What is going on here in this big vision that John casts in Revelation 8 and 9? I think the simplest place to start is that in all of these things, John paints a picture of a kind of heavenly worship service very similar to what we saw in Revelation 4 and 5.

But this vision of a kind of heavenly worship service is doing different things. It’s saying different things, and it’s casting sort of a different light on all of the stuff that we see going on in the book of Revelation.

The Heavenly Temple

And so taking a step back, what we see is that the throne room of heaven is described in this language that would immediately have reminded you, if you were a first-century Jew or Christian, of the Old Testament temple, the Old Testament tabernacle.

Heaven is described kind of like the ultimate temple, the ultimate tabernacle of the Lord. He describes a bunch of rituals that are taking place in the heavenly throne room by the angels and the people gathered around the throne that would have immediately reminded them of Exodus chapter 30.

If you get a chance, go read Exodus 30 sometime soon. Read about the altar of incense. It would have reminded them of Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement rituals where they burn the incense as they carry out these sacrifices.

It might have reminded them of Psalm 141:

“Let my prayer be set before you like incense; the lifting up of my hands like the evening sacrifice.” — Psalm 141:2, WEB

First-century Jews, and especially Jewish Christians, would have had the entirety of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy committed to memory.

Maybe not exactly word for word because that’s just not something that they were particularly concerned about at that point in time. Worrying about the exact word-for-word translation is really not something that was a big thing in the ancient Near East. That’s something we’re very concerned about as modern Westerners who are really concerned with precision, but they were not so concerned with that.

And so they would have had all five of the books of Moses committed on some level to memory. And they may not have been able to give you the exact word-for-word replication, but they would have been able to full-on tell you everything that happens from Genesis through Deuteronomy.

They would have been able to tell you every single one of the laws, every one of the rituals, every one of the events, every one of the stories, and so on and so forth. So they would have immediately remembered the altar of incense, the Day of Atonement incense rituals, and so on and so forth.

They would have remembered all of these key parts of the liturgy that the Lord lays out in the Old Testament for the tabernacle and the temple, for the Old Covenant people of God that we see throughout the Old Testament. So any Jewish Christians in the seven churches would have been intimately familiar with the pieces, these images that John is using as he’s describing the kind of heavenly worship service taking place in God’s throne room.

The Earthly Temple as a Shadow

And so this is essentially a vision of the Lord in his true heavenly temple and tabernacle that the earthly temple and tabernacle were just kind of a dim shadow of, a dim reflection of, like Hebrews chapter 8 and chapter 9 talks about how the Old Testament laws, rituals, ceremonies, they were a shadow of the true capital-L Law of God.

They were a shadow of his will and his ways. They were a shadow of his good design and desires.

And in the same way, the ceremonies, the rituals, the sacrifices, they were a shadow of the true sacrifice we see in Jesus Christ. The worship liturgy and rituals in the temple and tabernacle, they were a kind of shadow of the heavenly worship that is happening in God’s heavenly throne room and so on and so forth.

And so all of those things that the priests did in the Old Testament in the temple and the tabernacle, they were a kind of through-a-glass-dimly, a kind of shadow and reflection of the glorious heavenly worship that is happening at all times gathered around God’s throne.

And the centerpiece of this heavenly worship service is God listening to the prayers of his people.

Prayer at the Center of Worship

As modern Western Christians, we’ve just pretty much abandoned the very notion of getting together and worshiping the Lord through prayer. We see prayer as kind of a waste of time in a worship service.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had people complain, “Why do you pray so much in the service on Sunday mornings? Why did we turn Wednesday night Bible study into Wednesday night prayer meeting? We can pray at home,” and stuff like that.

Well, actually the reason is very simple. It’s because from Genesis to Revelation, God seems to center the prayers of his people in worship rather than centering Bible study, teaching, and so on and so forth.

Worship is a massive, all-encompassing thing. And yet so much of the vision of worship, the kind of worship that pleases the Lord throughout God’s Word, seems to be his people gathering together and pouring out their prayers at the foot of his throne.

And that same thing seems to be true here in this vision of the kind of heavenly worship service.

Now remember, this is a vision. These are images. These are meant to kind of point us towards something about who God is, what he is like, and how he is redeeming and restoring our world.

This is not necessarily meant to be a literal play-by-play description of what is specifically happening in the heavenly throne room at all times.

The point here is that in the heavenly throne room at all times, the Lord is being worshiped not by compulsion, but freely and joyfully by all of redeemed humanity and redeemed creation.

That when you are in the throne room presence of God, you will worship him not because he put a gun to your head and made you, but because you want to. You can’t keep yourself from doing it. That is what flows out of you.

And in this vision, this image that John gives us from Revelation 8 and 9, the massive heavenly throne room worship service is primarily oriented around all of redeemed humanity and redeemed creation pouring out their heart’s deepest desire to the Lord:

Act on behalf of your people.

Finish what you started. Fulfill your promise. Redeem humanity and restore the world.

The Incense and the Prayers of God’s People

What’s important to grasp here is that the altar of incense that it keeps pointing back to and referencing here was a very specific image both in the Old Testament and here now in Revelation.

In the ancient Near East, incense itself was kind of a symbol, an image for the prayers of the people rising up to the heavens like the smoke of the incense.

And so every single ancient Near Eastern culture used incense in their worship services. Every single ancient Near Eastern religion used incense as part of their worship services.

And so the ancient Near Eastern pagans worshiped the Lord using incense. So did the ancient Jews. So did the ancient Christians.

Now, is there literally incense in heaven?

Don’t know. Don’t care.

The point is, in the ancient Near East they saw incense and they associated incense with your prayers rising up to the throne of your god, your tribe’s god, your clan’s god, your family’s god, and so on and so forth.

And the same thing was true in ancient Israel and the same thing was true in the early church. They associated incense with our prayers rising up to the throne of the Lord.

They didn’t literally think the smoke of the incense made your prayer more effective. It was just an image. It was just a metaphor.

But so the incense smoke is rising up in this heavenly worship service, meaning the heavenly worship service, a very significant part of what is happening, how he is worshiped in heaven, is that he listens to the prayers of his people.

The prayers of the people are the songs that are sung in the worship service around God’s heavenly throne.

God Responds to the Prayers of His People

And in exactly the same way, it uses the image of the censer.

Once again, in the ancient Near East and in ancient Israel in particular, they kind of associated the censer that the incense would be poured out in and so forth with God responding to the cries of his people.

God hearing the cries and answering the cries, taking up action as a result of the cries of his people.

Essentially, he is listening to his people’s prayers, and then he is getting up and intervening on their behalf, taking up their cause, going and fighting for them as a warrior who represents them.

And so there’s actually a really interesting vision that’s happening here.

Just like in the seven seals, now also with the seven trumpets, what we see is that the prayers of God’s people have risen up to his throne room.

And he is responding to those prayers by pouring out these warning judgments.

The people of God pour out their prayers and they say, “Lord, finish your work.” They say, “Avenge our blood.”

But not just avenge our blood. They say essentially, redeem humanity and restore our world just like you promised.

And the way that he fulfills that promise is through these warning judgments.

He is pouring out these warning judgments in order to draw the rebellious world to repentance.

He is demonstrating his destructive power, kind of like filling the censer with fire and then hurling it at the enemies of the Lord and his people.

He’s demonstrating his destructive power in order to call rebellious humanity to repentance.

He’s saying:

“I am able to destroy you, but what I want to do is redeem you.”

Thunder, Lightning, and Earthquakes

And so John continues on in the vision that he casts in Revelation 8 and 9. And he paints this picture.

He says that the throne of the Lord was surrounded by thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and so forth.

Once again, this is very similar to the throne room vision of Revelation 4 and 5.

This is the language that the book of Exodus used when the Lord revealed himself on the mountain. When the Lord showed himself in some sense to his people, when the Lord kind of pulled back the curtain and said, “I am here and I am about to act on your behalf. I am about to intervene in a way that moves my redemptive plan, my redemptive purpose forwards.”

Reread Exodus 19 if you get a chance. Reread Psalm 18 if you get a chance. These are the kind of sources for the images that John’s vision is pulling from.

There will be thunder. There will be lightning. Everything will shake and rumble. There will be earthquakes.

The image that it’s painting is that the Lord is present.

He is here to restore. He is here to redeem. He is here to rescue you. He is here to judge.

Judgment That Rescues and Destroys

But most of the time when the Bible says judge, it’s actually not talking about saying, “You, you’re good, you get in. You, you’re bad, you’re going to hell. You, you’re good, going to heaven. You, you’re bad, you’re going to hell.”

That is one of the meanings that the term judge has throughout God’s Word.

But the primary meaning when it talks about a judge is someone who rescues.

So the book of Judges is the story of God sending rescuers who rescue God’s people from this thing that they’ve gotten themselves into, that thing they’ve gotten themselves into, this thing they’ve gotten themselves into.

And these small-time judges throughout the book of Judges point towards the Judge, who is Yahweh himself, the Lord himself.

God is the Judge who rescues his people once and for all.

So when you see the thunder and the lightning and the earth shaking, that is a recurring image throughout the Old Testament that the Lord is here to judge in the sense of rescue, redeem, restore.

Of course, the rescuing work of judging often involves destroying the one who is attacking the people that he is rescuing.

So you judge these people to rescue them, and in exactly the same move you judge this person over here to destroy them.

It is one judgment.

But this one judgment both rescues and destroys.

It rescues God’s people and destroys the enemy.

And so as the thunder and the lightning and the earthquakes and everything surround the Lord on his throne, as the incense rises up and he fills the censer with fire and hurls it down at the earth and so on and so forth, the image that we’re getting is what is about to happen is that the Lord is coming in judgment.

And that same judgment will both destroy the enemies of the Lord and rescue the people of the Lord.

And he says these seven trumpets that we’re about to hear about are an example of that judgment that both destroys the enemy and redeems his children, his kingdom citizens, his people.

Silence in Heaven

But before that happens, it says there is silence in heaven.

John is almost directly quoting Zephaniah chapter 1:

“Be silent at the presence of the Lord Yahweh, for the day of Yahweh is at hand.” — Zephaniah 1:7, WEB

Once again, Zechariah—different book. Sounds similar to Zephaniah, but it’s a different one.

These are both books that almost nobody reads today, right? And as a result, we’re sometimes missing really important context for the book of Revelation.

It’s crazy. If you don’t read the parts of the Bible that came before Revelation, it’s really hard to understand Revelation. Who would have thought, right?

I guess it’s similar when you try to read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. If you don’t read pages 1 through 600, you have a very, very hard time understanding what’s going on on page 601.

For some reason, it confuses us.

Zechariah chapter 2 says:

“Be silent, all flesh, before Yahweh; for he has roused himself from his holy habitation!” — Zechariah 2:13, WEB

He’s preparing to intervene on behalf of his people.

The Day of the Lord

These are both kind of images of the Day of the Lord.

The Day of the Lord sometimes refers to the literal end when King Jesus returns to take the throne of this world back for himself fully and finally.

But it also often throughout God’s Word refers to the Lord intervening in a smaller way, a short-term way, to carry his redemptive plan and purpose and mission forward.

And so when the Lord destroys one of the enemies of his people, it refers to that in a sense as the Day of the Lord.

And when Jesus comes back and destroys the ultimate enemy, the devil, that is referred to in the fullest and richest and deepest sense as the Day of the Lord.

When the Lord saves the Israelites or the Judahites from an attack by this army over here, it is referred to in a sense as the Day of the Lord.

And when the Lord rescues his people in the end at his final return, that is referred to in the fullest and deepest sense as the Day of the Lord.

But in all of these cases, there’s this recurring image.

And again, it’s an image. It is a metaphor.

Is there literally silence in heaven?

I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter.

The point is there’s a recurring image. There is silence before the Lord acts on behalf of his redemptive plan and purpose for his people.

The Lord says through Zephaniah, “I am about to rescue you. Be still. Be silent, for the day is near.”

In Zechariah, “I am about to come and rescue you. Therefore, stop, be still, be silent.”

And so before John zooms back in to look once again at God’s judgment which both rescues his people and crushes his enemy, he hits pause and he says there was silence in heaven just like when the Lord would rescue his people throughout the Old Testament story.

The Silence of Worship

In the ancient Jewish synagogue liturgy and temple liturgy, part of what would happen in each of the worship services, just as they were about to offer the incense or just after they offered the incense, they would stop and they would have a very long period of silence.

Nobody would say anything for a long time, but it was a kind of pregnant silence.

You would offer your prayers. You would kind of image that through the lighting of the incense and so on and so forth.

And then you would just sit there and you would meditate on what the Lord was saying to you.

You would meditate on what you had asked of the Lord. You would meditate on what you needed from him. You would meditate on the way that he has intervened on your behalf, on the behalf of your people in the past.

You would meditate on his goodness and his glory. You would meditate on his character and his attributes. You would meditate on his continued rescuing work, redeeming work, restoring work.

And you would meditate on the long game that he is playing, the big picture, the overall plan and plot to rescue, redeem, restore all things.

And so you were meditating on the God that the incense offerings and the temple worship and your entire community was a testament to his redemptive work for you.

And now in a very similar way, that same image is at work again.

It is an image. Don’t freak out trying to figure out how to fit all these things together into some literal system.

It’s not meant to be fit together into a literal system, into a literal chart, into a literal timeline, into anything like that.

It is an image.

But now John gives us this image where heaven pauses in silence.

It’s like heaven is meditating on the rescue that the Lord is about to pour out, the judgment that the Lord is about to pour out, that will both crush the enemy and rescue his people.

And in the midst of all of this will turn people who were enemies to be crushed into children, sheep, kingdom citizens to be rescued.

These warning judgments that will turn rebellious humanity repentant.

The Eagle and the Three Woes

And we see that in the next big image. That is the image of the eagle declaring the woes.

In the middle of the seven trumpets, the eagle declares these woes.

He says, “Woe, woe, woe” on whom?

He says, “On the inhabitants of the earth.”

Now, there’s a couple of things that we need to understand here.

Number one, it’s actually really important that the image John gives us is the image of an eagle because all throughout the Old Testament, the eagle was a symbol, an image, a metaphor of God’s swift judgment.

Deuteronomy chapter 28, God kind of images his swift judgment on the rebellious and the unrepentant through the image of a nation swooping like an eagle.

We see the same kind of thing in Hosea chapter 8.

You see the eagle, the nation swooping or plunging, falling, a nation swooping down to devour a smaller, weaker animal like an eagle does when it’s hunting.

Essentially, when they heard eagle, they would think of God’s swift judgment on the rebellious, the unrepentant, the disobedient, especially among the ancient nation of Israel, especially among his people.

When his people were persistently and unrepentantly rebellious against him, he would send another nation like an eagle swooping down to conquer or carry away the unfaithful.

It was a warning judgment.

He was saying, “If you continue in this rebelliousness, this unrepentance, I will take your nation away from you, take your land away from you. Your generation will not get to experience the promise of the land. The next generation will come back, but you will be carried away.”

And so in the same way now John sees that same eagle as an image of God’s swift judgment.

But this time it’s not just aimed at his own people, not just aimed at his kingdom and so on and so forth.

It’s aimed at all the earth.

The Inhabitants of the Earth

And it says, “the inhabitants of the earth.”

And that’s actually also a pretty important phrase.

They use this almost as a technical term, for lack of a better word.

Practically every time we see the inhabitants of the earth come up in Revelation especially, but in ancient Near Eastern apocalyptic literature, in ancient Jewish literature in general, in the Old Testament prophets and so on and so forth, the inhabitants of the earth refers almost always to the enemies of the Lord.

It’s not talking about everybody who literally inhabits the earth. It’s not talking about everybody who lives on the earth.

It’s talking about the enemies of the Lord on earth.

It is talking about the humans who persist in rebelling against the Lord. The humans who persist in living as his enemies.

Essentially, the humanity that is persistently unrepentant, persistently chooses to follow after the beast in whatever form it takes, persistently chooses to follow after Babylon in whatever form that takes, persistently chooses to follow after the serpent king in whatever way he has influenced the world at this particular moment.

And so there’s this divide in Revelation 8 and 9 between, one, the inhabitants of the earth on whom the woes have been declared, versus those whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, or the saints, or those who have been sealed by the Lamb, marked by the Lamb.

In other words, the point here is that these warning judgments are not aimed at all of humanity.

They are aimed at the unrepentant.

They are aimed at rebellious humanity.

They are not aimed at God’s people. They are aimed at the people who have chosen to persist in living as enemies of the Lord.

These are aimed at the hardened. These are aimed at the people who are aligned with, allegiant to, loyal to the serpent, the beast in some sense.

The People Marked by the Lamb

And we see that in the fact that pretty consistently Revelation 8 and 9 describes these woes as being unable to do anything to the sealed, marked people of God, the people who bear the mark of the Lamb.

God seals his people on the foreheads, on the hand.

It’s not a literal seal. It’s not a literal mark. There’s not a microchip. There’s not a barcode.

None of these things are references to literal physical marks.

It’s a metaphor. It’s an image. It’s a symbol.

But God’s people bear the mark of the Lamb.

In other words, we belong to the Lamb. We’ve been rescued by the Lamb. And our loyalty, our allegiance, our heads, and our hearts are devoted to the Lamb.

And these woes cannot touch the people who bear the mark of the Lamb, who belong to, are redeemed by, are being restored by, and are loyal to the Lamb.

The Seven Trumpets Tell the Story Again

And so now we get to the seven trumpets themselves.

The important thing to understand about the seven trumpets is that the seven trumpets are the seven seals.

And the seven seals are the seven trumpets.

And later on, the seven bowls are the seven seals and the seven trumpets.

These are three visions that are telling the same story again from different angles, using different images and metaphors in order to emphasize different things.

So the seventh seal essentially opens into the seven trumpets.

The seventh seal is the seven trumpets.

John is rewinding the tape and showing us the same story again from another angle.

The seals showed us the warning judgments of God in the form of conquest, war, famine, death, persecution, martyrdom, and ultimately the final Day of the Lord.

Now the trumpets are going to show us those same warning judgments using the imagery of the Exodus plagues and the fall of Jericho.

The Trumpets and the Exodus

This is unbelievably important.

If you don’t have Exodus in the back of your mind as you read Revelation 8 and 9, the trumpets are going to seem like a bunch of bizarre, random horror movie images.

But they are not random.

John is deliberately using the imagery of the Exodus plagues.

In Exodus, Pharaoh and Egypt have enslaved and oppressed God’s people. Pharaoh has set himself up against the Lord. He has essentially declared himself to be a god.

And the Lord pours out these plagues on Egypt.

But what is the point of the plagues?

The point is not just to punish Egypt.

The point is to reveal the true God.

The point is to expose the false gods.

The point is to rescue God’s people.

The point is to call Pharaoh and the Egyptians to repentance.

The point is to show Egypt, “Your gods cannot save you. Pharaoh cannot save you. Your empire cannot save you. I am the Lord.”

And now John takes those same Exodus plague images and applies them to Rome and to the beastly empires of the world.

The Trumpets and Jericho

At exactly the same time, the trumpets would have reminded them of Jericho.

The Israelites march around Jericho. The trumpets sound. The walls fall.

Once again, God’s judgment destroys the enemy and rescues his people.

And so these seven trumpets are kind of fusing together the Exodus story and the Jericho story.

The Lord is saying, “I am doing it again.”

He is saying, “Rome is Egypt. Rome is Jericho. Rome is Babylon. Rome is the beast.”

And just like Egypt fell, just like Jericho fell, just like Babylon fell, Rome will fall.

And every beastly empire after Rome will eventually fall.

The Lamb will win.

The First Four Trumpets

The first four trumpets focus on the created order.

They focus on the land, the sea, the rivers and springs, the sun, moon, and stars.

And once again, this is not random.

The first four trumpets are kind of a systematic dismantling of the things that Rome and the pagan world believed were under the control of their gods.

The pagan world had gods of the land. They had gods of the sea. They had gods of the rivers. They had gods associated with the sun and moon and stars.

They had gods associated with weather patterns, fertility, crops, harvests, livestock, and so on and so forth.

And Rome itself claimed Caesar had a kind of divine control over the world.

The empire presented itself as the source of peace, prosperity, abundance, stability, and order.

And then the trumpets blow.

Trumpet One: Hail, Fire, and Blood

The first trumpet uses the language of hail and fire mixed with blood falling on the earth.

This is Exodus plague imagery.

It’s Exodus chapter 9.

The plague of hail devastates the crops and the land of Egypt.

And in the same way, now John gives us this image of hail and fire falling on the earth.

Once again, this is an image.

The point is not necessarily that at some point in the future literal fireballs mixed with literal blood are going to fall out of the sky.

The point is that the Lord has power over the land.

He has power over agriculture.

He has power over the crops.

He has power over the weather.

He has power over the things that the pagan world believed belonged to their gods.

The Gods Cannot Protect Rome

If you were living in the Roman Empire, you were intimately aware that your entire life depended on weather patterns.

If the rain came at the right time, you ate.

If the rain didn’t come, you starved.

If the hail destroyed the crops, you starved.

If wildfire destroyed the crops, you starved.

If drought destroyed the crops, you starved.

If disease killed the livestock, you suffered.

And all of these things were connected in the pagan imagination to the gods.

When things are going well, the gods of the weather patterns are smiling upon us.

When they’re going poorly, the gods of the weather patterns are angry with us.

And yet if there was a long stretch, year after year of drought, year after year of hail, year after year of wildfires that consumed everything, that made agriculture impossible, that made breeding your animals impossible, and so on and so forth, eventually they would start to ask questions.

They would start to say, “Do you think maybe the gods have just failed?”

“Do we need to find new gods?”

The True God Is in Control

What’s going on here in the first trumpet?

What we’re getting is this image of the weather gods being unable to stop the true God from sabotaging the weather, sending hail, wildfire, drought.

The fertility gods being unable to stop the Lord from sabotaging the crops, the harvests, the livestock.

And more importantly than either of those things, the beast, Caesar, being unable to stop the Lord from sabotaging every last one of these things.

The point being, if Caesar can’t stop these crops from dying and these animals from dying and this hail from laying waste to our land and these droughts and these wildfires and so forth, is he really the god he says he is?

He can’t even stop a third of the earth from being struck.

Severe, but Partial

Now, this is really important because this is like the third seal.

In the third seal, a quarter of the earth was struck.

The point being this is a very severe judgment, but it’s not complete. It’s not total.

There’s still mercy there.

It’s a warning, not an attempt to destroy.

And in the same way, it says one-third of the earth is struck.

Just like before, the point is not literally that one-third of the earth is literally going to be struck with drought, wildfire, hail, and so on and so forth.

The point is this is a severe judgment, but it is not complete.

It is not total.

This is meant to warn, not destroy.

God is not trying to kill everybody.

This is a warning shot just like the plagues in Exodus were.

Just like we see in the seven seals, God is calling rebellious humanity to repentance.

He is showing them what their rebellion brings.

And if you are one of the seven churches, what you are going to see as all of this takes place is that Rome has zero control.

Caesar has zero control.

The gods of Rome have zero control.

The only one who has any control over any of these things is the true God that you are being persecuted for following.

Rome’s economy cannot help you.

Rome’s wealth cannot help you.

Rome’s favor cannot help you.

The only thing that can help you is the God of the universe that you are being persecuted for following after.

There is no value in compromising with Rome in order to gain Rome’s protection when Rome itself cannot protect itself from the judgment of the Lamb.

There is no value in compromising with Rome, joining its idolatry, its wickedness, its injustice in order to save yourself. That is not going to help you because your fields can just as easily be destroyed by the Lord. Your wealth can just as easily be sabotaged by the Lord.

That’s trumpet number one.

Trumpet Two: The Sea, the Ships, and Economic Collapse

Let’s talk about trumpet number two.

In trumpet number two, we get this vision of the sea. We get this vision of everything in the sea dying. We get this vision of blood filling the sea. We get this vision of the ships just collapsing in the middle of the sea.

This is kind of a vision of economic collapse. In order to understand this, we have to understand that the Roman Empire was radically dependent on the ability to trade across the ocean. And it was radically dependent on the sea.

They would get grain from Egypt and North Africa. They would get other kind of luxury goods from kind of further eastern nations. They conducted all kinds of commerce just throughout the Mediterranean world.

Losing the trade system that hinged on the sea would have strangled the Roman Empire to death very quickly. It would have ceased to be a world superpower very, very quickly.

And so here in the second trumpet, there’s this vision of Rome losing access to the sea and beginning to wither.

Now again, does this mean that literally Rome was going to lose access to the sea at some point in the near future?

No, probably not.

The point is not that this exact thing is literally going to happen. The point is God pours out his warning judgments on wicked empires like Rome by kneecapping them.

The Nile Turned to Blood

He is once again drawing from Exodus.

Remember in Exodus chapter 7, he turns the Nile to blood. And so this one’s getting a lot of play here in the seven trumpets, right?

But the Lord turns the Nile to blood. The fish die. The river becomes just unbearable to even be around. The life source of the old Babylon, Egypt, the life source of the old beast, Egypt and Pharaoh, was taken away.

The river god that the Nile was kind of associated with by the Egyptians—in a sense, you could say that the Lord was humiliating the false pretend river god of the Nile and so on and so forth.

Revelation takes that same image, but this time it’s not just talking about the Nile. It says a third of the sea.

So a third of the sea life dies. A third of the ships are destroyed.

The picture that this vision is painting is that the Lord is bringing really radical economic collapse onto this wealthy empire that has become wealthy not through meritocracy, not through good old hard work and blood and sweat and tears, but by conquering, killing, slaughtering, stealing from all the smaller and weaker nations.

He’s taken out the maritime trade system.

The Burning Mountain

Then John jumps in and he uses another image. He gets another vision that uses a very different image, but that once again is kind of pointing towards the same thing.

This time the image comes from Jeremiah. Go read Jeremiah 51 if you get a chance sometime soon.

God refers to Babylon as a destroying mountain. And he says to this destroying mountain, Babylon, “I am against you.” And he says, “I will make you a burned-out mountain.”

Essentially, he says, “You’re a mountain that burned others, but I am going to burn your mountain out. You are a mountain that was destroying others, but I’m going to destroy your mountain.”

Now, John takes that image and he puts it into the seven trumpets.

He says there’s this great mountain that is burning with fire, and the mountain is cast into the sea.

What is the mountain?

Well, in Jeremiah, the mountain is Babylon.

And what is Rome in the book of Revelation?

Babylon.

Rome is the new Babylon.

So John takes the image of the old Babylon as a burning mountain that the Lord is going to destroy, and now he casts this vision of the new Babylon as a burning mountain that is hurled into the sea.

The empire that has set the world on fire is itself set on fire.

The empire that has swallowed the nations is itself swallowed by the sea.

The empire that has brought chaos into the lives of everyone else is itself cast into the ancient symbol of chaos.

The sea.

Rome Will Not Last Forever

The sea in ancient Near Eastern imagery is very often a symbol of chaos, disorder, danger, the untamed world.

And so the empire that thought it had brought order to the world, the empire that claimed to be the bringer of peace, the bringer of prosperity, the bringer of civilization, is hurled into chaos.

This great mountain that had dominated the world is thrown into the sea.

And the beastly empire that is empowered by the serpent, that functions as a kind of beast, that functions as a great prostitute and so on and so forth, is cast into absolute chaos.

It’s cast into absolute disorder.

Where it used to be powerful, now it’s just languishing.

God is hurling this blazing empire into the chaos that it used to control.

And so if you were one of the seven churches, what you’re going to hear with the second trumpet is, you know, case in point, like Laodicea, one of the churches that’s compromised with this great mountain in order to access its wealth and power, its banking and its trade and so on and so forth.

The idea essentially is, you know, all of these things that you have betrayed the Lord in order to gain access to, these things are being cast into the sea. These things are being lit on fire.

And if you do not repent, you will be cast into the sea. You will be set ablaze along with it.

Same thing is true for Pergamum, Thyatira, and so many of the others.

You’re kind of hitching your wagon. You’re seeking security in a system that the Lord is straight up taking aim at. It’s in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle.

But at exactly the same time, if you’re one of the churches that’s been faithful and as a result is being relentlessly persecuted, churches like Smyrna, like Philadelphia, then what you’re going to hear in all of this is that the source of the wealth and the power and everything that enables Rome to lay waste to you, to make your life a living hell, is ultimately being brought down to the ground.

That is trumpet number two.

Trumpet Three: Wormwood and the Poisoned Waters

Let’s talk about trumpet number three.

There’s this really strange image in trumpet number three. We get this vision of the stars falling into one-third of the freshwater.

This is almost kind of like an extension of the image we get in trumpet number two.

Essentially, they say this great star falls out of the heavens. It falls into the freshwater, and the freshwater becomes bitter.

It becomes poisonous.

And the star is called Wormwood.

Now, once again, that is a very specific image.

Wormwood was a very bitter plant. It was used all throughout the ancient Near East as kind of a metaphor, an image, a symbol for bitterness, for suffering, for judgment.

You see that in the Old Testament.

Jeremiah uses wormwood as an image of judgment.

You see it in Lamentations. You see it in Amos. You see this recurring image of wormwood, bitterness, poisonous water.

The point is that what looked like fresh water, what looked like life-giving water, what looked like something that would sustain you, turns out to be poison.

And once again, this is almost certainly aimed directly at the seven churches and the world they were living in.

Rome was promising them life.

Rome was promising them prosperity.

Rome was promising them security.

Rome was promising them peace.

The beastly empire says, “Drink from my water and you will live.”

And the Lord says, “That water is poison.”

The Poisoned Well of Idolatry

This is especially significant because several of the churches were dealing with false teachers who were actively encouraging them to compromise with the idolatry of Rome.

Jezebel was teaching people to compromise.

The Balaamites were teaching people to compromise.

The Nicolaitans were teaching people to compromise.

They were essentially saying, “You can drink from the Roman well. You can participate in the guild feasts. You can participate in the pagan worship. You can participate in the sexual immorality. You can participate in the idolatry. You can give Caesar what Caesar wants, and you can still follow Jesus.”

And John says the water is poisoned.

It looks like freshwater.

It looks like something that will save your life.

It looks like something that will protect your business.

It looks like something that will protect your family.

It looks like something that will keep you from being thrown out of the guild.

It looks like something that will keep you from losing your job.

It looks like something that will keep you from being persecuted.

But it’s poisoned.

And if you drink from it, it will kill you.

The Falling Star

And then there’s this image of the star falling.

Once again, stars in ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature very often represent spiritual beings, rulers, authorities, powers.

And so the image here seems to be that some kind of fallen spiritual power poisons the waters.

The world drinks from these waters and it brings death.

That’s exactly what the serpent has been doing since Genesis 3.

He promises life and gives death.

He promises wisdom and gives foolishness.

He promises freedom and gives slavery.

He promises pleasure and gives despair.

He promises power and gives destruction.

The serpent poisons the well.

And Rome is drinking from that well.

And the false teachers in the churches are telling Christians to drink from that well.

And John says, “Don’t.”

They are getting the same poison that the rest of the world has bought into hook, line, and sinker because of the deception of the serpent, the devil, the forces of darkness, and the beastly emperor, the beastly empire, the Babylon that they live in.

And so to these churches that have been compromising—to churches like Laodicea, to churches like Pergamum and so on and so forth—what they would be hearing, what this vision essentially is saying is:

You have to stop drinking from the poisoned well of Jezebel, Balaam, the Nicolaitans, the poisoned well of the beastly emperor and empire.

And to churches like Smyrna and Philadelphia that have not been compromising, that have been faithful and are being persecuted, it says:

“You are doing great. You have refused to drink from a poisoned well. You have refused to drink the poisonous water of Jezebel, the Balaamites, the Nicolaitans, the beastly forces that oppress you. You will be vindicated. You will be rewarded.”

That’s trumpet number three.

Trumpet Four: The Darkened Sun, Moon, and Stars

Let’s talk about trumpet number four.

We get another really weird image with trumpet number four. We see the Lord blacking out the sun. You see the Lord blacking out the stars, so to speak.

And this is once again really specific language, a really specific image.

Again, it’s not saying that literally the sun is going to get blacked out. Literally the stars are going to get blacked out.

It’s not a specific detailed prediction about a specific literal historical event that’s going to happen.

The point here is this:

Rome called itself the bringer of light.

The emperor of Rome called himself the bringer of light.

The emperor was associated with the sun.

The emperor was associated with light.

The emperor was associated with the gods.

Rome was the light of civilization in the Roman imagination.

The rest of the world was darkness.

Rome brought civilization.

Rome brought order.

Rome brought peace.

Rome brought prosperity.

Rome brought light.

And John says God can turn the lights off.

Political Chaos and the Darkened Heavens

All throughout the Old Testament, the prophets would use the image of blacking out the sun or blacking out the stars as sort of an image of political turmoil, political chaos, political upheaval.

When a nation kind of collapses in on itself, the apocalyptic writers would describe it a lot of times as the Lord blacking out the sun and the stars.

Whenever God would destroy a nation in judgment, the apocalyptic writers and stuff like that, they would sometimes describe it as God blacking out the sun and the stars.

The prophets would do a very, very similar thing.

Prophetic literature, you know, is not exactly the same as apocalyptic literature, but there’s a lot of similarities and they take some of the same images.

But in Isaiah chapter 13, in Ezekiel 32, in Joel chapter 2, if you get a chance, go check them out.

They describe the downfall of these nations, these human nations, human kings, human rulers, human powers.

They describe them collapsing in on themselves, being laid waste to by the Lord with the image of God blacking out the sun, knocking the stars out of the sky, and so on and so forth.

God is bringing down these rulers who thought they were the light of the world.

He’s bringing down these nations that thought they were the light of the world.

The Darkness Over Egypt

We see a beautiful example of that once again in the Exodus, right?

This is hearkening once again to the plagues on Egypt in Exodus.

In Exodus chapter 10, God causes darkness to cover the land for three days. It says the darkness is so deep, so thick you could feel it, so to speak.

That was really important because the Egyptians worshiped the sun god Ra.

God blacked out the sun, humiliating the sun god Ra.

In a very similar way here in Revelation, God blacks out the sun.

Not just in one place, not just in Rome itself, not just in Egypt, but it describes all of the light, the sun, the moon, the stars, being darkened by a third.

Once again, a third.

Severe, but partial.

Severe, but not total.

Warning judgment.

God is not destroying the world.

He is warning the world.

And in the process, he is humiliating the false lights of the world.

He is humiliating the false gods.

He is humiliating the false kings.

He is humiliating the false empires.

The True Light of the World

Rome says, “We are the light.”

Caesar says, “I am the light.”

And Jesus says, “No, I am.”

The Lamb is the light.

And by the time we get to the very end of Revelation, the New Jerusalem doesn’t even need the sun because the glory of God illuminates it and the Lamb is its lamp.

The false light gets blacked out.

The true light remains forever.

And so to the seven churches, this is once again a call not to compromise.

Why would you compromise with the darkness in order to gain access to what it calls light?

Why would you betray the Lamb in order to gain the favor of an emperor whose light the Lamb can shut off?

Why would you betray the true King to gain the protection of a kingdom that is going dark?

And if you’re Smyrna or Philadelphia, if you are suffering because you have refused to bow down to the false light, the message is:

Keep going.

The darkness will not win.

The light will.

That is trumpet number four.

The Three Woes

And that brings us back to the eagle.

“Woe, woe, woe.”

The first four trumpets are devastating.

But then John says, essentially, you haven’t seen anything yet.

The final three trumpets are the three woes.

And this is where the imagery gets really, really weird.

But once again, weird does not mean random.

Every one of these images is rooted in the Old Testament, rooted in the world of the seven churches, rooted in ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature, rooted in the story that God has already been telling.

And the fifth trumpet is maybe one of the weirdest images in the entire book.

Trumpet Five: The Demonic Locust Army

We get these locusts.

But they’re not normal locusts.

They come up out of the abyss.

They look like horses prepared for battle.

They have something like crowns of gold.

Their faces look like human faces.

Their hair looks like women’s hair.

Their teeth look like lions’ teeth.

They have breastplates.

Their wings sound like chariots rushing into battle.

And they have tails like scorpions.

It’s weird.

This is the kind of thing where if you are trying to interpret Revelation as a literal prediction about specific future technology, you’re going to go insane.

You’re going to end up saying these are helicopters.

You’re going to end up saying these are drones.

You’re going to end up saying these are fighter jets.

You’re going to end up saying these are some kind of genetically engineered monster.

You can make it whatever you want it to be because the image is not meant to be decoded that way.

It’s an image.

Joel’s Locust Army

The primary source for this image is Joel.

Go read Joel chapters 1 and 2.

Joel describes this horrifying locust plague that comes across the land.

The locusts devour everything.

They destroy the crops.

They destroy the land.

They bring devastation.

And Joel describes them like an army.

They look like horses.

They sound like chariots.

They charge like warriors.

They scale walls.

They pour into cities.

And John takes that image and turns the volume all the way up.

These aren’t just locusts.

These are nightmare locusts.

These are demonic locusts.

They come out of the abyss.

The Abyss

The abyss in ancient Jewish literature is associated with the realm of the forces of darkness.

It’s associated with imprisoned spiritual beings.

It’s associated with demonic forces.

And so the image here is that this locust army is demonic.

These are forces of destruction that come out of the abyss.

And the point, once again, is not necessarily that literal demon bugs are going to crawl out of a hole in the ground at some point in the future.

The point is that behind the beastly empires of the world, behind the violence, behind the idolatry, behind the wickedness, behind the injustice, there are dark spiritual forces.

Rome is not just a political problem.

Rome is not just an economic problem.

Rome is not just a military problem.

There is a spiritual war going on underneath the surface.

They Cannot Harm the Sealed People of God

And what is really important is that these locusts are told they cannot harm the people who have the seal of God.

Once again, the seal is not a literal physical mark.

The point is that the people who belong to the Lamb are ultimately safe from the spiritual destruction that these forces bring.

That does not mean Christians can’t be killed.

Smyrna is literally told some of them are going to die.

Antipas has already been killed.

The book is filled with martyrs.

So when it says the locusts cannot harm God’s sealed people, it clearly does not mean that Christians are physically invincible.

It means these demonic forces cannot take what ultimately matters.

They cannot steal your allegiance to the Lamb unless you give it to them.

They cannot remove your name from the Lamb’s kingdom.

They cannot destroy your eternal life.

They cannot conquer you.

You overcome them by remaining faithful to the Lamb even unto death.

The Torment of the Locusts

But the people who do not bear the seal of the Lamb are tormented.

It says the torment is like the sting of a scorpion.

And it gets so bad that they want to die, but death flees from them.

Once again, this is not necessarily saying that there is going to be some literal future five-month period where people are physically unable to die while giant demon locusts sting them.

It’s an image of torment.

It’s an image of the way the kingdom of the serpent ultimately devours its own citizens.

The serpent promises you life and gives you death.

The serpent promises you pleasure and gives you torment.

The serpent promises you freedom and enslaves you.

The serpent promises you power and drains you.

The serpent promises you happiness and brings you to the point where you wish you were dead.

That is what the beastly system does.

The Seduction and the Sting

And then John describes the locusts in this really weird way.

They have hair like women’s hair.

They have teeth like lions.

They have tails like scorpions.

There’s this strange combination of attraction and destruction.

There’s something seductive about them.

There’s something powerful about them.

There’s something royal about them.

There’s something military about them.

There’s something demonic about them.

There’s something deadly about them.

It’s almost like Rome itself.

Rome is beautiful.

Rome is wealthy.

Rome is powerful.

Rome is seductive.

Rome offers you status.

Rome offers you pleasure.

Rome offers you wealth.

Rome offers you security.

Rome offers you influence.

And then it devours you.

It has the hair that draws you in and the teeth that tear you apart.

It has the crown that promises power and the scorpion tail that fills you with poison.

Abaddon and Apollyon

And then it says the locusts have a king over them.

His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

Both essentially mean destroyer.

And this is really interesting because the emperor Domitian associated himself with Apollo.

Apollo was one of the major gods of the Roman world.

Apollo was associated with the sun.

Apollo was associated with light.

Apollo was associated with the emperor.

And the Greek name Apollyon sounds strikingly similar to Apollo.

John is playing with the language.

The empire claims to follow the bringer of light.

John says its king is the destroyer.

The one who claims to bring light actually brings destruction.

The one who claims to bring life actually brings death.

The one who claims to bring civilization actually devours the world.

The one who claims to bring peace actually fills the world with violence.

The one who claims to bring prosperity actually steals the wealth of the nations.

The one who claims to save you is destroying you.

The Demonic Power Behind Beastly Empires

And so this locust army is kind of this wild combination of images.

It’s Joel’s locust plague.

It’s a military army.

It’s demonic forces from the abyss.

It’s the seduction of Rome.

It’s the violence of Rome.

It’s the poison of Rome.

It’s the false light of the emperor.

It’s the destroyer masquerading as the bringer of light.

The way that they are seduced by a prostitute, but then the moment they get into your grip, you slowly drain the life from them like a vampire, you fill them with poison like a scorpion.

These locusts are adorned with these crowns like rulers or empires.

They are ruled over by a king who claims to be a light-bringer but is slowly choking the life out of the world.

So the vision of the plague of locusts might be as simple as just yet another really kind of pungently illustrated declaration:

The wicked kingdoms of this world, the beastly kingdoms of this world, the Babylons of this world, the Egypts of this world that are kind of personified right now by Rome are driven by a demonic agenda.

They are running on demonic power at the behest of a demonic regime, the serpent king.

And so to the seven churches, essentially what this says is that all of the judgment that you are watching around you, all of the warnings that you are watching play out around you, they will run their course and they will bring down this behemoth that has drained the life of the world like a vampire and unleashed unimaginable persecution on you.

If you’re one of the compromising churches, then essentially what it’s saying to you is like you’ve been drawn in by the hair of the locust plague and you will be drained by the scorpion sting of the locust plague if you don’t repent and return to me.

The end result of your compromise, your following after the idolatry and wickedness and injustice of Rome, is a despair that is so deep you will wish that you were dead.

That’s trumpet number five.

Trumpet Six: The Army Beyond the Euphrates

Let’s talk about trumpet number six.

Trumpet number six is really interesting for a whole bunch of different reasons.

The lead-up to trumpet number six is really interesting. We get this vision of what is essentially kind of like the Parthian army.

Sort of like in the seven seals. There’s a lot of repetition here, right?

It’s like the Parthian army on demonic steroids.

They cast this vision.

There are these four angels. And when it says angels, it’s not talking about that in a positive way. These are, I think, pretty clearly portrayed as dark spiritual forces, not spiritual forces aligned with the Lord.

It says they are bound at the great Euphrates.

So they’re bound there.

They have not been allowed to pass by there.

Why the Euphrates Matters

Now why does it matter that they are bound at the great Euphrates?

It’s because the Euphrates in the ancient world was the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.

I know jack about geography. I literally only know about this because of books, but the Euphrates River was like what separated the easternmost part of the Roman Empire from the rest of the world outside of it.

And just past the Euphrates River was the Parthians.

Why did the Parthians matter?

Because they were the big eastern rival that the Roman Empire was scared of.

The Roman Empire was legitimately scared of the Parthian armies.

They were one of the very few armies that could potentially seriously make a dent in the Roman Empire.

They could seriously cost the Roman Empire way more than it was willing to give up.

If the Parthians decided to wage full-out war on the Roman Empire, it would be genuinely bad news for the Roman Empire.

The Parthian army was extremely famous.

They had really skilled horse-bound archers.

And so the image of this army coming from beyond the Euphrates would have immediately made the seven churches think of Parthia.

It would be like telling Americans today that there is a massive army crossing the Pacific.

You would immediately start thinking about the nations on the other side of the Pacific that could actually pose a military threat.

They didn’t need somebody to explain what the Euphrates meant.

They knew.

Rome’s Nightmare

Rome was terrified of the Parthians.

There were legends and rumors that Nero had not really died and that he had escaped to Parthia and would one day return with a Parthian army to destroy Rome.

There were actually multiple false Neros who showed up after Nero died.

There were people who claimed to be Nero.

And some of them had connections with Parthia.

So there was this kind of cultural nightmare floating around the Roman imagination that one day this eastern army would cross the Euphrates and bring devastation.

John takes that nightmare and turns it into apocalyptic imagery.

The angels are released.

The army comes.

And it’s enormous.

Two Hundred Million

It says there are two hundred million mounted troops.

Now again, this is not a literal military statistic.

There were not two hundred million soldiers in the Parthian army.

There weren’t even two hundred million people available to put in an army like that.

The point is:

It is unimaginably huge.

It is an army so big you cannot fight it.

It is overwhelming.

It is unstoppable.

It is the nightmare version of the Parthian army.

And John describes the horses and riders with these bizarre demonic images.

They have breastplates the color of fire and hyacinth and sulfur.

The horses’ heads are like lions.

Fire, smoke, and sulfur come out of their mouths.

Their tails are like snakes.

Again, this is not a literal prediction of some future military technology.

These aren’t tanks.

These aren’t helicopters.

These aren’t missiles.

These aren’t motorcycles.

They are nightmare images.

They are demonic war imagery.

Fire, Smoke, and Sulfur

Fire, smoke, and sulfur are images of judgment.

They’re images associated with Sodom and Gomorrah.

They’re images associated with divine judgment throughout the Old Testament.

And so this army is an instrument of judgment.

But notice something really important.

The demonic forces do not get to act whenever they want.

They are bound.

They have to be released.

They are only released at the appointed time.

In other words, even the forces of darkness are on a leash.

They are not equal with God.

This is not God versus Satan as two equally powerful cosmic forces fighting it out to see who wins.

The devil does not get to do whatever he wants.

The demons do not get to do whatever they want.

The beast does not get to do whatever it wants.

The Lord is sovereign even over the forces that rebel against him.

They can only go as far as he permits.

They can only act within the limits that he permits.

And when he uses them as instruments of judgment, even their rebellion ends up serving his purpose.

God Can Use One Beastly Empire to Judge Another

This is something we see throughout the Old Testament.

God uses Assyria to judge Israel.

God uses Babylon to judge Judah.

God uses Persia to overthrow Babylon.

These pagan empires are not good.

The Lord is not saying, “Assyria is righteous.”

He’s not saying, “Babylon is righteous.”

He’s not saying, “Persia is perfect.”

He uses one wicked empire to bring judgment on another wicked empire.

And then he judges the empire he used because it was itself wicked.

That is a recurring pattern throughout the Bible.

And now here, in the sixth trumpet, the image is that God can unleash the thing Rome fears in order to judge Rome.

The empire that thinks it rules the world is not actually in control.

God can let the army across the river.

God can bring down the empire.

God can use the very nations Rome looks down on as barbarians to humble Rome.

Rome Is Not Untouchable

And this is really important for the seven churches because Rome looked untouchable.

Rome was the superpower.

Rome controlled the world they knew.

Rome had the armies.

Rome had the money.

Rome had the roads.

Rome had the trade.

Rome had the political power.

Rome had the legal power.

Rome could throw you in prison.

Rome could take your property.

Rome could execute you.

Rome could destroy your church.

Rome could destroy your family.

Rome could kill your pastor.

Rome could kill your friends.

Rome could make it impossible for you to participate in the economy.

Rome looked invincible.

And John says:

It isn’t.

There is an army on the other side of the river.

And the only reason it hasn’t crossed yet is because the Lord hasn’t allowed it.

Rome is not invincible.

Rome is not eternal.

Rome is not sovereign.

Caesar is not God.

The Prayers Beneath the Altar

And once again, all of this is connected to the prayers of God’s people.

The four angels are released from his place at the golden altar.

If you remember Revelation chapter 6, the golden altar, right?

That’s where the souls of the martyrs are kind of pulled up under like they were a sacrifice on the golden altar, and the blood of that sacrifice is under the altar.

They are crying out, “How long, O Lord?”

And the Lord responds by sending the seven seals, the warning judgments, to destroy the enemies of the Lord, rescue the people of the Lord, and call rebellious humanity to repentance so they can become part of the people of the Lord who will be rescued instead of destroyed.

Now, the same thing happens in Revelation 8.

The prayers of God’s people rise up with the incense and God responds to their prayers by commanding these judgments.

The point is that the Lord has not forgotten the martyrs.

He has not forgotten Smyrna.

He has not forgotten Philadelphia.

He has not forgotten Antipas.

He has not forgotten the people who lost their jobs.

He has not forgotten the people who lost their businesses.

He has not forgotten the people who were thrown out of their families.

He has not forgotten the people who were imprisoned.

He has not forgotten the people who were tortured.

He has not forgotten the people who were killed.

Their prayers have reached his throne.

And he is acting.

The Enemy Will Be Brought to Its Knees

And so if you’re one of the seven churches, especially one of the faithful churches that is suffering, the point of this is not:

“Hey, try to figure out which future nation the two hundred million soldiers represent.”

The point is:

The empire that is crushing you will not crush you forever.

The empire that looks invincible is not invincible.

The forces behind that empire are not sovereign.

The Lamb is sovereign.

The Lord hears your prayers.

The Lord sees your suffering.

The Lord has placed limits on the forces of darkness.

And when the time comes, he can unleash the very forces Rome fears and bring Rome to its knees.

You do not have to compromise in order to survive.

You do not have to worship Caesar in order to survive.

You do not have to join the guild feast in order to survive.

You do not have to sleep with the temple prostitute in order to survive.

You do not have to eat the food sacrificed to idols in order to survive.

You do not have to call Caesar “Lord” in order to survive.

You do not have to participate in the wickedness and injustice of Rome in order to survive.

Rome is not the thing keeping you alive.

The Lamb is.

And Rome will be brought to its knees.

You just have to wait.

And in the meantime, you can carry on.

That is trumpet number six.

Why the Judgments Are Limited

Now, despite the fact that we’re in two chapters, we actually don’t get to trumpet number seven.

Trumpet number seven doesn’t come until Revelation 10 and 11.

There’s a very good reason for that.

But in the meantime, in trumpets 1–6, the really important point that John is hammering home to us again and again and again, it is very much similar to the point that he hammers home for us in seals 1 through 6, is that God does not allow these trumpets to destroy rebellious humanity.

Through all of this, God warns rebellious humanity, but he also preserves rebellious humanity.

Why?

It’s because this is meant to draw humanity to repentance.

This is not meant to destroy rebellious humanity.

It is meant to draw humanity to repentance.

Five Months of Locusts

We see that just in the case of the locusts, right?

Trumpet number five, it says the locusts are there for five months.

Now again, that is not a prediction that there will literally be five months of locusts or whatever the locusts are meant to represent.

The point is that is a temporary period.

Literal locust swarms in the ancient Near East typically lasted a few months.

Absolute maximum would last like five months from the time that the locusts are born, the time they hatch, to the time that they die.

And so, you know, there’s actually kind of a connection to real locust biology here.

Five months is literally about the amount of time that a swarm of locusts could live.

The point is that the judgment has an end.

The judgment is restrained.

The judgment is limited.

The Lord says, “You can torment, but you cannot destroy.”

The Lord says, “You can do this for a period of time, but not forever.”

The Lord places boundaries around the judgment.

Why?

Because the point is not destruction.

The point is warning.

The point is repentance.

Severe Judgment, but Restrained Judgment

This is not an endless period of destruction and torment.

This is not an endless period of warning judgment.

This is temporary.

This is a severe judgment, but it is a restrained judgment.

The purpose of this judgment is ultimately mercy.

Remember, God’s enemies will be destroyed when he comes to judge.

God’s people will be rescued when he comes to judge.

And rebellious humanity is warned and called to repentance so that they can stop being enemies to be destroyed and instead become God’s people to be rescued.

Same thing is true in trumpet number six with the Parthian demon army, right?

It says there’s this large-scale slaughter at the hands of this weird demon army thing.

There is a third of the world killed.

Once again, that’s not a prediction that literally a third of the human population will one day be wiped out.

The point here is a third of the population is severe.

Just like in the seven seals, a quarter of the population is very severe.

But it’s not the whole population.

God is not destroying humanity.

He is warning humanity.

He is calling humanity to repentance.

The Purpose of the Trumpets Is Repentance

That is the purpose behind all seven of the seals.

That is the purpose behind all seven of the trumpets.

That is the purpose behind all seven of the bowls.

In every single one, step by step, bowl by bowl, trumpet by trumpet, seal by seal, again and again and again, God continues to call humanity to repentance.

The purpose of all these judgments is to draw humanity to repentance.

But there’s a plot twist.

And that is that just like with the seven seals, just like with the seven bowls to come, John says again and again here, the trumpets are not the thing that brings humanity to repentance.

God’s warning judgments are not the thing that will ultimately bring humanity to repentance.

He says, “If you’ve been just wishing the Lord would just pour out his judgment on Rome, on rebellious humanity, on the empires that persecute us and so on and so forth, so that they would become scared and repent,” that’s actually not going to happen.

It’s not going to work out.

That is not how it goes.

He says, “What brings humanity to repentance is not judgment. It’s your faithful witness.”

The World Still Refuses to Repent

It says, in the midst of all of this, rebellious humanity remains just totally enthralled to false gods, idol worship.

It says the work of their hands.

It says idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

He’s using the same language that you get in Psalm 115, Psalm 135, Isaiah 44, and so forth.

They are still just enthralled by idol worship.

It says they are still enthralled by murder, by violence, by persecution.

They continue to persecute God’s people despite all of the judgments God pours out on them.

It says they continue in sorcery, occult practices, manipulation, the magic arts despite all the judgments, the warnings that he gives them.

It says they continue in sexual immorality.

Specifically, this is not just talking about like doing sex stuff that was forbidden in the Bible.

This is talking like the orgies at the guild feasts and the 13-year-old temple prostitutes and the pagan temples and so on and so forth.

They continue despite all of his warning judgments.

It says theft and economic injustice and exploitation and wage stuff and so on and so forth.

They continue in all these things despite all these warning judgments.

The warnings, the judgments are not the things that ultimately bring rebellious humanity to repentance.

They set the stage, but they are not what brings humanity to repentance.

What Will Bring the World to Repentance?

And that creates a major question.

If you were one of these seven churches, the first thing that would have come into your head as you were reading this was:

“Okay, well, if your warning judgments are not what brings humanity to repentance, what will?”

If fear doesn’t scare the hell out of them, right?

If it doesn’t scare them into repentance, then what will bring them to repentance?

If suffering as a result of their sin and rebellion doesn’t bring them to repentance to walk away from that sin, then what will?

Chapter 10 and 11 exists to answer that question.

The seventh trumpet answers that question.

It says:

The thing that saves the world is the Lamb who was slain, working through his own people, allowing themselves to be persecuted and ultimately killed as they proclaim the message of the Lamb.