The First Two Trumpets of Woe
Notes
Transcript
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How am I responding to the work of God in my life now?
Revelation 8:13.
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!”
What kind of bird is John seeing?
When we hear the word “eagle” we think of a specific kind of eagle, namely a bald eagle. Yet bald eagles are not native to the Middle East or Turkey, so it would not have been in the author’s frame of reference. The Greek word “aetos” has a definition range of a bird of prey, which includes eagles and vultures. This bird of prey then is better described as the griffin vulture, with a wingspan of nine feet.
Perhaps it is not a physical bird of prey at all, since some manuscripts identify it as an angel bringing the message, as the KJV renders it. The joining of these two concepts would easily describe the fourth living being of Revelation 4:7.
While the identity of this messenger is interesting, we must not forget his message - the message of: Woe, Woe, Woe to those who dwell on the earth.
Hosea 8:1.
1 Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law.
Jeremiah 4:13.
13 Behold, he comes up like clouds; his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles— woe to us, for we are ruined!
Woe is a cry of warning - warning of the impending judgement of the next three trumpets.
The warning brings opportunity for repentance.
Will we choose to walk a life of repentance?
Revelation 9:1-2
1 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.
For further reading on the fifth trumpet, the first woe has its OT background in Exodus 10:12-15; Isaiah 24 and Joel 1-2.
Who is this star?
It is obviously not a literal star. The star is an angel, but what angel?
The answer lies in the word “fallen”, and its verb tense. The tense is perfect in the Greek, which describes a completed verbal action that occurred in the past, but which produced a state of being or a result that exists in the present. Isaiah 14 and Luke 10:18 speak to the state of the angel who fell and remained there.
12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
The angel, then, who opens the abyss is probably Satan.
He does not have the key. It is given to him. Who has the key?
The Lamb has the key, for he holds the keys of Death and Hades.
The demonic is a tool of Yahweh and the Lamb’s wrath on the earth and the refinement of saints.
How does that truth effect your day to day life?
The fallen angel opens the door to the abyss.
What is the abyss?
The abyss in the OT can speak of the realm of the dead (Isaiah 24; 38:17-19; Ezekiel 26:20;
17 Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.
18 For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness.
The abyss in the NT and the intertestamental period is a prison in the realm of the dead, as seen in 2 Peter 2:4; Luke 8:30-31 and Revelation 9:1-2; 20:1-3.
Insert realms graphic.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him.
31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.
1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.
2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
Yahweh and the Lamb are allowing the release of the worst demons from prison to bring judgement on the earth. Once that is accomplished, they will be locked up to await the final judgement (Revelation 20).
Revelation 9:3-6.
3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth.
4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
5 They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.
6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.
What are these locusts?
They are a demonic host, who are restricted in their actions by God.
The sealed are protected. God takes care of his own, as seen in Revelation 7.
The rest of humanity are tormented, unable to die, receiving the wrath of Yahweh and the Lamb.
Revelation 9:7-10.
7 In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces,
8 their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth;
9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.
10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails.
1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,
2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
3 Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.
4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run.
5 As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
6 Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale.
7 Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.
8 They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.
9 They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.
10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
11 The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?
12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
John and Joel were seeing and describing the spiritual realm and its results in the physical realm. The spiritual realm is hard to explain because sin has caused it to be veiled to us, as illustrated in 2 Kings 6:15-16.
15 When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”
16 He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
We are created to live in both of these realities without confusion, and yet we are often confused about appearances in the spiritual realm. A good rule of thumb is that a spiritual being’s appearance speaks of their attributes and function more than of their physical appearance, for they are spirits and can change their appearance.
The description, then, of this demonic host is not describing some new military war machine that will be created in the future. No, it is a description to show that these beings are effective in the torment of mankind, and thus effecting the judgement of Yahweh and the Lamb.
Revelation 9:11.
11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
Both of these words mean “destroyer”. Is this Satan or another high-ranking demon who was locked up with the rest of them in the abyss? I think the context points to another high-ranking demon.
Revelation 9:12.
12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.
Woe is a cry of warning - warning of the impending judgement of the next two trumpets.
The warning brings opportunity for repentance.
Will we choose to walk a life of repentance?
Revelation 9:13-15.
13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,
14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.
John calls our minds back to the alter of incense where the saints are lamenting for justice. “How long?” they cried out. Their justice has arrived, in part.
The four angels bound at Euphrates are released to kill a third of mankind. In today’s earth’s population, that is two billion seven hundred million.
Revelation 9:16-19.
16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number.
17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.
This innumerable demonic host executes Yahweh’s and Lamb’s judgement in the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur.
When faced with the harshness of judgment, we are tempted to think no one deserves this. Yet the sad reality is that we all deserve this. For the wages of sin is death; all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. There is none righteous, no, not one.
But thanks be to God for the work of Jesus on the cross, who has given us the gift of repentance.
Revelation 9:20-21.
20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,
21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
What is our response to God’s judgement?
How are we responding to the work of God in our lives now?
Will we choose to walk a life of repentance?