Today we look at the reaction of humanity after these six plagues. Before we look at that though, I thought we would look back at Revelation 3:20 and the Lord’s great invitation that He gives to His church, and in general to all people at the end of the messages that the Lord brought to the seven churches of Asia. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Here is a great invitation, and perhaps this is speaking mainly to churches, but within those churches are people that do not know Christ as we see at the church of Laodicea. We have an invitation from the Lord that if you will come to Him, that He will receive you and you will have great fellowship with Him. So, His message has gone forth and He gives this great invitation. And He says, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne,” This is an invitation, I believe, also of salvation itself. So, as we go back into our passage of Scripture here in Revelation 9, the Trumpet Judgments have been sounded, six of them now. Before that, remember, there was the seven Seal Judgments. There has been unbelievable devastation and judgment that has come upon the earth because of those who rejected Christ. That is our context.
We come to Revelation 9:20 and now is the time that the Lord determined to show us how people are responding to these judgments and His message and His invitation. It says, “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons.” Here is the big picture: they did not repent. Here they are going through all this judgment and destruction, and they know all of this is from God. Earlier they talked about hiding from the wrath of the Lamb, so they know this is coming directly from God and yet they refuse to repent. They do not want to turn from their sins, and they do not want to come and follow the Lord. No matter how much pain and misery and destruction they have faced directly from the hand of God, they are not going to turn from their sins and turn to Him.
Instead, we find here that they want to worship demons, “and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk.” They want to worship gods of their own imagination, gods of their own creation and even the demonic beings that are in existence that certainly are not gods. They worship those things, and they love to worship those things because these things fit how they want to live their lives. He closes by saying, “and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.” Why is it that these individuals do not want to turn from their sin and follow the Lord? Judgment is coming from Him as the Lord promised. Yet they refuse to repent. Why is that? It says in Revelation 9:20 they are worshiping other gods or idols, whether those be demonic creatures that literally exist, or idols such as wood and straw, or worshiping idols of their own hearts and imaginations. Why do they want to worship those things rather than worship the true God of the universe? Revelation 9:21 tells us why saying, “and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.” In other words, they love their lifestyle. They love the way they live. They love the corrupted, polluted way of living life. They have created gods or worshiped gods that would fit their own lifestyle and how they want to live life and those gods fit right in . . .
