Revelation of Jesus Christ, Revelation chapter 8, it is always such a pleasure to be with you beloved on the Lord's day. I'm so thankful that God built this into our lives together. Let me read this opening paragraph. 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. Another angel who had a golden sensor came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angels and then the angel took the sensor, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth. And there came thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning in an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. So reads the words of the living God. Our Father, we ask you for divine enablement this morning. If our agenda in studying your word was determined by passages that were easy to understand, then we would miss so much of what you have to say to us. Father, we recognize that we're in need of your enablement every time we open your word. But there are times we readily acknowledge when the distance between the text and our experience seems nearly infinite. We are thankful for the gift of the Spirit of truth, and ask that you would grant that his effects would be operative among us today. Help us, help us to have minds engaged, lest we miss what's here. We acknowledge our whole and complete dependence upon you. In the name of Jesus, our Savior, we do pray. Amen. In recent days, I've been meditating a fresh on some words from Charles Spurgeon. They are words that he spoke to men like himself who were devoted to the task of preaching. And as this new year begins, it has done me well to be reminded of them. This is what he says. I have had great success in soul winning, but I've never taken any credit for it, for I feel that I preach under great advantages. The people come with an intense desire to hear, and with an expectation of getting a blessing. When a congregation expects nothing, it generally finds nothing even in the best of preachers. But when they are prepared to make much of what they hear, they usually get what they come for. Our work, no doubt, is greatly affected for good or evil by the condition of the congregation. Effective preaching is a consequence of several things. It's a consequence of possessing the requisite gifts. It's a consequence of being diligent with the inspired text. It's a consequence of wrestling with God in prayer. It's a consequence of recognizing one's inadequacy. It's a consequence of the sudden and momentary empowerment of the sovereign spirit of God. But my dear friends, often overlooked in the quest to discover the mystery of effective preaching is yet another factor that contributes as significantly as do any of the other things that I've already mentioned. And that is effective preaching is the consequence of an eager and hungry congregation. When the preacher knows that the congregation loves the truth and cherishes the truth and longs for the truth, his motivation to supply them with the truth is profoundly intensified. It's as though the eagerness of the congregation draws out his greatest efforts. It stimulates his desire to be accurate with the text. It arouses his ambition to feed them in a manner that can make them strong and mature and more Christian. When a congregation heads the admonition of the Apostle Paul, do not quench the spirit and thus brings to the Lord's day an expectancy of hearing a living word from heaven. Even the most insensitive preacher will spare no amount of effort to satisfy that hungry desire. And beloved to the glory of God and to your encouragement, you've been that way from the very first Sunday we began our study in the revelation one year ago. You've been supportive and enthusiastic, you've been prayerful and encouraging and expectant, it's made things so much easier for me. Perhaps as a revelation of my own insecurity, I said to Alan Dawn before we ever began this business, given the great difficulties associated with understanding the revelation, if going through it proves in some way to be counterproductive to the congregation at this point in our life together, then you tell me and I'll be glad to move on to something else. I knew how different this was going to be for many of you. But it would be nothing like the popular books and movies and charts, nothing like so much of the sensationalistic kind of preaching that one hears today in the name of the revelation. The fact that we've made it as far as the testimony to your desire to know the truth, even when it threatens to undo previously cherished notions, and that has been the case for many of you. This past week, one of the men who attends the Whitfield fraternal, stopped by the church for a brief visit, I think it was Thursday afternoon. He had his father with him, a pastor as well visiting from Chicago for the holidays after we chatted for a few moments, this older gentleman said to me, so what are you preaching these days? And I said, well, this Sunday, we begin Revelation chapter 8, and he said without missing a beat, you must be a very brave man. And I said to him without missing a beat, or a very foolish one, in retrospect what I should have said in response was, I have a very patient congregation, a very unusual congregation. I said to you a couple of months ago beloved, faithful preaching involves a mutual commitment on the part of both preacher and congregation. And what I'm attempting to say to you now is, for the last year you've lived up to the your end of the deal, and in great measure it's what's encouraged me to live up to mine. Now, dear friends, our resolve to know the Word of God is about to be put to the test once again. As we transition into this very difficult section, this next section in the Revelation, I must confess as far as I'm concerned, the whole business could have ended very nicely right here with the conclusion of chapter 7. After all, you remember? I'm not just saying that because it's been fun to look at chapter 7 friends, think of the flow of this book. We have the scene of final judgment occurring at the end of chapter 6, don't we? We then come to chapter 7 and it's a vision of heaven and eternity, being in the immediate presence of God, the removal of the curse and all of its effects, the provision of eternal satisfaction. Oh, I suppose I wouldn't mind a little more information on the new heaven and the new earth, from Revelation 21 and 22, the new Jerusalem and something of its wonderful blessings, but all in all I'm very content to have it all come to a neat and tidy conclusion right here. End of story. After all, the central point of the whole book is fulfilled with emphatic clarity and that is that all of God's promises are eternally realized in the people who seek life in Jesus Christ. Are you a Christian? Have you found forgiveness from God in the sacrifice of His Son? If you have, this is a portrait of your destiny. Here you are, triumphant, victorious, just as God promised. But as it were, the Apostle John now says to us, not quite yet. You've been sealed for that place. Heaven is your destiny, but it's still not the end of the story, not yet. And I must tell you it has been the anticipation of this not yet that has contributed to my desire to savor as much of the beauty of chapter 7 as we possibly could. The anticipation of the great difficulty that now faces us beloved as we draw near to chapters 8 and 9. For one, we face great difficulty in terms of interpretation. We've given our attention haven't we to the slitting of seven seals. Now we come to the sounding of seven trumpets. How do these seven trumpets and seven seals relate to each other? Are they to be understood consecutively? Or are they mutually interpreting? It's an interpretive difficulty. Moreover, we face great difficulty in terms of the subject matter itself. It's been so much fun as of light hasn't it? We've been anticipating heaven, talking about heaven and experiencing the happiness that goes along with anticipating that place. Now however, it's as though the revelation makes a sudden new turn. A 180 degree change of direction that returns us to the theme of judgment. In fact, greater judgment than we've ever yet seen. More intense judgment, more detailed judgment, more explicit judgment. And here is the difficulty, my friends, we all like talking about heaven. Judgment is not a theme well received by postmodernists like us. Truth be told, even if we embrace the reality of judgment, it's a cause for some embarrassment on our parts, isn't it? I mean, we don't want our friends and family members visiting Christ community church on one of these Sundays, do we? Is art going to be preaching about judgment? We feel some measure of intellectual embarrassment. When a college professor asks us, you really believe that God will eternally punish all those people who refuse to embrace the Christian gospel? At such moments, we feel our face blushing with humiliation. Some of you might find yourself embarrassed at such an acknowledgement in a so-called Christian school. Apparently, it seems beloved. We view ourselves as more compassionate than God himself because the fact is his own revelation doesn't reflect a slightest bit of shame when speaking of judgment in the most graphic and universal of language. My friends, while we revel in the anticipation of eternal life and all of its promised bliss, we must never forget simultaneously that God himself has enemies. Real enemies as it were that would seek to put him to death were such a thing possible. Please, don't be deceived by the apparent passivity or neutrality on the part of unbelievers. Just yesterday morning, as I was reading the next entry in the Valley of Vision, I came across these words, oh God, it is amazing that men can talk so much about man's creaturely power and goodness when if thou didst not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incarnate. Unbelievers hate God's holiness. Unbelievers attempt to defy God's sovereignty at times they even seem to destroy God's people. And the most telling revelation of this antagonism, beloved, comes into refusal to embrace the gift of his beloved son Jesus Christ as their savior. At that point, their professed passivity toward God, their neutrality toward spiritual things is exposed for what it is, really determined unbelief. Look beyond the packaging you see. So what then is the Lord of all righteousness to do, finally and ultimately? And the answer is exercise his divine judgment. And that is what is now before us as we turn our attention to Revelation chapter 8. In particular, friends, this first passage is something of a transition text. It serves as a hinge, as it were, moving us from one series of judgments into another. Now to help us understand this, this paragraph is best understood as being comprised of two parts. First and for this morning, the slitting of the seventh seal versus one and two. And then, secondly, for next time, the observation of a relevant drama. Let's now begin with a look at the slitting of the seventh seal, shall we? Verse 1. When he opened the seventh seal, when who opened the seventh seal? The lamb. The one who would slit open the prior seals on the scroll of destiny. When the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Literally it reads, there came silence. What a change. Given all that we've seen and heard in the prior couple of chapters? Remember chapter 4? It was thunder and lightning coming from the throne of God. It was the four living creatures, ceaselessly singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. It was the 24 elders falling down before the throne to sing of God's glory and honor and praise. There's movement, there's activity, there's music. And then in chapter 5, the same continues as we see this ever-expanding company of angels and human beings singing and praising and shouting and worshiping. In chapter 6, with the slitting of each of the first four seals, there sounds a voice like thunder. With the slitting of the fifth seal, we hear the loud cry of martyrs pleading with God for vindication. And finally, as the sixth seal is slit, we see and hear the dismantling of the entire created realm. The de-creation, as we call it, and accompanying it beloved, the terrifying cries of the unbelieving. In chapter 7, it's the joyous and powerful sound of the entire coming of the redeemed. Company of the redeemed, worshipping God, worshipping the lamb, joined by the angelic chorus who lend their own exclamations of enthusiastic praise. Now, however, with the slitting of the seventh seal, there comes absolute silence, the absence of any in all noise. In the context of all the movement and music and worship and loud voices and thunder and lightning and earthquakes, everything suddenly stops. How long can you stand the silence? It's a bit unnerving, isn't it? Coming on the heels of the prior activity, you sit there breathless because you don't know what's coming next. A minute goes by. You don't even want to move, unless you miss something. You even breathe more quietly. Five minutes go by. You start to feel a bit more unsettled. Ten minutes pass. The sound of the silence has become almost, almost deafening. You'd give anything if someone would break the silence. Will somebody please say something? It's now been 30 minutes. 30 minutes of total absence of sound in heaven. Why? To make you feel something of the all-end red that's just around the corner. If you would allow the Old Testament to help us at this point, what we discover is that in a great many Old Testament texts, silence is the precursor to the coming judgment of God. Be silent all flesh before the Lord, for he is aroused from his holy habitation, Zachariah 2. Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near Zeppaniah 1. There is meaning in this silence. You see, it is creation's expectant response to the Lord's impending arrival in judgment. It is, as it were, the calm, just before the coming storm. That's the idea here, beloved. What is unique about this scene, however, is that the scene of this silence is heaven itself. The idea is, the awareness of God's coming judgment has such awe-inspiring effects upon the beings in that place, both angelic and human, that not the slightest word dares to be spoken. Everything in dread is absolutely still. It's the anxious anticipation of judgment and then it begins to unfold. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and to them were given seven trumpets. Who are these seven angels? I don't know. They may be the seven angels specifically named in Jewish apocryphal literature, a couple of which are mentioned in the Bible, Gabriel, Michael, and then others, Raphael, Serial, Remyel, Reryel, Ragoel. Maybe that's who John is drawing our attention to. I don't know. They may be the same seven angels that pour forth the bowls of God's wrath in Revelation 16, that they are in distinct and well-known group is made clear by the Greek text that reads the seven angels, that they are at the ready to serve God in a moment's notices indicated by the fact that they stand before Him. They are given the text says seven trumpets. Notice, friends, look carefully, they do not take up the trumpets for themselves. Those trumpets do not belong to these angels. They do not take up the trumpets themselves, active voice, rather these trumpets are given to them, passive voice. In fact, it's called a divine passive. It's a way of saying without so many words, God has given these trumpets of judgment to the seven angels, telling us what? That the judgment they are about to enact cannot be blamed on anyone but God. While the seven angels in some sense might be the agents of this judgment, let it be known beyond all shadow of doubt that God alone is the author of it. This judgment is coming from Him. Now, why seven trumpets? Well, the answer to this question lies in understanding the purpose served by trumpets in the ancient world. Trumpets were not used primarily as we think of them today as musical instruments. A couple of weeks ago, Addison Williams, where is Addison? Is Addison here? Addison, are you here today? I thought I saw Scott Rebecca. Addison, are you here? Yeah, there you are. A couple of weeks ago, Addison came up to me right here after our worship service and said, I like it when the band plays, but I really like it when the trumpet plays. What a wise and discerning boy. That's right, Addison. The use of trumpets in the Bible, however, was not primarily from musical enjoyment. Trumpets were used as a means of sounding a signal. In Numbers, chapter 11, for example, Moses was instructed by God to make two trumpets of hammered silver. They were used to call the people together in assembly, talking about 600,000 men, plus women, plus children, do the numbers. Two million people, perhaps. How are you going to get them together? No radio, no CB, no email, no telephone. The trumpets were used to assemble the people. The trumpets were used to move the tribes along on their journey. The trumpets were to call people to sacred celebrations, to sound alarm in time of war. You remember the story of Nehemiah, don't you? The people returned to the land and begin the process of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And while they do so, they are living under the incessant threat of their enemies. And so, who is it that Nehemiah never left to leave his side? The man with the trumpet. Not because he might play him a tune when Nehemiah got discouraged. But to rally the people to battle, you see. The trumpets were used to signal the coronation of a king, 1 Kings 1. They were used to signal the release and restoration that were associated with that great day of Jubilee once every 50 years for shadowing, by the way, the final and resounding trumpet blast that will sound the second coming of Jesus Christ. But my dear friends, what is in view here, you see, is something a bit different even yet. See, in the Old Testament, trumpets were also used to announce impending judgment, whether God's judgment on idolatrous Israel or God's judgment on Israel's enemies. For example, Joel chapter 2, below 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. Judgment is coming upon the nation at the hand of the Babylonians. Sound the alarm, judgment is on its way. We see the same use of trumpets in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Zephaniah, the announcement of coming judgment. But beloved, you see, using trumpets in this manner grows out of an earlier Old Testament tradition. When Joshua led the Israelites into the land of promise, what city were they immediately confronted with on the west bank of the Jordan? The fortified city of Jericho. What was God's prescription for the destruction of that city? Once a day for six days, the Israelite army was to march around the walls of the city. Moreover, the priests, I would remind you, were instructed to carry the ark of the covenant along with that procession and escorting the ark, in fact walking in front of the ark, was another set of priests given trumpets to sound while they encircled the city. This they did once every day for six days. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times when the priests blew their trumpets, the people shouted, the walls collapsed. By the way, how many priests were assigned to sound the trumpets? Seven. The typological connection is obvious. This I think is the very thing that is going on in the mind of John right here. It is interesting to note that with the sound of the seventh trumpet here in the revelation, suddenly the ark of the covenant appears and a tent of the great city collapses. As one writer has so aptly said, like ancient Jericho, which blocked the entry of Israel into the promised land, battle on the great must fall before the people of God can find their permanent home in the New Jerusalem. Trumpets are used here beloved to declare God's coming and devastating judgment. And by the way, it is interesting to note that in the passage to which I referred earlier from the book of Joel, blow the trumpet for the day of the Lord is coming, that very text goes on to describe in symbol-laden terms an army pictured as locusts that will devastate the people in their land as an expression of divine judgment. Here, interestingly enough, at the sounding of the fifth trumpet, John takes that very symbolic language and speaks of devastating locusts that will be an expression of judgment on the part of God poured out upon those who refuse his son. Trumpets then are announced because the announcement of judgment is in view. You say, well, wait a minute now. I thought the slitting of the seven seals inaugurated God's judgment. I mean, if I remember correctly, that judgment brings us right up to the grave and final day of God's wrath, chapter 6, verse 17. What now are these judgments? How can there be any more judgments if the final judgment has already come? Precisely. You've hit the nail on the head, beloved. It's the million-dollar question. What is the relationship of the prior seven seal judgments to these eminent seven trumpet judgments? Well, to begin with, even the briefest consideration of these two series of judgments reveals the fact that they share certain similarities and certain differences. For example, both seal and trumpet judgments depict suffering in turmoil. Both can be divided into four and three. Four quickly mentioned judgments, followed by three more fully-developed judgments. Both scenes of trumpets and seals lead us to the scene of final judgment and the victory of God's people. Both indicate that the unbelieving world refuses to repent and there are other similarities that could be mentioned as well. On the other hand, there are differences between the seal and the trumpet judgments. In the first four seal judgments, riders are commissioned to bring calamities upon the world of men. No such intermediaries are used in the trumpet judgments. The fifth seal is concerned with the suffering of God's people. Remember? And the fifth trumpet, as we will see, is concerned with the suffering of the unbelieving. The various judgments themselves are very different as are the objects of these judgments. So we have seven seal judgments and we have seven trumpet judgments. They bear some similarity, they bear some difference. How are we to understand their internal relationship to each other? Two primary views have been most often suggested. Friends, I need you to put your thinking cap on here. This involves a little mental effort. Firstly, there are those who suggest that these various judgments are to be understood in a linear progression. That is to say, each of the seven seal judgments and each of the seven trumpet judgments are to be set end to end in a strictly chronological sequence, the seven trumpets following only after the slitting of the seven seal. Now, admittedly, while this is very westernized in its approach, very much a product of post-enlightenment thinking, and that is how we have been taught to think in our culture, there are many, many problems with this view, but the most insurmountable being the fact that the seals understood as perfectly parallel. That they systematically recapitulate one another as it were, they cover the same turf. In fact, the most extreme form of this sees the entire book of Revelation built upon seven recapitulation, seven recycled expressions of the same period of time between the first and second Cummings of Jesus Christ. Now, I grant you friends, at first blush, this sounds like a great idea, especially when we consider the priority that John himself assigns to the number seven. But the fact of the matter is, the moment you begin to work seriously with the text, you quickly begin to discover how artificial this is. You find yourself having to force things into categories to which they really don't belong. It's a neat, tidy little package, but it's a little too stylized, and the text just will not bend to it. Well, the first view, you see, this chronological view emphasizes the differences between these two series of judgments. The second view, the recapitulation view, emphasizes the parallels, the similarities in these two series of judgments. The problem I would submit to you is that we need an understanding of this business that somehow captures both the differences and the similarities. Now, with these two predominant views, the second, I think, gets us much, much closer to the truth, but still friends, it falls short when you begin to deal with the details and intricacies of the text, which is what this business is all about. Let me make a stab at telling you how I understand this. Now, you may not agree with me, and that's okay. You have the right to be wrong. But all teasing aside now, really, all teasing aside, let me give you my best attempt at this business. And you be good barriens, and you go home and check me out. The three big groupings of seven in the Revelation are these three series of judgments, the seven seal openings, the seven trumpets, and as we have yet to see beginning in chapter 15 to seven bold judgments. Now, seven is John's symbol, latent number, four completeness, isn't it? We've seen that again and again and again. And therefore, in some sense, each series of judgments completes God's judgment on the unrighteous world. And here, then, is the similarity we see. Here is the parallel. Here is this point of recapitulation. There is recycled information. Moreover, these three series of judgments are so tightly connected that the seventh seal opening is nothing less than the sounding of the seven trumpets. And the seventh trumpet includes the outpouring of the seven balls. Thus, each series of judgments brings us to the same end, final judgment, new heaven, new earth, but from what appears to be different starting points progressively closer to the end. So while there is considerable parallelism, considerable repetition, considerable recapitulation, there is also discernible progression and advancement. And let me illustrate this for you. It is noteworthy that in the three series of judgments, we see a progression in severity. Listen now. The judgments of the seal openings affect a quarter of the earth. The next set of judgments, the trumpet judgments affect a third of the earth with the final judgments, the judgments of the balls being unlimited and without any restraint whatsoever. There was a progression in intensity. Moreover, you know what I find very interesting? There is an initial mention made of another sevenfold series of judgments that's not spelled out for us in the revelation. And nearly everybody misses this very important point. In chapter 10, take a look at it. We read of seven funders. It's another set of judgments. Another series of judgments that is announced, declared, but then suddenly, rescinded, revolt. Here is this great and mighty angel. Some people actually think this is a reference to Jesus himself. And in the middle of verse 3, when he shouted, the voices of the seven funders spoke. And when the seven funders spoke, I was about to write. But I heard a voice from heaven say, see you up with the seven funders of said and do not write it down. And in the imagery of what a scroll means as we understood it back in chapter 5, what God is saying is, we're going to skip this. This ain't going to happen. Now, beloved, this is very interesting. You follow the pattern here. Follow the pattern. It tells us something. The seven seal judgments affecting the quarter of the earth are followed by the seven trumpet judgments affecting the third of the earth. These are then followed by the announcement of seven funders as we might naturally expect affecting a half of the earth, followed by the seven bull judgments that affect the totality of the earth. You say, well, why were these seven funder judgments rescinded? Well, the text tells us that after both the seal judgments affecting the quarter of the earth and the trumpet judgments affecting the third of the earth, there was no repentance on the part of unbelievers. Contrary to what we might naturally think, even expressions of judgment cannot produce repentance. That's how hard the human heart is apart from the intervention of the grace of God. Therefore, you see, to set in motion another series of judgments designed now to affect half the earth would be pointless. God moves straight ahead to the bulls. Skips over these funders and begins to exercise his judgment on the entire earth. Are you catching the point, beloved? Have I lost you? This intensification, this advancement in each of the series of judgments as we move nearer to the end, you say, well, art, how do I draw a chart of this? It defies all charts. You say, well, how do I make a one-for-one airtight correlation between each of these judgments and specific events in world history? You don't. How do you illustrate a concept that simultaneously stresses some measure of recapitulation and some measure of advancement? Are there specific historical events in view? Yes. Event specific to that time? Yes. Event specific to our time? Yes. Event specific to the end of time? Yes. Can this design then be understood in strictly historical terms? No. You say, well, this is like nothing I've ever read before. Do you really mean that? Yes, you say. Then you've taken another major leap into the world of apocalyptic. It's not a history textbook, beloved. This is not the book of access. This is not the book of first kings. It's a piece of art or better yet. It's a musical theme with many variations. Each variation recapitulating the original theme and yet simultaneously adding something new to the composition as it hastens to its conclusion. The question you should be asking is this. Weren't the seal judgments enough? They bring us to the end of time, final judgment. Why the trumpets? The trumpet judgments are added to the seals. And the bowls are yet to be added to the trumpets. So as to tell us, judgment is real. It presently continues without interruption. And that as we progressively draw closer to the final day ordained by God, we can be certain that this judgment will only intensify. No unbeliever will escape it. Never forget the imagery, beloved. One quarter, one third, and then not one half, all people everywhere. Even now, dear friends, the judgment of God is being exercised upon all who defy his salvation in Jesus Christ. These trumpets will prove terrifying for those of you who remain in defiant unbelief. Don't persist in this state of eternal condemnation. Don't remain in that condition. Embrace Jesus Christ, embrace God's son so that God is no longer your enemy because until you do, he will be your enemy and this is your doom. Embrace this one who is endured the punishment of the judgment of God in the place of those of us who so rightly deserve it. And then what happens? These trumpets then for the Christian is no longer a sound of despair. It's a signal of God's victory over his enemies. That's why judgment for us, beloved, is a cause for worship. We see it later in the revelation. That's why judgment for us is a source of praise. It heralds the vindication of God in his people. It comes to pass, don't forget, because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and invested with absolute sovereignty over all people. He has earned the right to open the scroll of destiny. Don't turn your nose up in judgment as though somehow you're more compassionate than God. Judgment is one of the most profound expressions of the triumph of Jesus Christ. The Father judges no one, he says, John 5, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. This for us ought never to be a cause of shame, but fuel for praise, in fact, as we will see next time. We who are his followers do not just sit idly by and passively observe this judgment. We play a direct part in carrying it out, even now. Praise be to God that because of Jesus Christ, we need not fear it. Would you bow your heads beloved with me?