March 29, 2022

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. Hebrews 12:3

It is a good thing to review the Lord’s ways of dealing with unfairness. Learning from the past is how we prepare for the future. Often in God’s word, future promises are written as though they had already taken place. This is because of the reality of the reliability of our God’s character of purity, holiness, and love. He is to be trusted without reservation. Beloved, if you are a believer in Him, you are already a citizen of the New Jerusalem in Heaven (Philippians 3:20)!

Let us take a retrospective look over Revelation 8 & 9. John’s vision of the blowing of the seven trumpets began with the opening of the seventh seal: a time for silence and reverent anticipation of the just judgements of God! The prayers of God’s people are shown to be heard by God, and His divinely timed response is portrayed (see 8:3-5). The first four trumpets are intended to bring the enemies of God to repentance. In answer to the prayers of the saints, we see affirmation that God is already in the process of judging, seasoned with restraint. There is a distinctive pivot between the first four and the last three trumpets. Before the last three commence, a loud declaration of three woes is pronounced. The demonic woes of the last three trumpets demonstrate, yet again, that hostility and disobedience toward God result in exposure to the dangers that abound from the one who came to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).

The fiery serpents in the desert (Numbers 21) were there all along. It was the ungrateful, complaining attitude of the rescued people of God that made them vulnerable to the attack of these fiery serpents. Does their experience benefit me today? I must learn to choose to remain under the divine protection of Almighty God. The bitter consequence of removing myself from His protection is itself the chastisement that should send me running back toward Him!

There is a progressive intensity of the judgements that fall in chapters 8 & 9. By the end of chapter 9 we still have yet to encounter the seventh trumpet. The details given here about what is happening on earth to the unrepentant begs the question: What are God’s people doing during this time?

Just as the great question at the end of the sixth seal (Revelation 6:17) was given an answer in chapter 7, the question of what God’s people are to do as earthly events rapidly progress toward the final battle between good and evil…. light and darkness…. Christ and Satan—is answered in chapter 10 and 11:1-14. It will require a very attentive attitude from the Bible student who desires to make the most fruitful use of the last days . . .

I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. He had a little book open in his hand . . . Revelation 10:1-2a