DAY 351

NOT IN CONTROL

Amos 7, 8 & 9 and Revelation 8

SCENE THREE: WARNING FOR THE WORLD

Just to touch briefly back on the idea that you are being swept up in a grand drama. The stage yesterday was filled with all sorts of characters and action, and it does not let up. Today there are angels with trumpets!

·         First trumpet: fire and hail, mixed with blood thrown upon the earth.

·         Second trumpet: something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and some terrible things happened to the sea and all that was in it.

·         Third trumpet: great star fell from heaven on the rivers and on the springs of water, and the water was made bitter.

·         Fourth trumpet: a third of the sun, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars…were struck so that day and night were altered.

Then I heard and eagle crying, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels were about to blow.

You might be wondering, “Now what is going on?” Good question. Yesterday I wrote about “time and size.” Beyond the text, my goal was to get you to think about drama. How, in a drama, might you get your audience’s attention? How might you communicate the magnitude of a point you were trying to make? Might you repeat it?

If I have learned anything from the prophets, it is the God repeats his message – over and over and over. No one can say, “Gee, I had never heard that before.” I imagine as you have read the Bible in a Year, you might even be getting tired of the repetition…that is probably good so long as you do not forget the message.

And so we come to Revelation 8. Now as a word of explanation, not everyone agrees with what I typed in the last post, and therefore those who did not agree with me yesterday, will not agree with me today. I see that Revelation 8 is a parallel to Revelation 6-7. I will unpack that in a moment, but I do not see chapter 8 taking place chronologically after chapter 6-7. You might ask, “Why do you say that?”

Here is where our chapter and verse notation is not helpful (we are the ones who invented the chapter/verse, not God). I could have had you read through to 8:1 yesterday, but I did not do so to make a point. What if yesterday you read 8:1 as the last sentence of Scene 2? Imagine the scene: the sixth seal is opened, the entire sky goes black, kings are hiding in caves and angels are holding back destruction until the chosen of the Lord are marked. They are marked, complete cataclysm takes place and then the seventh seal is open and there is silence—and the curtain falls on scene two.

Seal six covers the end of history, and I want to suggest seal seven covers what comes after that, and it is another world to come, the curtain falls, we know there is more but we are left in suspense. The Revelation of St. John will deal with it, but it will deal with it later. To me it makes sense that the seventh seal was opened “yesterday,” there was silence, and the curtain fell.

Which brings me back to the beginning of Scene 3: if when seal six was opened the cataclysmic coming of Christ took place and in which the light of the heavenly bodies will be put out completely (Rev. 6:12-17), then how is it that trumpet four puts out one third of them—they would already be out. I could also take you through some other ideas about this, but my point is that by my way of thinking the trumpets and the seals parallel on another—and we could go through that but I do not have the room (see The Bible Speaks Today, Revelation by Michael Wilcock.)

So I come back to the question: “Now what is going on?” The answer is drama. And it is repetitive. The curtain fell and when it next arose the scene is of angels and trumpets! It is trying to your attention. It is trying to communicate the magnitude of a point. It is the same point as was just made. What is the point?

The trumpets are a warning, a warning to the world. The first four are all rather environmental; external things happening around and to people. In the section on the “seals” it was all rather cosmic, these disasters are all rather natural, and you might even be able to picture them. They should shake us. I am not a person that says things such as “God caused the tsunami” but I do believe they ought to shake us. We think we have it all under control. Sometimes we not only think it, but we act like it—and we act as if we do not need God. We are fools when we do (see Luke 12:13-21). Even the casual observer knows we live on this “island planet.” We are hurtling through space at an astronomical speed. One meteor strike, one volcanic eruption, one…and it is over. We are not in control and we should turn and seek God. Not out of fear, but out of humble respect that we are his spiritual creatures on this amazing physical world…and all living with a purpose for Him.