Please remain standing for the reading of the word of the Lord. Today's reading will be from Revelation, the eighth chapter. 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. Then another angel having a golden sensor came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood. And they were thrown to the earth, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. Then the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood, and of the third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning 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 men died from the water because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine and likewise the night. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Whoa, whoa, whoa. to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Heavenly Father, in Jesus name, we come before you right now and we ask for your blessings over your word. We ask for your blessings over this people. May we rightly worship you as we go about the reading and the proclaiming of your word. We love and thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Have a seat. I mentioned to Pastor Stuse this morning that of all the tasks he's assigned me since I've been here, this is, I think, the most difficult, giving a survey of the Book of Revelation. I would normally spend quite a bit of time on this chapter. I'm not going to do that. What we're going to be dealing with today is what is involved in this passage in terms of these trumpets, what they signify. And I'm going to do that without being specific. It's going to be an overview. And in my next message, which I've already been preparing, In my next message, we're actually going to look at the details of each of the seven trumpets. So the next message, oh, am I going to hang myself out to dry? It's going to cover about three chapters. But let's deal with what is involved here with these trumpets. Up to this point in our survey of this book, we've spent a lot of time setting up the scene. The scroll that no one was found worthy to open until the lamb who had been slain came onto the scene is now finally going to be opened. The first six seals brought different kinds of judgments, various kinds and degree upon the apostates who now occupy what was once known as the Holy City, Jerusalem. Chapter 8 begins with the breaking of the seventh seal. There are many who are critical of the approach that I believe this passage warrants, that these seals are judgments on first century apostate Israel. But I think one of the reasons they are critical is because they have failed to read and to understand what the Old Testament promises are all about. And we're not going to be able to cover the entire Old Testament today. But remember, in the book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy means the second law, it's a restatement of the law of God. And Deuteronomy is the the prophet, the archetype prophet Moses's farewell address to the children of Israel as they are preparing to enter the land that God has promised them. He charges them in this book to remember all that the Lord God had told them during their 40 year wilderness wanderings. In Deuteronomy 8, he begins by telling them, every command which I command to you this day, you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers. As I have often said, and I've said this numerous times, warnings in the Bible are not something we should take lightly. When we're told to be careful, this is not something that we should ignore. Caution is a key word. When we see a warning sign, we should pay attention. If there's an electric fence and it says, don't touch, To do so is crazy. That doesn't mean I've never ignored those warnings, but I have paid the price. When I was in cross-country, there was an electric fence that we were playing with on the road out to the track. And we were playing with it. We were getting these little buzzes. And then we went by, and they had the box on the fence. So my friend decided to touch that box, and it knocked us all three across the road. Caution. Beware. It could have been more severe than that. However, as is often the case, when we are given warnings to be cautious or to be careful, what we tend to do is to pay attention to those warnings for a little while. We pay attention for a little while. And because we pay attention to the warning, we avoid trouble. And we avoid trouble. And guess what? Things get good. And when things get good, we get complacent. We ignore and forget the warnings. We forget the boundaries that God has placed in there for our safety. Moving on in Deuteronomy, the eighth chapter, Moses warns Israel by telling them, God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, and of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of the valleys and the hills, a land of wheat and of barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack for nothing." This is the land that God is bringing them into. And then he says, and when you have eaten and are full, when you build beautiful houses and you dwell in them, when everything you have, your flocks, your silver, and your gold, when they multiply, he gives them this warning, beware that you do not forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. You see, when we're in trouble, when things weigh down on us, when we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, those are not the times that we tend to forget God. He's the only thing bringing us through. But it's at the times when things seem to be well, when you are tempted to reach around and pat yourself on the back. You've been doing a pretty good job, Mike. That's when we're told to be cautious. In verse 15 and 16, the Lord describes the deliverance that He has given them. He says, I led you through that great and terrible wilderness in which there were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought. Where there was no water, I brought water for you out of the flinty rock. I fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that I might humble you and test you to do you good in the end." But then comes the problems. He says, then you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. And then he says, beware that you forget not God, for it is he that gives you power to get wealth. The solution is right there in the text. Beware that you don't forget God. When things are good, we tend to do that. I'm not speaking only to myself. I know this is our tendency. When things are well, we begin to think we can do it. And we're Americans. We're doubly or triply affected by this because we've all been raised with this idea, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. We want to be self-dependent. We want to be self-reliant. And God tells us, no. He says, rely on me. He says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. For he is the one that gives you power to get wealth. And he tells us the reason he gives wealth, and it's not so you can have the nicest car and the nicest house, the nicest dogs. He gives you wealth that he may establish his covenant, which he swore to your fathers as it is this day. Now I go back to Deuteronomy 8, and that's a summary of what Deuteronomy is all about. Deuteronomy is full of promises, blessings, and judgment directed at the children of Israel as they prepare to enter the promised land. And here we are now, we're clear at the end of the Bible, we're in the book of Revelation, we're in the 8th chapter, and the Lord is now dealing with a people who have long since forgotten and abandoned where their strength lay. They had a covenantal relationship with God, but they forgot what comes with that relationship. And that is obligation, obligation of obedience. They are told to be careful, to remember all that the Lord your God has commanded them. And yet they were a people who had ignored what God had commanded for so long that they'd replaced it with something entirely different. With the opening of the seventh seal, we told there was silence in heaven for the space of about half an hour. And no, I'm not going to go there. Milton Terry was the author of my very first systematic theology textbook when I was in Bible college. I remember I was so excited when I got it because it was about this thick. It was 1,500 pages. And I thought, this is the type of book I want. It's good. It's a good book. But Milton Terry, speaking about this passage where there was silence in heaven for a half an hour, suggested that the silence was likely because the singers in the previous chapter had stopped singing. They'd been singing praises and glory to God. And they were singing this new song and the heavens were full of this. And now the seventh seal is opened and suddenly there is silence for a period of half an hour. How many guys have ever been where there's just like, there's noise, everything's going on. And all of a sudden there's just an eerie silence that descends upon everything. And it doesn't seem like anything can break out of that silence. But why did the singer stop? Verses three and four of this chapter speaks of one of the angels who is holding in his hand a golden censer and there was much incense was given to him. Alfred Edersham described what would happen with the incense. in the temple worship ceremony. He said slowly the incensing priest and his assistants would ascend to the steps of the holy place and they would be preceded by two priests who had formally dressed the altar and the candlestick and who now removed the vessels that they had left behind and worshiping. They then withdrew. Next, one of the assistants would reverently spread the coals on the golden altar, and the others would arrange the incense, and then the chief officiating priest was left alone in the holy place to await the signal before burning the incense. According to Edersheim, it was probably during this time when the chief officiating priest was left alone when the angel Gabriel likely appeared to Zacharias in Luke chapter one. And then when the signal was given, the time of incense had come And when the incense was lit, the whole multitude on the outside would withdraw from the inner court and they would fall down before the Lord, spreading their hands in silent prayer. And the period of time this took was about a half an hour. It was at that time, that most solemn time, when throughout the entire temple, deep silence would rest. It was during that time that the priest would lay the incense upon the golden altar and the cloud of odors would raise up before the Lord. This is a description that the contemporary readers of the book all most likely understood. We tend to forget these things. Silence in heaven for a period of half an hour. And while this is happening, There are seven angels standing before God who are all given trumpets. So I want you to think about something. We have silence and we have trumpets. That's kind of a contrast. I've always liked trumpets. I tried to convince someone the other day I liked trumpets because I just like to blend in. It's not true. Going back to our earlier messages in the book, to each of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, who are they addressed to? They're addressed to the angels of the seven churches. The word angel is the Greek word angulos, and it means messenger or angel. When the letters are addressed to the angel of these churches, we mentioned that these letters were most likely being addressed to the pastors of those churches. Here in Revelation 8, we should likewise see this as the same sort of thing. These angels or messengers are giving trumpets and they're getting ready to blast forth a sound, a message. They're getting ready to blow forth the message that God has for them. David Chilton points out that one of the reoccurring patterns that we should familiarize ourself with in this book is this pattern of seven angels. We see it in chapters one through three with the seven churches. We see it here in chapters eight through 11 with the seven trumpets. We see them again in chapter 14 and we see them again in chapter 15 and 16. Seven angels, seven angels, seven angels, they keep appearing. These angels and their trumpets are meant to be pictures of the voice and action of the people of God. They're pictures of the people of God, the church on earth. This is not only speaking of the pastors of the church, it speaks of the corporate worship of the church. And one of the things we have to understand, and it's something that we often miss, is the pattern of our worship service in our churches is patterned after the patterns throughout the Old Testament and throughout the book of Revelation. In our last message on Revelation 7, I was actually blown away at the similarities between the throne room in heaven in chapters four, five, and six, and the comparison to Isaiah, the sixth chapter. There's a point in every service at Church of the King where we make a statement. Pastor Stuse made the statement today. He says, truly, it is proper and right that we should at all times in all places worship the Lord. So with the angels of heaven and with the church on earth, we praise and magnify your glorious name, evermore praising you and singing. And one of the things I think we we do this every week. Every week we do this. Some of us who have been here, you've probably memorized parts of the service. That's good. That's a good thing, but there's a danger with memorizing or doing the same things. And we need to be careful to avoid this danger. And the danger is that we forget that these are not mere words. We are speaking of present realities that are spoken of to us throughout the scripture. We are gathered when we gather together on the Lord's day, not only with the entire church on earth, but we are also gathered together with the angels in the heavenly places. One of the realities that we have come to see about heaven as it is presented in the scripture is that it is not just some faraway place that someday we will go to when we die. We pray in the Lord's Prayer every Lord's Day. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Scripture presents to us the reality, and this is, I believe, one of the main themes of the Bible, is that the kingdom of heaven is invading the kingdom of earth. The church, in obedience to our Lord, calls for the will of God, just as it is in heaven, to be done on the earth. In the middle of today's text, we see the incense joining with the prayers of the saints, the called out ones, the separated ones, and this incense and this prayers ascends to the Lord. And then the angel, the messenger takes these prayers, this incense, and what he does with it, he throws it to the earth. He throws it to the earth. The incense in this passage is symbolic of God's judgment upon the earth. And again, it's important. I think we see the importance of the language that is used in this passage throughout the scripture. There are primarily two realms that are spoken of on the planet we live on. There is the land and there is the sea. The land in general is speaking of the nation of Israel, the land. If you go to Israel today and you buy their number one newspaper, it's called Haaretz, which means the land. They're talking about their land. And even today, many of us talk about it. If we're going to, if I say I'm going to the Holy Land, most of you don't think I'm going to Cuba. Okay. There's a place that we recognize as the land and the scripture spoke of the land. And the sea speaks of the Gentile. But here in this passage, this incense is taken from the altar and it is thrown on the land. And then we're going to read as we go on what these judgments are. These judgments of God that are thrown down in this passage are not new. If we're familiar with our Bible, we're going to see these same judgments that are now being poured out upon Israel elsewhere throughout the word of God. What's interesting about this is now they're not being thrown on Babylon, Egypt, or Philistia. Now they're being thrown on the land. The judgments are being poured upon the land, the place where once the holy city dwelt. Again, this is an image that our unfamiliarity with the scripture causes us to miss. The fire on the altar is not lit by human sources. The fire on the altar was lit in Leviticus 9, verse 24. We read, And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and they fell on their faces. You see, the fire came from the Lord, but the job of maintaining the fire belong to the priest of the Lord. And their job was to carry that fire from place to place. And they used that initial fire, which was started by God, and they used it to start other fires. If you're a pyromaniac, a priest was a good job. That's what they did. They carried holy fire and they went from place to place and they ignited other little fires. One of the things that has often bothered people when reading the Old Testament in the Bible was the way in which the Lord ordered whole cities to be destroyed. Secular critics regard these as genocides and as evidence of God's cruelty. Sadly, there are many Christians who have no real understanding of what these destructions are pictures of. Deuteronomy 13, however, gives us instruction as to the way apostate cities are to be dealt with. An apostate is defined as someone who has abandoned their faith. They once held to their faith, and they've since abandoned it. I remember we asked Pastor Lusk when he was here, if he could, he told us he could describe the federal vision in two words. And I was pretty excited about that. And he just said, apostasy happens. Pretty good definition. But apostasy is when someone who is faithful, who is called the name of Christ, no longer does. In Deuteronomy 13, we read, if you hear someone in one of your cities, which the Lord God gives you to dwell in, saying, Corrupt man have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which you have not known. Then you shall inquire, you shall search out and ask diligently, ask diligently if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed amongst you. And you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it and all that is in it and its livestock with the edge of the sword. And you shall gather all its plunder into the middle of the street and completely burn with fire the city, all its plunder for the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever and it shall not be built again. So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, just as he swore to your fathers. Because you have listened to the voice of the Lord your God to keep all his commandments, which I command you to today, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God. Here in Revelation 8, these angels or these messengers of God's church are bringing God's judgment upon one of these cities. And the city happens to be Jerusalem. The only acceptable way, according to scripture, to burn a city as a whole burnt offering was with the fire from the altar of the Lord. God rains down his judgments upon the land in specific response to the liturgical worship of his people. The picture that we're seeing here is that the angel on the altar offers up prayers of the church, and God responds to these petitions by acting in history on behalf of his people. When God's people do not worship properly, when they forget their positions as priests before the altar of God, then what God does is he uses historical forces, even the heathen, to bring the church to repentance. One of the things the Church of Jesus Christ has often forgotten is the key to understanding the history of the world is to understand the history of the worship of the church. This may seem far-fetched to us, But history is managed and directed from the altar of incense. These judgments in Revelation 8 are called trumpet judgments. Trumpets are used in the Old Testament for basically five things. We're going to talk about four of them right now. First, they were used as an escort to the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was not a quiet place when it was being transported. It is interesting in Revelation 11, when the seventh trumpet sounds, when the last trumpet sounds, the temple opens up and the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord appears. Secondly, trumpets were sounded to proclaim the coronation of a new king. Again, when the last trumpet sounds in Revelation 11 5, we read this. The seventh angel sounded. And there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And of course, trumpets were also sounded as a warning to Israel of impending judgment that was coming. And they were sounded to alert the people and the people had to respond. And you would think you sound the trumpet, they're going to respond by picking up arms. They were told, when you hear the trumpet sound, repent. They were called to repentance. And then Moses, of course, was instructed to use silver trumpets. to summon the people of God to worship and for the ordering of the tribes to battle. They had specific trumpets for that. Because we're moderns, we often miss the deep connection between worship and warfare. God has always directed his people through worship. Today, we tend to look at worship as something that is more personal, more something for our edification. However, the way worship is presented in scripture is as corporate warfare. Worship is when the people of God, united with each other, and more importantly, with the Word of God, begin to do and think God's thoughts after Him. It's when we begin to proclaim God's Word on earth as it is in heaven. It is when we begin to align our hearts, our thoughts, and our attitudes with His, not expressing our own identity. Sometimes, as we see here in Revelation 8 and beyond, Worship is directed in such a way that it brings God's sanctions on his enemies. And sometimes it even brings judgment on us. That doesn't mean we should not do it. The 18th Psalm gives us a beautiful picture of the way in which worship is poured out in judgment that lines up very nicely with the judgments we see here in Revelation. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and I cried out to my God. He heard my voice from his temple and my cry came before him, even to his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils and a devouring fire from his mouth. Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and flew. He flew upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His canopy around him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. From the brightness before him, his thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out his arrows and scattered the foe, lightning in abundance, and he vanquished them. Then the channels of the sea were seen. The foundations of the world were uncovered. At your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils, he sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity. but the Lord was my support. He also brought me into a broad place and he delivered me because he delighted in me." As I mentioned in our next message in Revelation, we're going to get very specific looking at these trumpet judgments. But what I want us to see very clearly is that when we worship, We are actually affecting the heavenlies. We're calling God to be faithful to his word. What should stand out to us when we see these judgments is that these judgments are coming not from us, but they're coming from the very throne of God, from the mercy seat. And they are being poured out in a response to the liturgical prayers of the saints, and they are being poured out upon the land as they were promised in the book of Deuteronomy. They are being poured out on unfaithful Israel, and they are there not only as a sign of God's faithfulness, but they are also there as a warning to us that we remember where our strength comes from. The Son of God has ridden out to war. And the scripture tells us he rides on the wings of our praise. But woe to the ones who lean to their own understanding and woe to the ones who trust on their own strength. He is our shield and our deliverer. But to those who forget this, he is a dreadful enemy. May we ever remember that apart from him, we can do nothing. And may we be a people whose worship is ever a sweet smelling savor in the nostrils of our God. Let us pray. Father God, in the name of Jesus. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your mercy, and we also thank you for your faithfulness to your covenant. for your judgments and for your compassion. We love you and we ask for your blessings over these people. In the name of Jesus, amen. At this time, let us as a congregation stand as we sing, The Son of God Goes Forth to War.