Let me get you open the Bible, if you would, please, to Revelation chapter eight. If you're following closely, you may remember we touched on Revelation chapter eight a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about the seven seals. The seventh of the seven seals shows up in Revelation eight. So we, looked at part of Revelation then, Revelation eight then, this morning we're coming back, we're gonna repeat Revelation chapter eight verses one to five, as we look at this whole chapter. Turns out they overlap in a significant way, and we'll be talking about the significance of that as we dig into the passage this morning. It's on page 1,032, it'd be great if you have it open in front of you, and if you would, please stand. Revelation chapter 8, beginning at verse 1 on page 1032. 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. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense. to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. 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 lightning, and an earthquake. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all green grass was burned up. 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. A third of the living creatures in the sea died. And a third of the ships were destroyed. 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. A third of the waters became Wormwood. And many people died from the water because it had been made bitter. 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. Then I looked, and I heard an angel, an eagle, I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead. Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth at the blast of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow. The word of the Lord. Thank you, God. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray this morning that you would please send your Holy Spirit powerfully upon us. The same spirit that moved your servant John to record these words, may that same spirit Open our ears and our hearts and give us grace that we might hear your word, believe it, obey it, and rejoice in it for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. It would be helpful if you kept the Bible open to Revelation chapter 8. I'm going to be making a frequent reference to Chapter 8, and I'm also going to be looking at several cross-references to help us understand Revelation Chapter 8. I want to remind you of an illustration I used a couple of weeks ago in describing a way of understanding Revelation. One way, of course, is to picture it as a veil that's being parted so that we're able to look through and and actually see a dimension to reality that we're unable to see on our own. God has to reveal it to us. That's a simple and understandable illustration. Another one, though, that I've stumbled onto that I've enjoyed thinking about has to do with the view of things from distance. I gave the illustration of the Tesla Roadster. that Elon Musk sent into space in 2018 with a mannequin at the wheel of the Tesla out in outer space. It's still there. It's called Starman, and he's wearing a space helmet. And the vehicle is out there, and there are pictures of it. There's an attached camera at an angle that it captures a picture of the car. And here's Starman at the wheel of the Tesla Roadster, and behind him is the Earth, this huge... a vision of the Earth from a great distance. I'm told that Space Oddity by David Bowie is blaring on the radio, if there's still battery power to do that, as the Roadster makes its way. And there's this growing vision of not only the Earth, but also the space around the Earth. There's another illustration. The Voyager 1 was a space exploration piece of equipment that was sent into outer space in 1977. I graduated from high school in 1976, so you get an idea of how long it's been up there. It's been traveling across space. Today it is 15 billion miles away, if you can imagine. And at least as of fairly recently, it was managing to send data from outer space, and we were able to pick it up, from 15 billion miles away. It's actually now entered interstellar space, which is the region beyond our solar system. And so Voyager 1 has been able to send back pictures of all the planets from 15 billion miles away. And at that distance, the Earth is just, as I think it was called, a pale blue dot. And all the wonders of space become visible with this perspective. That's a little bit like Revelation, minus the technology and minus the Elon Musk. It's a picture that we are unable to see on our own. It has to be shown to us, this great perspective. And that's what Revelation is doing. It's giving us a God-given vision of this great perspective, unknowable to us, apart from the work of God who reveals it to us in the Bible. So this is, if you will, a perspective, a dramatic new perspective, a way of understanding the world where we live, the pale blue dot where we live, how it's connected, and how all these things are going on that we are completely unaware of on our own. This chapter is an overlap section. Chapter 8 opens with the seventh seal, with its half-hour silence underscoring the drama, the significance of this seventh seal. And then it skips immediately to the seven trumpets. And that's often the way it will be in the remainder of Revelation. It's like one section segues into another section. It underscores something I've tried to explain for some time, which is the interconnection of these visions. It is a mistake, I think, to try to interpret these as a linear chronology. They kind of defy that. the way they're put together, the fact there are always seven of them, and how they seem to repeat in significant ways the same kind of thing. It's as though it's this deepening perspective, a slightly different perspective from a different angle. And I'll suggest that I think that is what revelation is meant to be. Not a linear chronology, but a way of understanding the interconnectedness of this dramatic perspective we're able to see. These things are, as I said a couple weeks ago, like a spiral. Not a long piece of thread, but a spiral. Like the roll of a scroll. And here in Revelation, God is revealing it to us in these symbolic pictures. Sometimes John hears it, oftentimes he sees it, but his point is to explain it. That's the work of the Holy Spirit in John, taking the vision and that he has seen or heard and explaining it so that we can get this perspective that God is giving us in this book. So Revelation chapter eight is the end of the seals and the beginning of the trumpets. The seals begin in chapter six, the trumpets are in chapter eight, then there are seven plagues in chapter 15 and seven bowls in chapter 16. And all of these you'll see are interconnected. They often describe the same or very similar things. Now the picture of a trumpet, is a beautiful one. If you look at what the kids are coloring right now, you'll see a picture of an angel blowing a trumpet. That's a certain style trumpet. And this is the section which we begin to understand these trumpets and the role they play in this revelation. Of course, when you hear the word trumpet, I don't know about you, but I thought of the walls of Jericho. how the people of God were commanded to march around Jericho in Joshua chapter six. We'll be looking much more at that in a couple of weeks. But that idea of trumpet jumped right out at me when I was looking at this passage over the past couple of weeks. There's another Old Testament parallel, however, that may not have jumped out at you, but scholars have spotted it. Greg Beal, my favorite commentator on the book of Revelation, makes a lot of this Dr. Beal makes the point that these trumpets overlap another Old Testament list, not of seven things, but of 10 things. And it's the 10 plagues in Egypt. And scholars have carefully worked their way through the seven trumpets, and they're able to see how the trumpets and the things connected with the trumpets line up very well and very significantly with the plagues of Israel in Egypt, the plagues on Egypt. That's in Exodus 7, verse 12. Just to remind you, the water turning to blood, that was the first plague. the frogs, the gnats or lice, the flies, the livestock pestilence, the boils, the seventh plague, the hail, the eighth plague, locusts, and the locusts show up in the fifth trumpet that we'll see in a couple of Sundays. And then the ninth plague, which is darkness, followed by the 10th plague, the killing of the firstborn of both humans and animals. And Dr. Beale described this growing intensification of the plagues, how they, in the Old Testament, record this intensifying judgment as God calls out to Pharaoh to release his people. Look, if you would, over at Exodus chapter seven. I told you we'd do a bit of cross-referencing. Well, I want you to see what Dr. Beale is talking about. Look over at Exodus chapter seven, page 49. And the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh and your brother Aaron should be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you and your brother Aaron should tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. And what is described in the rest of Exodus chapter 7 through 12 are these plagues, beginning with verse 14, water turned to blood. And then each of the 10 plagues described leading up to the final plague, which is the most dramatic, the most intense of these unfolding acts of judgment on Israel, on Egypt. Notice that rather than convincing Pharaoh to repent, these plagues actually seemed to harden Pharaoh's heart. God working through all the things that he works through actually doesn't convert Pharaoh, but hardens Pharaoh's heart, as Exodus tells us very explicitly. So the seven trumpets that we're gonna read about, if there is this parallel to the 10 plagues, are not here to change the world's mind. They are here instead to explain something to God's people. As a matter of fact, the trumpets go from bad to worse because the people do not repent. If you look across the page to Revelation chapter nine, You'll see in verse 20, the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. They did not repent. They see all of this unfolding judgment, but rather than bringing them to a place of repentance, their hearts are hardened. That's the world under judgment that Revelation 8 is describing. And the purpose was never to change the minds of the world under judgment, but to explain to God's covenant people in the midst of it. so that God's covenant people would know what God was doing and they would find hope and encouragement in the midst of it. And that's what we're going to see as we make our way through these first four of the seven trumpets. Look at the first trumpet in verse seven. Verse six, the angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. Verse seven, the first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood. And these were thrown upon the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. From this dramatic perspective on the world under judgment, John is describing something that is, humanly speaking, difficult to describe. He's digging deep in the Old Testament treasure to explain what this vision has shown him. He sees with the first trumpet the hail and the fire mixed with blood. And that was a way of describing the first plague. Millennia earlier, when God pronounced judgment on Egypt, Well, this trumpet blown by the angel, the first angel, is the first step in judgment on the world from this great perspective, this great distance. A perspective that was meant to be very dramatic. It's very brief. It's a brief description of what must have been amazing to see. But that was the first of the seven trumpets. Look at verses 8 and 9 and verses 10 and 11. 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. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. 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." A third of the waters became Wormwood. and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter." The second and third trumpet are touching on the same themes of judgment as the plague on the Nile in Exodus 7, verses 20-25. One of the other plagues that God unleashed on Egypt as He sought to set His people free. Picture of Wormwood is an interesting reference in verse 11. The name of the star is Wormwood. I've read that verse so many times. What is Wormwood? Well, you might, if you ever had a drink that had absinthe in it, absinthe is actually the Greek word for Wormwood, and it has to do with this bitter tasting herb. And it's a very bitter-tasting extract. If you look down, it's a footnote, footnote number three in the Pew Bible. Wormwood is the name of a plant of the bitter-tasting extract derived from it. Well, again, John, moved by the Holy Spirit, is digging into the treasure of the Old Testament to describe what Exodus doesn't use the word upwormwood, doesn't use this concept of a bitter extract. But he goes back to another Old Testament reference to Jeremiah 9, verse 15. This might be interesting to you. Flip over to Jeremiah 9, verse 15. Jeremiah writes, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will feed this people with bitter food and give them poisonous water to drink. The word translated poisonous water is actually wormwood. If you look it up in the King James Version, you'll see that the translators kept the word wormwood. If you flip over to Jeremiah 23, verse 15, you'll see that John, moved by the Holy Spirit, kept this image. Therefore, says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets, behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink. Again, the word translated poisoned water is wormwood. If you look up in the King James Version, you'll see John, moved by the Spirit, is taking the language of Jeremiah and fitting it within the story of the plagues on Egypt to describe what he sees in this powerful vision. This idea of God bringing bitterness into the world and as part of the unfolding judgment that God is bringing about and which Revelation records. Then if you look at verse 12 in Revelation chapter 8, 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. A picture of darkness. Well, as you recall, that was one of the plagues of Israel, of Egypt. The ninth plague, the one before the killing of the firstborn humans and animals, the very next to last plague was this darkness. If you look at Exodus chapter 10, you'll see a little bit more about the darkness and why this is such an important part of what John sees. Exodus chapter 10. Verses 21 to 23. Then the Lord said to Moses, this is page 53, stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, the darkness to be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. Notice how it's described, verse 23. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light. where they lived. The darkness, while literal in Exodus chapter 10, is also figurative. It describes what darkness means relationally. They can't see each other. They're disconnected. They're alienated. They're isolated in their darkness. They don't go out. They can't rise. There may be something literal about that in terms of John's vision, but the significance is the same. This alienation, part of the judgment, this intensifying judgment that John sees in the revelation that's given to him, involves this intense alienation, this separation of people by darkness. I was thinking about a lot about that this week. If there's a word to describe our world under darkness, under judgment, it's this picture of alienation, the alienation of darkness, how we're separated from each other, how we can't see one another clearly. And if you look around at our world in the Western part of civilization, which is where we live, especially, you see these And again, very dramatic terms. We have an alienated society, intensely polarized, disconnected. Brothers and sisters, that is as significant and dramatic an expression of judgment as it would be if the sun became dark right now. An expression of God's judgment. God speaking words of judgment. to explain to His covenant people what is happening. It's very important for us to know what is happening, so that we don't become lost in our own kind of darkness, overwhelmed, confused, afraid. A vision of the trumpet and its judgment here on the fourth trumpet really underscores what all of these trumpets are going to tell us, how God's judgment is in the world today. And it's not a chronological thing. It is an ongoing reality. It was true in the first century in its own way. It's true in the 21st century. We are living in a world that is full of darkness. So you have these seven trumpets. We'll pick up with the other three, the last three, as John says, if you flip back to Revelation chapter eight, we'll pick up with those and see. of what these other trumpets have to tell us. Again, there's a great deal of interconnection. There's an interlude where we find out about some other dimensions of God's judgment in the world where we live. But it's all meant to underscore a kind of description, a kind of explanation of the world where we are. Rather than feeling as though God has lost control or he doesn't have a plan, he doesn't have a purpose, The book of Revelation helps us to know that in the midst of all of this, God actually has a perfect purpose that is unfolding. And he loves us enough to tell us about it, explain it to us. He uses symbolic language through John, but it's here to explain it to us. It's here to give us hope and confidence. It's here to give us courage and boldness. You know, I'm very grateful to Paul for praying for revival as he did this morning, because we are a church that we're living in a very demoralized time for Christians. We feel like we're ebbing, we're fading. You hear it all the time, the late great church and all these dark, gloomy descriptions of what is going on in the world. And no doubt there's something to be gained by looking at those statistics and thinking about what can we humanly do to to not go the direction some of the statistics seem to imply. But the more important lesson, I think, truly more important than any man-made strategy, any man-made plan, any book, any bestseller, any college course, any seminary course, is to be reminded and to remember again and again and again that there is a God who is reigning over it all. He is reigning over it all, even in the midst of judgment. He is reigning over it all. And you know what? He never takes his eye off his people. He's actually constantly in this book and in Christian reality, he is calling us back to remember who he is, to remember his faithfulness. So having looked briefly at these seven trumpets in verses six to 13, I want to back up. and look in reverse order at two other things, where this chapter actually begins. They're critically important things. We might be tempted to overlook them and go on to the dramatic language of the trumpets. They are very dramatic. They're meant to be very dramatic, but we must look at verses one to five. Again, I said we looked at it a couple of weeks ago, but we're gonna look at it with particular focus. John mentioned this in his introduction, verses three to five, describe a golden censer. A lot of us don't know what that word means. It's not a regular part of our corporate worship in the Presbyterian church. You will be forgiven for not really necessarily knowing what a censer is. But it was very well known to the Hebrew people. You know why? The censer was part of the furniture of the temple. If you look, if you will, just for a moment, another cross-reference, Leviticus chapter 16, on page 95, you'll see a description of the Day of Atonement. And if you look at Leviticus chapter 16, verses 12 and 13, I'll back up to verse 11. Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Verse 12, he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony so that he does not die. The censer, the offering of incense, all the way from the Old Testament, all the way from the Pentateuch, is meant to represent and to call us to embrace and understand the atonement that the temple and the sacrifices were pointing towards. The censer is pointing towards the atonement, the worship of the atoning one. The way we find hope and security in the midst of judgment is in part expressed in this sense, this incense offered through the censer. Look, if you will, at Psalm 141 on page 522. There are several other references, but this is a particularly good one. It's a part of Israel's hymn book. They would have sung about this from time to time. That's how familiar it was to them. Look at Psalm 141 verses one and two, a prayer. Oh Lord, I call upon you, hasten to me, give ear to my voice when I call to you. Let my prayer be counted as incense before you and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. So flip back to Revelation 8. John is using this Old Testament language, which he had seen in the vision, to remind us of the atoning sacrifice at the middle of the covenant family. As John rightly prayed, we don't gather here today because we're particularly nice people. or because we share some esoteric knowledge. No, we gather here as a people because God has atoned for us. And our worship, our prayers are incense before him. They're an expression of worship. They're an expression of our gathering around him with grateful, and praise-filled hearts. And God reminds John of that before the dramatic perspective offered with the trumpets. It precedes it. And over and over again through the book of Revelation, we'll see this again and again, how these dramatic visions are always preceded and usually followed by a word of explanation which anchors what John is describing to the promises of God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's what we're meant to cling to and hold on to and trust. in the midst of what would ordinarily terrify us. See, the world rushes right past the boring interlude comments. Don't read the book of Revelation that way. You will be confused. No, these descriptions are meant to anchor us so that we will not be afraid, so that we will not be terrified, so that we will actually trust the God who is revealing this truth to us, giving us this dramatic perspective. The dramatic perspective, apart from His promises, would be overwhelming. but the dramatic perspective with the promises of God, including the idea that our worship, our prayers, our incense are an expression of worship. And we'll see that again and again through the book of Revelation, how worship, the gathering of God's people is meant to be the source of hope and even joy. If you count up all the songs of praise in the book of Revelation, it's a big chunk of the book. Songs of praise in the midst of the drama. Songs of worship in the midst of dramatic pictures and language that are meant to describe symbolically the darkness around us. So the trumpets, which we've looked at the first four, we'll look at the other three later. The censer in verses three to five, representing the prayers, the worship of God's people in response to the atonement. And then finally, in verse three, a little word that can't be overstated, 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. And another angel came and stood at the altar. The altar with the golden censer. And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne." You can't really see the throne apart from the altar. The altar and the throne are together. The angels, they worship God around the throne and around the altar before the throne. Brothers and sisters, when we as Christians Read the word altar in this context. Well, it's meant to call to mind all the altars of the Old Testament. For instance, Exodus chapter 30. If you look it up on page 70, Exodus chapter 30. Verse 1 describes the altar of incense. Verse 3 says it's gold. So John is literally taking an image directly out of the Old Testament, directly out of the Pentateuch. He's interpreting his vision as the Spirit has led him. And then verses 7 to 10 describe, this is in Exodus 30, the atonement again. The atonement, the altar is about the atonement. Sacrificed, celebrated among the people of Israel in the tabernacle and then for generations in the temple until the temple was demolished. And now that atoning sacrifice is celebrated and remembered eternally, eternally before the throne. There is an altar before the throne. You cannot approach the throne without the altar. Before any of the judgments or plagues of chapter 8 and 9 and 10, before any of the judgments described in the dramatic plagues and bowls in chapters 15 and 16, before any of those important realities that have been revealed to us, let us never forget with gratitude and praise that there is an altar. And the altar is the sacrifice of Jesus. All the animal sacrifices, all the incense offered over many, many, many generations, over hundreds, thousands of years in the Old Testament, right up to the beginning of the New Testament period, all of that was pointing towards the cross of Christ. And the reason we can read Revelation chapter eight without terror is because of the altar. because the one who reigns over it all is the lamb who was slain at the altar. That means we can be hopeful, we can be confident, even in the midst of judgment. It doesn't deny judgment for an instant. We live in a world under judgment. It's dramatic. At times, it can feel overwhelming. And that's why Revelation is here to remind us to lean on the altar, to trust in the altar, not only to comfort us, to encourage us so that we might send little ones across the world into the mission field. Where do you get courage to do that? Why do you do that? Because of the altar of Christ, because of the lamb. And we live every second of every day in light of the altar of Christ. The sacrificed one, the Lamb who was slain, gives meaning and hope to it all. And that's where we will find courage for revival. That's where the Holy Spirit will stir up the fire within us. It's as we look at the altar, as we look at Jesus. It's not apart from Him. It is in Him that the Spirit gives us confidence. to be bold witnesses, even in a dark and crazy world. Even in a bitter world, full of bitterness, we have hope. Moments of joy, God is a gracious God. There are moments of human happiness, many, many moments of human happiness. But in a world under judgment, we find our ultimate hope in Him. a sacrificed one.