Lesson 11
The 7th Seal – The 1st Four Trumpets
Judgment on Land and Sea
…the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment ,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Ps 1:4-6
“God, as He is our Creator, Preserver, and sovereign Lord--has an absolute power both over our persons,
lives, estates, and habitations: and when we have transgressed His righteous laws,
He may do with us, and all we have--as He pleases. He may turn us out of house and home,
and burn up all our comforts round about us--and yet do us no wrong.”
Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him. Psalm 115:3.
The Lord does whatever pleases Him--in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths." Psalm 135:6
Thomas Brooks, London's Lamentations, 1670
Quick review of the judgments:
“It is interesting to note that the series of three sevens are really included in one series of seven, that is the seven trumpets are included under the seventh seal and the seven bowls are included under the seventh trumpet, so that we have in fact a single series in three movements—the first six seals opened, then the seventh seal which includes the seven trumpets blown, and then the last trumpet sounding, introducing the seven bowls and concluding the opening of the seven seals.”
C.A. Blanchard; Light on the Last Days, p.58.
Introduction: Silence in heaven
Rev 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Ps 76:7-8
7 You alone are to be feared. Who can stand before you when you are angry?
8 From heaven you pronounced judgment, and the land feared and was quiet —
Hab 2:20 But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.
Zeph 1:7 Be silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near.
Zech 2:13 Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.
Trumpets
Rev 8:2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.
To summon the tribes Nu 10:2
Alert for war Nu 10:9; 2 Chron 13:12
Announce feats Nu 10;10; Ps 81:3
News flashes 1 Sam 13:3
New Kings 1 Kings 1:34, 39
Worship 1 Chron 16:6
Prior to the rapture 1 Cor 15:52
The Day of the Lord Zeph 1:14-16
I. The Angel of Surprise Rev 8:3-5
A. Who He’s Not
1. Jesus has been identified as the lamb
2. Jesus is never referred to as an angel in the New Testament
3. Verse 2 describes actual angels; verse 3 describes “another” angel
4. Jesus is clearly identified throughout
Rev 1:5 Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
Rev 1:17 I am the First and the Last.
Rev 1:18 I am the Living One;
B. Where he serves
Rev 8:3-4
3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.
4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.
Luke 1:8-10
8 Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God,
9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
C. What he does
Rev 8:5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
II. The 1 st Four Trumpets Rev 8:6-12
“It has been before observed, that as in the case of the seals, so here, the first four are marked off from the last three…It is in the kind of the exercise which their agency finds, that these four trumpets are especially distinguished. The plagues indicated by them are entirely inflicted on natural objects: the earth, trees, grass, sea, rivers, lights of heaven: whereas those indicated by the two latter are expressly said to be inflicted on men, and not on natural objects.”
Henry Alford; The Greek New Testament; 1958
A. Trumpet #1
Rev 8:7 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood,
and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up,
a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
“This poses a dilemma, because grass still exists when the fifth trumpet arrives (9:4). It is hermeneutically wrong to see this as an inconsistency retained to preserve artistic effect…Two considerations help to resolve the quandary: First, a time lapse between the first and fifth trumpets allows time for grass to be regrown after the burning, but before the assault of the fifth [trumpet]. Second, in most parts of the earth grass is not green the year round, but is seasonal. Burning of all the grass that is green during a particular season would leave the remainder untouched until its season of dormancy is over…Whether the affected portion was one-third or some other percentage, the text does not say. The description simply says “all” that is green at the time of the plague. Either of these two explanations allows for taking “all” in its literal sense without contradicting 9:4.”
Robert Thomas; Revelation 8 – 22: An Exegetical Commentary, Moody, 1995, 17-18
B. Trumpet #2
Rev 8:8-9
8 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze,
was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,
9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
C. Trumpet #3
Rev 8:10-11
10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky 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 turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
“The reference to wormwood seems to draw the parallel of the experience of the children of Israel at the waters of Marah (Exodus 15: 23 – 25). There the tree cast into the bitter waters made them sweet. Here the wormwood cast into the sweet water made it bitter.”
John Walvoord; The Revelation of Jesus Christ; 1966
D. Trumpet #4
Rev 8:12 The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.
Isa 13:9-11
9 See, the day of the LORD is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger —
to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.
10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
Ezek 32:7-8
7 When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud,
and the moon will not give its light.
8 All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you; I will bring darkness over your land,
declares the Sovereign LORD.
Joel 2:10 Before them the earth shakes, the sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars no longer shine.
Joel 2:31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
Amos 8:9 In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”
“The first four trumpets deal with aspects of the physical world which are taken more or less for granted. The beauty and benefit of the trees, the luxury and growth of green grass are seldom occasions for thanksgiving to the living God. In a similar way, men are prone to take for granted the blessings of water, whether it be the beauty of the sea, the majestic flow of great rivers, or the pure fountains and springs which abound in the natural world. These too are gifts from a loving God to an undeserving world, and they come under the blight and judgment described in the second and third trumpets.”
Walvoord
III. The Flying Eagle Rev 8:13
Rev 8:13 As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!"
TNBS Study Questions preparation for lesson 12
Read Revelation Chapter 9
1. How does God use angels, both faithful and fallen, to work out his purposes?
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2. We decided early on in our class to interpret a passage literally unless there is reasonable justification to do otherwise. How would you justify interpreting the “star” in 9:1 as figurative and the “star” in 8:10 as literal?
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3. From Rev 9:1-2, Luke 8:31, 2 Peter 2:4 & 9, and Jude 6, what is the abyss and what role does it play?
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4. Describe the human suffering associated with the 5th trumpet?
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5. Realizing that the time John describes is at least 2000 years after his death, how might his vocabulary limit his articulation of the visions he is given?
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6. Without the use of commentaries or footnotes, what kinds of things do you think he might be describing?
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7. Read Exodus 30:1-10. In Rev 9:13 we find the same alter as in 8:3-5. Are they related to the one in Exodus?
If not, why not? If so, how?
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8. Read the New York Times article attached to your lesson. How might this article relate to Rev 9:13-19?
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9. Read the article from The Economist attached to your lesson (it’s only an excerpt of the original article), then respond with your opinion to this statement (from a well know figure who will remain anonymous).
“China is trying to bankrupt the American economy in much the same way the U.S.–under Ronald Reagan’s presidency—caused the Soviet economy to implode. The twist is that China is accomplishing the bankrupting process through the debt owed China by this nation. Fully 80 percent of China’s military buildup has been funded to this point by the interest on the debt America owes the Chinese communist government.”
10. How do you explain the response of the people who are left after the 6th trumpet?
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Saturday, November 17, 2012 Last Update: 2:00 PM ET
A version of this article appeared in print on July 14, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition
Iraq Suffers as the Euphrates River Dwindles
Moises Saman for The New York Times
A boy rested on the mud in a dried-up section of the Euphrates River near Jubaish, Iraq, in June.
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: July 13, 2009
JUBAISH, Iraq — Throughout the marshes, the reed gatherers, standing on land they once floated over, cry out to visitors in a passing boat.
“Maaku mai!” they shout, holding up their rusty sickles. “There is no water!”
The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now.
The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.
The poor suffer more acutely, but all strata of society are feeling the effects: sheiks, diplomats and even members of Parliament who retreat to their farms after weeks in Baghdad. Along the river, rice and wheat fields have turned to baked dirt. Canals have dwindled to shallow streams, and fishing boats sit on dry land. Pumps meant to feed water treatment plants dangle pointlessly over brown puddles.
“The old men say it’s the worst they remember,” said Sayid Diyia, 34, a fisherman in Hindiya, sitting in a riverside cafe full of his idle colleagues. “I’m depending on God’s blessings.”
The drought is widespread in Iraq. The area sown with wheat and barley in the rain-fed north is down roughly 95 percent from the usual, and the date palm and citrus orchards of the east are parched. For two years rainfall has been far below normal, leaving the reservoirs dry, and American officials predict that wheat and barley output will be a little over half of what it was two years ago.
It is a crisis that threatens the roots of Iraq’s identity, not only as the land between two rivers but as a nation that was once the largest exporter of dates in the world, that once supplied German beer with barley and that takes patriotic pride in its expensive Anbar rice. Now Iraq is importing more and more grain. Farmers along the Euphrates say, with anger and despair, that they may have to abandon Anbar rice for cheaper varieties.
Droughts are not rare in Iraq, though officials say they have been more frequent in recent years. But drought is only part of what is choking the Euphrates and its larger, healthier twin, the Tigris.