Do You Hear the Trumpets? (Revelation 8:2–11:19)
Why would an all-powerful, all-merciful God allow cancer, famine, and terror? In Revelation 8:2–11:19, the seven trumpets answer from heaven’s altar, where the prayers of suffering saints rise. God’s limited judgments on the world today warn of the final judgment and call sinners to repent. Meanwhile, the church keeps bearing witness to Jesus. It is measured and preserved, even though it is trampled and even killed. And when the seventh trumpet sounds, the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
Last Sunday the paintbrush hit the bottom of the wall as the sixth seal ended with the Second Coming. Tonight, the brush goes back to the top. Chapters 8–11 paint the same age between Jesus’ first and second comings, this time to the sound of seven trumpets. Trumpets announce that something serious is coming.
They speak to an old question: If God is both all-powerful and all-merciful, how can there be evil in the world? Childhood cancer, famine in Africa, terrorists who use children as bombs in God’s name, and every other kind of disease, destruction, and death. If they exist, the argument goes, God can’t. I’ll come back to this at the end.
But first, why do these things exist? The Word of God says God made the world upright. He gave the first man the freedom to continue in fellowship with him and enter a heightened fellowship, or to rebel. Adam rebelled. That’s sin. His sin against an infinite God deserved an infinite judgment. Because Adam represented us, his sin affects us today. Injustice only exists because there’s perfect justice in God. Fallenness in disease and death only exists because there’s uprightness in God. Tragedy is a limited taste of God’s justice on a sinful world.
Theme
Here’s the answer of chapters 8–11: the trumpets warn the world, the church bears witness in the world, and the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. So, hear the trumpets.
Transition: Watch where the trumpets come from.
The Trumpets Warn the World (8:2–9:21)
John sees seven angels who stand before God with seven trumpets (8:2). This recalls Jericho, where seven priests with seven trumpets went before the ark until the walls fell (Josh. 6). The trumpets sound against the city of this world, and it will come down.[1] But before a single trumpet sounds, another angel stands at the heavenly altar with a golden censer to offer incense with the prayers of all the saints (8:3) and the smoke…rose before God (8:4).
Note where we are. The seals opened at the throne (5:7); the trumpets begin at the altar, where the suffering saints’ prayers rise. Last time we were at that altar, the martyrs beneath it cried, “how long?”(6:10), and God told them to rest a little longer (6:11). Now he answers: The angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake (8:5). As at Sinai (Ex. 19), God is coming to earth, but this time for final judgment.
God’s justice answers the world’s injustice. We so quickly pray for “our daily bread,” asking for our colds to go away that we forget “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” joins God’s grand purposes against his enemies. As Kim Riddlebarger said, “the prayers of the saint[s]…bring down pagan empires.”[2] Children: when I played basketball, if we goofed off or were lazy, he made us run lines: baseline to free throw line and back, half court and back, end of court and back, again and again! That’s retribution for disrespect. Adam sinned, and we keep sinning, disrespecting God. The bad that happens in the world are his retribution.
The first four trumpets fall on creation. Hail and fire, mixed with blood strike the earth (8:7); the sea becomes blood (8:8); the rivers and springs turn bitter (8:10–11); the sun, moon, and stars are struck dark (8:12). Sound familiar? The plagues on Egypt. The bitter waters reverse Marah, where Moses made bitter water sweet (Ex. 15:25). Darkness recalls the ninth, which humiliated Ra, the sun god. God plagues all realms of creation: heavens, earth, and waters. But it’s limited to one-third (8:7; 8–9; 10; 12). In the midst of judgment, we find mercy. His judgments today warn of eternal judgment and call you to repent and believe in Jesus.
Then an eagle cries overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth” (8:13). The last three trumpets reach every unbeliever.[3] The fifth looses locusts from the pit (9:1–11). A star—Satan or one of his fallen angels—was given the key to the…bottomless pit (9:1). Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). These locusts are demons. Jesus compared demons to scorpions (Luke 10:19). The locust is an Old Testament image of devastation (Ex. 10; Joel 2). But look whom they may harm: only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads (9:4). Remember chapter 7? God wrote his name on you. Then come those fearful words: people will seek death and will not find it (9:6). What a contrast with the fifth seal! There the martyrs rest safe under the altar; here unbelievers long to die but can’t. Their king is Abaddon and Apollyon, the Destroyer (9:11).
The sixth trumpet shows us that war and killing are also limited: a third of mankind (9:15, 18). The command comes from…the golden altar (9:13), where the prayers rose. The angels are released at the great river Euphrates (9:14). Like the Assyrian and Babylonian armies, the wicked world destroys all in its path (9:16–17). But horses with lions’ heads and serpents’ tails are no ordinary cavalry (9:17, 19). Behind the armies of the world are demonic powers.
How do the rest of the world who were not killed respond? They did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols…nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts (9:20–21). “People loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19). In chapters 2–3, Jesus commanded his churches four times to repent. In Revelation, four times the world refuses. Here’s the first two. The difference between church and world isn’t that one sins and the other doesn’t, but that one knows it does, and turns.
Transition: While the trumpets warn the world, what happens in the church?
The Church Bears Witness (10:1–11:14)
Just as chapter 7 paused between seals six and seven, chapters 10–11 pause between trumpets six and seven. A mighty angel (10:1)—a messenger from Christ, shining with his glory[4]—swears that there would be no more delay… the mystery of God would be fulfilled (10:6–7). No more delay: God will vindicate his martyred church. That’s the answer to “how long?”
Like Ezekiel (3:1–3), John eats the scroll of God’s plan for history, the same one the Lamb opened in chapter 5. It’s sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach (10:9–10). Why bitter? Because John must prophesy about God’s judgment on many peoples and nations and languages…and kings (10:11). While the church is sealed from God’s eternal wrath (ch. 7), it still experiences the wrath of the Satan-inspired nations. Ezekiel preached to Israel; John preaches to the nations. And the church is persecuted yet preserved with two symbols in chapter11.
First, the measured yet trampled temple (11:1–2). Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there (11:1). Many take this in a crassly literal way: whether of the temple destroyed in AD 70 or of a rebuilt latter-day temple. But they don’t answer what the temple is in the New Testament imagery? It’s the church according to Paul (1 Cor. 3; 2 Cor. 6; Eph. 2), Peter (1 Pet. 2; 4), and John (Rev. 3; 21). Note how temple, altar, and worshipers are measured together: he measures God’s people.
The angel says do not measure the court outside the temple…it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months (11:2)—the age between Jesus’ comings. While God preserves his church for the age to come, in this age it’s going to be persecuted. Preservation doesn’t guarantee safety. Jesus doesn’t keep us from tribulation, but in and through it. We see this throughout history; and it brings us to tears.
Second, the conquered yet resurrected witnesses (11:3–13). Jesus is the faithful witness (1:5), and his people bear witness to him (1:2, 9; 2:13). They’re described like Moses, who turned water into blood (11:6; Ex. 7:20); like Elijah, who shut the heavens (11:6; 1 Kgs. 17:1); like Jeremiah, whose words were fire (11:5; Jer. 5:14). They are clothed in sackcloth (11:3), the garment of repentance (Jonah 3:5).
Why two? The law required two witnesses to establish charges (Deut. 19:15). Jesus sent his disciples out two by two (Luke 10:1). They’re the two olive trees and the two lampstands (11:4) of Zechariah’s vision of king Zerubbabel and Joshua the priest (Zech. 4). These prophets are kings and priests. We are kings and priests (5:10). The lampstands are the churches (1:20). Who are the two witnesses? This is the church.
What’s the church doing in this vision? Prophesying, or preaching (11:3, 5, 6, 7). This is what we’re to be known for! Our message makes the world hate us; don’t give in to worldly temptation and used methods that dilute it the message of God’s coming judgment: fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes (11:5). “The world needs God’s love.” Without his justice there is no love.
The church is seemingly conquered: the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them (11:7). Behind the beast is Satan. Their bodies lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified (11:8). That’s Jerusalem as a symbol of the whole city of man that rejects Christ, which John later calls Babylon. The church preached for three and a half years; the world prevails for three and a half days (11:9).
The church seems conquered, but it’ll be raised: a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet. Whenever the beast seems to have won, God raises up a new army of witnesses. Martyrdom isn’t defeat: the slain saints come to life and reign with Christ (20:4).
When will this be? I take it as the church’s ups and downs in history, not the final resurrection, since the third woe is still soon to come (11:14). God’s judgment is limited, giving the persecuting world time to repent: a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed (11:13). That turns the prophets’ imagery on its head. A tenth usually described a remnant, and seven thousand was the number the Lord preserved in Ahab’s days (1 Kgs. 19:18). Here a tenth falls and seven thousand die. God is so patient with his rebellious world.
Transition: But not forever. The seventh trumpet sounds.
The Kingdom Comes (11:15–19)
The brush hits the bottom of the wall again. The conclusion of the trumpets is the same event at the end of chapter 6: the Second Coming. The seventh angel blew his trumpet…“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (11:15). No delays; the mystery is fulfilled (10:7). Jesus wins.
The twenty-four elders fall on their faces and sing (11:17–18). As we’ve read before, God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within, with lightning, thunder, an earthquake, and hail (11:19). The ark went before Israel at Jericho. At the seventh trumpet, the city of man falls.
Conclusion: Do You Hear the Trumpets?
If God is good, why all this? The atheist has no answer. There’s only matter; good and evil are fictions. Yet they borrow from God’s world since theirs makes no sense. Evil proves God. Nothing can be called “evil” unless there’s a good God.
Final judgment is coming. Our upside-down world are plagues sent by God to show us that Jesus is Lord. Go home with this:
Hear the trumpets. God’s judgments on the earth today are warnings of his eternal judgment. Being warned, repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
Pray and preach. Pray “Thy kingdom come” before you pray about your cold. Be a church known for one thing: testifying about Jesus.
You are measured. The nations may trample the outer court, but they can’t touch what God has measured. You’re safe in the arms of sovereign love. Remember: the living Jesus is present with you.
Whose side will you be on at his coming? A persecutor or the persecuted? Will you save your life now and lose it in the end, or lose it now and gain eternal life? Will you hear the song in torment or in triumph? Do you hear the trumpets?
Notes
- Kim Riddlebarger, “The Seven Trumpets” (sermon on Rev. 8:2–13), Reformed Perspectives Magazine 11, no. 14 (April 5–11, 2009), https://reformedperspectives.org/articles/kim_riddlebarger/kim_riddlebarger.Rev.14.html.↩
- Riddlebarger, “The Seven Trumpets.”↩
- Riddlebarger, “The Seven Trumpets,” observes that the final three trumpets fall on all unbelievers.↩
- Kim Riddlebarger, “As Sweet as Honey” (sermon on Rev. 10:1–11), Reformed Perspectives Magazine 11, no. 16 (April 19–25, 2009), https://reformedperspectives.org/articles/kim_riddlebarger/kim_riddlebarger.Rev.16.html. He follows most Reformed commentators and the parallel figure in Daniel 10. For the view that the angel is Christ, see G.K. Beale, Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1999), 522–26.↩