God's Glory in Salvation through Judgment
Revelation 8:1-9:21
“A man says to me, ‘Can you explain the seven trumpets of Revelation?’ No, but I can blow one in your ear, and warn you to escape the wrath to come. Another says, ‘Can you tell me when the end of the world will come?’ No, but I can tell you how to be so prepared for it that you need not be afraid if it were to come tonight. I can urge you to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, so that you can await it with holy joy.”
~ Charles Spurgeon, “Enquiring the Way to Zion”
Main Idea: God answers the prayers of his people through his righteous judgment on evil, inviting us to repentance.
I. Answered Prayer (8:1-5)
The silence in heaven at the opening of the 7th seal in heaven indicates two realities:
1. God listening to the prayers of the martyrs under the altar (5:8, 6:9-10, cf. Ps. 141:2) and “all the saints”
“We live in a noisy world. We are yelled at, promoted, called. Everyone has an urgent message for us. We are surrounded with noise. Messages are amplified deafeningly. The world is a mob in which everyone is talking at once and no one is willing or able to listen. But God listens. He not only speaks to us, he listens to us… everything we say, every groan, every murmur, every stammering attempt at prayer: all this listened to. All heaven quiets down.”
~ Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination
2. God preparing to answer the prayers of his people through impending judgment from the heavenly throne (cf. Isa. 47:5, Zeph. 1:7, 2:13, Amos 8:2-3)
II. Righteous Judgment (8:6-9:19)
Trumpets throughout the Scriptures are meant to bring alertness to a significant action of God (Ex. 19:16). This included calls to war (Num. 10:9, Judg. 7:22) impending judgment (Josh. 6), a great victory, and the climactic “day of the Lord” with the return of Christ (Joel 2:1, Mt. 24:31, 1 Cor. 15:52, 1 Thess. 4:16)
The 7 “trumpets” retell from a different and intensifying perspective the 7 “seals” from Revelation 6. The “angle” or “viewpoint” of the trumpets show us the judgment of God specifically upon unbelievers who have not been ‘sealed’ by him (cf. Rev. 7, Rom. 1:18) in the time period between Christ’s resurrection and his promised return (occuring with the 7th trumpet in 11:15-19)
Trumpet #1: hail, fire, and blood on the earth (cf. Ex. 9:23-25)
Trumpet #2: burning mountain (or volcano) thrown into the sea (cf. Ex. 7:20-21)
Trumpet #3: a fallen star bitters the waters of the rivers and springs (cf. Ex. 7:19, Isa. 14:12-15, Jer. 9:15)
Trumpet #4: the sun, moon, and stars are darkened (cf. Ex. 10:21-23, Joel 2:31)
All the figurative language in the judgment of the trumpets is rooted in and animated by Scripture, primarily in the Exodus account, where the Lord hears the cries of his people (Ex. 2:23-25) and answers them through the judgment of the plagues on Egypt and Pharaoh (Ex. 7-12).
Trumpet #5 (Woe #1): demonic army released from ‘the abyss’ for a short period of time to cause torment under the rule of Satan (cf. Ex. 10:12-15, Joel 1-2)
Trumpet #6 (Woe #2): fallen angels are released to muster an innumerable army, waging war with what comes from their ‘mouths’ and their ‘tails’
“Notice that these horses don’t just kill; they wound… If you have ever known anyone who has embraced conspiracy theories, prosperity-gospel teaching, universalism, or the popular notion that heaven is for good people who do good things and avoid doing really bad things, then you get that false teaching wounds people. It damages them. It corrupts and contaminates the way that they think and feel, what they value, what they fear, what makes them angry, and what they anticipate in the future.”
~ Nancy Guthrie, Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation
III. Defiant Unrepentance (9:20-21)
How should we respond to the 6 trumpets of judgment?
Gratitude (Rom. 5:9, 1 Thess. 1:9-10)
Repentance
Just like Pharaoh in the Exodus account, those who dwell on the earth without the seal of God “did not repent” (2x) from their idolatry, wickedness, and evil (cf. Col. 3:5-6).
Luke 3:7-8a, 9: [John the Baptist] said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance… Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
