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“Woe Woe Woe!” • 9.6.20 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service
Intro.
- Chapter 8 picks up where chapter 6 left off. Six seals of judgment had been opened and then, the Lord allowed John to give us a brief look into the operation of His mercy.
- God sealed a group of Jewish men that successfully disseminated the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the entire planet, issuing in a great harvest of souls.
- These men and women, saved during the Great Tribulation, will have lost their physical lives to government sanctioned persecution, but will have gained their true eternal life in Christ!
- This wonderful mercy and grace are the hallmarks of the God of the Bible, but it can never be ignored that He is also just! Even with all of His mercy, there must be recompense.
- Chapter 8 brings us to the brink of another series of judgments that will befall the Earth with the opening of the seventh seal and the introduction of the seven trumpet judgments. Verse 1.
Text
• Revelation 8:1,2 : "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." : John has returned our vision to the Throne room of heaven. The final seal is opened and a strange event takes place.
- Everything in heaven comes to a silent standstill! For those of us who have been following along, even casually, it's apparent that heaven is a place of great noise.
- The four living creatures cry "Holy, holy, holy," all day and night! (Revelation 4:8) Elders fall and worship the Lord loudly. (Revelation 4:9-11)
- There is singing and the voice of an untold myriad of angelic beings who speak with loud voices! (Revelation 5:11-14) There are tribulation martyrs who scream for justice! (6:10)
- When the seventh seal is open, everything stops. There is an absolute silence that lasts for half an hour. What do we attribute this silence to? There are multiplied suggestions.
- Often, when silence occurs, it occurs because of shock or awe. Silence is the natural response of utter respect for another person's change in emotional state.
- The martyrs have asked when they would be avenged and part of God's answer related to the final number of people that would be executed. (Revelation 6:11)
- I'm convinced that this number has been reached and there has been a change in the disposition of the Throne. Perhaps for the first time in history, God will allow His fury to lead the way!
- This makes the silence that much more meaningful. Think about it: God does not yell out a satisfying scream or otherwise vent some manner of pent up frustration.
- He doesn't celebrate His own strength or the demise of those that have opposed Him.
- He has waited and waited, not for the pleasure of this moment of judgment, but in the hopes that men would not be subjected to it! Our God does not want to lead with judgment!
- It is His necessary function when all other means of mercy have failed to yield surrender!
- This is the God that told Noah that He would strive with men, but not forever. (Genesis 6:5) This is the God who calls rebellious Israel to reason with Him, that they might be forgiven. (Is. 1:18)
- For all of the sins that Israel committed, which deserved immediate judgment, the Lord echoed five times in those early chapters of Isaiah, "His hand is stretched out still!"
- Jeremiah notes six times that God sent His prophets early every morning, seeking to turn Israel from their way! He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked! (Ezekiel 33:11)
- He is the God that desires that none would perish, but that all would come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9) There is a final, unique sort of commentary that came to my mind in this respect.
- There was a woman from Tekoa, an actor that Joab hired to rouse David into forgiving his son Absalom. Joab gave her words that the King would recognize as truth. One statement stands out.
• II Samuel 14:14 : "All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him." : Does this not perfectly summarize the heart of God Almighty!? Judgment is the very last resort and the final distasteful activity of our compassionate God!
- Unlike our wrath, which is an explosion of unmeasured emotion, God's wrath is absolutely measured against what wickedness deserves to receive!
- God takes no joy over this duty and neither do His people! They are silent too! Imagine how many of them came to heaven, having died in fear and anxiety, gripped by righteous anger.
- Many were there screaming for God to avenge, but when God finally does, there is no celebration, no satisfied applause.
- All of us want God to make things right, but when we realize the toll on lives, I believe that it is His compassion that keeps us from relishing our enemy's demise.
- Their silence proves that they have been healed emotionally as well as spiritually and physically. They can't celebrate when this seal is broken!
- For half an hour, all of heaven bears the weight of this moment of watching history unfold. The seventh seal will not be a singular judgment, but an unveiling of seven more judgments!
- Seven angels, "THE seven" take possession of these trumpets. Trumpets are used in various ways throughout scripture. They are used to call meetings, to warn of invaders.
- Given what we are about to see, one can only deduce that these Trumpets are intended to signal the Lord's intent to increase His war upon this rebel planet! Verse 3.
• Revelation 8:3-6 : "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound." : While the angels prepare themselves to blow the trumpets, another angel appears holding a golden censer filled with "much" incense.
- The censer was full and ready to pour out, along with incense which represented the prayers of ALL the saints. The time has come for God to settle acounts.
- The incense and the prayers of all saints are represented upon this heavenly altar. Every prayer for God to avenge, to right wrongs, to end true injustice, gets answered right here!
- Our prayer, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven" will finally come to fruition!
- The combined incense from the censer and the incense of the saint's prayers came up before the Lord and here is how He responded!
- The censer that had been filled with incense was now filled with fire that was used as a heavenly weapon against the Earth. It's arrival coincided with these phenomena.
- "Noises, thunderings, lightnings and an earthquake." When God descended upon Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, there were similar reports, sans the earthquake.
- We have seen this already in Revelation 4:5. You'll see it again in 11:19 and 16:18. These are the frightening realities of God's presence, in this case, not to save, but to judge mankind!
- It will be a bad day upon the Earth when, out of the blue, with or without weather pattern, these signals begin to strike!
- Almost in unison, the angels raised their trumpets to sound! One might say, "If this were the prelude, what will the actual trumpet blowing be like? That's what we are about to see in verse 7.
• Revelation 8:7 : "The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up." : This is pretty dramatic. This angel blew their trumpet and hail dropped from the sky, with fire following behind it! This is nothing new.
- God is borrowing from His own playbook! He used this against the Egyptians in Exodus 9!
• Exodus 9:22-24 : "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt—on man, on beast, and on every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.' And Moses stretched out his rod toward heaven; and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire darted to the ground. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, so very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation." : The Lord also used hail against the inhabitants of Canaan in Joshua's time as well, when hail killed more men that Joshua's army did! (Joshua 10:11)
- The hail and fire are literal objects. They need no further interpretation. The fact that they are mingled with blood though, might be the affect that they created when they were tossed to the Earth.
- Men will be greatly injured by the damage that is initiated by this judgment. Blood will flow!
- The fire that followed started wildfires among the forests and the grasslands, destroying one third of the trees and grass. This will be an environmentalists nightmare!
- There are many today that think we would do well to save every tree, mostly because men honor the creation over the Creator. Today, God puts up with this.
- During the Great Tribulation, God will remove a third of these areas to make the point that He alone is worthy of admiration and respect!
- Incidentally, don't miss the point: God's judgment upon the forests and grasslands is not complete. He leaves two thirds alone. We'll come back to this in a bit. The second trumpet. Verse 8.
• Revelation 8:8,9 : "Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed." : With the second angel came another Earth bound collision. John is describing what he is seeing. It is is "something like" a fiery mountain.
- It is an object of large, or "mega" proportions that was thrown into "the sea." We've noted the possibilities of meteorite impact. According to scientists, 25 million enter the atmosphere per day!
- The meteor that made Tunguska famous was 65 feet long and weighed over 10,000 tonnes!
- Given John's frame of reference, I don't think that it's out of bounds to consider this vision taking place in the Mediterranean sea. That's the sea that they all thought of.
- The result is a third of the ocean turning to blood. Please understand that the language is specific here. The object is not clear, but but the sea actually becomes blood!
- Does this not sound familiar to you? Where else have you heard of this happening?
- God struck the Nile river in Egypt and produced the same effect. (Exodus 7:20)
- Again, whether the mountain is the cause or the effect, the pollution that will rise from this disaster will be devastating. The sea will become inhospitable to living creatures.
- A third of them will die. Dead fish will float to to the surface, will eventually wash up on shore and foul the air for miles around.
- A third of the ships, the word referring to any kind of sea worthy craft, will be destroyed in this event. Military craft, cargo and luxury craft will all perish on this day.
- We have now seen the phrase "one-third" repeated four times. God is leaving the world "two-thirds." This is mercy. This is restraint. This is measured judgment! Onto the third trumpet. Verse 10.
• Revelation 8:10,11 : "Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter." : The third angel's trumpet coincides with burning star or "meteor" falling from heaven.
- It seems as though this can definitively be called as it is written. This object comes in with a long burn trail behind it.
- Just seven years ago, around the middle of February, a large meteor traveled over Russian skies with a long burning tail and planted a brand new hole in Siberia's surface.
- This star in the Great Tribulation will have a name: "Wormwood." It will strategically fall on the rivers and springs, the fresh water sources of the world. "Wormwood" means "bitterness!"
- You can find several references to the word in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 9:15, 23:15, Lamentations 3:19, Amos 5:7 and 6:12.
- In essence, God will give men a taste of what their lives have been to His own "taste buds!" Their lives are bitter expressions of a mangled spirit before Him!
- We can't know the level of wickedness and defilement that these men's lives brought to the God that they rejected, especially those living in the Great Tribulation period!
- These waters will be utterly defiled, made unconsumable. Because of the lack of supply, men will still try to drink the waters that come from these sources!
- The survivalists will attempt to filter the water with their fancy straws, or at the least, boil it before drinking it, but to no avail! "Many men died from the water!"
- Their thirst was such that it required them to try it! I'd suggest that this represents the kind of desperation that will be easily observed in this period.
- The terror that awaits these people is unimaginable! The fourth trumpet sounds in verse 12.
• Revelation 8:12 : "Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night." : As we close the 8th chapter, we come to the 4th trumpet, which dims the lights of the heavenly bodies.
- The sun was struck or smitten. The word suggests that it is "flattened by pounding." This same phenomena extended to the moon and stars.
- If we are correct in virtually any scenario, whether it be nuclear exchange, volcanic eruption or meteorite impact, the result would be the darkening of the celestial bodies.
- I have just heard of a twin volcanic event that took place in the year 536 that blocked out the light and heat of the sun for nearly 18 months!
- Here, during the Great Tribulation, the sun will either be one third less luminescent or it will be blocked out for a third part of the day. The same would go for the moon and stars.
- The sense is that each day, these celestial bodies will struggle to exert their full light and each night will be that much darker.
- When you think of this trumpet in particular, I am sure that you are again thinking of the plagues of Egypt, the ninth plague of darkness.
• Exodus 10:21-23 : "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even be felt.' So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." : There was a punitive darkness over Egypt that matched her spiritual darkness! They worshipped the Sun god Ra.
- The real God, the Creator of the Sun, blacked out the skies in such a way that the darkness could be felt!
- Do you enjoy the sun or the moon or stars? We all do, but we see them in their proper context, as part of a created order. Men look at them as entitlements today.
- They deserve to see them! These are their stars and this is their sky! Wrong! It belongs to Him! He has been gracious to share their benefits with you and I!
- During this period, God takes away these wonderful benefits. The trees and forests stand threatened. The sea has become a fetid reminder of death. The sky fails to brighten.
- On the night that Jesus met with Nicodemus, He made a remark that speaks directly to this moment about the state of men before the Lord.
• John 3:18,19 : "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." : Unrepentant, wicked men will have rejected the light of the Messiah Jesus Christ and done so, because they loved their darkness.
- They not only have a daily, physical reminder of their choice, but they also have a very present picture of their future! Verse 13.
• Revelation 8:13 : "And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, 'Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!'" : Just prior to the opening of the fifth seal, John looks over and sees an angel. If you have something other than an NKJV, you'll have the word "eagle."
- The two words in the Greek language are very similar to one another. "Angel" is the word that is found in the majority text and it makes the most sense.
- This angel is circling in the sky and speaking to whoever will listen. This is phenomenal! Men will be staring up into the darkened sky.
- They might not be able to see the angel from their vantage point. John is looking down upon this being. The view from the ground will not be inspiring. It will be utterly eerie!
- The angels voice echoes out a three fold "woe!" To hear the word "woe" is to hear an expression of grief. To hear it repeated three times is an almost unbelieveable amount of grief!
- For those that love Jesus and live their lives for Him, there is a celebration in the light that is centered upon the words "Holy, Holy, Holy!"
- For those that reject Jesus and live their lives for themselves, there is terror in the darkness and the only future is centered upom the words "Woe, woe, woe!"
- Who is the angel speaking to? This is an interesting word. "Inhabitant" refers to "one that is settled." These are people who have settled themselves upon the Earth!
- As Christians, we are viewed by God as Ambassadors to this planet, citizens of heaven, pilgrims who seek their eternal home!
- The people that the Angel addresses have made this planet their home! This is where they intend to settle. This is where they will stake their claim!
- I don't know about you, but I can't think of how utterly foolish it is to tie yourself to this world, especially given the imagery that we have examined regarding the final days!
- Those that have made their home on this planet are now men truly to be pitied! Why? Because of the final three trumpets that are soon to blow!
- They will be far more severe and dreadful than anything that has come before it! The angel is letting men know that they haven't seen anything yet! The worst is yet to come!
- Even here, we witness our God's mercy and grace, as He issues a warning from an angelic being of the dangers that lay ahead! Won't they repent? Won't they listen?
Conclusion
- If this passage teaches us anything, it is that God never wants to
execute judgment. It is a duty that He must perform because He is just, but one
that He wishes He didn't have to!
- God has done everything possible to offer you and I salvation. We quite literally have to walk over the resurrected Christ if we want to get to hell!
- But men will do it, trampling underfoot the grace and mercy offered to them via the Lord Jesus! They would rather perish than surrender their lives!
- God leaves us this warning, this presentation of history before it happens, that we might make a better choice than settling here on Earth.
- May our hearts turn toward heaven, as our eyes focus upon the Way, Truth and Life, Jesus Christ our Savior and may those in our lives who have not done so, learn to do the same!
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