Show Notes
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
Revelation 8:7-13
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word delivered to us over the course of our lives, over the history of the world, and even this morning.
[00:00:09] We ask that you would continue to do so now as we come to hear your Word in Revelation and then also hear that word preached.
[00:00:18] We pray also, Lord, for your.
[00:00:22] For the work of home missions, that work of church planting and extension throughout our.
[00:00:29] Our nation, throughout our denomination.
[00:00:32] Lord, we thank you that new churches are popping up all the time. New congregations are being organized here in Arizona. We pray for Levine in particular and ask that you would bless them this morning as you work through them. Please guide their worship and please bless their church Pastor Johnson, as he ministers the word of God to them. And we also pray for future hopes and church planting in the East Valley, up in Phoenix and other places. Lord, there are we. We desire, Lord, that there might be many bright lights in all places, witnessing faithfully unto all that you are doing.
[00:01:23] Lord, we pray for these groups that form. We pray also for their. Their church planters and overseeing sessions. We pray for their needs for buildings and funding and a unity and faithfulness.
[00:01:38] Lord, we ask that you would be with us as well as we center our thoughts and come to hear your word be forming us, reforming us, and be changing us and lifting us up in you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:00] All right, let's remain standing and turn to Revelation.
[00:02:08] Excuse me.
[00:02:10] Got a little bit of a cold today, so no handshaking.
[00:02:16] Revelation, chapter 8.
[00:02:37] Revelation 8.
[00:02:39] I'll go ahead and begin reading at the beginning of the chapter and then reading through verse 13 when the Lamb opened the seventh. Whoa, whoa.
[00:02:52] Yes, okay. Sorry.
[00:02:56] Verse two is what I want. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God. And seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer. And he was given much incense to all offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne.
[00:03:14] And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth. And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightnings, and an earthquake.
[00:03:32] Now, the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.
[00:03:38] The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood.
[00:03:44] And these were thrown upon the earth.
[00:03:47] And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
[00:03:55] The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.
[00:04:04] A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
[00:04:10] The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood.
[00:04:22] A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter.
[00:04:30] The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.
[00:04:46] Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead.
[00:04:53] Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow.
[00:05:06] You may be seated.
[00:05:40] Let me begin with a few quick reminders about how we read the Book of Revelation.
[00:05:47] Don't check out. Okay, these are important.
[00:05:53] The first thing I want to say is that we shouldn't read the Book of Revelation as. As an always sequential thing. Now, some things come after another. For example, we read here, the first angel blew the trumpet, then the second angel blew the trumpet, then the third angel blew the trumpet. And these are as the John receives these visions. So there are sequences and orders of things, but the orders of the visions don't always match. Like, you can't map them onto a chronology and timeline on Earth. In some ways you can. In some ways you can't. We have to be careful about that. One way we see that proved here in this passage is with the darkness in the skies, just very quickly, did you notice how a third of the sun was darkened, a third, third of the night was dark, and these kinds of things?
[00:06:49] Well, if we thought about everything in the Book of Revelation as perfectly sequential, this would be really hard to understand because back in the seals, the sky had been rolled back like a scroll and the sun had disappeared.
[00:07:04] So now how is there a third of it?
[00:07:06] Well, the answer is because it's not a sequential thing. We're moving back sort of in time to think about the period and the history of the world that we're in right now. And I'll explain that more later. The point is we just want to be careful about trying to read and make everything match in that way, if we do, we'll end up with lots of contradictions. And the Bible doesn't contradict itself. If we end up in that way, it's because we're reading it wrong, not because the Bible is saying, so something wrong.
[00:07:38] The second thing, which I mentioned last time, and I'll probably mention a lot more times, is we want to be careful with how we read it in terms of visualizing things. And this is tricky to say, and maybe I'm trying to get better at this as we go along. Maybe we can have discussions and collectively come to better ways of describing this. But here's my best way right now.
[00:08:01] There's a way in which these are very clearly visual, right? It's a vision. John is seeing these things.
[00:08:10] But there's a way in which these visual things cannot be described in words.
[00:08:17] So just because he sees them doesn't mean that they're necessarily easy to describe or easy to understand what he hears. So one example of this is the way John puts the mountain.
[00:08:30] He says in verse eight, the angel, the second angel blew his trumpet and something like a great mountain.
[00:08:38] What are you supposed to think of there?
[00:08:41] Well, all I can think of is a mountain.
[00:08:44] What is something like a great mountain? Oh, I suppose there's lots of things that are like a great mountain.
[00:08:51] So the point is, is the scripture is not calling us to create exact representations of things in our brains.
[00:09:06] If it were, it would get. And sometimes it does. But in something like that, it's not telling us figure out what that something like a mountain is. It's meant to give an impression.
[00:09:18] And I think we have a similar experience this in our own dreams, which are different than visions, but in our own dreams, when we're at night and we're sleeping and you wake up, you have these things that you know happened in your dream, right? It was very clear that the fish was also the dragon. That was a table that came up and also down at the same time, right? It all makes sense in your head, right?
[00:09:46] But to describe it to someone else is difficult, even impossible. It doesn't mean that those weren't real impressions. It doesn't mean that you didn't have a, you have an understanding of those things, but they're impossible in some ways, in some cases to describe to other people.
[00:10:06] Now, again, dreams and visions are different, but I just am pointing out that there's an experience that we have that's similar in that way. And the, the implication of all this is to not try too hard to visualize everything Another example of that is when we have the.
[00:10:28] This.
[00:10:31] This thing falling from heaven and a great star. This is chapter or, sorry, verse 10. A great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch. Right. It gives us an approximation of that. And this thing fell on a third of the rivers and the third of the springs. So you have this singular thing falling on a third of the rivers and springs all across the earth.
[00:10:57] How does that happen?
[00:10:59] Right. My point is those questions aren't really worth asking too much because it's not intent. We're not intended to figure that out.
[00:11:07] There's a different intention that's happening, a different purpose that's happening a different way, that the words that God by his Spirit is directing us, our attention. So we want to place it there.
[00:11:21] And where is it?
[00:11:23] Well, that's what we're going to spend the rest of our time on is thinking about, well, what is this communicating to us? What are these visual things and these visions that John is receiving, even in the difficult ways they are to understand what's the intention? How are we supposed to feel about it? How are we supposed to understand it and act? All right, so that's the. How we read Revelation piece.
[00:11:50] One of the ways that we're supposed to understand this, and we really spent a lot of time on this last time, was we're supposed to understand what's happening here with the trumpets.
[00:11:58] In light of the prayers of the saints that began this, I won't repeat that sermon, but remember that the trumpets that are coming now are response to the prayers of God's people.
[00:12:13] Would you turn with me to Psalm 83, verses 1 through 4? I'd like to read a few verses there.
[00:12:32] Here we have Psalm 83, first few verses.
[00:12:36] We have one of many expressions that we have in the Bible of people, the people of God calling out for salvation in the midst of a particular problem.
[00:12:47] Let's hear it, O God. Do not keep silence.
[00:12:53] Do not hold your peace or be still, O God.
[00:12:57] For behold, your enemies make an uproar. Those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people. They consult together against your treasured ones.
[00:13:11] All right, so what's the situation?
[00:13:14] The situation is that the enemies of God are making plans, are crafting plans, similar to language in Psalm 2, are crafting plans against God and against his people.
[00:13:27] They are consulting against him and his anointed one to use language from Psalm 2, or him and his treasured ones to use language of Psalm 83.
[00:13:38] For the people of God. They're crying out to God. And they're saying, rescue us, O Lord, save us and help us.
[00:13:47] In the midst of this dangerous situation that there are wicked people who want to destroy God and his people. The people of God call out and ask, don't be still.
[00:14:02] The stillness of God and the patience of God is great. But in this, don't be still, don't be inactive. Stand up, help us.
[00:14:11] Do not keep silence.
[00:14:13] Well, this call for salvation.
[00:14:16] This call for salvation comes out in many places in Scripture.
[00:14:21] Remember in Exodus, the beginning of Exodus, when Israel was in Egypt, God's people suffering, forgotten, Joseph long gone, and the people in slavery under a wicked idolatrous king, they cry out.
[00:14:38] Exodus 2:23 says they cry for rescue from slavery.
[00:14:46] Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God save us, O Lord, save us from these people.
[00:14:58] In Psalm 54, David says, O God, save me by your name and vindicate me by your might.
[00:15:05] If you were with us when we went through second Samuel, you remember how great King David, the anointed one of God for most of those books was on the run, a big portion of that. He was fleeing those who were seeking to destroy him. And he had often none to look to except for God himself.
[00:15:27] And then of course, we have Revelation 6 in that fifth seal, when the martyrs cry out from the altar and they cry out to God to judge the earth's inhabitants and to avenge their blood.
[00:15:47] Now many of us live compared perhaps to others.
[00:15:54] There's a way in which we can say we lead relatively easy lives.
[00:16:01] But perhaps something has happened to you. Perhaps there have been things that you have encountered, things that you have seen, where you have felt like they have felt, where you have felt under threat, where you have felt like there was danger, where you have felt that there was injustice and someone was doing something, that people were doing something and they were getting away with it, they were hurting others, they were attacking the church. There are people around the world who struggle in a very visceral, very real and a day to day kind of way. Christians sitting in prison as their wicked enemies hold them captive.
[00:16:49] Christians who worship in secret and have to speak and code and be careful about who they talk with. And when.
[00:17:01] There are times in our lives where there are people who hate us, not out of a mistaken notion or an accident, but because they hate God and they hate his worshipers.
[00:17:14] And of course this is always true when it comes to the evil one, Satan, who is always attacking, always prowling around, always looking to destroy the bond between the Lord and his treasured ones, the good News for us is that God does not keep silent.
[00:17:36] The good news for us and all the whole world is that even injustice and wickedness are brought to an end. Suffering and pain are brought to an end. Safety and peace will arrive.
[00:17:50] One of the ways, one of the images that that comes out in the scriptures is the image of trumpets.
[00:18:00] The image of trumpets.
[00:18:03] Some of you, I'm thinking of one person in particular, you can guess. Some of you play the trumpet. And this trumpet is a very important instrument in the Bible.
[00:18:14] It's. It's quite an honor to play the trumpet actually, when you think about it. There's an image in the Bible. The trumpet is used as one of God's ways of bringing about judgment, of bringing about his power, of exercising his righteousness. It happens a lot in the scriptures.
[00:18:34] Perhaps you're recalling certain things to mind. Try to think of all the trumpet passages you can think of right now.
[00:18:40] Of course, one of the most famous ones are those that battle of Jericho, right?
[00:18:47] The seven priests blowing the seven trumpets. Now wait a second. Seven. That sounds familiar.
[00:18:54] All right, we'll keep going. Seven priests blow semper trumpets before the Ark of God.
[00:19:00] And at the final blast, Israel shouts the walls fall. And the city which was meant, which was there standing against standing as a blockade and an obstacle for people entering into this kingdom of God. A picture of heaven is brought down not by the trumpets, but by God using this as a sign signal of his judgment. God using this earthly means towards holy ends.
[00:19:35] Then there's midian and judges seven, Gideon's 300 men blowing trumpets and the soldiers turn their swords against one another. And then of course, the biggest one of them all, aside from the one we read Today in Joel 2, a trumpet sounds in Zion to warn that the day of the Lord is coming.
[00:19:59] The final day of judgment.
[00:20:03] That judgment of the Lord that's pictured throughout the scriptures and is given at these various moments as a way to picture what's coming is what we have here in Revelation 8.
[00:20:17] We're going to think about the first four trumpets today.
[00:20:21] And what do we see first? As I said clearly what we have is the beginning of judgment. In response to the prayers of the saints.
[00:20:33] You turn back here to Revelation as we.
[00:20:39] How do we know it's the beginning of judgment?
[00:20:44] Well, the seven angels are prepared to blow right before they do. Remember, the angel takes the censer, fills it with fire from altar, throws it on the earth. And there's peels of thunder and rumblings, flashings of lightning and an earthquake.
[00:20:59] The Lord is On the move, things are about to happen. And then that first angel blows his trumpet.
[00:21:07] And hail and fire mixed with blood, and these are thrown upon the earth.
[00:21:15] And we know it's judgment because not only is this throne upon the earth, but it affects the earth and the people of the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
[00:21:30] The effects on man are pictured in other places, in the ships being destroyed or the water becoming bitter and people dying. And in other words, as the earth is. The earth struggles under these natural disasters and events.
[00:21:49] As the earth struggles on that, it has an effect on people.
[00:21:53] Flooding, fire, hail, earthquakes, all of these.
[00:22:00] All of these things.
[00:22:04] So we see that it's judgment.
[00:22:06] But in these first four trumpets, we see that it is not the last day of judgment. How do we know? Well, we partly know, if we continue on reading, that that's yet to come. But we can know from this passage itself, because only a third that interesting. Only a third, which means the Lord is holding back judgment here. He is restraining.
[00:22:32] Two thirds are left untouched. Two thirds of the trees are not burned, and so on and so forth. As we go through these. These different trumpets, this restraint on the stars and the waters and the. All these things tells us that final judgment has not come.
[00:22:55] So this is what we learned from these first four trumpets. That the Lord, in response to the prayers and needs of his saints, answer those by beginning the process of judgment. And in many ways, this is what we are observing and seeing now in our day and age. The Lord's work in the world, through natural disasters and powerful effects of weather.
[00:23:20] He works in these ways, and he works very powerfully, but he works in restrained ways.
[00:23:27] He works in restrained ways. It's not the last day of judgment, but it's not disconnected from the last day of judgment either.
[00:23:37] We see that in the way that it leads up to the final day, and we see that in another way.
[00:23:43] You've heard me say many times over the years that the resurrection has already begun.
[00:23:51] How can I say that?
[00:23:53] Well, because Jesus rose from the dead.
[00:23:56] Jesus rose from the dead. And the Scriptures say that we have even risen with him in what could be called the first resurrection, that the first fruits of the harvest have already begun.
[00:24:09] Right, the resurrection has already begun. But the resurrection happens after judgment.
[00:24:18] Because first the Lord judges us in Christ on the cross, and then the resurrection happens first, or the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and then the others, which means that judgment, in a way, has already begun.
[00:24:36] We are in the last times. We are in the last days. The final judgment has not come.
[00:24:42] The Lord is waiting for that. But there is a that there. But we are in the process of that. We are in this time in which natural disasters and these kinds of things happen.
[00:24:54] Romans 8 talks about them like a woman giving birth.
[00:24:59] The. The birth has not happened. She's not going through that moment, that great final moment of transition in which the baby is brought forth. But she's definitely having a baby.
[00:25:12] She's in pain, she's in labor. She's struggling. It's really hard.
[00:25:20] Obviously, I've not gone through this personally, but I've seen it.
[00:25:25] And the way in which labor is so terrifying, the way that women in birth feel like, I am literally dying right now and everyone's looking at you. You're going to do great. Everything's amazing, right? This kind of experience is very similar to what we experience right now. That's the way the Scripture is connected anyway. And I think it's true.
[00:25:54] The scriptures say it. Obviously, I think it's true. I mean to say that we experience it all the time as well.
[00:26:02] All the time.
[00:26:04] We call out to the Lord, we're dying here.
[00:26:09] Some of us literally martyrs being crucified and burned and beheaded and all kinds of put in prison and their livelihoods stripped away and separated from their loved ones. Things we read about in the news or in Hebrews, other places in the Scriptures. These are real things. And we call to the Lord and say, how long, O Lord, before you will avenge the blood of your servants?
[00:26:35] This is really hard. It's hard to maintain my testimony. It's hard to maintain my witness. It's hard to persevere, especially when the world and the flesh and the devil are pressing, pressing, pressing against me, against us.
[00:26:56] We feel like we're in labor.
[00:27:00] But that metaphor, that picture is so helpful to us because it tells us that it's not going to last forever, that the birth is coming, that the third and the third and the third, and all these terrible things that are pictured here and that we experience in the world are not going to last forever.
[00:27:23] They are connected to an event that's coming.
[00:27:28] Let's conclude, what does this mean for us?
[00:27:32] One of the reasons this, one of the implications of this is that we must put our hope, or put our hope in the condemnation that has already been removed.
[00:27:49] The reason the Scriptures say that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus is because judgment for us has already happened.
[00:28:01] Which means that the birth pains that we are going through the experiences of these first four trumpets that we are going through are not judgments on us personally.
[00:28:16] They're judgments on the world. They're things that we're caught up in. There are things that we're experiencing, but. But ultimately even these things God is using to sanctify us.
[00:28:26] We don't need to be afraid that even the worst storms or the worst tragedies, whether it's on earth or sea or in the space or whatever, even the worst ones, that God knows who are his own and he's protecting us and he's keeping us.
[00:28:51] Because condemnation has been removed through Jesus on the cross. You must not be frightened about the things around us.
[00:29:02] Sometimes people talk about, is this the end of the world, AI or weather, whatever.
[00:29:13] One Christian response to that is to say, if it is, I'm okay.
[00:29:20] It doesn't mean that we think lightly of that or that there's no sadness in that.
[00:29:26] But I meant to say it in the sense of confidence and in the sense of priorities, of knowing who our God is, of his sovereignty, of his power, of his desire to protect us.
[00:29:40] We must not be a frightened people.
[00:29:44] We should be a confident people, a zealous people, a bold people. Because our hope is not tied to the things in this world. This weather event or that weather event or this army or that economy. It's not tied to this. Our hope is in God and the things that he's promised to come.
[00:30:03] A second thing this means is we must be patient and we must persevere, knowing that times are hard.
[00:30:10] Just because we are suffering and just because we are struggling even greatly, even under the oppression of God's enemies, does not mean that God is failing us or that God is not at work. It would be very easy to think that if you're Israel in Egypt under Pharaoh, breaking your backs under whips and mud.
[00:30:33] To think, I think God has forgotten his promises to Abraham.
[00:30:38] We've been here for a long time and nothing's happening. And it's getting worse and worse and worse. Did God forget them? He did not forget them.
[00:30:50] And God hasn't forgotten us either.
[00:30:53] God is continuing to work in us and continuing to work throughout the world to bring things to their proper and glorious end.
[00:31:02] It is also important that if you do not trust in Jesus Christ, if you do not exalt him as your king, if you do not lean on him and entrust yourself to him as your Savior, you should not delay another moment in doing that.
[00:31:21] These passages reveal to us that these. These judgments are warnings of something to come in many ways, these judgments that are pictured here and some things to come parallel the plagues in Egypt.
[00:31:37] And if you read that story and you're thinking about it, you're looking at Pharaoh and his perspective on all this.
[00:31:46] It's hard not to yell at him a little bit, want to shake his shoulder. Like, what are you thinking? God is raining down plagues on you, and you're crossing your arms, going, ah, no, not going to budge.
[00:32:02] You think you're going to fight against this God? You think you're going to survive against this God and Pharaoh? So the answer was, of course, you bet I will.
[00:32:12] As he charges his and his. And. And his himself and his armies into the separated seas with, I guess, full confidence that he's going to, you know, either destroy or bring back his slaves.
[00:32:31] What?
[00:32:34] God has just taken his son from him. God has created death throughout Egypt, hail and blood in the Nile, and locusts and all kinds of boils and diseases. All these things caused by God and Pharaoh.
[00:32:56] Onward he goes.
[00:33:00] We can make fun of Pharaoh, but I'm warning you, do not do this.
[00:33:08] Do not take the patience and the opportunity of God to repent of your sins and say, well, I'm only on plague three.
[00:33:20] It's foolishness.
[00:33:22] The 10 plagues were not because God always gives 10.
[00:33:27] There's various reasons for that, but it's a completeness thing, similar to the number seven.
[00:33:33] We don't know when the completeness happens. We don't know when the moment of all wrath has been stored up and then the Lord comes in full vengeance in the day of the Lord when we will see these things pictured at Him. We do not know that.
[00:33:50] We cannot presume that we will, you know, outwit God and somehow figure this out and be free of his judgment.
[00:33:59] And why in the world would you do that when he is offering to you complete and perfect salvation forever and total forgiveness of. Of all your rebellion and sins against him.
[00:34:14] I just have to say, do not wait, do not delay, because there's a thing that we see happen in Pharaoh, and we'll discuss this later on as we go in the trumpets, where in God's judgment, he will harden the hearts of people who harden their hearts.
[00:34:33] He will allow us to go further into the sin that we want to go in.
[00:34:40] And so if there is any part of you that is. That is holding yourself back from the Lord, but sees the opportunity for repentance, take it.
[00:34:52] Just take it.
[00:34:57] In a way. He asks a lot.
[00:35:01] He asked you to stop serving your idols, to stop holding Fast to your false hopes, to stop serving yourself and trust in Him.
[00:35:14] But in another way, it costs nothing.
[00:35:20] There's no payment.
[00:35:22] There's no list of things that you have to do. We simply receive what he has promised to us and he empowers us to do all the things that he has called us to do.
[00:35:35] We simply accept it and trust Him.
[00:35:39] We just trust Him.
[00:35:44] This is a day for salvation for those who believe. It is a day of growing in it, of rejoicing in it, finding it more and celebrating it, and worshiping our God.
[00:35:59] And for those of you who have yet to believe, this is the day.
[00:36:06] The day to turn your hearts, to repent of your sins and to trust in Jesus who forgives and brings about the birth of the consummated kingdom of God, which you, if you trust of him, will belong to.
[00:36:26] So let's pray and ask that God would help us to persevere, to be patient, and to put our faith in Him.
[00:36:33] Our Heavenly Father, indeed you are sovereign.
[00:36:36] Your mighty word has been spoken. Your light has gone forth. And you are at work here and now in our world.
[00:36:44] We ask that you would help us to see that we are in a special time, this time between the Lord's first and second coming.
[00:36:54] A time in which the Gospel is going forth to the whole world.
[00:37:00] A time in which your people are being brought in. A time in which you are saving and rescuing and announcing the good news of salvation.
[00:37:10] I ask, Lord, that you would help each one of us here to hear it and to respond.
[00:37:16] Lord, we recognize the unbelief that is in us. The doubts, the struggles, the sin.
[00:37:27] But all the same, Lord, we ask that you would help us to believe, that you would strengthen our belief and that you would take and that you would implant in us this gift that we might belong to you.
[00:37:42] And we thank you, Lord, that through this resting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ and all his benefits, we have so much and really all that we need.
[00:37:56] We pray, Lord, for patience. We pray for perseverance. We pray for eyes to see and ears to hear the truth about our times.
[00:38:07] And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to be faithful and effective witnesses, that many more would come to you and that, Lord Jesus, you would come soon.
[00:38:17] We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
