Morning Sermon

December 9, 2007

Four Trumpets

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Remember where we are in this book of Revelation. The judgment of God has been announced. That was the meaning of the seven seals, the seals which only Jesus could open and put into effect.

Rev. 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth."

So the day of judgment is a day of victory and triumph for the people of God, those redeemed by the blood of the lamb from every nation on earth. Therefore the church of Jesus Christ sings, "And we shall reign on the earth."

Yet judgment does come with those seals, and chapter six ends with these haunting words,

Rev. 6:17 "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

Thankfully, mercifully, there is an answer. Chapter 7. We can stand, we who are sealed by Jesus. We who are claimed by Jesus to be his covenant people. And so, clothed in the white robes of Jesus' own righteousness, we sing,

Rev. 7:10 "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

With that respite of chapter 7 last week, we return to the subject of God's judgment in chapter 8. Let me emphasize my understanding of the focus of the judgments announced in this book, that they are addressed first of all to the nation of Israel, the Old Covenant nation of God's people who had rejected their Messiah Jesus. And thus this judgment is upon that nation, ending their identity as the nation of God's people. In fact, the judgment would end their identity as a nation at all, for in AD 70 the nation was totally and completely destroyed by the avenging powers of the Roman army. I believe John is writing prophetically about that judgment, though most interpreters see all of this prophecy yet future. But even with my understanding, the judgment upon Jerusalem serves as a potent warning and graphic picture of the judgment that is still to come, so this study is not simply an historical review of what happened to Jerusalem in AD 70, but a warning of what is yet to come at the end of this age.

And so we have,

I. THE SEVENTH SEAL. It is a seal which announces the blowing of the seven trumpets. v.1-2

Thus the seventh seal is, in effect, the seven trumpets, and I do find what is often called a parallel explanation. That is to say, the trumpets do not necessarily come chronologically after the seals, but describe the same thing as those seals. The same will be the case for the seven bowls. So the book of Revelation is not put forth as a chronology from beginning to end, but as a repetition of God's judgment is several parallel descriptions presented as a succession of cycles.

The judgment is solemnly and soberly declared. Destruction is announced. Yet it is announced with silence,

v.1 "When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour."

Let's look at that silence first. I believe it is, first of all,

A. The silence of reverence and worship. When Hezekiah restored the temple worship in 2 Chronicles 29, we read this account,

2 Chron. 29:26 "The Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. 27 Then Hezekiah commanded them to offer the burnt offering on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD also began, with the trumpets and with the instruments of David king of Israel. 28 So all the assembly worshiped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. 29 And when they had finished offering, the king and all who were present with him bowed and worshiped."

The trumpets ended when the burnt offering was finished. The half hour of silence could also correspond to the approximate time in which the High Priest would be engaged in offering the incense within the temple. Alfred Edersheim notes, "It is this most solemn period, when throughout the vast Temple buildings deep silence rested on the worshiping multitude, while within the sanctuary itself the priest laid the incense on the golden altar, and the cloud of 'odours' rose up before the Lord, which serves as the image of heavenly things in this description."

Thus silence is an appropriate manner of honoring and respecting the glory of God's presence. And we read, for example,

Hab. 2:20 "But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him."

This time was also,

B. The silence of prayer. v.3-4

We have seen before that incense is symbolic of the prayers of God's people, prayers which are received by God as a sweet-smelling aroma to the Lord, a sacrifice pleasing to him received with joy. But then something amazing takes place. "The angel fills the censer with coals of fire from the incense altar and casts the fire onto the earth in judgment." (Chilton) v.5-6

Thus this silence, as the trumpets prepare to sound their notes, is,

C. The silence of impending doom. "The silence is introduced to prepare us for the terrible character of the judgments that are about to be related. This silence makes the manifestations of the wrath of God all the more impressive. So fearful and awful is even this initial retribution which is about to be inflicted upon the wicked that the inhabitants of heaven stand spell-bound, lost for a long time-half an hour-in breathless, in silent amazement." (Hendriksen)

That's what the trumpets will declare, the doom represented by "noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake." Those elements were the normal accompaniments to the great Glory Cloud of God's presence among Israel.

Ex. 19:16 "Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly."

And yet that fire of God was now used to turn the apostate nation of Israel itself into a burnt offering, bringing destruction by fire upon that nation that had rejected the Christ. And it is a judgment that came in response to the prayers of the saints! Just as David had prayed,

Ps. 18:6 "In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears. 7 Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, Because He was angry. 8 Smoke went up from His nostrils, And devouring fire from His mouth; Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down With darkness under His feet. 10 And He rode upon a cherub, and flew; He flew upon the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters And thick clouds of the skies. 12 From the brightness before Him, His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire. 13 The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice, Hailstones and coals of fire. 14 He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe, Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them. 15 Then the channels of the sea were seen, The foundations of the world were uncovered At Your rebuke, O LORD, At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils."

And lest you view this as nothing but a history lesson of the past, let me remind you of the picture we have of that great day yet to come,

2 Peter 3:7 "But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men...10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

There it is. The gospel we preach must also include the warning of this impending doom. We must declare what these trumpets declare. It is what we find in more detail in,

Rev. 19:15 "Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

That's the Jesus whom we preach, in whom we believe, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. "He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." That is the warning we must declare.

Thus we come to,

II. THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. v.6

Just a couple thoughts in general before we look at the first four of those trumpet calls. First, notice the connection between,

A. The trumpets and the angels. The angels held the trumpets. In this prophetic image, the angels would blow the trumpets. And don't forgot who those seven angels are, as we've been introduced to them before. This whole letter is being written to the seven angels of the seven churches. The angels thus represent the church, the seven angels signifying the whole church. And so it is the church which means by which God brings about this judgment. It is the church which is commissioned and empowered to bring God's blessings and curses upon the earth. It is the declaration of the gospel within the church which is represented here before us, a declaration of the trumpet call of judgment.

In the Old Testament, the trumpet would be used to sound "an alarm, warning Israel of approaching judgment and urging national repentance." It was also used for summoning the congregation of Israel to both worship and warfare. "The irony in Revelation, of course, is that God is now ordering the trumpets of holy war blown against Israel herself." As I have said, that judgment displays for us the judgment which shall come at the end of the age, when Jesus returns in glory.

That judgment will be a day of glory for the resurrected believers, as we read in,

1 Cor. 15:52 "...in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

But it will also be a judgment unto death for unbelievers. They, too, shall be resurrected.

John 5:25 "Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. 26 "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 "and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 28 "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 "and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."

Thus in Revelation 8, we have a direct connection between,

B. The trumpets and the day of the Lord's judgment. v.6

So we move to,

III. THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. One of the first things you might notice is the correspondence between these trumpets and the plagues God poured out upon Egypt. From a study of history, it is even more clear that these first four trumpets describe the disasters which befell Israel as they were destroyed by the Romans. And so we have,

A. The judgment of plagues. But now not upon Egypt but Israel, for the same fate that came to the enemies of God's people come upon that nation which ceased to be the nation of God's people with the coming of Christ. v.7

Hail and fire, mixed with blood. And one-third of the earth scorched. Such a terrible, terrible destruction. And with good reason linked to the plagues in Egypt, for each of those plagues challenged and conquered one of the Egyptian gods, powerless against the omnipotence of God Almighty. "So in the final book of the Bible, the reign of God is portrayed in equally cosmic and victorious dimensions." (Thomas)

Then comes the second trumpet,

B. The mountains thrown into the sea. v.8-9

Again, one-third of the creatures destroyed. But the emphasis is upon a blazing mountain hurled into the sea, which would have been a readily understood reference to the triumph of God over all the hostile kingdoms of the world.

For example, Is. 42:15 "I will lay waste the mountains and hills, And dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, And I will dry up the pools."

Notice in our text that John does not necessarily refer to a mountain literally but to "something like a great mountain." What he saw symbolized the terror of God's judgment upon. The mountain cast into the sea. No greater calamity could be imagined. Just consider the words of,

Ps. 46:1 "God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

Or as I just read from, Ps. 18:6 "In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears. 7 Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, Because He was angry. 8 Smoke went up from His nostrils, And devouring fire from His mouth; Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down With darkness under His feet."

So what we have with this second trumpet is as awesome and awful a picture of God's judgment as could be described by the use of our human language. Yet the most amazing aspect of this, the most awful aspect, is that this judgment, once used to describe God's judgment upon the nation of Babylon, is now used to describe that judgment upon Jerusalem. That will become a central image in this whole book of Revelation, that the same language God used in speaking to Babylon is the now the language used in his judgment upon Israel. Jerusalem becomes Babylon.

So we read in, Jer. 51:25 "Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, Who destroys all the earth," says the LORD. "And I will stretch out My hand against you, Roll you down from the rocks, And make you a burnt mountain. 26 They shall not take from you a stone for a corner Nor a stone for a foundation, But you shall be desolate forever," says the LORD. 27 Set up a banner in the land, Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her, Call the kingdoms together against her: Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a general against her; Cause the horses to come up like the bristling locusts. 28 Prepare against her the nations, With the kings of the Medes, Its governors and all its rulers, All the land of his dominion. 29 And the land will tremble and sorrow; For every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, To make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant. 30 The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting, They have remained in their strongholds; Their might has failed, They became like women; They have burned her dwelling places, The bars of her gate are broken. 31 One runner will run to meet another, And one messenger to meet another, To show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on all sides; 32 The passages are blocked, The reeds they have burned with fire, And the men of war are terrified. 33 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor When it is time to thresh her; Yet a little while And the time of her harvest will come...42 The sea has come up over Babylon; She is covered with the multitude of its waves."

But now, now that judgment is upon Jerusalem. And it was Jesus' own curse as well, if you remember,

Mat. 21:21 "So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. 22 "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

I believe Jesus was there giving his disciples a lesson about the fall of Israel. In effect, he was instructing them to pray for that destruction, beseeching God to judge the apostate nation as a mountain cast into the sea. And that is exactly what came to pass, not that a mountain literally fell into the sea but that the nation was judged unto total destruction.

This connection between Babylon and Israel is even clearer with the coming of the third trumpet, in which we see symbolized,

C. The fall of Babylon repeated. v.10-11

A star fell from heaven.

Is. 14:12 "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit."

"Lucifer" is actually the Hebrew for "Star of the morning." Morning star. In the context of Isaiah 14, it is a clear reference to the King of Babylon.

Is. 14:3 "It shall come to pass in the day the LORD gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve, 4 that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say: "How the oppressor has ceased, The golden city ceased!"

Here in Revelation he is called "Wormwood," because of the bitterness he brings to all living water, and the allusion is to idolatry.

Deut. 29:17 "...and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them--wood and stone and silver and gold); 18 "so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood."

So this trumpet is the accusation of idolatry. It is the judgment of destruction, a judgment against idolatry. Just as it came to Babylon, so shall it come to Israel.

And then there is the fourth trumpet. v.12-13

I believe "eagle" is the better translation for verse 13, a Greek word very similar to the word for angel, and the word found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. An eagle is often used to warn of Israel's destruction, the idea of eagles swooping down upon their dead prey is not only a common image of the Old Testament, it is also a description of the very curse of the covenant. The curse God would inflict upon covenant breakers is the fate that awaited the animals cut into two when the covenant itself was inaugurated.

Gen. 15:9 So He said to him, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him."

There it was the vulture, a raptor akin to the eagle. And this is the curse pronounced upon the disobedient covenant breakers in,

Deut. 28:26 "Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away."

So it was upon unbelieving Israel. So it shall be upon all who turn away from the Lord. So it shall be at the end of the age when Jesus comes back to judge the world. So what shall we do? What shall we do to avoid that terrifying wrath and unrelenting judgment of God?

Repent, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 3:19 "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."

Thus this declaration of judgment is not only a warning for the unbeliever, but for us who believe, it is a call to worship. And I'll end with that call, from Psalm, and just listen to see how that call to worship comes in the context of the declaration of his coming judgment.

Ps.96:1 "Oh, sing to the LORD a new song! Sing to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Sing to the LORD, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. 3 Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. 4 For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens. 6 Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. 7 Give to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Give to the LORD glory and strength. 8 Give to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come into His courts. 9 Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns; The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples righteously." 11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Let the sea roar, and all its fullness; 12 Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD. 13 For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth."

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