Seven Trumpets [part five] ...

John brings us a vision of seven trumpets that are to sound.  They are divided into groups, the first four which follow a similar theme, followed by the last three which describe particular “woes” that are to come.  The sixth trumpet sounding contains a description of events like the others, but within its time frame, 2 other interludes appear.  Each of them add even more context to the events that occur before the end of all things.  A small scroll, or an interpretation of prophecy that will bring great joy at first through misinterpretation, followed by the reality of great disappointment.  Then two witnesses who wear sackcloth to show their mourning for those who are spiritually dead; Gentiles who refuse to enter the temple and prefer to stand in the courtyard trampling the blessings they have been given underfoot for the entire duration of the dark ages.  Both of these interludes occur to add context to events surrounding the sounding of the sixth trumpet.  The witness of scripture that points to Jesus Christ as our salvation; and the need we have to be led by Christ in our study, as when we interpret on our own, we sometimes get it wrong and cause ourselves great disappointment.  All of these events designed to focus our attention away from ourselves and on to our Savior Jesus Christ.  All of these events designed to bring us to redemption, and offer us the freedom of perfection, a perfect love of others that only He can create within us. 

But man is often stubborn, hard-headed, poor, blind, and naked.  We perceive ourselves to be rich and in need of nothing, when the truth of our condition should cause us to don sackcloth and look for the freedom from self we so desperately need.  A freedom He longs to give us.  A work He longs to perform within us, that we are unable to do for ourselves.  The revelations of Jesus Christ penned by John so many years ago remain with purpose to see us repent, see us redeemed, and see us transformed by the power of the Love of Jesus Christ.  All of the warnings offered in the sounding of the six trumpets have led up to this.  All of the messages to the churches, and seals being opened, point us away from looking to self for salvation, and towards Jesus Christ the sole method of it.  The prophecies of John contradict the popular notion, that there are “many” paths to God.  There is but one, Jesus Christ.  Not one denomination, not one set of doctrines or beliefs, but One Savior, One Christ, One Son of God.  It is He who is truth, not our own understandings.  It is He who is life, not our ideas and this meager mortal existence.  It is He who is the Way, not Buddha, or Krishna, or the will and determination of the idol standing in front of the mirror.  This is the simple truth revealed to John, repeated in symbolism and prophetic foretelling again and again.  The same goal, to see us redeemed and reconciled back to God.  And now events unfold to see the reconciliation reach its fulfillment.

John writes in his book of revelations in chapter 11 starting in verse 15 saying … “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”  The sounding of the seventh trumpet begins with a declaration announced in heaven first.  It is time.  The kingdoms of this world, the power structures, the governments, the clans, the casts, the clicks, are to be no more.  The power they thought they had, the illusion of control they believed they were able to exert, is to be no more.  Power is a myth perpetuated by those who yield it.  Control is an illusion.  But Jesus Christ is real, and the time has come to reign over all those who thought themselves rulers, and all those who gladly await their true King. 

John continues in verse 16 … “And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, [verse 17] Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.”  The announcement begins in heaven.  Those 24 elders, the first fruits of the salvation of our God, those men and women who John has recognized as being before the throne of God, are the first to respond to this news.  How long we have waited to see an end to evil.  How great to see the redemption of those who have made the choice to submit.  And how terrible to see the choice to reject salvation made a final one.  But at some point there must come an end to the evil of self service.  The story of the flood should have taught us that.  It did teach Satan that lesson.  He learned while bound to the earth during the flood that there is a limit to the time of evil, one day there would come an end.  That day has arrived.  It is the humans who serve as elders, and perform a mission assigned by God, those who are nearest His throne, who hear this news, and react first.  They are NOT dismayed.  They are instead elated.

Notice that the response to such overwhelming love is absolute humility.  We who have been redeemed at so high a price, so great a sacrifice that our God would give up His only Son for us, our Savior would willingly lay down His own life in torture for us; our response is but to prostrate ourselves upon the ground.  We put our faces in the dirt, or in this case in the floor likely made of glass or translucent gold, and offer our extreme worship to God.  We have no words of thanks that will ever be enough.  We have no song of joy that will ever quite express it enough.  We have not the intellect, or emotional maturity to demonstrate what this means to us.  Instead we put ourselves down to the lowest estate we can find, and in pure recognition of how Great He is, and how little we are, we offer ALL we have to Him.  It is this love, this choice of ours to love, that He was willing to pay so high a price to attain.  He longs only to love us, and to share with us, the joy of loving others instead of the pain that comes from loving ourselves.  In heaven as the announcement is given, the 24 elders give thanks.  They call out the characteristics that define the infinite nature of our God of Life, the author of life. 

He was.  He has existed before linear time, before space, before any notions of beginning.  We have a beginning, He does not.   He is.  He is ever present.  He is reality.  He is existence itself.  The entire universe spins in rotation from the greatest galaxies to the smallest atoms within a single cell, by the power of His will, by the laws of science He remains author of.  Science does not define our God, God defines what science is.  He will be.  Beyond the farthest measures of distance, time, or measures our mind can comprehend, God will be there as well.  He is not bound by limitations, either those we can imagine or perceive to be real for us.  There is no limit to what God can do, no boundary He is incapable of crossing save our rejection of His love.  Trillions of years from now, God will be.  Trillions of years ago, God was there.  The human mind is so conditioned to perceive reality in measured linear time, we can scarcely understand what infinite truly is, what it truly means, and how a God of infinity could take such a personal interest in us.  But the 24 elders recognize truth, and in their praise, acknowledge what they have learned.  God is. 

At last, He has taken up the power He always had.  At last, the toleration of evil, to give time to those who might still choose to be redeemed has been long enough.  At last, the pain is destined to end.  At last, a final act of mercy is no longer delayed.  Those who have accepted His gift are now destined to receive it in full and final form.  Those who have chosen to remain in the torture of self-service are to be freed of it for a little while during a brief sleep of death.  The greatest event in the history of mankind, the time of our history of pain, is at an end.  From now on, our true King, will be our only King.  Our Lord will be our master, and no other.  Not those who have sought to hold power over us, nor the source of evil in the mirror who has bound us to himself.  We are to be free to love others forever.  We are to be in His Kingdom forever.  We are to be finally and fully liberated from ourselves forevermore.  That day has arrived.  And 24 elders nearest the throne of Grace, fall upon their faces to give glory to God, that this day has finally arrived.

John continues the testimony of the 24 elders in verse 18 … “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”  In taking up His rightful power, the enemy of Love can never be pleased.  The reaction of those in this world is not one of joy or worship but one of anger.  For those who wish evil to continue forever cannot be pleased to finally see it come to an end.  They hate the notion that they will no longer be allowed to wreak havoc upon the earth, to serve self at the expense of others.  Those who have died before this event, those who have slept in the earth unaware of the passage of time since they breathed their last, their time has come as well.  For the servants of God, the prophets called out by designation, the saints or those who have submitted and found themselves transformed and re-created, and those who fear and love the name of God no matter their station in life – these are to receive the reward of salvation.  The reward is not gold, not perfect health, not a city of beauty too great to be fully understood.  The reward is not even eternal life, for Satan has only known life to this point.  The reward is our full and final freedom from the slavery of self-service.  It is this freedom to love others that makes everything else worth having.  It is the slavery of Satan to serve only himself that makes His life one of endless self-chosen-torture from which death will be his only relief.

At its core we must understand what we are being saved from.  It is not the final fires that will consume evil and bring eternal non-existence from which we are being saved.  It is a life both then and now, that is bound in slavery to self from which we are being saved.  We are being offered the perfect freedom of loving others that makes existence itself a thing of joy instead of pain.   This is the gift He offers.  This is the event the 24 elders realize is now something the world is about to share in and experience.  Those who have chosen to find their salvation in Jesus Christ are about to experience this first hand and forever.  Those who have not made this choice, remain bound to the slavery of self.  In that slavery they have destroyed everything of value in their wake.  They have trampled underfoot the gifts of God.  They have destroyed this planet.  They value greed more than even the environment that keeps them alive.  They poison the water, the air, the soil, and the food.  This poison of self-service infects the entire world like a virus, or flesh eating bacteria that will not be stopped.  The wages of sin is death.  The natural results of serving self is to kill everything that stands in our way, until we alone remain.  The spiral of death is not constrained to only us.  It is a by-product of self-service that FIRST attempts to kill everything else, until we alone remain to be killed.  It is this cycle that has met its end.  It is this phenomenon, the mystery of iniquity that will exist no longer.  Our time to kill is over.  Our time to live has begun.

John concludes in verse 19 … “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”  Again the scene is in heaven.  Again what is revealed of Jesus Christ?  In answer, the ark of His testament, the container in which His law was preserved, the symbol of His covenant promise with us.  Our redemption does not negate His law; it puts us in harmony with His law.  Our nature dies.  We become creations remade in His image.  We learn to love others like He loves others; and we find we could not even consider lying to them.  Those we love deserve the truth of our love.  We do not want what they have, but instead want to offer them gifts from our hearts that might in some way bring them joy.  We would not desire to take from them, but highly prefer the privilege of giving to them.  Our intimacy is something we prize with only one special person; akin to how we value our intimacy with our Creator.  We wish to honor our parents and return the love to them that saw our existence begin.  And our God?  To Him we cannot imagine serving anyone or anything else.  We need no works of art, or physical representations of Him to admire, we have the real thing.  He is in our hearts, minds, and souls.  He is in front of us.  He is found in giving selfless love to another.  Time with Him is at a premium.  We wish only that there were six days of Sabbaths and only one where we had to work, instead of the other way around.  We do not use His name casually, but with reverence, and respect, and honor.  We become in harmony with His precepts ONLY when we are remade by submission to Jesus Christ.  We understand His law, only when we see it through the prism of loving others first.

Our redemption transforms how we think, what we want, and therefore what we do.  It happens in this sequence, not as a result of works made of our own hands.  Our vain attempts to keep His law before we are transformed by submission are of no effect.  Our denial of the relevance and eternal nature of His law, are our own attempts at dealing with the guilt of our continual imperfection and inability to keep it.  His law is not our problem.  We are.  We are our own enemy.  Self is our problem.  It enslaves us.  It is the ultimate addiction.  It is the bottomless pit from which there is no escape.  But Jesus Christ offers us a life where those chains are forever broken.  Jesus Christ offers to alter how we think, and what we desire, and restore us to a place of harmony with love for others as reflected in that law.  It is important that at the end of all things, what is revealed to John is the eternal nature of the Law of God.  It has NOT been done away with.  It was NOT nailed to a cross.  Our sin was nailed there.  Our pain was nailed there.  What remains is our gift of perfect freedom to be in harmony with His law now and forever.  It is no accident, that the final element witnessed in the sounding of the seven trumpets is the revelation that the eternal love of God as outlined in His law … remains.

What follows then are only the same elements that occur at His second coming.  Lightning, thunder, voices, an earthquake to move islands from their places and cast mountains into the sea, and finally torrential hail that falls as the last plague described later in this book.  The declaration that the time for evil is at an end is made in heaven.  The time for His eternal Kingdom has arrived.  The gratitude and worship of the elders overwhelms them, and they cast themselves on to the ground in response.  The world reacts in anger as evil will always do when it is cut short of its goal.  The reward of perfect freedom to love others is seen fulfilled in all those who have chosen to accept the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The law is revealed one final time.  But as we see it now, we find it so obvious, so natural, so inherently part of who we are.  No longer does it stand in judgment of us, it is now only a building block, a beginning, a foundation of what it means to love God and love others upon which we will build and grow and expand.  The destruction that occurs at His second coming is of no consequence to us.  The end of this polluted, sin stained world is of no consequence to us.  Real wealth is standing beside us.  Real value is found in the love of those who join us in an eternal family that will know no end.  Our priorities have finally been adjusted.  The things of this world are now only trash to us, a by-gone memory that retains no value.  The people are all that matters.  The people were always the treasure.  The people.

Will you mark that day with regret for not finding His freedom sooner?  Will you stand saved before Christ, but sad that you have spent an entire life valuing the “stuff” instead of the people who actually mattered?  These revelations are here to alter that course.  These revelations are given so that our priorities can be adjusted ahead of this day, our transformations experienced now, before that final day.  These revelations of trumpets are given to sound the warning call to bring us to what matters, right now.  We still have the time to do something of meaning with it, when what we do and how we love might still yield a result.  Our salvation is not in question.  What we do with it is.  Our eternal life is coming, but with “who” will we spend it?  Can we afford to be casual with how we love others?  Can we afford to live as though time is eternal and we have no rush, no immediacy, no urgency when it comes to the only things that truly matter?  When that day comes, you will inevitably begin to look … for someone you loved.  Is there not anything you would do today, to demonstrate love to that person, that might result in finding them there, instead of realizing they will not be joining you?  Revelations are offered to alter that course.  Revelations of Jesus Christ are made to affirm a different future for you, and for what truly will matter to you in the light of eternity.

And more Revelations were still to be made …