A Chance to Change?
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Claim - God brings severe, but controlled and limited, judgement upon the world (including allowing destructive demonic power to be at work) as warnings (trumpets) so that people might repent.
Focus - Be assured and stand firm whatever happens for your prayers for God’s justice will be answered.
Function - To cause us to trust solely in the Lamb and pray for His justice to come.
PRAY
I used to play the trumpet - it wasn’t pleasant to listen to me play.
He’s in control, and he, even when it doesn’t look like it to us, is working all things for His glory.
But when I did, everyone knew about it!
One of the main reasons he is allowing wars, famines, disease to be part fo thsi world
You can’t miss a trumpet playing.
And all through History,
they have been used to warn of something coming!
Even today, trumpeters announce the imminent arrival of the Queen.
Or the imminence of a disaster or enemy.
Joel 2v1 which lends much of the imagery to and 9 reads like this
What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
Joel 2v1 which lends much of the imagery to and 9 reads like this
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—
He wants to warn people so they have a chance to change.
But as we saw in chapter 6,
God is patiently and lovingly delaying his final judgement on all that rebel against him,
so that all the last of His people come into his family.
So that all people have a ‘chance to change’.
And that is the purpose of these trumpets today,
to give those who don’t know God, a chance to change.
And so, the 7 trumpets that we now hear in and 9
do just what you expect a trumpet in all history to do,
they warn us that the final day of judgement is coming, and coming soon.
They
repeat a very similar idea to the seals of chapter 6,
but from a slightly different perspective.
And we’ll consider a reason for this repetition towards the end of the sermon.
The trumpets here have a lot in common with the seals we have already discussed in chapter 6.
There is a similar pattern going on in structure.
The first 4 seals saw the release of 4 horses with their riders
who established the ongoing devestation to cycle across our planet until Jesus returns.
We saw how they symbolised conquest, war, famine and death in our world today.
The first 4 trumpets also represent a continued and sustained turmoil across the earth.
So why are they being repeated now as trumpets?
Well we’ll answer that at the end of the sermon.
1 - repetition in the bible means it is being emphasied - we need to hear it. For th christian, we need to be encouraged that God is in control of this turmoultous world! for the non-Christian, you need to know that as you look around at the wars, famine, strie and diseas, you are to see and bow down before God almighty, before it’s too late!
2 - I think it stops us falling into the trap of thinking that this vision is specific and tied directly to specific events in history as some are in the habit of doing with Revelation. So we don’t determin that the 1st horse was Hitler, and the first trumpet was the meteorite that we think wiped out the dinosaurs.
The general idea of what is being described is more general, while the encouragement, the teaching point of these visions are very specific.
So let’s look at chapter 8 and 9 now.
Now, becasue we’ve broken these chapters up to study them,
we’ve lost a little bit of momentum,
which we need back to appreciate chapter 8:
Now, becasue we’ve broken these chapters up to study them, we’ve lost a little bit of momentum, but we need to get that back to comprehend the opening verse o chpater 8.
So conjure up again if you can chapter 6, with these terrifying horse being released across our world,
God is in control, using and ordaining:
wars, conquerors, famines, disease and death, judgement is coming,
Seeming chaos and disorder,
noise and shouts,
screams, tanks, bombs, machinery,
overcrowded hospitals,
food aid deliveries.
The fifth seal of all the martyred saints crying out to God - ‘How long O lord until you bring final justsice upon the world;
How long they cry and cry,
The 6th seal,
An earthquake that shakes and rattels the universe,
terror and fear,
mountains turning over,
everyone wanting death,
but not finding it, rocks tumbling,
And then chapter 7
that great encouragemnt to all those that turst JEsus the lamb,
Our dirty lives, washed white in his blood,
The 24 elders sat around the throne shouting
saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honour
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!”
The great multitude of believers, that no-one could count, shouting:
And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
rev 7
The noise, the chaos,
the shouts of fear and chaos on the earth,
the joyful triumphant and loud cries of praise in the heavens:
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
LONG PAUSE
softly
What a long, long time half an hour would have been after seeing
those loud visions of judgement and triumphantly bold cries of praise.
Silence,
softly
This is the God Almighty,
The great I AM.
softly
For all mankinds schemes, plans, grand ideas.
For all the power and importance we think we have,
For all the worth we think we are entitled to,
For all our running around, all our noise making,
well there is something aweinspiringly terrifying about absolute silence.
God is in utter and complete control.
His timings and no-one elses.
The silence of His absolute sovereignty is absolutely deafening to humanity.
Habakuk in t OT also speaks of the final judgement on mankind that God will bring,
much of the imagery is picked up in Revelation,
And there is a very telling responce expecetd of humanity
when it finally sees and realises they are to account for their actions before the almighty:
Look up - page NO?
hab 2v6
“Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying,
“ ‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?’
The Holy Bible: New International Version—Anglicised (1984) The Lord’s Answer
“ ‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?’
“Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain
to set his nest on high,
to escape the clutches of ruin!
“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
and establishes a town by crime!
hab 2
“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbours,
pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk,
so that he can gaze on their naked bodies.
But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.”
Pause
The world can ignore the existance of God all it likes,
Live for yourself, all you like,
But one day the noise will stop.
The earth will be silent,
what seems like FOREVER will pass
and those who have rejected God wont utter sound,
for they will wait in fearfully in the deafening silence of absolute sovereignty.
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
hab 2
It’s a gentle and subtle reminder to those of us who trust in Jesus,
But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.”
Trumpets
That God our Father is absolutley soverign over all.
The world may not seem like that’s true -
but there is absolute silence and control in the hevenly throne room.
Don’t fear the trumpets says God, they ar for those that need to repent.
FOr you that know the lamb,
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
And then comes v5
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.
The reality of the horses is being seen in history - these trumpets are warnings to the enamies of God’s people seen througout history.
Similar to
They show how the horses overcome the enemies like the plagues of Egytpe brough freedom for God’s epopel.
The world can be as terrible as the mightiest strom -
Don’t worry Christians. God is in utter soverign control.
wars and disease,
The chaos and noise around us in the world is God’s plan to warn the world to turn to him in repentace.
But God is in control
He knows all, controls all. For he brings it all under his sovereign control.
Do not loose heart,
Do not be tempted away to pursue what can appear to be a prosperous world,
Do not live for anything else other than the lamb who washes you white, For he, the Almighty, will demand a denfening silnce from his enemies.
Justice will prevail.
Stand firm in your faith,
And so the trumpets of warning echo across our land even today:
Let me give you a very simple summary of the first 4 trumpets.
Trumpets 1-4 - Turmoil on Earth
Trumpets 1-4 - Turmoil on Earth
Trumpet 1 v7
Trumpet 1 v7
hail and fire mixed with blood - destroying vegitation
much like the Egyptian plague and agricultural failure, droughts and fires that bring death, blood.
Or wars that affect or even target agriculture to starve it;s enemy.
and death from starvaion and poverty will follow. Not total destruction, a thrid will be destroyed - symbolising a controled partial, not final judgement on all,
and death from starvation and poverty will follow.
Not total destruction, a third will be destroyed
- symbolising a controlled partial, not final, judgement on the earth,
a warning shot from heaven.
non-Christian - Repent ,
Christians - Stand firm ,
Trumpet 2 v8-9
Trumpet 2 v8-9
Like the nile turning to blood for the Egyptians,
- all the fish die, the sea economy and freight facing devestation and disruption.
For the persecuted people of God under Roman rule at the time,
this would remind them that even the mighty Romans, in-control of the seas and merchants, well they would one day fall.
perhaps this encouraged them that the Romans, who were mighty controllers of the sea trade, would face judgemnt.
Again it’s measured and controlled
Repent non-Christian,
Stand firm Christians,
a warning shot from heaven.
non-Christian - Repent ,
Christians - Stand firm ,
Trunmpet 3
Trumpet 3 v10-11
Trumpet 3 v10-11
Wormwood is a shrub that turns water bitter.
Symbolising perhaps water born diseases, illness and death
- and or a war tactic of the time that poisoned water sources to a city to drive the people out.
Again it’s measured and controlled, a third.
a warning shot from heaven.
Repent non-Christian,
non-Christian - Repent ,
Stand firm Christians,
Christians - Stand firm ,
Hezekiahs’ tunnel was to avoid this. 2 kin20v20
Trumpet 4 v12
Trumpet 4 v12
The blackening of the sun, moon and stars, most likely in view here is that as a result of wars, fires and pollution - perhaps we see global warming even represented in these trumpets,
Even not a literally 1/3rd of them, it is symbolically saying God will only allow partial destruction of our world.
Again, only a 1/3rd affected, it is symbolically saying God will only allow partial destruction of our world.
another warning shot from heaven.
These are the:
non-Christian - Repent ,
warning shots from heaven.
Repent non-Christian,
Christians - Stand firm ,
Stand firm Christians,
PAUSE
The sad thing is that even with all this in our world today,
Most the planet ignore God,
What is extraordinary is that God tries everything to show his compassion to mankind, both a carrot and stick aporach if you like.
Here in REvelation we have seen the stick being emphasised, along side thorugh the loving carrot of the lamb offering free, patient and loving forgiveness.
In the book of Matthew we see Jesus dispair that people wont repent even when great miralcles and mercy is shown:
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Mercy and judgement, a carrot and a stick, all being exhausted by a loving God,
But still the world rejects him:
ss
ss
Trumpets 1 -4
Christians - stand firm, God is in patient and loving control - even among the trumpets of warning through turmoil.
If the 4 trumptes we have considered here give us a diferent angle of the results of the 4 hourses riding across the world in warning judgement.
warning shots from heaven.
non-Christian - Repent ,
Christians - Stand firm ,
2 - Trumpet 5 - Turmoil on Non-Christians
2 - Trumpet 5 - Turmoil on Non-Christians
Trumpet 5 gives us a different perspective on the world.
Now we see the spiritual forces at work.
Satan and His demons have their way on the earth:
who are on the earth today,
seemingly oblivious to the terror that awaits them,
but equally oblivious to the fact that the tourment of this world is a warning from God!
No, instead, Satan and His demons enjoy their way with them
The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
This scene is refered to again in Rev 12v7-9
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Jesus also refers to this star being thrown to the earth as being Satan in Luke 10v18
He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Or more famously the passage about satan in
in Isa 14v12
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
And this fallen angle, Satan,
is given authority on earth,
so he raises his own army from the abyss,
the deep, that symbolic place of evil and fear.
The imagery of locusts is all out of Joel
The world is supposed to fear these demons symbolised by locusts -
they are all devouring, all consuming,
nasty creatures,
What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
for it has been snatched from your lips.
A nation has invaded my land,
powerful and without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
the fangs of a lioness.
They have the appearance of horses;
they gallop along like cavalry.
joe 2
joe 4 1-4
Satan, the deciever roams this earth with his demonic army.
An army with nothing to loose for they know they are already defeated:
But they know they have a short time take anyone down they can on the way.
that knows it is ulitmately beaten, but blindly wants to take anyone down they can on the way.
It’s with fear when the legion of demons met Jesus in the NT,
“What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
The final day is not hear yet, why are you so early, don’t torment us yet!
Tormented they will be, but not until the final day,
For now, they are the tourmentors of this world,
Their time is limited - that’s what the 5months references are probably about.
Symbolising that God will limit the impact and life they can have.
The King of the Abyss, Satan,
uses his vast array of tactics in this world in different places and different times.
We don’t appear to have people possessed by demons in the west as they did in Jesus’ day.
Some think Satan has left us alone in the west for now.
I say he has changed his tactics,
the deceiver is very much deceiving.
If you cram yourself onto a rush hour train tomorrow,
then you will statistically be 1 of just 2 evangelical Christians on your entire carriage -
And I mean it will need to be a ram packed full carriage,
otherwise you’ll be the only one.
The rest of them are having their minds devoured by the locust like lies of Satan.
They believe the world’s lies about what life is all about.
Trumpet 5 represents the spiritual battle raging across our world today
- and if you’re not a Christian, it should scare you.
God gives Satan this authority, so that you might see how terrible the world is with out God.
Infact the church in Corinth is instructed to throw an immoral man out the church, so that he might see the terror of Satan and return to faith.
When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
But Christians, we have nothing to fear,
But Christians, we have nothing to fear,
for we are sealed and safe as we saw last week in chapter 7.
And we are reminded again of our security,:
They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
rev
2 things are safe from Satan and his army,
1 - Things without a soul (grass and plants and trees),
For this is a spiritual battle
2 - And those who belong to the lamb.
Christian, Don’t be afraid of the deceptive and secretive lives of the demonic reality in this life.
But don’t believe the lie of Satan
that he isn’t really active today,
and pretend he’s not real.
Simply know that he is very much active
and terribly destructive in the hearts of mankind,
But know that he is limited and under the authority of God Almighty for his purposes,
and that in Christ, we are perfectly secure and safe.
Sealed.
gives us confrimation that God is even in control of Satan’s activity,
For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled.
This warning shot from heaven is very much aimed at non-Christians, while reassuring us that the blood of the lamb (on offer to all) is sealing us safely and securly.
So that’s the first 5 trumpets,
If you were paying attention in the reading you would have noticed that 3 ‘woes’ were introduced just before the 5th trumpet.
As Ed explained so well to us about Holy Holy
You can see how much more terrible the 5th trumpet is than the first 4,
for it directly impacts on an eternity,
for Satan’s schemes keep us from the love and grace of God.
The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
The second woe is another trumpet - but it is supposed to carry more weight than the first 4,
it is another ‘woe’.
Trumpet (6) - Turmoil is Real!
Trumpet (6) - Turmoil is Real!
Unlike the seals which on the 6th one move forward in time to the final judgement,
the 6th trumpet continues to do the job of a trumpet and remains a warning blast from heaven.
The language here, for us,
will not have the effect it would have had at the time it was written.
This letter was written to Christians persecuted and occupied by the Romans.
That was bad enough, many were dieing,
But there was an even greater threat growing - even against the mighty Romans.
Rumours of various threatening powers all from the East,
if you know your history really well then the greatest rumours were of the Parthia and a megalomaniac emperor!
But in fact the cheif threats against the Israelites throughout history had almost always been from the east.
The reason I think this 6th trumpet is a ‘woe’ it’s really serious,
is that the threats of wars and turmoil and strife and disaster, pain and fear is really very real in this life.
If the imagery of horses, and hail and trumpets is a little too symbolic for you Christians in 70AD,
just think about the realities of the enemies to the east!
The Roman’s arn’t worth loosing your faith for, they will fall.
God is in control.
Our grandparents (some of our parents) lived through 1 or 2 world wars which we commeorated last week.
Disease is ever present, and as one major break-through in medicine occurs, so the next disease begins to take hold.
This is real -
And we must and can hold firm to our faith in any circumstance.
I said at the begining that there must be a reason these fairly similar passages exist,
seals and then trumpets, bowls soon to come.
And it’s becasue we need to know this is the true history and future of the world.
God is on complete control
Turmoil will be ever present,
Satan will be at work
But God is in control,
He is being patient and loving
He is working for the glory of the lamb,
And for the salvation of His people.
Even when the world, our neighbours, our friends, even our family rejects God more and more,
He has not lost control.
The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
rev 9
Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.
non-Christian - Repent ,
Christian - stand firm - Jesus r
Christians - Stand firm
Jesus said in luk21v26-28
Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
For residents of the Ronian Empire at the end of the first century, the Euphrates was the eastern edge of Rome's domain, beyond which were the threatening powers of the East, especially Parthia with its cavalry of mounted archers, always harassing the Roman Empire's eastern outposts. During the 60s, after the conflagration that destroyed large portions of Rome and Nero's disappearance, rumors flew in the capital and the provinces that the megalomaniacal emperor had escaped caped to the east and was making preparations to reconquer the world at the head of the Parthian
rome
Dennis E. Johnson. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (Kindle Locations 1655-1658). Kindle Edition.
As the sixth seal provided a preview of the traumas that will characterize acterize the dissolution of the first heavens and earth, so the sixth trumpet pet previews an increase of satanic deception that precipitates growing ing violence, death, and despair. Such a crumbling of law, order, and safety should shake idolaters' confidence in "the works of their hands" and cure their desire to "worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk" (). This wording echoes Daniel's rebuke to Belshazzar (). The Old Testament often emphasizes that the idols are senseless (blind, deaf) and immobile
Dennis E. Johnson. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (Kindle Locations 1671-1675). Kindle Edition.
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.
and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Final judgemnet is coming!
(; ; ).
Pray
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
24-
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—
Trumpet 1-4
Trumpet 1-4
Curses - or Miracles - niether bring repentant hearts - but that is their intended purpose!
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
matt 11
These should encourage us - not worry us - even though they do not tell us how close Jesus’s return is - they do tell us he will return!
Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
luk
symbolic of demonic acticvity - paired with 5th seal we see a worse fate for non-Christians
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.
luke
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
rev 12
luke
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
for it has been snatched from your lips.
A nation has invaded my land,
powerful and without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
the fangs of a lioness.
Joel
They have the appearance of horses;
they gallop along like cavalry.
joe 14-6
hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
1 cor
“What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
matt 8
He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!”
When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!”
5months of freedom - but they know what is coming!!
Trumpet 6
Trumpet 6
For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled.
God uses satan and his forces for his purposes!