remember that I said that there were a number of series of sevens, and, uh, so a couple of weeks ago we looked at the seven letters to the seven churches. Last week, the breaking of the seven seals. Now, tonight we have the sounding of the seven trumpets and the trumpet judgments. We'll be covering those. The, uh, seal judgments are part- partial judgments. The trumpet judgments are more severe than the seal judgments, as we shall see. Then there follows a section of the book, um, from, um, uh, the beginning of chapter ten where we have, um, well, no, no, that- that's all up to the seventh trumpet is, uh, at the end of that. Uh, but, uh, in- in from chapter eleven on, we have seven signs. They, they're not enumerated on this particular chart, but we'll look at the first four of those seven signs tonight, if we can. That'll take us up to the middle of chapter thirteen. If we don't get that far, we might only get the first three of the seven signs. That'll be the beginning of chapter thirteen. Well, we can't read all the way from, uh, Revelation eight six through to thirteen ten, but let's pick a few verses, or part of it anyway, to give us the flavor and, uh, uh, before we begin expounding it. Revelation chapter eight and verse six. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. Second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain all ablaze was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. Fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. Well, this time you got the message that a third of everything seems to have been affected. As I watched, I heard an an eagle that was flying in mid-air call out in a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels. But for the sake of time, we won't read about those trumpet blasts and their effects which come in chapters nine and ten and eleven but we will read, uh, from chapter twelve verse one. These are the first four of the seven signs. A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven, an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail was swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter, and her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the world, the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore, rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them, but woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you. He's filled with fury because he knows his time is short. When the dragon saw that he'd been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time out of the serpent's reach. Then from his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring, those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. Well, we'll leave the reading there, and we'll see how time goes, because we may or may not get into chapter thirteen. Doesn't matter whether we do the first three of the seven signs, uh, tonight or the first four. I'm hoping to get to the middle of chapter thirteen but if so, we'll read it when we get there. Um, we'll commence then with the trumpet judgments, which we have from chapter eight and verse six and onwards. Now, uh, here is a, uh, diagram showing this section and also what we were looking at last week in a bit more detail. For a variety of other reasons, I had to clean up my office this week, so I actually found these charts. Okay. Uh, the seals and the trumpet judgments. Just to remind you, these are the seal judgments that we considered last week, then there's an interlude where the one hundred and forty four thousand are sealed and the, uh, great multitude is spoken of. Um, and tonight we come to the seven trumpet judgments. And, uh, the first four of them, uh, are fairly straightforward in the way that they are dealt with in the passage we read from Revelation chapter eight. The first of them is, uh, a judgment. The trumpet sounds, the angel sounds the trumpets, and there's a judgment of hail and a mixture of fire and blood, which is poured out and destroys, uh, one third of the earth, which is burned up. The second, uh, trumpet sounds, and a huge mountain, uh, blazing mountain is thrown into the sea and destroys a third of the sea and the living creatures and the ships. And the third judgment, the star Wormwood is, uh, falls upon the rivers and springs of water, that is to say the fresh water supplies, and pollutes a third of the waters so that people die when the waters become bitter. And then...