The Sound of the Seven Trumpets

We are continuing our series in the book of Revelation There’s A Man Going ‘Round Taking Names.

We find ourselves this week in the chapters 8-11. That’s a big block with a great deal of imagery and symbolism as we will see. Don’t forget Pastor’s Corner where we continue looking into these chapters.

With the seven seals of the book open and God’s secret plan to rescue and save the world has begun.

Leading us to turn now to the seven trumpets.

Let us read together Revelation 8:7-13 , chair bible page 832

Revelation 8:7–13 NASB

7 And the first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. 8 And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood; 9 and a third of the creatures, which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10 And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters; 11 and the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter. 12 And the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were smitten, so that a third of them might be darkened and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way. 13 And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”

Are you ready for the message God has for us today?

Cool let’s dig in!

The seven trumpets draws imagery from historical events that would be familiar to John’s audience, the seven churches.

There are also cultural realities used to depict the coming judgment of God.

Scriptural back ground to the imagery would have familiar rings as the vision John is given draws from the 10 plagues of Egypt found in Exodus.

Prophetic judgments like those found in Joel also factor into the imagery.

The vision of the trumpets also contain images of natural disasters of their recent past, devastation from invaders, especially the Parthians from the East in their on going conflicts and battles with Rome.

Three important things

There are three things that N.T. Wright brought up that I think will be helpful as we seek to gain some understanding from these chapters of Revelation.

First, we must remember the seriousness of sin.

Have we deceived ourselves into thinking that with genocide, war, high-tech violence, shootings, that our world is a pretty pleasant place to live?

Honestly I cannot believe how fast this world has declined and evil has increased in the last couple of years.

I don’t think the churches in the first century would have glossed over the seriousness of evil like we have.

Second, in Revelation we should not mistake symbols for reality.

Would John’s readers have seen a literal 1/3 of the earth, seas, and so on?

He seems to be talking about God’s drastic action to purify the world, to cut it back as one would a tree that was diseased.

I see God talking about upsetting world systems, lack of human dignity, and perceived power and authority.

It represents that major surgery is needed not a band-aid.

Third, the plagues as the trumpets are blown are a return to something familiar.

Namely the plagues of Egypt.

The plagues spoke into the system of paganism that was rampant in Egypt. From the pharaoh to the gods of everything.

N.T. Wright: “The point John is making again and again is there are many who have lived on the earth as though there were no heaven, and certainly no God Almighty. “

Many today still live that way and that is why much Revelation is so familiar to us today.

We in the United Sgates are headed down the very same road as Rome. We are repeating history.

We need to be listening to Revelation too!

What do the seven trumpets reveal?

I think some times we spend so much time looking for something real to the vision of the seven trumpets that I think we miss an important point. I know I have.

As I read through the trumpets again and again my mind goes back to the plagues of Egypt.

To the conversations between Moses and Pharaoh.

What was God dealing with there? How I answered that question opened the symbolism the trumpets.

Over and over in the ten plagues we are told about the hard heart of Pharoah.

It was his hard heart that prevented the release of God’s people. It was the heart of Pharaoh that God was dealing with.

The heart, is the key to these trumpets.

The seven trumpets is God upsetting the world systems created by the evil in man’s heart!

Stay with me here, What does the Bible tell us about man’s heart?

Genesis 8:21–22 NASB

21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. 22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”

Man’s heart has the propensity for great evil. God has been dealing with this since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.

Then I continued my search into what the Bible says about man’s heart

Deuteronomy 29:18–21 NASB

18 lest there shall be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there shall be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood. 19 “And it shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry.’ 20 “The Lord shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 “Then the Lord will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in this book of the law.

God does this because man has made the choice to live that way. Again it our heat that God is dealing with.

Remember what God said to Samuel 1 Samuel 16:7

1 Samuel 16:7 NASB

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

God is not concerned with outward appearance, He is very much concerned with the our heart, for that reveals who we really are.

Jeremiah 17:9–11 NASB

9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 10 “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. 11 “As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool.”

Listen to verse 9 from the New Living Translation: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

Because of the evil in man’s heart God once destroyed the world with a flood. Is it possible that what we are being shown here is the evil that proceeds from the heart of man that destruction we are capable of?

Is it possible that we are seeing into the human heart from God’s perspective?

Do these passages sound like some of the things described in these Revelation?

You might ask well then how does this work with Revelation 9:1-3?

Revelation 9:1–3 NASB

1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. 3 And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

Another more familiar possibility for all this is given by David Jeremiah - Read from study Bible notes.

Perhaps there is a bottomless pit, but I'm not sure we should mistake this pit for hell the place of punishment and torment.

Is there another possibility the pit here Connecting it again to the human heart.

We do this by keeping to the symbolism.

First we are taken to a familiar vision of Satan’s fall and rebellion. As we are given the background to how he is seen in Revelation.

We are told that Satan is given a key to the bottomless pit.

If in fact the trumpets are revealing the human heart from God’s perspective then could the pit be the human heart and the key then is temptation used by Satan to unlock it so he can enter?

I think this symbolism ties very nicely to what Jesus said in Mark 7:14-23

Mark 7:14–23 NASB

14 And after He called the multitude to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. 16 ”If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.”] 17 And when leaving the multitude, He had entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. 18 And He *said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; 19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) 20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. 21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

Is that not the black pit inside everyone of us?

N.T. Wright: “Humans were made to reflect their wise, loving creator, but somehow their hearts have become full of rebellion, filth, and wickedness. Now it appears that the same is true at a cosmic level. The world though made by God and loved by God, has come to harbour within it such rebellion, such anti-creation destructiveness, that though God normally requires it to be restrained, if it is to be dealt with must sooner or later, be allowed to come out, to show itself in its true colors.”

Brethren, when I consider the evil that the human heart can carry, all the death, all the destruction, all the violence and all the hate, I come right to this passage a see the pit of the human heart from God’s perspective.

The locusts then are what proceed out of the heart of man, yet there are boundary’s set by God.

All I ask here is this, is it possible? There are many who see all of this as David Jeremiah sees it and that is certainly a possibility

Is it one of these or something else all together?

This is what you must decide for yourself.

Conclusion

The symbolism also reminds me that these locusts, what comes out of the pit of man’s heart are also the instrument of man’s repentance.

You know I look back over my life to the time of my drunkeness, and God used that to bring about my repentance - develop and explain

N.T. Wright: “One more mystery of iniquity and God’s dealing with it leaves us breathless and perhaps dismayed.”

We have, like John’s readers, seen terrible things in our day, monsters of military aircrafts and vehicles, designed to kill and destroy. They strike terror into the hearts of people for human power and empire.

Again the 5 days, interestingly the life cycle of locusts, is symbolic of a limited period of time.

God is only going to allow the evil of man’s heart for a time. In Noah’s day it was 120 years.

Again 5 days is symbolic for a period of time, the length of which is set by God.

We are to remember that God and the Lamb are sovereign.

For the evil man’s heart to finally be conquered it must come out into the open and do its worst.

It was true with Pharaoh, it is true in this passage.

Is what I have said possible?

I want you to think about your life with Jesus, that is one of the take always from the book of Revelation. Are you ready to give everything to Jesus.

Recently one young man gave his life to Christ as he felt Jesus calling him.

Now he desires to be baptized and we get to share in that joyous occasion with him.

Chad Gutierrez Jr. Would you come to the front?