The Last Seal, and the Beginning of the Trumpets.

Revelation 8:1–13 NKJV

When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. Then 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. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then 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 water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded: 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 were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”

I.The Opening of the Seventh Seal (8:1)

A. The final seal is opened

1. At the opening of the seventh there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Clearly it was a solemn and impressive moment. It is possible that the silence is connected with the offering of the prayers of the saints just as in 7:3 certain plagues were held back until the servants of God were sealed

2. This surely mesmerized John. The living creatures, the elders, and all the angels—who had without ceasing praised God from the beginning of their creation—now fall silent, perhaps for the first time. Something major is about to happen This is the eerie calm before the storms of judgment blow.

B. John now notices a new group of “specialty angels,” parallel to the four angels restraining the four winds

1. Each angel received one of seven trumpets. This was not the ram’s horn (Hebrew shophar) of ancient Israel but the metal instrument of the first century (a long tube with a mouthpiece and a flared end) usually connected with warfare (1 Cor. 14:8). Such trumpets were used for signaling, not for playing melodies.

2.Before the angels blow their trumpets the prayers of the saints are offered. John wants us to see that the prayers of God’s people are supremely important. Even the cataclysmic judgments which follow are held up till these prayers have been offered.

C.The incense and the prayers went up before God.

1. After the half-hour pause, there appears a single, eighth angel, who had a golden censer. A “censer” is a bowl or firepan designed for holding live coals and incense. The angel with the censer came and stood at the altar, the same altar that John first saw when the fifth seal was broken. Under it he had seen the souls of martyrs, and from it their prayers were rising (6:9–10). Now the prayers of all the saints are added to the cries of the martyrs at this golden altar before the throne of God

2.Notice that they went up from the angel’s hand, which is probably a way of saying that heaven and earth are at one in this matter. Prayer is not the lonely venture it so often feels. There is heavenly assistance and our prayers do reach God.

3.We should not think of the angel as a mediator. Angels are fellow-servants (Rev. 19:10; 22:9). But we are Christian only because of Christ’s sacrifice, and all our service (and our praying) is to be sacrificial.

II.The First Four Trumpets (8:2–12)

A. As was the case with the breaking of the seven seals, the first four trumpets in the sequence are set apart from the last three.

1. The first four judgments are differentiated from the more terrible ones that follow in two ways: first, they affect primarily the natural world rather than the inhabitants of the earth; second, each affects only a third of the earth, trees and grass (v. 7), the sea, sea creatures and ships (vv. 8–9*), rivers and springs of fresh water (vv. 10–11), and the sun, moon and stars (v. 12), respectively.

2.The four areas affected—earth, sea, fresh water and sky—made up the whole of the human environment as the ancients perceived it. These four spheres were what Jews and Christians acknowledged as God’s creation (compare 14:7). Despite the discovery of the exploration of space, these four—earth, sea, fresh water and sky—are still the natural components of the human environment as we define it today.

B.When the first angel sounded his trumpet in heaven, something happened in heaven which then impacted the earth (V.7)

1.John saw hail and fire mixed with blood. This is similar to what God had predicted through the Old Testament prophet Joel: “I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth blood and fire and billows of smoke” (Joel 2:30). What happened when this storm reached earth is like—but much beyond—the seventh of the plagues on Egypt (Exod. 9:13–35). In modern terms, this is worldwide ecological catastrophe: a third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

2.This plague on nature is meant as a divine warning of worse disasters to come, just like the ancient plagues on the land of Pharaoh.

C. When the second angel sounded his trumpet, the pattern repeated (vv.8-9).

1. From his heavenly vantage point John had earlier seen the angel’s golden censer thrown to earth with devastating results (v. 5). This time he can only use suggestive language. It was something like a huge mountain, all ablaze people in John’s day were familiar with volcanoes, But what kind of volcano begins in the sky and is thrown into the sea?

2.For the first time, a human toll is mentioned: a third of the ships were destroyed. Again, the fraction means that the loss is critical but not yet fatal, a severe warning designed to bring about repentance.

D.When the third angel sounds his trumpet, a great star comes blazing like a torch (vv.10-11).

1. John saw once more something in heaven fall down and affect the earth. This time he describes a meteor-like device, a great star, blazing like a torch. Maybe this began as the fiery censer that an angel hurled to earth in verse 5

2. Once more John is not concerned to identify what this is beyond its name, Wormwood or Bitterness. (Wormwood is an extra bitter but not poisonous plant with medicinal value.) It contaminates a third of the world’s fresh waters. As we would expect, this creates all sorts of human consequences: many people died from the waters that had become bitter.With the sounding of the second trumpet oceans were devastated. The third trumpet now ruins fresh waters.

E. The fourth angel now sounds his trumpet, and the sun is struck with a dimming of a third of it; correspondingly, a third of the stars and a third of the moon are turned dark.

1. This results in a third of the day being without light and also a third of the night darkened more than usual.

2. When the fourth trumpet sounded (v. 12), nothing fell from the sky. But the dimming light of sun, moon and stars, and consequently of both day and night*, sent a signal that the worst was yet to come.

III.An Angel’s Announcement of Three Coming Woes (v. 13)

A. As severe as the first four trumpet judgments have been, worse is yet to come.

1. The first four attacked nature, with humankind affected indirectly. The next judgments will attack humanity directly. The eagle flying in midair appears here only in Revelation.

2.“Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth.” What a contrast to the cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,” spoken by he four living creatures around the heavenly throne. Three horrors correspond to the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels, each progressively worse.

B. We live between the times of the divinely sent historical plagues on Egypt and the divinely sent future plagues of the end of the age.

1. Because of the instant access that the news media provides to world events, we are well aware of the kinds of plagues that the world has endured during the past several decades. Rivers overflow and kill many. Hurricanes and tornadoes devastate.

2. How are we to respond when plagues hit us or people we know and love?

we can acknowledge that God is sovereign.

we can acknowledge that the situation did not surprise God.

we can pray that God’s people who live through disasters will be victorious.

Finally, and perhaps most urgent of all, we can see natural disasters as occasions in which people are brought face-to-face with eternal issues. People often hear the gospel more clearly in the face of tragedies.