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Rev 8:10  And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
Rev 8:11  And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

Introduction

Once again we are confronted with six more symbols in this third trumpet. They are 1) “A great star fell from heaven.” 2) It is “burning as it were a lamp.” 3) It falls upon a third part of the rivers and fountains of water. 4) “The name of the star is called wormwood.” 5) “The third part of the waters become wormwood.” 6) “Many men died of the waters, because the were made bitter.”
Once again we need to ask, What do these six symbols mean, and where are all these six symbols to be found? As always we must remember that these are words out of our Lord’s own mouth that we are to live and keep this very day.

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Rev 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

So “the time is at hand” for “a great star to fall from heaven, burning as it were a lamp.” The time is at hand for that star to fall upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. The time is at hand for us to know why this star is called wormwood and why it makes a third of the waters wormwood, and the time is at hand for us to know why many men die of those bitter waters. So let’s ask…

… What is this great star that falls from heaven?

We were told what the spiritual significance of the word star is in the very first chapter of this book. Stars are angels, and angels are messengers who bring us a message. This messenger is bringing us words which are for the seven churches of God.

Rev 1:20  The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

So there is no way we can ever go wrong if we simply agree with our Lord’s words that “stars are the angels”, angels are messengers who bring messages to us. Those messages can be the Truth, which, if we are given to receive it, will be guaranteed to “send a sword” into our lives and separate us from our own physical families and make us “hated of all men”, or those messages can be lies from the Devil which, we are told, will always be smooth words which will make this life easier for us as we love those who love us and hate those who hate us. The messages brought by any angel, or any spirit are doctrines, and it is the affect of those doctrines that tells us which spirit we are dealing with.

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

So let’s try the spirits with the Word of God and ask…

… Why is this star “burning as it were a lamp?”

It is statements like this which reveal to us what this star in this third trumpet is.

Psa 119:105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

We have seen that the Word of God reveals that the hail and fire mixed with blood in the first trumpet is the word of God which shall wipe away the refuge of lies, even as the waters of God’s word will overflow that hiding place. We also saw that this is all God’s judgments upon us, His house, in these seven trumpet judgments. We saw that this judgment is done progressively in thirds. Three being the process of judgment, all of these ‘thirds’ again witness to us of the process of judgment, and the revealing of Christ in us, which judgment is all of these seven trumpets.

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
Rev 8:7  The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

We have seen that the great mountain burning with fire of the second seal is also that same flaming, burning word of God.

Rev 8:8  And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
Rev 8:9  And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Psa 148:8  Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Isa 5:24  Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Jer 5:14  Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
Jer 20:9  Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
Jer 23:29  Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

There it is. God’s Words are “as a fire shut up in my bones.” Christ is God’s Word, therefore He is that fire, working progressively in thirds upon us.. It is Christ who is working in all that is in our ‘earth.’ That is the revelation of Jesus Christ and that is the message of the first two trumpets. Why would that not be the message of the “fire” in this third trumpet, and why would that not be the meaning of  our next symbol of…

… The rivers and fountains of water?

Christ Himself made this statement about the meaning of this particular symbol:

Joh 7:38  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

A verse that shows what are trees in scripture, also reveals what rivers of water are.

Jer 17:7  Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
Jer 17:8  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

But just like the pillar of fire that led Israel out of Egypt, which was light to Israel, and the same pillar was darkness to the Egyptians, so also, the rivers of waters are life to those in Christ and the same rivers of waters are wormwood, bitterness, and death to those who are not in Christ.
Ezekiel 31 demonstrates how these fountains and rivers of waters are both positive to those in Christ, and negative to those who are not in Christ.

Eze 31:1  And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 31:2  Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
Eze 31:6  All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.
Eze 31:7  Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.

In scripture Egypt symbolizes the world and all that is in the world. We are all Adam, and Adam is first in the world. It is this revelation of Jesus Christ which teaches us that He is both the first and the last, and that the first is merely a shadow of the last.

Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who [“the first Adam”], is the figure of him that was to come.
Rev 22:13  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

The natural man will argue that Christ cannot be both the first and the last Adam. The natural man cannot discern spiritual matters, and he cannot understand how the first Adam can in any way be a figure or a type of the last Adam. But the Truth of God’s Word is that there must be a shadow before that shadow can disappear in the light of the full Sun at midday. The natural man cannot accept that we are in the process of the revelation of Jesus Christ, and that with Christ we are both the first and the last. The natural man reasons, ‘Well, did you win the race or did you come in last?’ And the spirit answers “I am the first and the last.” I was destroyed, and I died, and I lost the race, so that I could be saved, so I could be given life and so I could be first and win the race.

Mat 10:39  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

So in Christ, we are first losers, and through losing, we become winners. How many can win? only one can win the race, and that one is Abraham’s “one seed.”

Gal 3:16  Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

So as contradictory as it seems to the natural man, 144,000 somehow, without contradiction to the mind of the spirit, becomes one seed. It is all right here in this same 3rd chapter of Galatians.

Gal 3:29  And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s [ one] seed, and heirs according to the promise [ and the “one winner” of the race].

This is the “two edged” nature of the word of God, and this same two- edged characteristic is true also of these “rivers and fountains of water” here in Rev 8. They become bitter to our old man whose “fair branches and high stature… because of the multitude of waters…” will be destroyed as He loses his life in increments of thirds as he becomes aware of the fact that he is actually guilty of hating his brother and therefore of murdering His own Savior.

Why is this angel, this star, called wormwood?

Here in this eleventh verse of this eighth chapter of Revelation is the only place in the New Testament that we find this word ‘wormwood.’ But this word and this symbol, as all the symbols of this prophecy, glean their weight and meaning from the prophecies of the Old Testament. So let’s once again allow God’s own Word to define this word for us. Here is how this word ‘wormwood’ is used in the Old Testament.

Deu 29:18  Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

There it is. That is the reason we read “many men died because the waters were made bitter.” Here are the other seven verses in which the holy spirit uses this word wormwood.

1) Pro 5:4 and its context.

Pro 5:1  My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
Pro 5:2  That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
Pro 5:3  For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
Pro 5:4  But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
Pro 5:5  Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Pro 5:6  Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Wormwood is our time in Babylon listening to the “movable” lips and doctrines of “a strange woman.” Is it not truly revealing that Babylonian ministers can pronounce on false prophecy which misses the date and the truth, and those who follow them, just ignore the fact that them have proven themselves to be false prophets.

Deu 18:20  But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Deu 18:21  And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
Deu 18:22  When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [ is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [ but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

“Her end is bitter as wormwood” because the great star burning as a lamp is what makes our faith in the twisting of God’s words, His rivers and fountains of waters, into lies, to become a burning bitterness to us. This fifth chapter of Proverbs explains the bitterness that is this star called wormwood which turns God’s rivers and fountains of waters into wormwood when we listen to “the lips of a strange woman.”

Pro 5:7  Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
Pro 5:8  Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
Pro 5:9  Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
Pro 5:10  Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
Pro 5:11  And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
Pro 5:12  And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
Pro 5:13  And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
Pro 5:14  I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Pro 5:15  Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Pro 5:16  Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
Pro 5:17  Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
Pro 5:18  Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Pro 5:19  Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Pro 5:20  And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Pro 5:21  For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
Pro 5:22  His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
Pro 5:23  He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

“The lips of a strange woman” is the doctrine of Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of abominations of the earth. Verse 22 and 23 are the gall and bitterness that is wormwood. It is very few Christians who realize that their ‘waters’ have become bitter, and it is few Christians who realize that it is that very bitterness which is designed to destroy the old man within. We must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and what that means is that “Thou shalt not…” is a prophecy of what mankind will do. In this case we do not attend to the wisdom and understanding of our Father. Instead we have all listened to the lips of a strange woman which “lips drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.” Consequently we have learned that “ her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two- edged sword.” just like the Word of God.

2) Jer 9:15. Here is the effect that wormwood has upon us:

Jer 9:13  And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;
Jer 9:14  But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:
Jer 9:15  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, [ even] this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
Jer 9:16  I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

“Scatter them among the heathen” includes taking them captive to Babylon, where they (we) all drink the waters of wormwood.

3) Jer 23:15. Wormwood is the effect upon us of false doctrines from false prophets.

Jer 23:15  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

4) Lam 3:15 with context.

Lam 3:15  He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
Lam 3:16  He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
Lam 3:17  And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
Lam 3:18  And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:

5) Lam 3:19 with the following two verses which give us hope.

Lam 3:19  Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Lam 3:20  My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
Lam 3:21  This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

6) Amo 5:7. Fiery judgment begins at the house of God when we “turn judgment to wormwood.”

Amo 5:6  Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.
Amo 5:7  Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

7)  Amo 6:12. Here the translators chose to use the English word ‘hemlock,’ to show how deadly is this thing called wormwood.

Amo 6:12  Shall horses run upon the rock? will one] plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:
Amo 6:13  Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?
Amo 6:14  But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.

So it is with all of these seven trumpets. They are all about fiery judgment upon the people of God, “the house of God first;” upon all, even His elect.
Let’s go back to Eze 31 and see how these same waters of life can be made bitter and bring death.

Eze 31:1  And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 31:2  Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
Eze 31:3  Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.
Eze 31:4  The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.
Eze 31:5  Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.

Consider that the “multitude of waters” on which the great harlot sits are peoples and nations, but it is peoples and nations who subscribe to the words of God as they have been presented to our old man by that great harlot. That is what is meant when we are told that there is gold, silver and precious stones in great abundance in great Babylon. There are also rivers and fountains of waters in Babylon, but the ship masters and ministers of Babylon the great within us have deceived us, and have used God’s gold and silver to cover the idols of our Babylonian hearts. We did not use God’s gold, His Word, to cover the various implements of the true house of God. We used God’s gold to cover and to justify our own doctrines and idols of our hearts, and in using God’s gold to cover our idols, we have also made  the rivers and fountains of waters bitter as wormwood.

Eze 16:1  Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 16:2  Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
Eze 16:17  Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,

We do exactly the same thing with the rivers and fountains of waters of God’s Word. We have all been guilty of turning them into lies that fit our doctrines and not the doctrines of Christ. It is a day of bitterness and dying within when we begin to see that all of our heart’s idols are being destroyed by the Truth that we have so long rejected in favor of the idols of our Babylonian hearts.
So what exactly does…

…”The third part of the waters became wormwood” mean?

Rev 8:11  And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

We do not see why our fountains of waters are become bitter all at once. It actually takes many years, and we continue to be confronted by the lies of Babylon all of our lives. So it is only “the third part of the waters” that become bitter at first. Our salvation is a little by little process.

Exo 23:30  By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
Deu 7:22  And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

These Old Testament statements are mere shadows of these New Testament Truths.

Luk 21:17  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.
Luk 21:18  But there shall not an hair of your head perish.
Luk 21:19  In your patience possess ye your souls.
Jas 1:2  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Jas 1:3  Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

That again is the meaning of ” the third part of the waters became wormwood.” Our final symbol is…

… Many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

Who are these “many men who die because of the waters being made bitter?”
We will never understand how we are to “keep the things written therein” until we can accept the fact that the “stone cut out of the mountain without hands” is Christ. If ever our Lord opens our eyes to see that, then we will understand what Christ meant when He said that “the kingdom of God is within you.”
Here is God’s spirit showing us through the pen of Daniel what Christ is doing within us:

Dan 2:31  Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
Dan 2:32  This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33  His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Dan 2:34  Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Dan 2:35  Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Dan 2:36  This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
Dan 2:37  Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
Dan 2:38  And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art] this head of gold.
Dan 2:39  And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
Dan 2:40  And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
Dan 2:41  And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
Dan 2:42  And [ as] the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
Dan 2:43  And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
Dan 2:44  And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Dan 2:45  Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream [ is] certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

We are all King Nebuchadnezzar, and we are all of the four kingdoms of this chapter. They are all within us. The four elements that make up the great image of this chapter are the same kingdoms represented by the four beasts of the four kingdoms of Dan 7. According to Rev 13, those four beasts are now all become one composite beast within us. We will not bother to demonstrate this fact at this point. We will do so when we come to Rev 13. For now let us just observe that all the kingdoms which “fill the whole earth” are destroyed by “the stone that is cut out of the mountain without hands”. Both the stone and the rock, we are told, is Christ, and it is He who is “the kingdom of God within you.”

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

1Co 10:4  And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

Now if we can accept the fact that it is Christ who destroys all the nations of the earth, and if we can accept the truth that the earth is us as God’s own people (Jer 22:29), then it should be very clear that it is Christ in us who destroys all of “the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man” within us, as we “keep the things written therein” (Rev 1:3).

Rev 6:15  And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
Rev 6:16  And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
Rev 6:17  For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

This seventh seal, which is these seven trumpets, is nothing less than the carrying out of that prophecy of the sixth seal. “Hide us from the face of Him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb. That is what are these seven trumpets. They are “the wrath of the Lamb… [ and] the great day of His wrath [ which] is come,” and none will be able to stand on his own. It will be only a few who even remember that we are commanded to keep the things which are written in the words of this prophecy.

Summary

1) “A great star fell from heaven.”  We have seen that this “great star” is an angel of the Lord with the Words of our Lord for the seven churches of God.
2) It is “burning as it were a lamp.” We have seen that this great star, which is an angel with God’s message to us, “burns as a lamp”.  We have taken note that this burning lamp again is the very same Words of God which are the burning words of the “fire mingled with blood” in the first trumpet and “a great mountain burning with fire” in the second trumpet.
3) It falls upon a third part of the rivers and fountains of water. We saw that this star “burning as a lamp… falls upon the rivers and fountains of water,” and we saw many verses of God’s word which make clear that these rivers and fountains of waters are themselves merely symbols of the Words of God within us.
4) “The name of the star is called wormwood.” When we have perverted those words into lies and false doctrines, then they are in our rivers and fountains as bitter and deadly wormwood. We saw all the verses in the Old Testament which show that wormwood is judgment upon us if we are God’s people.
5) “The third part of the waters become wormwood.” We saw once again that all these things are done in thirds simply to tell us that this judgment is little by little, a life long process which “begins first at the house of God.”
6) “Many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. We saw that we must all be “crucified with Christ,” and that as is always the case, the things that sound so dire to the natural man, are, in reality, our salvation, and that it is only those who lose their lives for Christ who will find their lives in Christ.

Next week, Lord willing, we will continue looking behind us at our continuing daily dying and incremental burning judgment in the Words of our Lord in the fourth trumpet.

Rev 8:12  And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
Rev 8:13  And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!