“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.” (Revelation 8:1-2)
Imagine you’re at your desk at work or at school. Suddenly, you hear the fire alarm blare loudly, urging you to run to the closest fire exit, I hope!
Beginning in Revelation 8, God reveals seven trumpet sounds behind his seventh seal, or last will and testament, to wake us up from our slumber—our complacency. Four trumpets are for God’s children on all four corners of the earth, two more are for unbelievers and the unrepentant as we’ll read about in Revelation 9, and the seventh and final trumpet in Revelation 11 will sound on Judgment Day. No one is exempt from God’s judgment (Rom. 14:10-12).
Two questions to consider when reading this intense chapter are 1) What is God telling us through these trumpets, and 2) how should we respond?
First, what is God telling us through the blaring of trumpets? Why does God bring thunder, lightning, an earthquake, and fire to the world? This is because he is just, righteous, and merciful (Gen. 18:19, Ps. 33:5, Is. 30:18). As a just God, he hates sin. These natural disasters symbolize his righteous, divine anger towards sin and rebellion. He uses these not to scare us away, but to shock and wake us up to draw us to him!
Revelation 8 and 9 may sound intense, but we still have hope. That hope is what we are expecting in Advent and the reason we celebrate Christmas—the birth of our Savior.
How should we respond to this hope and to God’s trumpets?
- When we sin, confess it to a brother and sister, and repent, turning to God.
- Pray for our Lord to grow us to know and love Him more, and in turn, love others more.
- Think of God’s mercy, especially the fact that He sent His only Son to earth to die for our sins so that we may have new life.
How will you respond?