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We now know who will be able to stand when
God's retribution for the persecution of His saints is administered.
The entire story has been laid out for John. The coming of
righteousness, followed by the arrival of the unrighteous, the increasing levels of
persecution by the Roman Empire and the retribution of God for the
persecutors. Then we see the explanation of who will be
protected and be able to stand when God unleashes His wrath against
the enemies of Christianity and now we come to the climax of the saga.
Everything has been building to this point. the seventh and
final seal is opened and before anything happens there is a period
of suspense and anticipation. What is going to happen?
So many times in the past God's children saw the vengeance of God on
nations who opposed righteousness. Sodom and Gomorrah
comes to mind as one of the most devastating and memorable of them
all, having been utterly destroyed by fire raining down on them from
above. Many were the unrighteous nations and empires toppled
by God through the centuries and the readers are left for a suspenseful
period of time before the wrath of God begins to fall on the
persecutors of His faithful children.
God wants all mankind to be saved and He is
willing to allow His people to undergo horrible hardship in order to
give all mankind the opportunity to repent and come to His saving
grace but as longsuffering as God is, there are limits to what He
will tolerate against His beloved children and He has reached that
point and is about to act. The Roman Empire has pushed God to the limit as we will
see later on.
Many in the religious world today believe
that these visions of John depict a series of events connected with
the end times of all earth. Such is not the case. We
must interpret Revelation for what it says it is and to who it
claims to be written to. The first verse of Revelation
provides us with two very important pieces of information.
First the message has been "signified by His angel"
which means the message contained therein has been given in symbolic
language and not literal. The key to understanding what the
symbols mean is to consider what they mean elsewhere in the rest of
scripture and using those to shed light on the meaning of the
visions John is seeing.
The second piece of information in the
first verse which is vital to our understanding of it today is that
the things revealed in the book "must shortly come to pass".
This thought is reinforced in verse 3 and then repeated at the end of the Revelation in chapter 22:10 where
inspiration says "the time is at hand". The time period
of the 21st century is not "at hand" with the first century
neither is a period of 2000 years or more to be understood as coming
to pass shortly.
A third very significant clue as to how we
should understand the Revelation is found in the 4th verse of the
introduction of Revelation in chapter 1. By inspiration, John
directly addresses His letter to "the seven churches which are in
Asia". So in view of this fact and in consideration of the
imminent time period under which inspiration places the events in
this letter, we are forced to apply its primary relevance directly
to the first readers of this letter in the first century.
Whatever this letter meant to them, must be what it means to us
today.
Following is the continuation of the vision
John was given. The events seen thus far are already known to
the first readers. They know about the coming of
righteousness, they already know they are living under intense
persecution. Most of the things
John has described to this point are things the first readers are
well aware of and can relate them to their immediate circumstances. What they want to know now is what is going to
happen to the them and what is going to happen to their ruthless
persecutors. This is what they have been waiting for.
They have just learned that God is going to take measures to protect
them during His retribution and now is the time.
As with the other parts of the visions, it
is much easier to visualize the big picture of what is going on
rather than focusing on the minute details. What is happening
in the overall vision? God hears the prayers of His saints and
visits His wrath upon the world of the ungodly.
Revelation 8:1
"And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in
heaven about the space of half an hour."
The seventh seal is now opened. God is on His throne and He's
put up with the persecution of His children all He's going to.
The Angels are silent, all the martyrs and the redeemed are silent.
In the earlier parts of the vision, all the attention was focused on
the throne and on God and the lamb and His Spirit. All worship
has stopped, all activities have ceased. There is not a sound
made. All attention is now diverted to the earth.
Everyone who would be saved out of the empire has been identified
and preserved. The Roman Empire has run out of time just like
ancient Babylon did as recorded in Habakkuk 2:20, "But Jehovah is
in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him".
Revelation 8:2
"And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were
given unto them seven trumpets."
The seventh seal will not be
like the other six which came one after another with great action. This
will be a series of seven trumpets. Let's keep in mind that
this is a vision which is intended to form in the readers mind an
idea of what is taking place. We need to focus on the picture
as a whole and not so much on the minute details. A trumpet
was used as a symbol for announcing important events or actions so
this was the alert to warn of the approach of the woes which are to
fall upon the world.
The number 7 symbolizes the meaning of
totality or completeness associated with God's authority on the
earth so the seven angels with the seven trumpets are a picture of
unity, perfection, fullness and completeness of what God was going
to do.
Revelation 8:3-4
"And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden
censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should
add it unto 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, went up before God out of the
angel's hand."
Incense was a symbol of ascending prayers to God. It comes
directly from the old testament alter of incense before the veil of
the Tabernacle, nearest to the mercy seat where the Levitical
priests burned incense every morning. The golden censer was a
pan on which live coals from the alter were placed which was used to
burn the incense.
We remember the story of Nadab and Abihu
who died before the Lord for using strange or unauthorized fire.
The fire which was to be used to burn the incense in the golden
censer had to be taken from the alter. No other fire was
acceptable. The golden censer and the alter in John's vision
is reminiscent of the one in the story of Nadab and Abihu.
In temple worship, the aroma of the burned incense
represented the prayers of the Israelites to God and this meaning is
carried forward into John's vision.
The assurance to the first readers of Revelation an all thereafter
is that God hears the prayers of His children and He will answer.
It must have seemed to the Christians living under the great
persecution that God was not listening because they were being
killed and mistreated because of their faith. And it is
difficult when life's trials get oppressive, we often wonder if God
is even listening to our prayers. Think how much worse it
would be if our fellow saints and loved ones were dying because of
their faith. The Christians living under the great persecution
needed to be reassured that God was hearing their prayers and that
He was going to help them. But they also needed to understand
that there would be persecution and many of them would die. We
will see later on in this study of Revelation that so many did die
that the enemies of righteousness thought they had stamped out
Christianity forever. God never promises His faithful children
a life of ease. Such a thing became impossible when God granted all mankind unconditional
free will.
Yes God hears the prayers of His children.
We know this from verses of
scripture such as James 5:16, 1 Peter 3:12, 1 John 3:22 and 1 John
5:14-15. The vision of God receiving the prayers of His
children served as a great comfort to those living under the great
persecution and we know from the large quantity of incense given to
the angel in the vision that there were a lot of prayers to be
heard. God heard them all and those who overcome will emerge
victorious in the end.
Revelation 8:5
"And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of
the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders,
and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake."
The angel that offered the prayers of the persecuted Christians then
fills the censer full of fire from the alter and casts it upon the
world of the ungodly. This is God's response to the cries of
His oppressed children. The thunders, voices and lightnings were
introduced earlier as expressive of the divine power, majesty and
authority of God (Revelation 4:5). An
Earthquake
is a familiar Old Testament figure used to describe God's judgment
against the enemies of His people. God's tolerance of the
persecution of His children has reached His limit.
We need to keep in mind here that this vision
is an overall picture of God's handling of the enemies of His
children throughout the Roman Empire over a period of time.
All of these things did not boil up to a head with God destroying
the empire in a single blinding act of Godly retribution.
Yes there were severe natural calamities such as
exploding volcanoes, earthquakes, plagues and famines, but these events were spread out over vast
expanses of territory and decades of time. There are many
instances in Revelation where plagues and woes were administered to
the enemies of God and they repented not of their evil deeds.
God gave the woman represented as Jezebel time to repent,
(Revelation 2:21. In Revelation 9 we see later on in this
vision where God released numerous plagues on the enemies of His
children with the intent of bringing the survivors to repentance,
(Revelation 9:20). In Revelation 16:9-11 we see that God
poured out His wrath on the enemies of His children so that they
would repent. God didn't just reach his limit and
destroy all the enemies of His children at once. Rather He
selectively administered these judgments across the empire in a
progressive fashion over a period of time with the primary purpose of
bringing any who would to repentance.
What happens today when a horrendous natural
disaster or major calamity befalls mankind? When people are
faced with insurmountable, unexplainable events such as earthquakes,
Tsunamis and terrorist attacks where hundreds and thousands of
innocent people lose their lives there is always many who turn to
God for comfort and support. Are we today so different than
those who lived in the first century? Would there not be those
who turned to God in the first century when Mt. Vesuvius exploded
and incinerated Pompeii and Herculaneum? When people of all
times who are comfortable and think they don't need anything,
including God, are slapped in the face with their own mortality and
helplessness in the face of devastation and destruction, there are
some who will turn to God for comfort. History records that
the Roman Empire had more than her fair share of natural calamities,
some of which were of such overwhelming magnitude as to leave one
numb from the shock and disbelief. In the studies to come, we
will observe many of the natural and self inflicted disasters that
befell the Roman Empire along the course of her downward spiral into
ultimate defeat and destruction.
The angel filling the censer with the fire
from the alter and casting it upon the earth is a picture of God's
wrath unleashed on the elements of the earth with a twofold purpose.
The primary purpose was to warn everybody in the Roman Empire
against evil and to bring them to repentance and the second purpose
was to deplete their resources to the point that they would be
conquered. God's primary purpose has always been the salvation
of the lost.
Revelation 8:6
"And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared
themselves to sound."
In Amos 3:6 and Hosea 5:8, trumpets were used to sound an alarm to
warn of approaching danger. The picture here is that
angels were preparing to warn of the retribution and judgment of God
on the enemies of righteousness.
The visions of the seven trumpets are reminiscent of the plagues of
Egypt, all of which were designed to demonstrate God's power and
bring Pharaoh to repentance. The Roman Empire made the same
mistake Pharaoh did. If Pharaoh would have let the
Israelites go, he would have saved himself and all of Egypt a great
deal of misery. He was given numerous opportunities to do so
and failed. Similarly the Roman Empire was given numerous
opportunities to repent and refused and were now going to face God's
wrath for their actions.
It is key to note that when the first four
trumpets were sounded, various parts of the physical world were
effected. Natural disasters are a tremendous drain on the
resources of any empire or nation whether it be the Roman Empire or
a nation today. Vast resources are used to try and alleviate
the suffering of the effected people and in so doing deplete a
nations ability to protect itself from hostile enemies.
It is not going to be possible to match any of these up with
specific events in the natural history of the Empire, but there is
no doubt the empire suffered more than its share of devastating
natural disasters. Numerous cities were destroyed by
earthquakes and some of them were outright incinerated by eruptions.
There was a famine of such magnitude that sufficient food for the
population was unavailable. The hunger of the famine was so
severe, people were eating foods which were unhealthy just to
survive and this sparked a plague which swept across the empire,
lasting over a decade and killing untold millions of people.
History records that entire cities were totally depopulated from
this plague. Interestingly, many centuries after the writing
of Revelation, there was an earthquake of such magnitude that it
dried up the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the effected area.
An entire mountain was said to have disappeared during this
devastating earthquake. But that wasn't the end of it.
When the earthquake subsided and the displaced water returned, it
came back with a vengeance. History records that boats were
washed as far as 14 miles inland and lodged in trees and upon
housetops. Those who did not die in the earthquake were
drowned in the waves of the returning water. These
natural disasters occurred over centuries of Roman history and were
key in the decline and ultimate downfall of the Empire.
It is not going to be possible to match up the
following events heralded by the trumpets with actual events in the
history of the empire with any degree of certainty. We are
going to have to recognize the fact that God did use natural events
to help bring about the punishment and downfall of the empire and
not try to pinpoint them to specific disasters. They were
spread out over the empire separated by both geography and time.
God later speaks of the downfall of the empire in the past tense as
if it has already happened so we know that the visions revealing the
fate of the empire are not depicting it in perfect chronological
order. Later in Revelation we see a vision of the Empire being
picked apart by birds, bit by bit, piece by piece, (Revelation 19).
Also we have in the same vision with the birds and earlier in
chapter 14 the description of God's wrath and retribution being
pictured like the treading of grapes in a winepress. The image
here is that of a slow, constant, deliberate, methodical pounding
out and picking apart of the Empire over a period of time.
History bears out the fact that this is indeed what happened.
A combination of natural disasters and internal depravity and unrest
combined to weaken the empire to the point that it was picked apart
from within and without, eventually overthrown and finally
destroyed.
Revelation 8:7
"And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled
with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of
the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt
up, and all green grass was burnt up."
The first trumpet sounds and we have God's retribution in the form
of intense weather. Fire and burned trees and grass are
descriptive of a long hot dry spell which depletes the agricultural
products for the people and grass necessary to graze livestock.
Long hot dry spells leave a nation in a weakened state and are
miserable to have to endure and live through. The third part
of the earth indicates that this was occurring over a vast territory
of land but was by no means empire wide.
Revelation 8:8-9
"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain
burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the
sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the
sea, (even) they that had life; and the third part of the ships was
destroyed."
And when the second angel sounded his trumpet, earthquakes and
burning mountains which are picturesque of volcanic eruptions are in
mind here. When these events occur in the seas they can cause devastating tidal waves. The eruptions are often time accompanied with
the release of poisonous or super heated gases which are deadly to
life both in and out of the water. History records that this
was indeed the case in the Roman Empire. We know of the
eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and what it did to Herculaneum and Pompeii.
And this was only one of several which occurred in the empire and
was not the worst by any means. Offshore earthquakes cause
monstrous tidal waves which wash ships and fish ashore and we know
from history that this happened to the Roman Empire as well.
Again, the third part of creatures in the sea
and the ships destroyed indicate extensive but not total
destruction.
Revelation 8:10-11
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great
star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the
rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part
of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters,
because they were made bitter."
A star falling from heaven shows that this retribution was coming
from God above. In this judgment scene, the fresh water supply is
affected. During the time of the Roman Empire most fresh water
came from springs, rivers or shallow hand dug wells. They did
not have the technology to drill deep wells into fresh water sources
and pipe it to all the people. When something happened to
effect the water supply, there was little they could do to alleviate
the problem.
Wormwood in the Old Testament was used
to denote judgment, especially in instances of idolatry: "lest
there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose
heart turneth away this day from Jehovah our God, to go to serve the
gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that
beareth gall and wormwood" (Deuteronomy 29:18). Jeremiah
prophesied of the judgment of the Israelites for the worshipping of
Baalim: "therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of
Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood,
and give them water of gall to drink" (Jeremiah 9:15).
The term wormwood symbolizes Calamity, sorrow
and bitterness of life. Now, because of their persecution
of the Christians, the Roman empire will taste the bitterness of the wrath of
God. It is not possible to relate this event to anything
specific but our own experiences with natural disasters may give
some insight on what is happening to the water supply in this
vision. Destructive huge scale natural disasters kill many
people leaving few to clean up the aftermath. Where the seas
or oceans are involved, flood waters inundate the effected areas,
killing on a massive scale and polluting the fresh water sources
with sewage and the dead bodies of both animals and humans.
This polluted water becomes disease ridden, foul smelling and bitter
and to drink it without boiling it would be hazardous to the health
of anyone or anything drinking it. People and livestock must
have fresh water to survive and when the water supply has been
disrupted and all that is available to drink is fouled then life is
going to get difficult indeed.
Revelation 8:12
"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was
smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the
stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day
should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like
manner."
The moon and the
stars
represented figures of authority in the minds of the first readers
of Revelation. The Sun mentioned alongside the moon and stars
here would put it in the same category. When a devastating
natural calamity occurs the authorities in charge of maintaining law
and order are often unable to function properly. Those without
food or necessities and in desperate situations will take from those
who have by force. There is all kinds of looting, stealing and
profiteering going on and the people in charge of enforcing law are
unable to keep these things in check.
People are displaced from their homes,
millions are dead, food and water is scarce, violence is raging
unchecked and where are the soldiers? Where are the
authorities? Where are the rulers who have governed and kept
the peace and provided protection and security from their enemies
for so long? They can't be seen amid the destruction and
people are in despair. The rulers and kings they had
worshipped and trusted for so long can't help them in the face of
God's wrath. The times are indeed dim for those suffering the
judgment of God. The powerful Emperors with their glistening
armies all bright and shining and proud and the powerful rulers of
the provinces in their shining palaces are eclipsed into darkness in
the face of the wrath of the real authority in charge; the one true
and living God.
Of importance here is that the judgments
announced by the first four trumpets were a call to repentance and
not the total destruction of the enemies of God. They were a
selective application of God's retribution over specific portions of
the known world designed to bring the enemies of righteousness to a
realization that their emperors, false gods, kings and governors
were not the ones in charge and that there was a higher power that
demanded their obedience and was intolerant of their persecution of
His faithful children.
Revelation 8:13
"And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying
with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth,
by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels,
who are yet to sound."
The
eagle was
representative in this vision of a bird of ill omen as seen in Old
Testament writings such as Jeremiah 49:22 and Hosea 8:1. This
eagle is proclaiming to those who live on earth and have seen and
survived the first four judgments that they haven't seen the end of
it yet and the worst is yet to come. The first four trumpets
symbolized the smiting of the natural world and the consequences
thereof, but now they will have far more to worry about than ever
before when the last three trumpets are sounded.
Summary Paraphrase
And when Jesus at last prepared to reveal God's
judgment on the world of the ungodly, all of heaven stood silent for
a period of time in breathless expectation and awe. The angels
charged with announcing God's retribution were standing before His
throne and were each given a trumpet with which to signal the coming
woes.
Then another angel came and stood over an
alter before God's throne, holding a golden censer in his hands.
And he was given an abundance of incense to burn therein, mingling
its fragrance with the cries and prayers of God's oppressed children
coming up from the earth. And in answer to those prayers,
the angel then filled the censer with the fire of God's wrath from
the alter and cast it upon the world of the wicked and God's anger
was like lightning in the skies and the earth was
shaken from the thunderings of His voice.
And all the angels that were going to
announce God's retribution on the enemies of His children prepared
themselves to sound. When the first angel sounded there followed
severe weather, violent storms and heat waves so intense that the
vegetation and the trees died over great areas of the earth.
When the second angel announced the coming of God's wrath there were
great earthquakes and eruptions which set the mountains on fire and
caused massive tidal waves that destroyed many of the inhabitants of
the seas along with the ships that sailed on them. And the third angel sounded, and
God's wrath coming from heaven caused all the rivers and springs of
water on the earth to be fouled and bitter. And many people
died from drinking the poisonous bitter water. And then the
fourth angel sounded and the great rulers and leaders of the
afflicted people could no longer be seen.
And then I saw an eagle flying in the air
over the earth saying in a great voice, "Woe woe woe, to all the
people of the earth because of the terrible things that will happen
when the last remaining angels blow their trumpets."
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