Congregational Bible Experience Day #83: Revelation 9-11

Introduction

Congregational Bible Experience Day #83
Revelation 9-11

These chapters, along with chapter 8, are among the bleakest in all of the Bible. Here, in graphic imagery, we read - and are meant to sense the horror - of the supernatural effects of sin and evil in the normal events of human life and human history. But such expressions of judgement are merely God's merciful warnings of a greater Judgement to come, giving His people opportunity to spread the Gospel and unbelievers the opportunity to repent and believe the Good News. Judgement is coming, how will unbelievers respond?

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After the opening of the cataclysmic sixth seal on the scroll (6:12-17), and after the assurance that all of God's own people will be eternally sealed and secured throughout the tribulations that humanity will experience down through history, and one day will be gloriously gathered together in God's presence (chapter 7), and John tells us that the seventh and final seal is opened (8:1), there follows…? What…? Silence. Silence in heaven, for about half an hour.

Yes, the action will pick up again with the sounding of the seven trumpets and the accompanying events. And, if anything, what is described is darker and more dreadful and horrendous than what has gone before. For what is being revealed to us in these chapters (8-11), possibly the most calamitous and disturbing chapters in all of the Bible, and delivered in a manner that is purposely designed to arouse our emotions, is the terrifying reality of God's judgement against sin and evil. That's what's coming. But first, silence. Significant silence. Heaven has gone quiet. Why?

I want to suggest that in the stillness, God is listening to the prayers of His people (see 5:8 and 8:3-4) as they cry out for God for justice and for relief from their downtrodden afflictions (6:10), as they appeal for Him to respond on their behalf. Is it not true that, so often, we pray for wrongs to be made right and for justice to prevail; we pray big prayers for conflict, famine and persecution to come to an end; we pray with tearful hearts for loved ones to be healed, or to be saved; we pray for God to change circumstances and to mend broken lives… and nothing seems to happen. It seems that our prayers get lost on their journey to God, or that God ignores what we say, possibly because our faith isn't strong enough for God to take notice of what we ask for. If that is what you think or believe concerning God's apparent lack of interest or response to your prayers , then these first verses in Revelation 8 are for you. For your prayers - unanswered, but known and familiar to God - are in one of those bowls. And one day, when God considers it to be the right time, your prayers will be poured out before His heavenly throne and in response He will answer and initiate the first His righteous judgement and then the renewal of all things. What these verses  are underlining for us is that God's sovereign purposes for the history of our world are shaped by our prayers (8:5ff). Prayer matters. No prayer prayed in faith is lost or wasted or deemed unworthy of God's attention. He silences heaven that He may listen carefully to our cries from the heart. And He responds, if not now, then one day, when the time is just right.  

Having described the events associated with the opening of the seven seals (chapter 6; 8:1 - although what the seventh seal finally reveals in the scroll we're not yet told), Revelation 8:6 begins another sequence of 'seven', this time - the sounding of seven trumpets (there'll be seven bowls to consider later in the book, Revelation 16), which again run in parallel to the events accompanying the breaking of the seven seals. The breaking of the seven seals and the sounding of the seven trumpets are parallel accounts of human history but seen from different perspectives (think - another camera  shot of a goal scored in football or a try in rugby:  same event, different angles).  While the seven seals displayed the recurring events of world history as they impacted the church between the first and second comings of Christ, so the sequence of the seven trumpets covers the same period of history but now from the perspective of the unbelieving world, and in a more intense way.  

 The events associated with the blowing of the trumpets as described in chapters 8-9 are: trumpets 1-4, disasters wrought upon the natural world (8:7-12); trumpet 5, devastation wrought by a vast swarm of "locusts" (9:1-11 - not literal insects, but under the control of their leader - verse 11, the devil - supernatural forces whose evil activity is aimed not at believers but at those who are not God's servants, v4); trumpet 6, an immense army of dark, supernatural might (v12-21), once again connected to the actions of Satan and directed against all human beings who have not repented of their idolatry (v20-21) and believed in Jesus.  Do not think the devil somehow favours unbelievers and holds back his ferocity against those who side with him against God. While his particular anger is directed against God and His people, this passage shows that unbelievers are not spared his wrathful rage, possibly because even in their unbelief they still bear the image of God.

Now, like the events accompanying the breaking of the seals, the events associated with the sounding of the trumpets do not unfold upon human history in a sequence, but rather they happen simultaneously.  Until the End comes, this world will always be subject to natural disasters, and believers and unbelievers will always be the focus of hidden, supernatural satanic attack the effects of which will be (unwittingly) felt in people's lives and written up in our history books as the normal human experience of life.

But why do these things happen? If God is in control, why does He let them happen? In the Bible, trumpets are sounded as a warning of  judgement to come (see Ezekiel 33:1-5). Resembling the descriptions of the plagues in Egypt that warned that an even greater judgement was coming because of their unbelief (Exodus 12-13), so the natural disasters felt across the world and the horrors wreaked upon human lives by supernatural evils (the seals and the trumpets of Revelation 6-9) are meant to lead people from their sinful unbelief to repentance towards God in the face of the Final Judgement (Rev 9:20-21). And some will undoubtedly repent, while others' hearts will also be hardened as their underlying attitude to God is revealed in the harsh reality of difficult circumstances.  

As with the six seals, there follows a pause after six trumpets have sounded (chapter 10), in which John receives further revealed truths concerning the plans and purposes which he is forbidden to make known (10:4). This is a reminder that Revelation does not reveal everything about God and His intentions, for He still has His secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29).  So be wary of those who say they have worked out all that God intends to do in world history, for they haven't! There is still so much that God kept to Himself. But what has been revealed for us to know, will come to pass (v5-7). Of this we can be certain.

As we begin chapter 11, we are still waiting for the seventh trumpet to be sounded, for the End and final Judgement to come with the triumphant arrival of Christ. But until that happens, Christian believers are given the opportunity and mandate to spread the Gospel to the nations (10:6-11), as difficult as that may on occasions be (11:2 - the Gentile court of the Temple symbolising the threat that unbelieving nations may pose to God's people). Bypassing many of the details in 11:3-14 (!), the focus here is on the evangelistic role of the church to the unbelieving nations of the world. As God's royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), in our mission and evangelism we represent God to the world (a priestly activity) and extend Christ's kingdom by calling on people to submit to His rule (a royal activity).  The church is the "two witnesses", following the Biblical pattern that 2 witnesses are required for a testimony to be considered valid (Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:5; John 8:17), so the world has no excuse for not believing the Gospel and experiencing God's mercy before the Judgement comes as the seventh trumpet is blown. Until that time, the church will spread as the Gospel spreads (v 3-6 - verse 6 is a reference to the actions of both Elijah and Moses - whose ministries demonstrated the authority of God's Word to their unbelieving contemporaries).  At times in human history, the Church will be silenced and wickedness will appear to have the upper hand (v7-10); but the church, indwelt and empowered by the Spirit, will overcome its enemies who begrudgingly acknowledge God's power and victory (v11-13).

Enough for now. The sounding of the seventh trumpet can wait (v15). As it does…