All right, are we going? Yeah. I guess we're okay. All right, I'm going to read a passage from our text today that I think that we'll get to today. That is at the end of chapter 9, verses 20 and 21. This comes at the conclusion of the first six trumpet blasts and the flags and such that follow them. And this is what John writes at the end of the sixth trumpet. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot either see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality, or their thefts. Let's pray. Our Lord, these are sobering realities and very thought-provoking words that cause us to pause and think about the effects of your works in our world. We know, Lord, that we should tremble at your judgments and we should rejoice in your mercies and we should praise you for all of your works. And when we see that the ungodly balk at all of your warnings, it grieves us and it is a warning to us as well that we should pay attention to your works. We thank you this morning that you have granted us again the opportunity to study your word to know you through it. We confess once again our dullness of hearing and our inability to comprehend many of these things, but you, Lord, have already promised us understanding. And Jesus, you even marveled that God had hidden these things from the wise and understanding but had revealed them to babes, and we would be your babes in Christ, those who are ready to receive the knowledge that you give. We pray that you be among us today with your spirit in Christ's name. Amen. Well, good morning. We are in chapter 8 of the Book of Revelation, ready to look at the seven trumpets. I think we got through chapter 8 more or less through verse 6 where we come right to the time when the first angel is about to blow. Let's see, do we need any reminder of the context? Seven trumpets are going to be blown by seven angels who are already told. And this comes at the conclusion of what other event in John's visionary experience. The seven seals, right? The conclusion of the seven seals, the seventh seal is broken and then there's a silence in heaven as the prayers of the saints are about to be heard. And we see this scene of worship where the angel takes the prayers and mingles them with fire in a censor. And the smoke goes up before the Lord and then he takes that censor, fills it with coals, and throws it down upon the earth. And then the angels are told to blow their trumpets, or they do blow their trumpets. Verse 7 begins with the first trumpet. The first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood, which fell on the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up. And all the green grass was burned up. Maybe a couple of things I should say before we take up the seals very much in particular. I think we've already pointed out the interpretative question, a major one. How do we look at these trumpets and these plagues? Do they concern things that happen only right at the very end of history just before the coming of Christ, or do they pertain to things that might happen throughout the whole interadvent era? And I've suggested that the latter is the case. For one thing, we've already in the sixth seal come to the end of the world. So we've already been given one picture of the end, and now in John's visionary experience in the revelation, he's shown the same period of time from a different aspect, seen different aspects of what's going on. The first in the seals, we saw many of the things happening that Jesus had predicted in the all of that discourse when he spoke a lot with regard to the experience of his disciples. That is, don't be alarmed when you hear of wars and rumors of wars. All these things must happen, famines and pestilence and so forth. All these things must happen that the end is not yet, and you will be delivered up before councils and so forth, there will be persecutions. Now it seems that he's looking at the same period of time from a little bit different point of view, a little bit different angle. And I think that a key perspective on this is given to us in the verses that we read at the beginning, that would be chapter 9, verses 20 and 21, which gives us a perspective. What would that perspective be on these from those chapter 9, verses 20 and 21? Right, right, that even all of these plagues, no matter what they are, and some of them I think are kind of hard to interpret, but no matter what they are, how they really figure and play out in history, this seems to be one of the major points. That those who survive all these things still did not repent, still did not repent of their lack of worship of their idolatry basically. Now you look at the first table of the law, and then all their thefts and murders and immorality from the second table of the law, they didn't repent. So this is one thing that I think we're really supposed to see about all these things, no matter what actual events in history they might correspond with. It did not have the function, and evidently this was one of the outward functions of these, but it did not bring people the ungodly to repentance. Another thing that we notice about these judgments is that they are not, at least the first six, are not the last judgment, because why? They're indicated in several of these that, let's say a third of the earth is scorched, or a third of mankind is killed, or a third this and a third that. In other words, they're partial, partial judgments, they're not final, they're not full, they're not ultimate, they're not complete. And this again, I think adds to the impression that we're talking about judgments and tragedies and so forth that happen throughout history, but they're not the end, they're not the final. People have noticed some general correspondences with the plagues on Egypt, maybe in reading through this you pick some of these up. They don't correspond exactly, but there are many things that remind you of the plagues in Egypt, locusts and darkness and water turning to blood and so forth. So there are parallels with the way God has judged nations in the past, but these are just aspects of the trumpets that are interesting or useful, I think, as we look at them. Another thing I tried to point out last week before we left, that was that notice the connections throughout most or all of these trumpets with fire or smoke. And think again of what sets off the trumped judgments. Remember the angel does something, what's that? The prayers, that's right, that's crucial. The prayers and then the angel does what? The sensor, right, throws the burning sensor down on the earth. So I think there is a very powerful image there, the fire that we keep seeing in these trumpets, must have some connection with that sensor that has been thrown down, that sensor that is full of coals and effectively connected with the prayers of the saints. That got us into the question last week of how should Christians pray and what role does their prayer play in these kinds of judgments. That is one that I think we will be able to revisit, come back to because it really keeps coming up. The whole question of God's judging works throughout history, especially at the last judgment. Partially in response to his people's prayers, partially in response to delivering his people out of their distress that is caused by unbelievers, not that all their distress is caused by unbelievers, but that's one aspect of the world we live in in one aspect of the judgments that God performs. Okay, all that is a sort of overview, setting our perspective, I hope, on the trumpets. Let's go to them, the actual description of the trumpets and what follows them is relatively short. We're just given a few words on most of them until we get to the fifth trumpet. I read the first trumpet blast when hail and fire mixed with blood fall to the earth, a third of the earth is burned up, a third of the trees are burned up and all green grass is burned up. Again, we see that this proportioning of thirds must indicate that at least that this is not the final, this is not the end, this is not the final judgment, whatever this has to do with. We will notice that the first four of the trumpets have to do with judgments or calamities that befall the creation, the inanimate creation. If you look at the first one, it's on the earth, the second one is on the sea, and the third is on the rivers and the pounds of water, and the fourth has to do with the sky, the heavens, that part of God's creation with the sun and the moon and the stars.
The second trumpet is blown and something like a great mountain burning with fire, there's the fire again, falls on, is thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea becomes blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea die, and a third of the ships are destroyed. The mountain may be a symbol for a wicked kingdom, it is used that way in a couple of old testament passages, so there could be some symbolism here, but whatever the mountain stands for, we have a tragedy that recalls to our mind, one of the judgments on Egypt with the sea turning into blood. But again, it's not the final judgment, because it happens in thirds, in a moment we'll talk a little bit more about the literal aspect of this, should we take this to be a literal third, we take all the language here literally, we're going to try to let that question bubble up in your mind a little bit more, so let's go on and just go to the third trumpet, oh notice also that the ships, a third of the ships are destroyed. With a third trumpet, verse 10, a great star falls from heaven, blazing like a torch, there again is your fire, and it fell on a third of the rivers on the fountains of water, the name of the star is Wormwood, a third of the waters become Wormwood, that would mean just bitter to the taste, and many men died of the water because it was made bitter. So we're told that many died, we're not told how many, but many died. The fourth trumpet, the fourth angel blows his trumpet and the third of the sun is struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light was darkened, a third of the day was kept from shining and likewise a third of the night. Here I think it is a bit tough if you're holding out for a literal interpretation. I don't know if you've tried to conceptualize a third of the sun being dark and the third of the moon being dark and the third of the stars and so forth. I mean any ideas on that, the comeback is always, well God can do that if He wants, you know, and that's not trying to downplay that aspect, God can certainly do whatever He wants, but pressing a lot of this imagery I think gets very difficult when you have something like this. Even the previous ones, a third of the living creatures in the ocean, a third of the trees and so forth, how would this be measured? That's just part of the one indication to me that we're not talking about literal occurrences on Earth. Any comments on that? Yes, it doesn't seem like it would make the day shorter because a third of the day would do without it. Right, that's a bit hard to conceive of, isn't it? How is the sun affected such that a third of the day becomes dark? Let's see a third of their light was darkened, a third of the day was kept from shining, likewise a third of the night. If you keep in mind the original purpose of the lights in the sky, do you remember what that was in Genesis? What's that? It's a guide, yeah, anybody else, any more on that? Yeah, they're said to be as signs, right? He gave them as signs, he gave the lights, the sun and the moon and the stars, as signs for us, I guess so that we can tell the movements of the planets and measure time and so forth. They're regular so we can study them. And so perhaps this has to do with confusion that results from sin and from our misinterpreting God signs, the regularity of God's creation and so forth. I don't know, again we're just not told a lot about what these have to do with. The description is not very lengthy. Maybe we get a little bit more insight when we go to the longer descriptions in the fifth and sixth. But before we get to them, John sees something else. Verse 13, I looked and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew in mid-heaven. Whoa, whoa, whoa to those who dwell on the earth, at the blast of the other trumpets, which the three angels are about to blow. Now there really is a point to him to the eagle saying, whoa, three times, right? Because there are three angels left to blow trumpets. And after the next one, we're going to hear, you know, one whoa has passed, two more are to come. So the, the woes, the three woes are significant. Just what the eagle stands for, not sure about that, not going to wait, not going to give any guesses there. But Carolyn has one. I'll accept that, but we weren't going to talk about America to chapter 16, but since you brought it up, okay. Well, the eagle was also a sign of the Roman legions. An angel, what? Oh, it says an angel? An eagle. Really? Verse 13 says an eagle? An angel? Oh, I wear the textual criticism here. No, no, I can't read the Bible. So, end you. Yes. Okay. Hold on here. Right. We have a portion of the coin A tradition that has, that has angel. Yeah, the words are not all that dissimilar. It's obviously a copying error. But this angel like eagle or eagle like angel, I'm going to go with eagle. Anyway, the message is, whoa, and you'll notice something we already pointed to a moment ago is the first four of these trumpet blasts. In fact, primarily, or at least first of all, the inanimate creation, right? The domains over which man is given authority, that is the earth, the sea, the inland waters, in this case, and heaven. We're going to find this several times in Revelation where the three basic areas, you might say, of creation, heaven, earth, and the sea appear, keep reappearing, usually they're divided up somehow into four. So the oceans and the inland waters, the fountains, something. But this is how Revelation conceives of the world, the God made, the God made heaven and earth and the sea, and then usually some other aspect of the waters is brought out. But now the last three trumpets have to do more specifically with mankind. Even the first three affect mankind because a third of the ships are burned up and if the water supply is contaminated, then it certainly is going to affect mankind. But the last three, you notice the flying messenger says, whoa, whoa, whoa, to those who dwell on the earth. Okay, and so in chapter nine, the fifth angel blows his trumpet. And John sees a star fallen from heaven to earth and he was given the key of the shaft for the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft for the bottomless pit or the abyss. And from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkened. I've already heard about the sun being darkened. Darkened with the smoke from the shaft, then from the smoke came locusts on the earth and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree. They had already been damaged by the first trumpet blast. But only those of mankind and only a portion of mankind, right? Only those who have not the seal of God on their foreheads. Now, these who were not sealed were tortured for five months, not killed. Their torture was like the torture of a scorpion and men will seek death and not find it long to die. And then we have a description of the locusts which I won't go over that all, but you can sort of glance through that. The fifth trumpet and the fallen angel. Is the fallen angel Satan himself? Is it another angel? Commentators differ on that. I don't know that it really makes a lot of difference. But the bottomless pit, the abyss, will come into play later on in the book. In chapter 20, an angel is given the key to the bottomless pit and opens it and, remember what he does, Satan is cast into it and the angel blocks the pit over him. So the pit comes up later. Is this before or after that event in chapter 20? Well, that's a good question. I tend to think that it's actually after that, but be that as it may. Something comes out of the pit when it is unlocked. And what comes out first is smoke. Now again, here we have an illusion to fire. This time, the fire comes up from below as it were from hell. For whatever significance that has, the first four seem to come from the bow down and this one comes up from below. Maybe the effects are even going down to hell and some effects from that are going to be felt here. The air is darkened with a smoke. Now again, is this a literal description of something that will happen or does it have some other significance? Well, let's read on. The smoke from the smoke come locus. Anybody have anything other than locus in their attacks? I just want to check before we go on. Everybody has locus and they were given power like the power of scorpions. And notice what do these locus attack? Now the only locus I know of, you know, attack vegetation. But these are not parming vegetation. These are special kind of locus. And they only afflict mankind. And they must be pretty smart locus because they only attack certain members of mankind. Those who have not been sealed with the seal. Now what does that make you think of? The seal. Have we read about the seal before? Any sealing before? Yes, of course, chapter seven. When angels were being told, four angels at the four corners of the earth with four winds told not to harm anything until they had sealed the servants of God with the seal of God on their foreheads. So I think there has to be a connection here. The locus can only harm those who are not sealed with the seal of God. So this has to do only with unbelievers. There are believers on the earth at this time. But this, whatever it is, really only afflicts or affects, at least primarily directly, the unsealed. That, too, maybe helps us to try to conceptualize what this might be talking about. The five months, well, there are significance of the five months. Many commentators say, I think this is probably right. It's just part of the image because the five months would have been like the growing season. The time when a locus plague might hit, I last for the whole growing season. So that's part of the image. It's not, again, a literal figure for how long this plague will last. What kind of affliction is this? Now, again, you can try to work this out in a more literal fashion. I think that all the indications are that that's not really the right approach. And that this should probably be seen as primarily a spiritual affliction of darkness, light being taken away, the smoke from hell, clouds over the light, and puts these people in darkness. Darkness is, of course, a biblical image for the darkness of sin and deception, of not being able to recognize the light and what the light brings to light. We get to this description in verses 7 through 11, 7 through 10, really. And again, is this a literal description of these locus? And are we to think of something like nuclear helicopters, which is the approach that some people take? And again, try to think of what this presupposes. This approach that I just mentioned sort of takes the view that John is, let's say, taken forward in history, and it's allowed in sort of describing things just as a news reporter would see them and describe them. And John, of course, has never seen nuclear helicopters. So, when he writes, he's got to figure out a way to describe them that would make sense to his first readers. So, this is why it comes up with this imagery. On their heads, something like crowns of gold, faces like human faces, hair like women's hair, teeth like lions, teeth scales like breastplates, and so forth. That's how you describe a helicopter, or a nuclear helicopter, whatever kind of helicopter it might be. Or maybe it's not a helicopter, maybe some other device of human destruction. But there is that approach. And remember earlier on in the class, when I said I don't think that is the kind of approach that we should take to the symbolism in Revelation. Rather than thinking of John witnessing the actual events of human history and then trying to put them down into his own words, I think he's actually shown visions that are already in symbolic form. Remember that, or does that make sense? Already in symbolic form. And think about visions and dreams throughout scripture. You know, you got the fat skinny cows or the skinny cows swallowing up the fat cows, right? And again, it's not that somewhere in Egypt there were seven skinny cows and there were seven fat cows and you had to go out and find them and watch this strange event in nature. No, they stood for something, right? And that's I think what we've got to keep in mind here. John is seeing something and he's describing it, I think he's describing it fairly literally as he sees it. But that doesn't mean that that is what it's going to look like in history, right? When it actually comes to that, whatever it is, whatever it might be, doesn't mean that that's what it will actually look like. So I think that that is important to keep in mind. Whatever John is seeing, he's seeing it in symbolic form already. Any comments on that question tonight? Yeah. Right. Good point. Good point. I guess God could flatten the earth out if you wanted to. But see, that's the sort of thing we've got to get around to if we try to take everything literally. Right. As a literal description of actual time space history, that's a good point. And I think you could do that again and again and again with the imagery here, which should just reinforce to us, I think, that this is this is visionary imagery. And whereas that may make it difficult to figure out, it's always easy to say, well, that's exactly what's going to happen since it hasn't happened yet. It's always easy to say that, but it's not as easy to say what this might symbolize Andy. Do I think God made it purposely vague? Well, to an extent, I think, yeah, there, there are always mysteries in scripture that don't, we don't seem to know exactly what they mean until they happen. You know, you could even look at messianic prophecy that way, I think. God gave us a pretty good idea through messianic prophecy. What Christ is going to be like and so forth. But really, if you didn't know it beforehand, it would be hard to put all the pieces together. I think it would be hard to know when, you know, in between the span of creation and the term earth. And again, keep in mind, right at the end of the sixth plague, what we're told. Again, I don't think the point is that we're to try to pinpoint every detail here. The point is that through all of these curses that men didn't repent. And it was a sign of their hardening, hardening against God. And in a way that, oops, that just always well in a sense, magnifies the justness of God's judgment as when Pharaoh was hardening and so forth. So there is a definite theological point that's being made here. As to this description, just a few words with the strange description. Again, I was suggesting they're not John's attempt to put into his reader's language, you know, some kind of late 20th, early 21st century devices of destruction. Several commentators have pointed out that actually this is not far different from how people in the engineers might have described a locust. The strange is that may seem there is an old Arab proverb that's often quoted that says that a locust just describing a locust has a head like a horse, a breast like a lion, feet like a camel, a body like a serpent. I mean, that is just a description of sort of colorful and creative description, but it's just a description of a locust. And it may not have sounded all that strange to John's audience. Maybe things are being magnified a little bit. Maybe it's being intensified and it's certainly a terrifying image. But it may not be, you know, just so out of character in the ancient Near East to describe it that way. Of course, we do have other descriptions of the Bible of locust or other mentions of locusts. You think through the prophets. You know, there is a locust attack in Joel, chapters 1 and 2. In Jeremiah 51, there is a description of cavalry of a warring enemy described like locusts. I'll just read this to you. This is speaking about the destruction of Babylon by the meads. You know, the meads came in and took over Babylon when Babylon's days were up. Set up a standard on the earth. Blow the trumpet among the nations. Again, we have a trumpet there as a sort of a signal for this destruction. Prepare the nations for war against her. Bring up horses like bristling locusts. Horses were the means of, you know, a cavalry, a warring army, and they were brought in like a locust plane. So you see how the image of locusts is even used in the Old Testament to describe a war. So again, that's already using it figuratively. And so I would say here that it's a figurative description. Like a warring host, the demons, the forces of darkness, arising from the pit of hell, wreak their deceptive work on mankind, all those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. I think of what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse that those days are so bad that if it were possible, they would even have deceived the elect. You know, it's not possible. The same sort of idea, everyone's deceived but the elect, but those who have the seal of God on them. Well, I'm going to go to the sixth trumpet. And verse 12, the first woe has passed, behold, two woes are still to come. The sixth angel blows his trumpet and John hears from the four horns of the golden altar, a voice from the four horns, saying to the sixth angel, release the four angels who are bound at the river Euphrates, and they're released. They've been waiting for that hour, day, month, year to kill a third of mankind. Let's see. I think there was a third of mankind was mentioned earlier, right? What's that? Okay, a third of the trees. I was thinking that a third of mankind was mentioned somewhere else. Is that all right?
The locusts. No, they didn't kill. Well, anyway, a third of mankind is killed here. Verse 15. The number of the troops of the cavalry in here, horses are mentioned. It's twice 10,000 times 10,000. I guess that is 200 million. Anybody who's quick in math can quickly add that up. It's in Greek. You've heard of myriads of myriads or myriads times myriads is a biblical way of expressing numbers. And this is like myriads, double myriads times a myriads, a myriads is 10,000. Okay. And he sees the horses with breastplates. The riders have breastplates color of fire and sapphire and of sulfur. The heads of the horses like lions, heads, fire and smoke and sulfur issue from their mouths. By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed. The power of the horses and their mouths and their tails, tails are like serpents with heads and by means of them, they wound and then we come to the concluding verses there about the lack of repentance.
Again, once again, I would say this is hard to take literally. Perhaps we could conceive of a cavalry of 200 million horses and riders. I've heard over the years that China is the only nation in the world that could do this. They could do this. They could mount an army of 200 million people on horseback. I don't know. Maybe that's true. We have a military expert here with us this morning.
Right. Think of all the breastplates and the paint that has red and blue and yellow or the colors here. And you're going to get 200 million horses. Great point. And compounded on that. I mean, these are not your ordinary horses. You're finding 200 million horses about enough, but horses like these with tails, like serpents with heads on them. And out of their mouths come these plagues. Well, again, whatever this is talking about, I don't think we should be trying to press the language in any kind of literal fashion. What might it represent then? Well, the 200 million, I think it's just a biblical way of saying innumerable, a whole lot more than you can count. Myriads and myriads is sometimes used that way in the Old Testament, just to say an indefinite, huge number. Myriads, we've probably still used that way today. You know, we use myriads. It's not a definite number. So I think that's what's going on here. They have power to wound and they wound by their mouths. Notice again, sorry, but it's not even the riders who do anything. The riders aren't said to have bows or guns or, you know, nuclear or whatever. It's the horses that do all the damage. And they do the damage by what comes out of their mouths and the tails, whatever that means. The mouths would be easy to associate with words and deceptive words and, you know, information, what the tails might be. I'm not really sure. But it's interesting that in chapter 16 with the sixth bowl judgment, we have something that is a bit similar. Excuse me. Here we have a few different characters, but it may be talking about essentially the same kind of thing. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the Great River Euphrates. There's Euphrates again that was mentioned in the sixth trumpet. Euphrates, of course, was the river, the Great River East of the Holy Land. It was sort of the border of Syria, Babylonia, that area where all the great enemies of God were in the Old Testament, most of them. And we have the mention of Euphrates. And then we have, they're preparing the way for the kings from the east, from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, issued three foul spirits. You've got the mouth and you've got three foul spirits here. And they're, okay, mouth of the false prophet, the three foul spirits like frogs. They're depicted as frogs, maybe think of the Egypt plagues, it's a plague of frogs. For they are demonic spirits performing signs who go abroad to the kings of the whole world to assemble them. So, they deceive, they lead out the kings of the world for the battle of the great day of Armageddon. Well, this is similar in many ways to what's happening in the sixth trumpet. You have the river Euphrates, you have the three coming out of the mouths of the horses. Excuse me, here it's three plagues, probably plagues that have to do with, again, with deception, demonic deception, that afflicts mankind.
Right, yeah. I would say so. I would say it's spread out through Christian history. There's some commentators I respect that say that it's particularly what's happening towards the end of that era with great wars that are able to kill huge numbers of people. Yeah, I don't know, that could be, but yeah, but I do think it's not a, not any kind of literal number. It's a general term that looks at the result of demonic deception, its destructive effects, and that it ends up killing people. And again, this is focusing particularly on the ungodly. And again, I would stress that this is imagery. How can you conceive of any kind of battle, any kind of attack, where only non-Christians feel the brunt of it, and not Christians? I don't know, I don't know how possible that, I don't know if we're intended to think that way, but it's, when terrible things happened to Christians and non-Christians, because they do happen to both, the meaning of that is entirely different. You can say that God is executing chastisement or punishment or retribution on the ungodly, but that's not what's happening to Christians, even though they might, you know, you and I are on the titanic, you're a believer and I'm not, and we both drown, or both maybe survive, and we endure that terrible disaster. But it's one thing, the meaning of it is one thing for the ungodly, the meaning of it is another for the Christian. So it could be, again, we're to keep these kinds of things in mind, all these things are happening throughout history. When in the symbolism of the first vision, a third of the trees are burned up and a third of the green grasses, or whatever, the all the green grasses is burned up, and the next one with the sea turning to blood. It seems like a universalistic sort of image that might afflict Christians and non-Christians, and yet Christians are protected from the divine judgment that it depicts. It's not God's judgment on them personally, even though they might suffer effects of it. It's something else, it's their chasening, it's their disciplining, it's their enduring of trials, but it's not the same. Probably so, yeah. Could it be that it's a spiritual death here? Maybe, but we are told that some don't die. A third of them are killed, but again, one of the main points of the trumpet judgments, I think, is when we get down to verse 20, and we're told that the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols, that did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their morality, or their thefts. So, again, there is some time left on earth, and these who are left are not repented. Then we go on to an interlude. Any other final questions on the trumpets? Alex, evil and gales fall in angels, or... Yeah, the four angels who are bound. And the ones who are bound. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good question. What do you say about these angels? Are they evil angels? God's angels, good angels? They certainly do their work as a result of God's bidding. I think that's ultimately we have to say that. They're doing their work at his bidding. What's that? In essence, what? I'm sorry. Right. Yeah, exactly. But I think here that the way that's depicted is in this particular way of the trumpets. The trumpets are being blown. God's angels, the seven angels are blowing trumpets, and this is part of the divine worship service, and these happen as a result. So, I think it's a powerful, it's a very interesting way of saying that, that this has happened. Oh, they're only allowed to do what God allows them to do. It was the first 11th of chapter 19 to explain that. Forrelation 9, that would apply for the lockers, and if that would also be true for the sixth trumpet. That's true for the lockers. Oh, the lockers, okay. Oh, I thought in chapter 19. Chapter 9. The angel of the bottomless pit, is that what you're talking about? Yes, and there is debate over that. Is that Satan himself or is that another angel? The angel of the bottomless pit whose name is Abaddon and Apollyon. Yeah, but even if it's not Satan, we are talking about... And this would be somebody pretty high up in the hierarchy. I suppose. I suppose. Yes, I think that's true. The question is, as we get closer to the coming of Christ, will evil increase. I think there are indications that persecution of Christians will increase. Yes, remember just for one striking image that we'll get to later, at the end of the millennium, Satan is released from his prison, and he's able to gather the forces of Gog and Megag against the camp of the saints. I think that depicts a sort of encircling of the church by the forces of the world and wickedness. The problem is, I don't know how long that will take, how long it will last, and just how intense it will be. So I don't know if we can say that we are necessarily, let's say, the church in our country is undergoing great persecution. I don't think that necessarily means the return of Christ is right around the corner, but I think that in general, Christians will suffer more persecution right towards you. And that doesn't mean that before that, the church won't enjoy tremendous success in the gospel. We know there have been times in history where there's been kind of an ebb and a flow. And times in history went, the outward effects of the church have been tremendous. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's good, and they do, you know, some better than others. But it seems like there are passages in Revelation that have particular concentration of allusions to, let's say, Amos or Ezekiel or Daniel or Isaiah. And yeah, I think that is a very rich study. It doesn't necessarily mean that, let's say, what Amos was talking about is now being fulfilled in Revelation. That's a little bit tricky part of it. It might, it's mean that, but it doesn't always mean that. Sometimes it's like the imagery that is used in that old prophecy is being sort of resurrected and used again in Revelation. We get the whole thing, we get into Babylon, you know, and how many times Babylon occurs in the Old Testament and the imagery surrounding Babylon. But yeah, you're right. And that's interesting, I hadn't thought of that. That Wormwood occurs in Amos. Yeah, and these again are, I'm sorry.
Yeah, and particularly the trumpet call, and Isaiah passage that I read out of chapter 51 also has a trumpet calling into battle and then the horses like Locus. So it is interesting how Revelation does dip into all the prophets and use the imagery again. Yeah, that's good. I'll have to look at Amos again. Anything else on the trumpets? John is going to have another interlude between the six and the seventh trumpet. Just like we saw an interlude between the six and the seventh seal. Chapter 10 begins, and we'll just begin this. Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven wrapped in a cloud with a rainbow over his head. And his face was like the sun, his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand and he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. He called out with a great voice like a lion roaring when he called out the seven thunders sounded when the seven thunders had sounded I was about to write. But I heard a voice from heaven saying, see up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down. And then the angel swears that verse six there will be no delay. But in the days of the trumpet called to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God as he announced to have serviced the prophets should be fulfilled. We'll talk of course about this a little bit more next time, but the angel and the announcement that in the days of the seventh trumpet, the mystery of the prophets will be fulfilled. I will take that to mean and if there's no delay, no more delay. Take that to mean that that will be the climax. That will be the climax of what was predicted by the prophets. We'll have to do with the second coming of Christ and the judgment that ensues. So again, keep that in mind as either sort of parameters I think that help us get a perspective on this. What is going to happen with the seventh seal? But we're told that that's the end. The delay is finally over. And we actually see that I think in chapter 11, verse 15, when the seventh angel blows his trumpet and a loud voice says in loud voices say, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. And then we have a reference in verse 18 to the time of the dead to be judged for awarding nice servants and for destroying the destroyers of the earth. So and that sounds again like the last judgment. The wicked and the righteous are judged together. That again will bring us then to another vision of the last day, last judgment. And so just as the six, actually with the sixth seal, you can say the seven seals, bring us to a vision of the last judgment. So the seven trumpets do as well. Another indication I think that we have to look at these as recapitulating one another. Coming back at looking at the same set of events of the same period from a different angle. Okay. And now we're going to see next week what happens in this interim between the six and the seventh trumpet and hopefully try to get a better idea of what's being said there. A little bit of controversy in chapter 11 about the temple there. What does the temple represent and what might this say about when revelation was written and how we should interpret the whole of revelation. We'll go into that next time. Yes. Oh, good. Good. Very good. All right. We'll be studying Amos this week. All right. Great. Let's let's pray. We praise you, Lord, for the way you meet our needs. In every way you have granted us all things that pertain to life and to godliness. We thank you for opening your word to us this morning. We pray that what was defective in our thinking you would forgive and correct. When we pray that that which is true, you would magnify in our souls and that it would be conducive to our worship of you. Please, the Lord be with all those here and all those among our membership who are struggling at this time with particularly grave problems, problems of health, relationships and other things. May we be our god this day. May we be your people in Christ's name. Amen. How I describe the most cricket in here when I'm my soul. Oh, you know, yeah.