Rev 9:4, And they were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 
	We have spent a considerable amount of time in terms of what is involved with the prayers of the Church. We have seen that effective prayer is completely based on setting aside our interests and our ideas of what should be. We are to be absolutely guided by the Holy Spirit to pray after that which is God’s heart in each and every situation. That will bring us to the place where the only thing that matters to us is that God will be glorified no matter what course He undertakes to accomplish that end. We join our hearts to Him and declare His Glory in every instance. We place ourselves into the freedom of His Hand to do all that is necessary on this earth through His Church. As we have seen, it is even by the prayers of the saints that God is moved to bring about the plagues and the judgment of the last days. His Church calls forth the Righteousness of God to be seen in fullness on the earth to the end that His Glory will be proclaimed and acknowledged for all of eternity. Not my will, but Thine be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
The final Judgment is released by the prayers of the saints who have put His interest and His Glory above their own safety and concern. Rev 12:10+11, And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. There will come that time in which the Church will lay aside her life for the sake of God’s Glory. The Church will not value anything but His Honor and His Grandeur in a worthy sacrifice of all that this world idolizes. There will be an absolute rejoicing in Jesus Christ to the point of unadulterated joy to be counted worthy to lay down our lives for His Name’s sake. 
This brings to the forefront one of the major reasons that many Christians seem to avoid reading this wonderful letter from God, written to His Church. There is a fear and an apprehension that fills our minds as we read about those things that are to come. Many people get caught up in the argument of pre or post tribulation because they do not want to face the possibility that the Church will still be on this earth in the midst of all the hostility and the plagues. There is a dear that we will have to endure all the fiery destruction and vast devastation ultimately culminating in the return of the true Lord of all creation. We do not want to be on this earth in the midst of the fiery trials and tribulations because we do not want to suffer the loss of all for the sake of the Name of Jesus Christ. It is against every fiber of our human nature of survival, as we look for an escape clause in our reading. 
The truth is, however, that we are to consider the end times as merely the acceleration of that which is already our place in the heart of God. We will not argue the concept of the pre or post tribulation rapture of the Church. Commentators argue both beliefs with equal authority and conviction. The truth is that we are already in the tribulation period for the sake of the testimony of Jesus Christ. As the writer of this letter states in Rev 1:9, I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 
We are already facing persecution on this earth for our faith in Jesus Christ. Admittedly, it is increasing, and it is accelerating  rapidly. There is a welling up of extreme animosity against all the Biblical truths of right and wrong. There is a complete setting aside of the God given principles of virtue and honor for the sake of expediency and gaining personal fulfillment at all costs. As the Church stands against this wickedness and perversion, we are being targeted mercilessly as out-dated obstructionists. These attacks will only increase in severity and quantity as the power of this age mounts its final, desperate assault at what it perceives as the weakest point of God’s testimony. 
This is, after all, where the first attack seemed so successful for so long, the witness of God’s fellowship with His creation, humanity. The serpent celebrated a deluded victory in defiling that relationship by appealing to the desire of man to be as God. That is where all the vile filth of the deceptions of this world are more and more blatantly targeted. It is at this core lust of mankind. That is where the enemy is focusing all its efforts to dismantle and to destroy the victory of Jesus Christ. We are undergoing seemingly devastating and endless assaults upon His Church to the point of driving us to an insane fear and distrust of God’s Hand of protection upon us. There is a lying, sniveling, twisting deceit that echoes in our hearts and minds as we are called upon to stand firm in the victory of Jesus Christ. It is the vanity of our self-pride which tries to declare that we are invincible in ourselves and able to deal with all that troubles our souls with no help from God. 
The major attack on the Church is that of assimilating ourselves into society, accommodating the lies, and trying to establish the Church as the savior and the redeemer of society. The enemy is trying to steal away the heart of the Church from her husband, Jesus Christ. The enemy is trying to make her believe that she is able to save the world by herself, using the name she has been given. 
This is the seeming victory of the power of this age. This is why we have so many warnings to the seven churches to hold true to the relationship which God has instituted with us as His Beloved Church. 
The fact, however, is that God was never overthrown. From the ages of ages, He undertook to bring about this eternal relationship with His creation through His Mercy and Grace. What the enemy saw as a victory, God had already purposed as the only means by which He could establish eternal life for His Glory in all of creation. He cemented the triumph of His so great Love in the pre-ordained giving of His Only Begotten Son to redeem humanity unto Himself. He took upon Himself the body of flesh and blood in order to absolutely and eternally institute, not just the salvation of mankind, but the fundamental joining of Himself to man in a complete relationship of oneness.     
	It is in Christ that we have this relationship. It is in Christ that we are secure. It is in Christ that we live in a victorious overcoming of all the deceptions of this age. And, it is in Christ, that we, His Church, represent the overwhelming triumph of God’s Grace and Mercy and Love. In Christ, God’s Glory is revealed to all creation through His Body, the Church. 
It is nothing that we can do of ourselves. We are not to believe the lie of the value of our self abilities. We simply trust and obey in a life of utter submission unto God. It is in this true life that we find no fear and no desire for self-protection. Rather, we give ourselves wholly unto God for whatever He chooses to allow in our lives, no matter what road of death to self must be traveled.
This puts us at the heart of our extended consideration. Why is it that the Corporate Body of Christ is and should be so willing to undergo whatever the Lord deems necessary, especially at the cost of everything of earthly value, including our very lives? This is not just a question for the end times. It is the very basis of our lives at this precise moment. It is what makes Jesus Christ our everything.  And they were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. These locusts are told that they cannot harm those who have the seal of God on their foreheads. Christ is our seal of protection.
This divine protection does not mean that we do not suffer. We will suffer the common plights of mankind to a point. We get sick, we face natural disasters, we suffer calamities, and tragedies, accidents, and willful malice and we die in this earthly body. But, being born again, as a spiritual being in Jesus Christ, we no longer fear or tremble at these happenings. We do not suffer as those without hope. 1 Peter 4:12-19, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner? Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. 
	The reality of Christ Jesus demands our complete attention. While we may suffer in this realm, we are not bound by the outcome of what this world attempts to accomplish by it. We are covered by the blood and the victory of Jesus Christ, Who completely overwhelmed the power of this age. Our earthly frames and beings will suffer, but that suffering is not unto death, it is unto life. That is the main key of our life as Christians in this world. We are not under the dominion of what this world puts forth as truth. We are not caught in the deathtrap and the snares that lead to damnation and eternal torment. We have been delivered from all that curse of the old nature. We now live on the resurrection ground of the cross of Jesus Christ’s salvation.  
	The first thing that we must face in this victorious Christian life is that we are not to fear the things that the power of this age would use to blind-side us into denying our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to stand anchored in Him. We do not fear the things which are and will take place. We see them in the true light of being what God has ordained for the days in which we live. When we can trust Him, no matter what, we begin to view everything, not from the vantage point of its effects on us. We see them from the viewpoint of how God is establishing His Glory on this earth.
	There is the blessing of God in evidence in our journey of life. The promise that He made to Abraham is still fully in force in our lives today, if we will but choose to believe Him. His word to Isaac covers our lives in completeness. Gen 26:24, And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you, and multiply your descendants, For the sake of My servant Abraham." We are promised His direct presence in our lives forevermore. When we face our enemies, we do so with the Hand of God on our side, guiding and directing our every movement. In that reality, we know the very peace of God in our minds and hearts. Judges 6:22-24a, When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, "Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face." And the Lord said to him, "Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die." Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace… 
	When we do not fear the things of this age, we not only have peace, but our every provision is directly from the Hand of God. We are sheltered and kept by His Omnipotent work in our lives, even in the midst of the driest and most severe famine. 1 Kings 17:13-16 Then Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.'" So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah. 
	As well, we do not fear the wrath of kings or armies. The Lord is our stronghold and our protection. There is no one and nothing in all of creation that can overwhelm and defeat Him. Whether we face physical armies of destruction or spiritual battalions of evil, there is nothing perilous that will stand against the protective victory that is ours in Jesus Christ. 2 Kings 6:15-17 Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" So he answered, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 
	In our final thought this morning, our fearlessness is based not in any efforts of our selves to practice faith. It is not because we are enabled to be strong in ourselves. It is not because we can wield the mighty hammer of righteousness and holiness. In all truth, our solid and unmovable fearlessness is set in the fact that we are weak and unable to do anything. The truth is that we are frail and fragile and utterly useless in our selves. Our strength and our endurance and our faith to overcome is only because we know that He is able to do all that is necessary to see us through every trial and torment. Our complete strength is in knowing that we are weak, but that He is strong. Because we are weak, we rely on Him all the more to save us by His power and by His might. 
Isa 41:8-14 "But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend, You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts, And said to you, 'You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you. 'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' "Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; Those who contend with you will be as nothing, and will perish. "You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, Those who war with you will be as nothing, and non-existent. "For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you.' "Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you," declares the Lord, "and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Amen.
	We will continue, next week, Lord willing, with this focal point of the fact that we are not to fear anything of this realm. We are to fully and absolutely look past every threat and tribulation to the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we do so, we will see Him already crowned in Glory and Honor with the victory wreath salvation. So be it!
And they were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Rev 5:12+13, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." Amen.