There is judgment because not everyone accepts Jesus Christ as Lord. The trumpets of judgment are sounding.

1 – A scene of preparation (vs. 1-4)

• Silence in heaven (vs. 1-2) – Heaven is a noisy place. This may be the only time there is silence in Heaven. This silence lasts half an hour. What is going on? All of heaven is holding its breath as things are about to get horrible. The angels are given their trumpets – These seven angels are given a trumpet each. They blow their trumpet to signal the beginning of war.
• The smoke that is there (vs. 3-4) – In the Old Testament the priest would go in to offer a sacrifice and incense smoke would be billowing to represent the prayers of the people. It is a picture of the finished work of Jesus Christ. See Hebrews 5:2. The smoke of the work of Jesus Christ is a sweet-smelling flavour to the Lord. This is added to our prayers to make our prayers powerful and accepted by God. Your prayer does not have to be long to be effective. Make sure you pray when you serve the Lord. There is power in prayer! The Devil trembles when he sees a saint taking his troubles to the Lord! Prayer is where the power and the wisdom.

2. A scene of devastation (vs. 5-13)

The trumpets are ready to sound. The judgment comes swiftly one after the other. Things just get worse and worse.

• The first trumpet – A brewing storm (vs. 7) – Hail and fire comes down and one third of the surface of the Earth is burnt up and destroyed. God did something similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. This will affect the food supply all over the world. The ecology of the world will be thrown out of balance.
• The second trumpet – The boiling sea (vs. 8-9) – There is what appears to be a fiery mountain crashing into the sea. It could be an enormous meteor. It could be an atomic bomb. The result is that a large part of marine life will be destroyed. The ships will be destroyed and the beaches covered in blood. What would happen if even a small asteroid struck the earth? First, as it entered our atmosphere, as with shooting stars, it would begin to heat up and glow white with fire by friction. It would actually begin to burn. Then, when it hit the sea (as this object will if this is something like an asteroid) it would cause tidal waves and devastation for hundreds of miles. The meteorite which fell in Siberia in 1908 devastated over 1,000 square miles. The shock was felt as far away as Europe while trees up to 20 miles away were blown down. Yet the 1908 meteorite was only about 200 feet across—a far cry from one mile across!
• The third trumpet – A burning star (vs. 10-11) – This is a judgment upon fresh water. There is a star that God calls “wormwood” and it will fall to Earth and contaminate the fresh water supply. The star is called wormwood because of the affect the star has on the water. Wormwood is a very bitter plant that grows in Palestine. People die as a result of this contamination. We can’t survive long without water. The human body is mostly made up of water. You will struggle to find a cup of water to drink. Jesus has offered to this world living water. When the world rejects Jesus they get the bitter water instead of sweet water. The body count is enormous. These judgments seem like a long time coming but remember what happened in the time of Noah! It is coming! The reference to wormwood seems to draw the parallel of the experience of the children of Israel at the waters of Marah (Exodus 15:23-25). There the tree cast into the bitter waters made them sweet. Here the wormwood cast into the sweet water made it bitter. The result of this trumpet is to inflict a divine judgment from God upon men themselves.
• The fourth trumpet – The blackened sky (vs. 12-13) – God turns on the dimmers and the Sun, moon and stars lose their illumination. People prefer darkness rather than the light of Jesus. They will have darkness around them to match the darkness on the inside. We could do this today with an atomic bomb. God can blacken the sky with one word. Nothing fell from the sky. But the dimming light of sun, moon and stars, and consequently of both day and night, sent a signal that the worst was yet to come. This impression is confirmed by the voice of an eagle or vulture directly overhead, announcing three even more terrible “woes” or judgments against the earth’s inhabitants.

Categories: Revelation