Image: "Life & Death", 2021, Madison River scene, Yellowstone Nat. Pk. Wy.
Revelation 8:2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.
Revelation 8:4–5 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
Revelation 8:13 And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”
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The opening of the last seal discloses the truth that the scroll contained the further progress of God's dealing with sinful man prior to the final summation. The scroll is not really mentioned again in the rest of the Revelation. And what is the immediate reality that God reveals? It is that the trumpets are about to sound. The "silence in heaven" (vs. 1) impresses upon us that this is a moment of great solemnity. Something amazing... and... terrible is about to happen. The ominous nature of the moment is pictured in verse 5 where it speaks of "noises, thunderings, lightnings and an earthquake." We are reminded of Israel at Sinai when they cowered in fear as God caused the earth to shake and filled the sky with all types of terrifying signs.
The prayers of the saints are going to be answered and with great force. The "angel" takes a "golden censer" and takes from the altar incense and mixes it with prayers of the saints. This teaches us that the saints, crying out from under the alter "How long, O Lord" (Rev. 6:10), will see how their compassionate and faithful God would respond to the cruelty and wickedness of men in the world. This is heightened by the act of the angel in throwing these prayers and the fire of God's anger from the altar (8:5), to the earth.
Thus we must see these first four trumpets, in particular, as God telling the world that He has heard the cries of His people and that He intends to bring about their salvation.
This entire scenario reflects the manner in which God dealt with Egypt in the first redemption/exodus. His people had cried out in their anguish and God, through Moses, sent Egypt a message. In a sense, God sounded His trumpets to Egypt and told them to "Let My people go." As the plagues on Egypt were a warning so are these trumpets. They must not be viewed as the final judgment but rather as warnings.
There is a parallel, as many theologians have noticed, between these trumpets in their sounding and the first four plagues on Egypt. If we generalize them we will see the trumpets, in order, bring destruction on the earth: (1) vegetation, (2) the sea, (3) land, waters, and (4) sun, moon, and stars [hence, darkness].
Trumpets are mentioned often in the Old Testament in terms of warning. In the famous passage (Ezekiel 33:1-5) it is the watchman's duty to sound the trumpet. In Zephaniah 1:14-16 the "great day of the Lord" will be a day of trumpet and battle cry. Joel 2:1 says something similar. (Thanks to Gordon Fee for the references) So we must accept that God is telling us and the world "You have been warned."
The trumpets bring about destruction in terms of thirds. This is not wholesale destruction, as Egypt was never subjected to the Sodom and Gomorrah type of judgment. Rather it is intended to get the world's attention. What we see in the trumpets is God confronting mankind with the reality that he is not in control of anything. He cannot prevent the kind of mass impacts that pandemics, raging storms, volcanic eruptions, plagues on trees and animals, etc. bring. Mankind continuously exists in a state of peril. The only thing that allows his further existence is God's forbearance as He gives man time and opportunity to repent. (Romans 2:4) The question is, will he repent, or will he, like Pharaoh, harden his heart and prove his own intransigent rebellious nature? Sadly, we know the truth.
In the midst of the river of life, like the image, the solemn reality of death is highlighted. Centuries have come and gone. In every age man has been confronted with the same inevitable fact: we are not in control and have never been in control, of what really matters. Though death starkly reminds us that once-mighty trees are now nothing but dead stumps, so the history of great civilizations and great men, proves that man's strivings for autonomy are vanity.
The trumpets have sounded, are sounding, and will continue to sound, until the remaining "woes", those which finally bring about ultimate judgment arrive. All who have ears to hear ought to take these things to heart. We have been warned.
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