Revelation 8

Section 3.  Chapters 8-11.  The Seven Trumpets of Warning Judgments.

REVELATION 8

     8:1.  The breaking of the seventh seal actually completes the second of the seven sections of Revelation, and would, I think, more naturally have been included as the final verse of chapter seven.

     When the Lamb breaks the seventh seal, all is completed.   The half hour of silence John experiences does not mean that nothing is happening in heaven, but that the eternal Sabbath has begun.  Nothing more remains undone in the scroll of God’s redemptive plan, and the new creation is complete.  The last lost lamb has been brought home, the last enemy defeated, the last brand snatched from the fire.  All is at peace in the joy and bliss of God’s eternal glory.  “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10, KJV; cf. Mark 4:39).  But the half hour pause also prepares John to see the whole plan unfold again, though of course from a wholly different perspective.  In fact, these angels coming forth with their warning trumpets should be understood as responding to the Lamb on the throne breaking the seals, and that is happening because of what is happening in the circle of his “seven” churches.  It is all connected as part of the same providence and grace by which the Lamb saves God’s people.

     8:2-13.  “Shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will he delay long over them?”  (Luke 18:7).  Of course these questions of Jesus are not really questions.  The answers are demanded, and we see them being answered by the trumpets of warning judgments (cf. Ezek. 33:3,4), which are sent by the Lamb on the throne in answer to the prayers of his people.  “These judgments are expressed in language which reminds the reader of the ten plagues of Egypt” (Hendriksen, p. 141; cf. Rev. 11:8).   Ultimately, like the plagues of Egypt, they do not harm the believers (see Luke 21:16-18).  “God shall wipe every tear from their eyes.”

     8:2.  We must always bear in mind that these are symbolic pictures.  Like political cartoons of dressed up elephants and donkeys, they are a quick and strong way to get a message across.  They stick in the mind.  They are also an accommodation to our condition.  We know that God is not actually seated on a throne.  He is omnipresent.  Yet it is well that we picture him as the supreme ruler seated in the highest heaven at the center of all creation.  The symbol of seven angels standing before him is a perfect way to impress upon us that God ordinarily chooses to work through means.  These are his agents, perfectly and completely capable and ready to carry out all his will.  Seven trumpets are given to them.  But they do not blow them immediately.

     8:3-5.  The Angel at the Golden Altar of Incense.  This is an amazing picture.  We know the sovereign God who sits on the throne rules, but why does he rule as he does?  What moves the Prime Mover?  This picture, with symbols familiar from the daily temple worship, declares to us that God is moved by the prayers of his people.  Over and over, Christ has told us that we shall reign with him (e.g., 2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 20:4).  Terrible judgments come upon the world, but they come because God was moved by compassion.  He hears the cries of his suffering servants.  He hears and answers all our requests (cf. Luke 12:32; Ro. 8:32; 1 John 3:22; 5:15), though it will mean that fire is cast upon the earth.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…deliver us from evil.”  So we pray, and he hears and answers, after much incense is added to our prayers (3-4).  This is the sweet aroma of Christ to God (2 Cor. 2:14-16).  It represents Christ’s intercession added to our prayers.

     Then, the angel fills the censer with coals from the altar (5; referring to the great altar of sacrifice, the altar signifying Christ’s atonement).  The coals cast to the earth represent the gospel of the atonement being preached, bringing upheavals and judgments on the earth.  The conqueror on the white horse is sent forth in the world again (6:2).

     8:6.  Hear what Dennis Prutow says about the seven trumpets (In Response, Vol. V, Num. 3, March, 1996):  “I say these are warnings of impending doom because the seven trumpets remind us so much of the people of Israel invading Jericho in Joshua 6:6-9.”

     Seven priests carried seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord, and blew them as the army of Israel circled Jericho for seven days.  “On the seventh day, the warnings complete, God gave the city to Israel” (Prutow; cf. 11:15).  As Jesus promised Peter, “…I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (or, shall not withstand it, Matt. 16:18).

     8:7-12.  In answer to the prayers of a suffering church, which are carried up to the throne and mixed with the incense of Christ’s intercession, the world in all its systems is smitten.  The Lord does not afflict simply to cause pain, but to call to repentance.  This is wrath mixed with mercy, for these first four blasts are limited in each case to one third.   One third of the earth, the sea, the waters of the earth, and the heavenly bodies are all in turn smitten.  This is the way all mere worldly interests have been and will continue to be afflicted until the final trumpet sounds for the final time.  In the meantime, they will continue to blast their warnings in our day just as they have done since the first century.

     “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam….  Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth”  (Ps. 46:1-3a, 8).

     8:7.  The First Trumpet.  These symbols represent not just crop production, but the whole order of society in its institutions being withered.  All the green grass, all the pleasure and joy in life, is taken away.

     8:8-9.  The Second Trumpet.  Mountains are lofty prominent places.  As a Biblical symbol, they represent great kingdoms or empires (cf. Jer. 51:24-26).  The sea as a symbol always represents the restless, roaring, unsettled condition of the nations.  Here, following naturally on the first trumpet, the second trumpet pictures an empire in volcanic eruption being cast back into the sea of nations, causing the sea and the commerce of the sea to suffer a one third loss. 

     8:10-11.  The Third Trumpet.  A star falls on a third of the world’s waters, causing the waters of earthly happiness to become bitter and poisoned with wormwood.  When the social and moral instruction, the manners and influences that sweeten human discourse lose their authority and fall, the waters of life turn bitter as wormwood.  The falling star bringing this to earth is the satanic corruption of the gospel by false teachers and churches (cf. Jer. 9:14, 15; 23:15).  They no longer shine a heavenly light and authority, but descend to merely earthly concerns and powers.  “The best things, when prostituted, become always the vilest” (Ramsey, p. 379).

     8:12.  The Fourth Trumpet.  When no repentance follows the first three trumpets of warning, a third of the world’s lights are darkened, a spiritual blindness covers over the lights of nature, which declare the glory of God (cf. Ps. 19:1, 2; Mt. 6:23; Ro. 1:18-21).

     8:13.  But when the world has ignored the first four trumpets, shall judgments stop at one third?  The eagle angel cries a threefold woe for the world because of the trumpets that remain to sound.