📖 Revelation Intensive — Unit 7: The Seven Trumpets

Text: Revelation 8:2-11:19

The Prayers of the Saints and the Seven Trumpets

After the silence of the seventh seal, seven angels are given seven trumpets. But before a single trumpet sounds, another angel stands at the golden altar with a censer, and "much incense was given to him, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints" (Revelation 8:3). The smoke of the incense and the prayers of the saints rise together before God, and then the angel fills the censer with fire from the altar and throws it to the earth, with thunder and lightning and an earthquake. The lesson is striking: the judgments that follow come in answer to the prayers of God's people, the very cry "How long?" that rose from the martyrs under the altar. The trumpets, like the seals, are read by Christians in different ways, and the course does not press one. What is plain is that they are warning-judgments, mostly partial, striking a third rather than the whole, sounded to call a rebellious world to repentance before the final end.

The First Four Trumpets: Judgment on the Created Order

The first four trumpets fall on the natural world, and each strikes a third. At the first, hail and fire mingled with blood are cast to the earth, and a third of the trees and all green grass are burned (Revelation 8:7). At the second, something like a great burning mountain is thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea becomes blood, a third of its creatures die, and a third of the ships are destroyed (Revelation 8:8-9). At the third, a great star called Wormwood falls blazing on a third of the rivers and springs, and the waters turn bitter, so that many die (Revelation 8:10-11); the name Wormwood speaks of bitterness and poison. At the fourth, a third of the sun, moon, and stars is struck and darkened (Revelation 8:12). That the judgments touch only a third is itself a mercy, for they are partial and not yet final, warnings rather than the end. Then John sees an eagle flying in midheaven, crying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth" (Revelation 8:13), for the last three trumpets will be far more terrible, and they are called the three woes.

The Fifth Trumpet: The Locusts from the Abyss

The fifth trumpet, the first woe, opens the bottomless pit. A star fallen from heaven is given the key to the abyss, and out of it pours smoke that darkens the sun and air, and out of the smoke come locusts like scorpions (Revelation 9:1-3). These are no ordinary locusts; they are given power to torment, but not to kill, for five months, and they are forbidden to harm the grass or the trees. They may hurt "only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads" (Revelation 9:4). Here again the sealed servants of God are protected, untouched by the torment that falls on the rest. The pain is like the sting of a scorpion, so dreadful that "in those days men will seek death and will not find it" (Revelation 9:6). The locusts are described as a demonic army, like horses prepared for battle, with crowns, the faces of men, the teeth of lions, and tails like scorpions; and they have a king over them, "the angel of the bottomless pit," whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek (Revelation 9:11), both meaning Destroyer. This first woe is a torment of the soul, the unleashing of the destroyer upon a world that has refused God.

The Sixth Trumpet: The Army from the Euphrates

The sixth trumpet, the second woe, is deadlier still. A voice from the golden altar commands the release of four angels bound at the great river Euphrates, who had been prepared to kill a third of mankind (Revelation 9:13-15). An immense army of horsemen appears, numbering two hundred million, with horses whose heads are like lions and whose mouths pour out fire, smoke, and brimstone; by these three plagues a third of mankind is killed (Revelation 9:16-18). And then comes one of the most sobering verses in the book. After all this, "the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands" (Revelation 9:20). They would not turn from worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver, nor from their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts (Revelation 9:20-21). The lesson is hard but true: judgment by itself does not soften a hardened heart. Plagues may terrify, but they cannot of themselves produce repentance; only grace can turn a sinner to God.

The Interlude: The Mighty Angel and the Little Scroll

Between the sixth trumpet and the seventh, as between the sixth seal and the seventh, comes an interlude. A mighty angel descends, robed in a cloud with a rainbow over his head, his face like the sun, one foot on the sea and one on the land, holding a little scroll open in his hand (Revelation 10:1-2). Seven thunders speak, but John is told to seal up what they said and not write it, for not everything is given to us to know. The angel lifts his hand to heaven and swears that "there should be delay no longer," and that in the days of the seventh trumpet "the mystery of God would be finished" (Revelation 10:6-7). Then John is told to take the little scroll and eat it, and he finds it "sweet as honey" in his mouth but bitter in his stomach (Revelation 10:9-10). It is a vivid picture of the word of God and especially its message of judgment: the word is sweet to receive, for it is God's truth and it ends in His triumph, yet it is bitter to carry, for it speaks of judgment on the lost. And John is told he must prophesy again, for his task is not finished.

The Interlude: The Two Witnesses

John is given a measuring rod and told to measure the temple of God, while the outer court is left to the nations, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months (Revelation 11:1-2); the measuring pictures God marking out and preserving His own even while the world tramples. Then God appoints two witnesses to prophesy twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth (Revelation 11:3). They are given great power, like the prophets of old: fire goes out of their mouths against their enemies, and they can shut heaven so it does not rain, turn waters to blood, and strike the earth with plagues, much as Elijah and Moses once did. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit makes war on them and kills them, and their bodies lie in the street of the great city, "where also our Lord was crucified," while the world looks on, rejoices, and exchanges gifts, glad to be rid of them (Revelation 11:7-10). Who the two witnesses are has been understood in more than one way, some taking them as two individual prophets and others as a picture of the witnessing church, and the course presents the views fairly. But after three and a half days the breath of life from God enters them; they stand on their feet, a voice calls them up to heaven, and they ascend in a cloud while their enemies watch (Revelation 11:11-12). A great earthquake follows, a tenth of the city falls, and the rest, terrified, give glory to God. Faithful witness may end in apparent defeat, but God vindicates His servants by raising them.

The Seventh Trumpet: The Kingdom Is the Lord's

Then the seventh angel sounds, and the third woe gives way to a great shout of triumph: "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!" (Revelation 11:15). The twenty-four elders fall on their faces and worship, giving thanks that God has taken His great power and begun to reign. They declare that the nations were angry, but now God's wrath has come, the time for the dead to be judged, the time to reward His servants the prophets and saints, and the time "to destroy those who destroy the earth" (Revelation 11:18). Finally the temple of God is opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant is seen, with lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail. The seventh trumpet does not describe the end in detail but announces its certainty: the reign of Christ is sure, the kingdom of the world has become His, and what the rest of the book unfolds is the working out of this triumph. The trumpets, then, are God's escalating warnings, answering the prayers of His people; they cannot bend a hardened heart, but they cannot touch His sealed servants either, and they move history surely toward the day when Christ reigns forever.

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