Revelation Episode 10: The Seventh Seal Gives Way to the Seven Trumpets

God stuns John and the angels with a vision of cosmic and ecological calamities to come, unleashing terror and global disaster on a third of the earth, sky and sea.

- Podcast Transcript - 

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you're interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now on to today's episode.

This is Episode 10 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast entitled The Seventh Seal Gives Way to the Seven Trumpets, where we'll discuss Revelation 8:1-13. I'm Wes Treadway, and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis.

Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we're looking at today?

Andy

Well, this is an awesome chapter, and it speaks of a level of ecological ravaging of our planet, such as the world has never seen before. And that I think will be a clear marking of the imminent end of the world, so great are the ravages that will come with the sounding of the first four trumpets. And so, we're going to walk through them and talk about what effect that's going to have on Earth and on society and how it's going to lead to the ultimate judgments that lead to the second coming of Christ. So, we're going to walk through that, all of that today.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read verses 1-13 in Revelation 8.

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 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, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 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.

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

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 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. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

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. 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 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. 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!"

Andy, what is the significance of silence in heaven that we see at the beginning of this passage? And what did John see next because of the seventh seal being opened?

Andy

Well, I think what we have frequently with specifically the inhabitants of heaven, which is the angels and perhaps redeemed people, but especially focused on the angels, there's a reaction to the unfolding drama that the seals and then the trumpets produce. It's like they're stunned.

And it's important because we have heaven depicted for us as a place of continual worship. Day and night, they never stop saying holy, holy, holy, and things like that. So, it's ceaseless praise, and they're just so stunned. So, we have to understand that angels are emotional beings. There's reaction, they're praising when Jesus is born into the world. And they're celebrating the redemption of the elect when they are saved. There are celebrations that go on. But here they're stunned, and we'll see why as we look at Revelation 8. The impact of what's about to happen is breathtaking. I think the silence in heaven implies a magnitude of what's about to occur. It's like the calm before the storm. Also, there's this sense of dramatic pause and then this onslaught comes in chapter 8.

Wes

And what did John see next because of the seventh seal being opened?

Andy

Well, he sees seven angels who have seven trumpets, and they get ready to sound them. And so, I think sometimes like the Russian dolls, where you open one up and then another one comes out. And then you open that, and then the next one comes out. And it's like the seven seals gives way to the seven trumpets. And then with the seven trumpets, it gives way to the seven bowls that are poured out. So, it seems to be like it's nested, and there's some recapitulation because in the sixth seal, the stars fall from heaven to earth, and it seems like everything's over. But then we kind of go back and the stars are there again, but now a third of them are going to be judged, so it's nested. So, we see these seven angels, and they get ready to sound their seven trumpets. They are prepared. And then the seven trumpets, the sounding of the seven trumpets. And the effect on earth carries us through Revelation 8 and 9.

Wes

What's the significance of the statement that these angels stand before God and what prelude happened after the seven angels were given the seven trumpets?

Andy

Well, first of all, I think that they're obedient. As we learn in the Lord's prayer, "May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). So, stand before God. It's like they're standing at attention and they're ready to be commanded. They're the host of heaven, this kind of thing. They do what they're told, and they completely, gladly obey.

I think there's also a sense of privilege and proximity. So, for example, when Gabriel came to tell Zachariah, John the Baptist's father, that they would have a son after years of barrenness, he questioned it through some unbelief. And he said, "I'm Gabriel, and I stand in the presence of God. I don't mess around. I am an exalted angel, and I'm here to give you this message. And because you've not believed it, you're going to be struck with muteness until the baby's born." So, I think these seven angels standing, it seems almost like at attention, ready to sound their trumpet only when the Lord tells them to do it. They're in perfect order. They're in perfect submission to God's command.

Wes

What did the golden censer signify and what's the relationship between the prayers of God's people and the coming wrath?

Andy

Well, a censer is a metal pot that incense is put in, and there's some coals or something like that, and it's burning, and it gives off an aroma. And so, it's gold. So therefore, there's some sense of worth and value. And the incense that rises represents the prayers of the saints. And so, it says, "He has much incense to offer with the prayers of all God's people or the saints on the altar, and the smoke of their incense together with the prayers of God's people went up" (Revelation 8:3). So, there's this mingling of an aroma and prayer. And so, we as Christians, our prayers do ascend like the smoke of incense up into the presence of God. Whereas, when Noah got off the ark and then sacrificed some of the clean animals and burned them on an altar, it says that "The pleasing aroma went up to the Lord."

I think in a similar way, our worship and our prayers are a pleasing aroma to God, so they waft upward. And these prayers represent the prayers of the people of God. And I think, given what happens in Revelation 8 and 9, wrath, judgment, terror coming down, it seems in connection with the prayers of the saints. It seems to be similar to the fifth seal broken open and the martyrs under the altar, and they're crying aloud for vengeance. That's a prayer, isn't it? They're crying for vengeance. They want vengeance.

"Our worship and our prayers are a pleasing aroma to God, so they waft upward."

And then Jesus says, after the parable of the persistent widow, "And will not God bring about justice for his oppressed, righteous ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he make them wait long?" (Luke 18:7-8).

"No, I'll tell you. He's going to make sure that they get justice." Well, this is it. So, the wrath that comes in response to the prayers is that people are crying out for deliverance. The answer is the destruction of planet earth.

Wes

How's what happened next in verse 5, show a close connection between the prayers of the saints and the coming wrath, and what happens when the angel fills the censer with fire and hurls it on the earth?

Andy

Well, the crying out to him and in the parable of the persistent widow, and then the consultation, or the interpretation that Jesus gives, it says, "And will not God bring about justice for his righteous ones who cry out to him day and night?" He's going to see that they get justice. So, I think there's a strong connection between the incense and the prayers of the saints and the wrath that's going to be poured out.

It says, "Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth, and there came peels of thunder rumblings, a flash of lightning, and an earthquake." So, it's like a bombing raid from heaven to earth. It's wrath coming down from God to earth because specifically more than anything because of how they have treated his people. So, this is the whole thing.

In Revelation 16, when the angel pours out his bowl on the waters, and they are turned to blood, they celebrate saying, "You are right for doing this because they shed the blood of your people, and you've given them blood to drink as they deserve." So, it's how God's people were treated. God is motivated to do things on their behalf.

Wes

How does 8:6 serve to heighten the suspense of the seven trumpets judgment? And what's the difference between the judgments of the first four seals and the first four trumpets?

Andy

Okay, so 8:6 says, "Then the seven angels who have the seven trumpets prepared to sound them." So, the preparation, it's like things get ready, so the angels are getting themselves ready. So, you are expert in music and when you see somebody about to play a trumpet, he's at least going to wet his lips, I think, and he's getting the instrument ready. He's getting it positioned. So sometimes you'll see that in an orchestra where there's a soloist, let's say, and the moment hasn't come, but it's about to come. And so, he stands up from his chair, gets a good kind of stance, kind of limbers up his shoulders a little bit, gets the trumpet, gets his lips ready, it puts it up to his lips but doesn't blow yet. The moment hasn't come yet, but it's about to.

Concerning the connection between the seals and the trumpets, the first four seals, of course, are the famous four horsemen of the apocalypse, and they bring about a certain pattern of judgments on the earth that I think more than anything have to do with politics and military. And so, the first horse represents conquest, but without war. The second represents war and bloodshed because of human conquest, and the third represents famine. And the fourth is death. And those are all tied together with human things. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There'll be famines and earthquakes in various ways. That's all politics, that's all human stuff that is judgment, but it's still... This is direct judgment on the ecology of the earth, one layer after the other that happens just specifically because these angels sound their trumpets.

Wes

One question that comes to mind as an overarching question for verses 7-12, before we walk through the details, is why it's significant that these judgments come on the earth physically on the realm of nature and not directly on people. Although people certainly suffer greatly from these judgments.

Andy

Right. Well, we just need to understand the connection between the physical earth and frankly the cosmos too, but mostly the earth because the judgments here... Well, they're also on the heavens too. So, at any rate, it was a stewardship. Everything was made with mankind in the image of God, at the kind of center of it all. And our sins affected earth. As we see with Adam, when God judged him, he says, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you" (Genesis 3:17).

So, it's like, well, there it is. That's the very question you've asked me. Why is the ecology getting hit for human sin? Well, it's been from the very start of sin. There is an ecological effect on planet earth of human sin. Also, we need to know that this destruction of planet Earth is going to be complete. It's going to be total. The elements are going to melt in the heat, we're told in 2 Peter 3:7. The whole Nth degree, "This present earth is reserved for fire," Peter tells us, and all of the elements, the stoikaya, the basic building blocks of society, atoms are going to come apart in a cataclysm of energy resulting in and leading to a reassembly of all of that. In a mysterious way similar to the resurrection of the body was. Is it continuity but difference? So also, a continuity with the earth. So, it's a complete destruction because God has linked the ecology of earth to human sin.

"Why is the ecology getting hit for human sin? Well, it's been from the very start of sin. There is an ecological effect on planet earth of human sin."

Wes

Let's walk through the remaining verses in detail beginning with verse 7. What happened when the first trumpet sounded and what effect would a judgment like this have on human lives? I mean, what would earth look like?

Andy

It's just overwhelming. I mean, that's the thing. We think about, worried about what originally was called global warming, but now they call it climate change. And it has to do with the ozone layer and different other things. Look, none of the things I've ever heard about that even come close to what I see in Revelation 8. Think about all the apocalyptic movies that have ever been. Revelation 8:7-13. So, it's just very short. It's like seven verses, describe a horror, an apocalyptic horror, end-of-the-world horror that's unlike anything I've ever seen in any movie ever. And I believe this is going to happen.

Let me just say hermeneutically, what I think is going on here. I don't see any possibility that the ecological effects described here as a result of the sounding of the first for trumpets can be symbolic of anything. I don't think they represent anything. Because I don't see possibly how they could represent anything. Because I have seen, and we live every day, the cursing of the earth. And Romans 8 saying that earth was subjected to futility or frustration because of human sin. So that includes tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and droughts, and all the terrors that come, all of that. All right, that theology of ecological disaster linked to human sin is in my mind. And then I read these verses. It makes sense. And they cannot be symbolic of anything.

Furthermore, another point is, it can't be symbolism. Number two, it's never happened. A lot of times people like, "Revelation is talking about the persecutions under the Roman Empire and the need to burn some incense to Caesar and their willingness to stand firm against that and the market of the beast and all that." They'll do all that couched within the Roman Empire and the original spread of the gospel.

This doesn't fit that. Nothing here in Revelation 8 has ever happened. Nothing like it at all. I mean, there have been fires, there have been tidal waves, there have been some effect on the ocean, some pollution of the ocean in some lagoon somewhere or along some coast that's 10 miles up and down a specific coast, like red tide or something like that. No, this is vastly beyond that.

So those are my two basic interpretive principles. This is a prophecy of something that's going to physically happen on the earth that hasn't happened yet. So, the first one is the angel sounds a trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. So, from heaven to earth, this is happening. It's not an accident. 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 is where I remember when I was writing these sermons, this isn't symbolic of anything. This is living, growing green things dying as a result of human sin. Now it happens with a hailstorm and fire. So, hail comes down and fire, and then it says mixed with blood. I don't know what that means, but maybe the hail instead of being frozen waters, frozen blood. I don't really know. But it comes down and hailstones can be unbelievably damaging and devastating, but I think what really does the damage here is the fire.

And so, as a result, because it uses the word burned, a third of the earth was burned up. A third of the trees were burned up. Now stop right there. I looked this up when I was preaching the sermon and working on it. And I looked up the biggest forest fire in the history of America. And it was some forest fire burned some massive number of acres in Minnesota, I think it was or something like that. It was not in the West. It was there and probably, I don't remember, but it was like two or three percent of Minnesota's forests were affected. Nothing else in any other state. So, of all the forests in the US alone, it would be 0.002 percent or something like that. And then that doesn't even count the Amazonian rainforest and all the others that weren't even touched. Of course they weren't touched. It was just a localized forest fire. That was the biggest of all time in North America. I don't know in the world. I don't remember if I looked it up.

All right, now this is planet earth, a third of all the trees on earth burned up. What effect would that have on ecology? What effect would that have on the atmosphere and on the oxygen? CO2 and oxygen, and all that. Trees do that. They take CO2 and turn it into air, oxygen. So unbelievable devastation. This thing alone means we're not living long after this happens. This one alone.

Then it also says all the green grass was burned up. It's like, whoa. I mean, think about all that. The tundra. I've been out west, I've been in the far western part of China, which has vast grasslands out there, kind of like Mongolia and all that. Imagine all that burned. Oh, unbelievable.

Wes

What realm of nature is the focus of the second trumpet judgment? And what do you think it would look like if a huge mountain all ablaze fell from the sky into the ocean?

Andy

Picture like a meteorite. And some say that people that believe in evolution and billions of years and millions of years and hundreds of millions and all that say that it was a meteor that crashed somewhere on earth and caused the Ice Age or caused the dinosaurs to be extinct, whatever. This is a big deal. So, you imagine a meteor or some huge thing, and it's pure kinetic energy. It's one half MV squared, one half times mass times velocity squared. That's kinetic energy.

So, imagine something the size of a mountain hitting the earth. It's hard to even imagine, but it's all ablaze. It's like a volcano. But the whole thing's ablaze. And where does it go? Ends up in the ocean. And as a result of that, the heat, maybe. something like that, I don't know. As a result, a third of the sea turns to blood. Now the blood is either living creatures in it that turn it, but I don't think... The sea is just so big.

I remember watching something called... It was Blue Planet or something like that. It was talking about just how incredibly big the Pacific Ocean is. And that 97 or eight or nine percent of it has nothing living in it at all, except maybe plankton or something like that. But no fish. They tend to go in streams in the ocean in certain zones. So, you can go a day or more and see no fish at all. That's just how big the ocean is. It's just like, whatever.

So, I don't think any living creatures, even if a third of all of the living creatures in the sea bled out, they're not turning the sea, a third of the sea to blood. So, I think it's just God does that. And so, he turns a third of the ocean to blood, and as a result of that, a third of the living creatures in the ocean died. Again, what effect is that going to have on the economy and the ecology? I mean, it's hard to even measure.

I lived in Japan for two years and the seafood and the fishing industry and all is a major part of their economy. I come from Massachusetts, same thing there. Cape Cod, Maine, lobsters, all that. That's all done. Unbelievable.

Wes

And not only the water is affected and the sea creatures, but even the industry that takes place in the world across the seas with a third of the ships being destroyed.

Andy

Right. So, this is what I believe. I believe all of this reshuffles the deck for the antichrist to come. Because how do you get one world ruler, one world religion, one world everything. It's when this kind of stuff is happening to our one world and people are desperate to just stay alive. And government comes along to try to organize things and organize buying and selling and all that sort of stuff, mark of the beast. All just kind of fits together. It's like, I don't see a guy like that just popping up when the world economy is generally healthy, and the world ecology is generally healthy. People have tried for millennia to rule the whole earth. You don't do it. You lose. At some point other nations like, "No, you're not going to take over the world." At this point with the reshuffling of the deck, things are going to change. So yeah, a third of the ships are destroyed. So, shipping. How important is shipping in the world's economy? So, yeah.

Wes

Now, what happened when the third trumpet sounded and how is it similar to and different from the second trumpet?

Andy

All right, so the third trumpet, it says, "A great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers, springs of water." It's the same in that some big thing is coming down on fire from heaven to earth, same kind of thing. But here it lands on the land, which is the only place that fresh water is found. And a third of fresh water, drinking water, is made poisonous. And it's called wormwood, or bitter. And people die from drinking the water. So again, this is what to me more than anything else, reshuffles the deck of the national boundaries, of the nation states themselves. They cease to exist as such. Why? Because people can last for what? Seven to 10 days without water, maybe not even. And if there's no drinking water in your zone, your region, you're going to move or die.

And so that's what people are doing. And so, they're going here, going there, and no border guards or passport office or whatever is going to stop 100,000 people from flooding into an area where they heard there was drinking water. And I can't imagine what kind of carnage would happen if people try to be selfish or protect their area from others coming in. I can't even imagine. So, at any rate, a third of the drinking water on Earth is turned poisonous so that people cannot drink it. So, this greatly accelerates the final phase of human history.

Wes

And in both of these instances, something is falling from the sky. What do these things falling from the sky imply about God's role in these judgments? And what effect will this judgment have on humanity?

Andy

Well, it tells us, because when Jesus broke the bread and gave it to the feeding of the 5,000, he looked up to heaven and gave thanks. And he ascended to heaven. So, he lifted off from the earth and went up.

Why do I say this? So, it's like, well, isn't it obvious that God is up? Well, God isn't anywhere. God isn't locational. God is everywhere. So why up? Well, it's a sense of the greatness of majesty. There was a throne high and exalted in Isaiah 6, a sense of it being above us or up over that. And he looks down on the nations of the earth and they're like grasshoppers, that kind of thing. So, if something's coming from up down, like Sodom and Gomorrah, that's judgment of God. It's coming from God. And so, it's not an accidental thing, it's not something man did with the ecology, like acid rain or some of the things like that. No, it's something God interjects himself in. His wrath interjects, like Sodom and Gomorrah, and he's doing this. So that's what it tells me.

Wes

What realm of nature is judged when the fourth angel sounds his trumpet, and how might we visualize this happening?

Andy

I have a hard time understanding what this means but let me just read it. It says, "A 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 a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light and also a third of the night."

Don't understand that. But the lights were put in the heavens, we're told in Genesis 1, to give light to the earth. That's the great light to govern the day and the lesser light, the moon, to govern the night. So, you've got the sun and the moon, and it says the greatest afterthought statement in the entire Bible, "He also made the stars." So that's Genesis 1.

So now we got sun, moon, and stars, and they're affected. What is the third stuff? Either something blocks them, like when Jesus died, and it became night in the middle of the day. Something blocks them so that it's literally, there's no light in the heavens at all for a third of the day or night, like the 24-hour period. Third of that, you get literally no light at all. So, it could be a third of the day, a third of the night. A third of the day and a third of the night.

So, the day it would've been sun, of course, and the night, it's moon and stars. So, in the day, we got, let's say 12 hours for daylight. So, a third of that would be four hours. Four hours every day. It's pitch black. There's literally no natural light. There's the light of electricity, maybe, but there's no light from the skies at all. Whoa. And then at night, a four-hour period as well of that, there's no moon or stars. Again, overwhelming.

And then a third of the sun being struck. It could be either that's what we mean, is that a third of the time it doesn't shine. Or it could be that it's more like the intensity of the light has been reduced, so that it's a third less bright. Everything's dimmer. Kind of like when we saw, was it a 98 or 99 percent eclipse? It was still pretty bright out, but it was still vague. It was dim. I remember going to my office that day. It was a couple weeks ago. And it was like, yeah, it's just like everything's dimmer. So, I wonder if it would be like that.

Wes

It's fascinating, even living in Alaska for a few years, it's easy for us to underestimate the power of these lights that God has set in the heavens because even when it's kind of that dusky, dawn light, that's not the full light of day, there's still light. So, for a third of that to be wiped out of the sky, whether during the day or at night, is really hard for us to wrap our minds around what it would be like to live in that kind of darkness.

Andy

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. As we go over this chapter, I think especially these, what is it, seven verses here. It's breathtaking. I remember going through this the first time, and it never left me. I said, "I just really had not realized the significance of Revelation 8 and 9." Revelation 9's worse, but more spiritual. I think it's a demonic assault.

This is ecological disaster unlike anything that's ever happened. And so those two basic hermeneutical principles. This is not symbolic of anything, and this has never happened. It's not happened yet. So, this is an unfulfilled prophecy. It sets me in awe.

Wes

Yeah. Why does the eagle warn the earth of the dreadful judgments yet to come? And what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage?

Andy

Well, the word "woe" is a prophetic word of warning. A bad thing is about to come to you. Why is it an eagle? I don't know. But it's flying in midair, and it's crying out. And what is it saying? It's basically as terrifying as all this is, it's saying, "You haven't seen anything yet. What's about to happen is much worse."

And it's terrifying when you think about how hard life would be on earth after these four trumpets have sounded. And to think what's about happen is vastly worse. It leads us into Revelation 9.

Yeah, so for me, the final thought on all of this is the wrath of God is terrifying. We should fear the Lord. We should realize there's nothing that can ever happen on planet earth that comes even close to the terrors of hell. Hell is the worst thing that can ever happen to anybody. There's nothing on earth that could happen that compares to eternal conscious torment.

And so, for me, this chapter is about the wrath of God, but the ultimate wrath of God is hell. And the answer in the Bible overwhelmingly is flee the wrath to come by faith in Christ. So, I think about that. The rest is to realize these things have yet to happen, and they're going to happen. They open the door for the antichrist, and the antichrist's terrible reign opens the door for the second coming of Christ.

Wes

Well, this has been Episode 10 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast. I want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 11 entitled The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets, Satan and His Demons Devastate the Earth, where we'll discuss Revelation 9:1-21. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.