Revelation 8 The Trumpet Judgments of God

Revelation 8             The Beginning Of Wrath

1.     What does this chapter teach about the relationship between the prayers of God's people and God's judgment?

2.     How important is it in responding to plagues for us to have a sense of whether they are the natural results of sin and a fallen world or whether they are divine judgments?

3.     Summarize the difference between what happened when the seals of the Judgment Scroll were broken and what happened when the angels trumpeted.

4.     To what extent do you agree that the plagues of Egypt are a helpful pattern for interpreting the plagues of Revelation?

5.     Do Christians ever experience the direct outpouring of God's judgment through natural plagues and disasters? Give historical examples to support your answer.

From Michael Easley. Holman New Testament Commentary  Revelation
© 1998 Broadman & Holman Publishers

 

Video:  https://youtu.be/ZLyS2Wxv1G4

 

Zoom  Bible Study Meeting Tuesday evening at 7:30   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2402286476

1 When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings,  flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

6 Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.

 7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

 8 The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. 9 A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

 10 The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 11 The name of the star is Wormwood.  A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

 12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.

 13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, "Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!"

 

Sources

M Easley, Revelation

D Akin, Christ centred Exposition Exalting Jesus in Revelation

H Bonar the revelation of St. John

Revelation 8–9 contains the second great series of judgments: the seven trumpets.

Revelation 8:1 speaks of silence in heaven but only for half an hour, a short time. Judgment almost too great to imagine will quickly follow, and when it is finished, one-third of God's glorious creation will be gone, destroyed by the God who made it.

As if, in the prospect of some great event about to happen, all heaven was silenced,—only for a brief space,—but still silenced. Its praise ceased; its service was suspended; and all its worshippers were fixing eye and ear upon something which God was about to do. The hush of heaven's perpetual music, its everlasting song, was something awful.

" Flame, and fire, and desolation At the Judge's feet shall go ;

Earth, and sea, and all abysses, Shall his mighty sentence know."

 

Now, in Revelation 8:2, our sovereign Lord gives seven trumpets to "the seven angels who stand in the presence of God." The nonbiblical Jewish book 1 Enoch 20:2-8 makes reference to seven angels who stand before God and names them: Uriel, Raphael, Raquel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel, and Remeil. Trumpets, according to Numbers 10, called the people together, announced war, and proclaimed special times and events. They were sounded at Mount Sinai when the law was given (Exod 19:16-19), when Jericho fell (Jos 6:13-16), and when the king was enthroned (1 Kgs 1:34,39). A trumpet will sound at the rapture (1 Thess 4:13-18) and when Christ returns (Matt 24:31).

Easley: These are the seven angels who stand before God. Jewish and Christian tradition has held that there are seven archangels (Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel, and Remiel). However, these are not named as archangels in Revelation. Michael and Gabriel are the only two named angels in the Bible, with Michael the only designated archangel and Gabriel the only one claiming to stand directly before God (Jude 9; Luke 1:19). The archangel accompanies the trumpet call of God and the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

Each angel received one of seven trumpets. This was not the ram's horn (Hebrew shophar) of ancient Israel but the metal instrument of the first century (a long tube with a mouthpiece and a flared end) usually connected with warfare (1 Cor. 14:8). Such trumpets were used for signaling, not for playing melodies, since they did not have valves like modern trumpets. The prophet Joel was the first to connect the blowing of trumpets with the coming "day of the LORD":

Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.
Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming.
It is close at hand
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was of old
nor ever will be in ages to come (Joel 2:1,2).

In the New Testament, trumpets retained their main function, signaling rather than music (Matt. 6:2; 1 Cor. 14:8). Both Jesus and Paul connected the blowing of a trumpet with the Second Coming (Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16). With such a strong scriptural background, we are not surprised to find this concept expanded and developed in the Book of Revelation. Easley

 

The angel takes the incense burner filled with fire from the altar and hurls it to the earth. There follows "rumblings of thunder, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake." A storm is coming, flowing out of the prayers of verses 3-4. The language of these verses is reminiscent of Sinai with its thunder, lightning, and earthquake (Exod 19:16-19), and the vision of Ezekiel 10:2-7 where a man clothed in linen fills his hands with coals and scatters them over the city. Intercession has turned to judgment not according to man's timetable but God's! The angel priest casts fire onto the earth followed by harbingers of impending storm and disaster. The cosmos trembles before the presence and power of its Creator. A day of reckoning has arrived: "The seven angels are prepared to blow" (8:7). Akin

 

Horatio Bonar

The angel and the altar. It is the altar that stood in the holy place that is here referred to in the third verse, not the brazen altar; it is the golden altar, the altar of incense; the altar of prayer and praise; the altar at which the priests ministered, and where also blood was sprinkled. It is located in the outer part of the tabernacle or the temple,  it differed from the mercy seat (found in the inner part, the Holy of Holies and separated by the veil). At this altar all who are God's priests, all His royal priesthood, officiate. Here specially they stand, as pleaders with God, as intercessors on behalf of His own or against His enemies. To this altar the angel comes (not one of the seven), and here he takes his stand for a special purpose. The altar here is pictured in the altar in both the Tabernacle and the Temple. It wasn't the altar that made up the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, where once a year the High Priest would enter with blood for the sins of the people. This was outside the holy of Holies, it was in the area where everyday priests would enter with offerings for the individual's sins, and every day prayer was made. It was the located on the outer side of the veil in the Temple and Tabernacle that separated holy of Holies where God met with Moses, from the place where prayer was made. So often we wonder whether God has heard our prayers.  So often we long for the direct presence of the Lord in those times of hurt and pain that we receive in life. We pray the Lord will reward evil people with justice. But we don't see it yet. And we desire to know that sweet communion with God that the inner Holy of Holies represents to us.

 

The angel and the censer.— The angel comes to act as priest, representing God to men and man to God in prayer. Here he is seen with a censer. God puts into the hands of one angel a sword, and of another a censer, he stands at the incense altar with a golden (symbol of what is divine and heavenly) censer in his hands. He has a special task. His fellows are about to sound their trumpets of judgment. He goes to remind of the cry of the Church, 'How long wilt thou not judge?' 'Avenge me of my adversary.'  That censer is the link between the throne of God and the judgments upon the earth. The introduction is in response to the prayers of believers of all ages, not forgotten or neglected.

 

The angel and the incense.—It is no empty censer that he holds; it is not for show that he waves it. Incense is there; 'There was given him.' It is much incense, or, literally, 'many incenses,' out of which were to come innumerable wreaths of fragrant smoke. This incense was to be 'offered with' or 'laid upon' so as to cover or envelope the 'prayers of all saints,'—yes, all saints, from Abel onwards; for this seems to be the gathering into one of all prayers from the beginning, that at length they may be answered. Upon the golden altar in front of the throne the prayers of the saints of all ages have been laid; there they have accumulated;  and mixed with the heavenly incense, mingled together upon the golden altar, rises up to God in one fragrant cloud. The 'sweet savor' of that heavenly incense prevails to draw down at length the long-deferred answers to the prayers of ages.

 

The angel and the fire.—The angel having emptied the censer of its incense, fills it with fire; the pouring out of the one from the censer being the signal for the coming in of the other into that vessel from which the incense had been poured out. The filling of the censer is with the devouring fire of judgment. 'Voices, and thunderings, and earthquake,' ..The whole machinery or instrumentality of judgment is now set in motion. There is delay no longer. 'The seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.' They had stood in silence before God (verse 2), waiting for the signal. They had received the trumpets, but till the incense is poured on the altar, and the fire shaken out from the censer, they must not use them. Now their successive blasts fill the air, and the effects are stupendous. Many lessons are here.

 

God Is Sovereign in Judgment over the Earth (8:7)

"When we depend on our organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend on education, we get what education can do; when we depend on man, we get what man can do; but when we depend on God, we get what God can do."—A. C. Dixon

7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

 

The first of the angels "prepared to blow." He blew and "hail and fire, mixed with blood, were hurled to the earth. So a third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up." The imagery is that of the seventh plague God brought on Egypt in Exodus 9:13-35, with allusion also to Joel's prophecy (Joel 2:31; Acts 2:19). "Burned up" occurs three times in just one verse. Blood is probably symbolic of terrible judgment. Whatever this is, great devastation follows this cosmic storm that had its genesis in heaven (Mounce, Revelation, 178). That it is a third indicates that,  "although God is bringing punishment on the earth, it is not as yet complete and final. The purpose of the visitation is to warn people of the full wrath of God yet to fall, and in so doing to bring them to repentance. (Ibid.)"  Akin

 

8 The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. 9 A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

 10 The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

 

The waters become wormwood, and many people die from its bitter poison. This judgment is both a parallel to the first Egyptian plague that contaminated the fresh water supply (Exod 7:20) and a reversal of the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness at Marah, where the Lord made bitter water drinkable (Exod 15:22-25). The word "wormwood" appears only here in the New Testament. It "is mentioned eight times in the Old Testament, where it is associated with bitterness, poison, and death (Deut 29:18; Prov 5:4; Jer 9:15; 23:15; Lam 3:15,19; Amos 5:7; 6:12)" (MacArthur, Revelation 1–11, 249). Akin

 

 

 

12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.

The fourth trumpet sounds, and a third of the starry heavens are darkened with an accompanying effect of darkness on the earth. This plague looks back to the ninth plague in Egypt (Exod 10:21-23). Amos 5:18 teaches us that the Day of the Lord will be darkness, not light. Joel 2 says the Day of the Lord will be "a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and dense overcast." Akin

 

 

Angels, help us to adore Him,

To behold Him face to face ;

Sun and moon bow down before Him,

Dwellers all in time and space,

Praise Him ! Praise Him!

Praise with us the God or Grace."