The Seven Trumpets
Reexamined
________________________________
“And I saw the
seven angels who stand before God,
and to them were given seven
trumpets.”
-
Revelation 8:2
Please consider four
introductory points:
1. The
Seven trumpets of Revelation are
seven horrible judgments that will
impact Earth during the Great
Tribulation. These judgments will
devastate the ecosystems of the
planet so completely that Earth will
not be able to recover. The book of
Revelation describes these judgments
as “seven trumpets” in the
book of Revelation because a trumpet
will sound in Heaven’s temple
each time a judgment occurs. The
first four trumpets will occur in
rapid succession. These four
judgments will be so catastrophic
that they will sever the past from
the future. Life for everyone on
Earth will dramatically change once
these events begin. Thousands of
cities will be destroyed by fire and
water. Twenty-five percent of the
world’s population will die
during the first few weeks, and
global infrastructures such as
communication travel, banking,
manufacturing, and shipping will all
but disappear. God’s judgments
will impose great tribulation on
everyone. The first four trumpets
will cause the whole world to relate
to God in a way that is presently
unimaginable.
2. The
“full cup principle” is a
prerequisite to the study of the
seven trumpets. The “full
cup principle” is a policy that
God consistently uses to manage
groups of people. A group of people
can be cities like Sodom and
Gomorrah, a nation like Israel, a
world empire like Medo-Persia, or
even the whole world, as in
Noah’s day. This principle is
fairly easy to understand. When a
majority of a group becomes so
degenerate and defiant that extended
mercy has no redeeming effect, God
reveals His love for the innocent
victims of sin and future
generations. He responds to the
current generation by sending
warnings and redemptive judgments, so
that if possible, His wayward
subjects will change course. If His
warnings are ignored and His redemptive
judgments do not produce repentance
and reformation, God destroys that
group by sending totally destructive
judgments. This principle explains
the appearance and disappearance of
civilizations. The full cup principle
is found throughout the Bible. For
example, God destroyed the world with
a flood in Noah’s day, God
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in
Abraham’s day, God collapsed the
walls of Jericho for Joshua, God
destroyed two-thirds of Israel and
sent the remainder into Babylonian
captivity (605-536 B.C.), and
finally, God sent the Romans to
destroy Jerusalem in A.D. 70. God
will soon apply the “full cup
principle” again to the world as
He did in Noah’s day. The seven
trumpets will be redemptive judgments
(seven first plagues) and then the
seven bowls (seven last plagues) will
be totally destructive.
3. God
thoughtfully designed the seven
trumpets to accomplish many
objectives. One objective is
confrontation. God wants to confront
the false religions of the world with
“gospel truth.” The
first four trumpets will set the
stage for this confrontation. When
billions of people see the sudden
destruction of notably wicked places
all over the Earth and the
obliteration of twenty-five percent
of the world’s population,
almost everyone will be found in a
state of genuine anguish, fearing the
wrath of Almighty God. The first four
trumpets will cause unimaginable
destruction, and the chaos that will
follow will be so great within each
nation that each government will
question whether it will be able to
continue functioning. After the first
four trumpets occur, the nations of
the Earth will realize that mankind
is dealing with one angry God. All of
Earth’s political leaders and
religious leaders will humbly unite
in all out effort to appease God so
that His wrath will immediately
cease. Driven by fear and humbled by
overwhelming destruction, the
religious leaders of the world will
implement a terribly misguided
solution to appease God’s wrath.
Unfortunately, their solution will
stand in direct opposition to what
God actually wants, and the
confrontation between man’s
solution and God’s plan will
begin.
Another objective
embedded in the seven trumpets is
redemption. The “shock and
awe” of the first four trumpets
will shatter religious paradigms. All
people, despite religious
backgrounds, will listen and
intelligently consider a gospel that
is different from anything they have
ever heard. This receptivity to
another paradigm will be miraculous
given the religious antagonism that
has existed for centuries between
Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Atheists,
Catholics, Protestants, and Pagans.
Today, no one religious body can
claim that it knows more about
Almighty God without being condemned
by the other six. God will displace
man’s arrogance by uniting
mankind through fear. Overwhelming
destruction will produce unimaginable
suffering and hardship. God will
level the playing field through
humiliation so people will hear His
gospel. This will provide an opening
wedge that will cause people to
listen to God’s servants, the
144,000. The 144,000 will boldly
proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ
to every nation, kindred, tongue and
people. Thus, every religious and
nonreligious nation will hear and
thoughtfully consider a gospel that
they would have refused to hear at
any other time. (Matthew 24:14)
There are other
important objectives in the seven
trumpets, but these two examples
should demonstrate the point God has
thoughtfully planned His forthcoming
actions. God is love. He is
deliberate and purposeful in all of
His actions. It is a shame that God
has to implement His full cup
principle and destroy a large portion
of Earth to get mankind to listen to
Him. Yet, the good news is that
millions of people from every nation
will listen. The Great Tribulation
will ultimately produce two distinct
groups of people. One group, the
sheep, will consist of people with
pure hearts who will exalt
righteousness and love truth. The
other group, the goats, will consist
of people who will do anything to
save themselves from suffering and
death.
Because God is
deliberate in everything He does, I
call the seven trumpets and seven
bowls designer judgments. God’s
plan for Earth and its inhabitants
predates Creation, and His plan will
be consummated soon. The Bible
teaches “Intelligent
Design.” Jesus created this
world in six literal days and rested
from His creative works on the
seventh day. (Genesis 2:1-3) The
Bible also teaches “Intelligent
Demise.” Jesus will also destroy
this creation over a course of 1,335
days. Nothing can stop Him once He
starts the process.
4. Some
people believe the book of Revelation
was written in chorological order. Consider
these two verses: “When he
opened the seventh seal, there was
silence in heaven for about half an
hour. And I saw the seven angels who
stand before God, and to them were
given seven trumpets.” (Revelation
8:1,2)
Many people think
these two verses are in chronological
order. This is not the case. If we
approach the book of Revelation with
the presupposition that its contents
were written in chronological order,
we will become hopelessly confused.
For reasons that were discussed in
the chapter titles, “Getting
Started with the Book of
Revelation,” we know the book of
Revelation contains twelve
prophecies. There is chronological
order in Revelation, but this order
is found within each prophecy. Remember,
I use four rules as a basis for my
understanding of apocalyptic
prophecy. Specifically, Rule One of
Apocalyptic Prophecy states: “An
apocalyptic prophecy has a beginning
and ending point in time and the
events occur in their stated
order.”
If you are not
technically inclined, you may wish to
skip the following section and return
to it after you read the rest of the
chapter. I have elected to include
this segment early in the story of
the seven trumpets because you need
to understand that references in more
than one apocalyptic prophecy can tie
to the same event.
Take a moment to
consider Diagram 12.1 Notice that the
six seals in Prophecy #1 and the six
trumpets in Prophecy #3 are in
chronological and numerical order.
Next, look at the
three elements within Prophecy #2.
The first element is the sealing of
the 144,000, and by simple deduction,
we know that this sealing occurs before
Earth is hurt and the Great
Tribulation begins.
The second element in
Prophecy #2 is a scene that takes
place in Heaven after the
Second Coming. An innumerable number
of people who went through the Great
Tribulation are seen standing around
God’s throne. Finally, the third
element in Prophecy #2 is a numbered
element – it is the seventh
seal. Carefully notice that the
events within Prophecy #2 are in
chronological order even though the
seventh seal is the only numerical
item in this prophecy.
At first, it might
seem that the seventh seal in
Prophecy #2 is disconnected from the
six seals in Prophecy #1. God
deliberately put the seventh seal at
the end of Prophecy #2 so that we
could accurately determine the timing
of the seventh seal!
Notice how this works:
Obviously, the seventh seal has to
occur after the sixth seal
(the sixth seal is the Second
Coming). Then, because there is
chronological order in Prophecy #2,
we know the seventh seal occurs after
the numberless multitude are seen
standing around God’s throne.
This also confirms the seventh seal
occurs after the Second Coming. And,
according to Revelation 20:12, the Book
of Life is opened once – at
the end of the 1,000 years. From our
study on the seven seals, we know
that the Book of Life is the
“book” that was sealed with
seven seals. Therefore, the breaking
of the seventh seal on the Book of
Life occurs at the end of the
1,000 years. There is no wiggle room
on this conclusion because God put
the twelve prophecies together in a
very tight matrix. When we use valid
rules of interpretation, there is
harmony from the sum of all the
parts!
The prophecies in both
Daniel and Revelation have many
elements that occur simultaneously.
For example, in Revelation, the
breaking of the fourth seal in
Prophecy #1 (God’s four
judgments – sword, famine,
plague, and wild beasts) and the
sounding of the first trumpet in
Prophecy #3 occur at the same
time. In fact, the seven trumpets
cause sword, famine, plague, and wild
beasts to occur!
The next point is
important, but few Bible students
understand it. Rule One of
apocalyptic prophecy forces a new
prophecy to begin whenever
chronological order is broken.
This concept explains why Revelation
8:2 starts a new prophecy. In other
words, the seven trumpets cannot be
given to the seven angels after the
seventh seal is broken and the 1,000
years have ended, even though both
events are contained in the first two
verses of Revelation 8. Rule One
forces Revelation 8:2 to become the
starting point of a new prophecy
because Revelation 8:2 does not
chronologically follow Revelation
8:1. Whenever chronological order is
broken, Rule One forcers us to
declare the ending point of the
previous prophecy and the starting
point of a new prophecy. It is a
challenging, time-consuming process
to find the twelve prophecies in
Revelation, but with God’s help,
we can identify the twelve
prophecies. Blessed is the one who
reads and understands the book of
Revelation. (Revelation 1:3)
The Bottom Line
If a person does not
properly understand the timing,
nature, and purpose of the seven
trumpets, he cannot understand
Revelation’s story. Ironically,
most Christians do not appreciate the
necessity of understanding the seven
trumpets for three reasons.
First, millions of
Christians have been misled by the
doctrine of a pretribulation rapture.
Because these Christians believe they
will not be on Earth during the seven
trumpets, they are not especially
concerned about them. Their attitude
is, “Yes, the seven trumpets are
interesting, but not critically
important. As long as we are ready
fore the rapture, we have nothing to
worry about.” A second group of
Christians have also been misled on
the seven trumpets. They believe the
seven trumpets occurred in the
distant past, but interestingly,
their attitude is similar to the
first group. Their attitude is,
“Yes, they are interesting if
you are interested in history, but
they are not critically important
today. As long as we have a good
relationship with Jesus, we have
nothing to worry about.” The
last group of Christians scoffs at
the importance of Bible prophecy.
Their attitude is, “Bible
prophecy is a nose of wax that people
can manipulate according to whim and
bias. The Bible can be made to say
anything. Bible prophecy has no
bearing on my salvation. As long as I
have a good relationship with Jesus,
there is nothing to worry
about.”
This indifference
reminds me of the ten virgins in
Matthew 25. “The bridegroom
was a long time in coming, and they
all became drowsy and fell asleep. At
midnight the cry rang out:
‘Here’s the bridegroom!
Come out to meet him!’”
(Matthew 25:5,6) Christians have gone
to sleep, but the first four trumpets
will awaken them and many will
suddenly discover that they have been
deceived. Many will be angry and
bitter toward God and whore fault
will it be?
