Revelation Chapter Eight
(Chapter 8 from Dr. Hyle's excellent book, Let's Study The Revelation)
PREPARATION FOR THE TRUMPETS
Thus far, we have seen the opening of the six of the seven seals. The seals contain punishments man shall bring upon himself. The trumpets begin the judgments God will inflict upon man. The seventh seal contains the seven trumpets. Sketching it out, it would look like this:
In other words, the seven trumpets are in the seventh seal.
Verse 1:
For several chapters now we have been hearing choirs rejoice. As we come to chapter 8, these choirs suddenly stop. Have you ever heard a large choir come to an abrupt halt? That is what happens here. The four living creatures, the hundreds of millions of angels, the saints of all the ages, suddenly stop their singing. Imagine it!WHY DOES THE SINGING AND REJOICING STOP? Simply because the most horrible things that have ever happened are about to happen as the trumpets are about to sound. The silence is like a breathless gasp in horror. For about thirty minutes, all of the choirs of Heaven gasp in horror as they stop the music for a breathless moment of silence.
Verse 2:
In the midst of this silence, we see seven angels who are about to blow seven trumpets. If you will read Numbers 10:1-9 you will see several things for which trumpets were blown.For a gathering for a Feast. When Jesus comes to rapture His church, the trumpet will gather us to the wedding feast at the marriage of the Lamb. For a gathering for War. The same trumpet that gathers us to the Great Feast hurls the remaining people into terrible war. What will the trumpet sound mean to you? War or a Feast? For the anointing of a King. Jesus is going to come back to the earth as King of kings to establish His reign of peace for one thousand years. We shall be His subjects. The sounding of the trumpets mean that the King is coming soon.
Verse 3:
What could the prayers of the saints have to do with this great event? Simply this: This even has been the heart throb of all praying saints through the years as they have prayed, "THY KINGDOM COME. " Far too many pray that prayer and do not realize what they are praying. When you pray this prayer, you are asking God to hasten the day when Jesus will reign as King over the earth in His Kingdom. These trumpets are the beginning of the answer to that prayer.An interesting thing taught here is that God is recording the prayers of the saints. This should make us resolve to pray more than ever. You are making a recording, not on Decca or Columbia, but on God’s machine as you pray.
Verses 4-5:
You will remember that the altar was the place of the substitute, a type of the cross. The fire consumed the substitute, but since those upon the earth at this time are those who have failed to accept the Substitute, the angel throws the fire to the earth. Either man accepts the fire upon the substitution or he must suffer the fires of Hell himself."CAST " means to throw or hurl.
Now hear the noise start again. Just as the sudden stopping of noises was awesome, even shall the sudden lightning and thundering earthquake be awesome.
The voices in this verse are probably voices of horror and crying over the soon coming of the awful trumpets.
Verse 6:
Now we prepare ourselves to see what could be so horrible as to cause so much concern. In the next verse we shall see what the trumpets are and why they caused millions to gasp in horror.Before us stand seven angels with seven trumpets. Heaven’s rejoicing has been silenced because of the awfulness that the blowing of the trumpets was going to bring immediately. The angels are ready to sound the trumpets. The first one is sounded.
Please note the word, "PREPARED." It means "prepared by appointment." In other words, God has appointed these things to happen and they will happen. God’s train runs according to schedule.
Verse 7:
The first trumpet brought hail and fire mingled with blood and burned up the third part of trees and all green grass. Some teachers symbolize the entire thing. They say the trees are great men, or teachers or doctors. They say that the grass means people in general. They say that the earth is the church. Brother, as far as I’m concerned the trees mean trees, the grass means grass, and the earth means earth.Others say that all of the hail and fire, etc., are symbolic and that such as that could not really happen. Well, it has happened before. The plagues that God sent upon Egypt brought a similar thing. Read Exodus 9:23, 24. God has said that this would happen again in Jeremiah 23:7, 8.
Verse 8-9:
The second trumpet will bring an object that will be like a great mountain that will be cast into the sea and turn one third of the sea to blood. Some try to symbolize and say that the mountain is this thing or another and the blood stand for something and that the sea will never actually turn to blood.This also happened before. You will find it recorded in Exodus 7:19, 20.
I believe that one reason that the word "blood " is mentioned here is that God is going to constantly remind them that they could have escaped this awful time had they accepted the blood of Jesus.
Note also that one third part of sea life will die and one third of the ships will be destroyed. When one ship is destroyed, it gets headlines and disaster help. Imagine one third of the ships being destroyed.
Verses 10-11:
One third of the waters will be like wormwood. Wormwood is a bitter, intoxicating, poisonous thing. It paralyzes and kills. Imagine one third of the water supply turned this way. it is the bitterest herb known to man.WHY WILL GOD DO THIS? Could it be that it is because of the bitter gall they gave Jesus to drink on Calvary? The world has always been bitter towards Jesus. They will receive their deserts.
Verse 12:
This brings the blowing of the fourth trumpet that brings a partial darkness over all the earth.Verse 13:
The word "ANGEL " here should be "eagle. " Now in the Scriptures many times when God speaks of the rapture. He calls the raptured saints eagles. Though this is probably a real eagle, it is interesting to note that God does speak of the saints as eagles. Why?Eagles are great watchers. They are hard to fool and are alert. We are to watch all the time for the coming of our King.
Eagles like to go higher than most birds. The farther they fly from the earth the better they like it. We too should live high and separated lives from the world.
We are going to mount wings as eagles and fly up to meet the Lord when He comes at the rapture.
This eagle that comes is warning the earthdwellers of the three remaining plagues that are to come.
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