Re:Verse reading–Revelation 8 and 9 (day two) “The rest of mankind…did not repent of the works of their hands.” 9:20
Have you ever heard of someone narrowly avoiding death or some terrible disaster who gratefully exclaims that they will live their lives “better” from that day forward only to fall back into patterns and habits that had previously defined them. They were stirred by something catastrophic, but they never let it penetrate their hearts that they truly needed to change.
Most of us don’t live in peril everyday, and we become numb to our eternal condition. These people in Revelation completely skipped the ‘grateful to be alive’ part and simply refused to repent. We aren’t that different if we are continuing to surrender to sin rather than Christ. The fact is that death, plague, destruction, or famine did not sway the minds of those in John’s revelation. We cannot change ourselves, we must submit to that same Lamb that John saw opening the seals.
