Sermon Tone Analysis

Revelation 8 is the start of John’s second vision of the future.

These chapters communicate the same basic picture of the future found in the first vision.

The first vision—the seven seals—and this vision—the seven trumpets—describe the complete future.

It’s the same series of events, just envisioned a little differently.

Like with the seven seals, the first 6 trumpets are blown, and then there’s an interlude, a pause, a break in the drama.

It’s the break, the interlude, that expresses an important point for us.

In between the 6th and 7th seal, there’s a powerful reminder for God’s people that they are held safely and securely in God’s hand, despite and amid the terrible suffering they’ll face.

Here, between the 6th and 7th trumpet, there’s another powerful reminder for God’s people—then and now.

As we read Revelation 8-9, we’re meant to see a kind of “Second Exodus” for God’s covenant people.

God’s mighty deliverance in the future will look a little bit like the Exodus story.

John’s first readers would have been well aware of the Exodus account; it was part of their verbal history.

What God did for His people in bringing them out of Egypt was the most well-known and incredible thing they’d ever been witness to or heard about.

How many of you had a conversation this week about the divisional playoff game, Chiefs vs. Bills?

Most incredible football game I think I’ve seen.

We’re gonna talk about that one for a while.

The people of God retold the story of the Exodus every chance they got, generation after generation.

We’re still talking today about what God did in Egypt thousands of years ago.

John uses imagery connected to the events of the Exodus to describe what is to come, to describe what the immediate future is going to look like.

What God is going to do will be a little bit like what He did in Exodus.

Here are some of the parallels:

In Exodus 1-6, Israel, the OT people of God, suffer oppression in Egypt under the evil Pharaoh.

In Revelation 8-11, John portrays Christians as the “new Israel”, the true people of God, who are enslaved in a truer sense in the present evil age.

Christians are oppressed by the powers of evil; they’re living with labor pains (an image the NT authors use to describe what the Church suffers).

God sends ten great plagues on the Egyptians so that they might let God’s people go (Exodus 7-12).

John describes the present evil age in language that reminds us of the ten plagues.

Listen and see if the images are familiar:

This is reminiscent of the 7th plague on Egypt in which thunder and hail and lightning destroyed crops in the fields.

This sounds a little like the 1st plague where the water of the River Nile was turned into blood and the fish died.

This, also, a like the 1st plague; the water turned to blood and made undrinkable.

It’s also like the 10th plague where many Egyptians died.

It was the 9th plague in Egypt during which darkness descended on the land.

The 5th trumpet (Revelation 9:1-12): a star falls from heaven to earth and is given the key to the abyss.

When the abyss is opened, smoke ascends out of it and darkens the sun and the sky.

Locusts emerge.

This trumpet recalls the 6th plague on Egypt, the dust that spread throughout the land and produced boils on men and animals alike.

Also, the 8th plague where locusts devour the plans left after the hail.

When the 6th Trumpet sounds, four angels leading a demonic army are released to kill a third of mankind.

Again, like the 10th plague in Egypt where the angel of death kills the firstborn male offspring of every person and animal in Egypt.

The 6th Trumpet, like the 10th plague, is the last thing before rescue.

In Revelation, the 6th Trumpet is the last trumpet before the 7th, marking the consummation of God’s Kingdom—the New Exodus of God’s People.

The present evil age looks similar to what God did in Egypt during the time of the Exodus.

As you read Revelation 8-9 you can “focus on the individual leaves and miss the beauty of the tree.”

You can “lean in too close and look at a single brush stroke, but we have to take a step back and look at the whole painting.”

We can’t get so caught up in the details that we miss John’s point.

John is describing the coming salvation of Christians as a “Second Exodus”.

That’s the idea.

Await the Second Exodus

We have to remember that the 10 Plagues on Egypt were intended to lead Pharaoh to repentance.

God wanted Pharaoh to repent of his opposition to Israel and Israel’s God.

John makes it clear that the troubles of the present time are intended to impress upon humans beings their need for God and their reliance on God.

The world’s suffering and delay of Christ’s return is an act of God’s mercy toward sinners.

Given our stubborn obstinacy and disobedience, God would be well within His rights to turn the judgment to 11 and wipe out mankind in its entirety.

But He doesn’t.

God turns up the heat to get our attention.

We have to believe it has a purpose.

It’s no accident that set of judgments is symbolized by trumpets.

All throughout the Bible, trumpets signal that something momentous is going to happen: a king is about to enter, an army is about to attack, God is going to save.

Trumpets were warnings.

Trumpets announce, “Make yourself ready!”

John is reminding his Christian readers that the ultimate Exodus—the final deliverance of God’s people from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God—is about to occur.

It’s coming ‘round the mountain; be ready!

This is to be a word of hope to us.

And a call to perseverance.

Let us eagerly await the Second Exodus where God brings His people out of this, when He judges and ends evil completely.

Jesus Himself encourages us:

By presenting the future from his time on to the very end as a series of trumpet calls, John invites his readers—us—to view the time in which we live—now—as one long trumpet blast announcing the coming Day of the Lord—the final triumph of God.

Await the Second Exodus

As we come to Revelation 10-11, we find that these two chapters are the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets.

The interlude between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals reminded the saints—Christians—of their security in Christ.

But here, the pause/interlude between trumpet 6 and trumpet 7 reminds the saints—Christians—of their responsibility to witness.

The first six trumpets picture a lost and sinful world and a terrible coming judgment; someone must speak up, someone must call the world to repentance, someone must point them to salvation.

Who is that someone?

It’s the Church—the people of God who belong to Him by faith in Jesus Christ.

Without the Church, without the people of God, who’s going to witness?

There are more details in Revelation 10-11 than we could enumerate (and more than enough details to get lost in).

Let’s focus on the big picture.

Let’s see the main characters: John and Two Witnesses.

Their activity: they are commanded to speak the message of God.

We know John.

Disciple of Jesus.

Elder in the early church.

Exiled to the island of Patmos in his later years.

He wrote a couple of best-selling books (The Gospel of John, the letters of 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation).

But who are the two witnesses?

We don’t know for sure.

But there are some clues.

The olive tree symbolized Israel, the Old Testament people of God.

The lampstand pictured the Church, the New Testament people of God.

The have the power of Moses and Elijah:

Those silly, fictional books which shall not be named present these “two witnesses” as two actual men.

Some believe these two are actual, end-times reincarnations of Moses and Elijah.

For what it’s worth, I think that’s missing the symbolism of Revelation and, really, the whole stinking point.

I think these “two witnesses” represent the Spirit-empowered church of God which is made up of both Jews and Gentiles, all those who believe in and belong to Jesus by faith in Him.

The Church has the power of God’s Word, the same as Moses and Elijah, the power of the Law and the Prophets.

We—the Church—are empowered to proclaim God’s truth.

We are called to speak God’s message to the world.

Too many of us would rather spectate than speak God’s truth.

The old comedian, Flip Wilson, once joked, “I’m a Jehovah’s Bystander.

They invited me to be a Witness, but I didn’t want to get that involved.”

Like ol’ Flip, too many Christians have neglected their responsibility to witness; we’re bystanders, spectators, viewers.