Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles

Sermon Series: Revelation: Unveiling Reality Sermon Title: “Seven Trumpets: Unveiling the Day of the Lord and the In-breaking Kingdom of God” Speaker: T. C. Moore June 5, 2016 Scripture: Revelation 8.1—9.21, 11.15—19

Good morning. [Slide 1] We’re in a sermon series called “Unveiling Reality” on the powerful and prophetic, but often puzzling, book of Revelation. As we’ve said time and time again during this series, the word we translate “revelation” for the book’s title is the word from which English gets its word “apocalypse”. [Slide 2] But, this word doesn’t mean what we’ve come to think it means: cataclysmic destruction—like the name of villain in the latest X-Men movie (which is awesome, by the way!). This word simply means “unveiling.” Instead of destruction, this word should bring to our minds, the pulling back of the curtain as in a theatrical performance. And that’s a really good picture for us to keep in our minds. Revelation is prophetic truth, from God, about Jesus, delivered in a dramatic fashion, with comedy and tragedy, monsters and martyrs, angels and thrones. In a few moments, we’ll read our passage for this week, but before we do, I’d like to just make a few preliminary comments. [Slide 3] First, I want to express my deep appreciation for this sermon series. I’ve spoken with many of you for whom Revelation is a book with a lot of baggage. Rather than allowing this book to do what it was intended to do: to equip, to encourage, and to empower the body of Christ, far too often this book has been used to stir up fear and to vilify political rivals. I love that New City is committed to reading Revelation responsibly. I’m really grateful for that, and I think we should all be very grateful for that. We’re also not picking and choosing which texts to preach because they agree with our theology, as some do. We aren’t avoiding the challenging passages to interpret—the passages that make us cringe like today’s passage. We’re preaching through all of it! And a vital part of reading Revelation responsibly is reading it through the Jesus Lens. [Slide 4] Spoiler Alert: The Bible is about Jesus! The book of Revelation is not a crystal ball for predicting future disasters or the rise and fall of political leaders. No, the whole Bible, including the book of Revelation, exists to tell the story of God’s redemption and restoration of the world through Jesus and the Spirit! So, as we’ve said now for many weeks, the central revelation of the book of Revelation isn’t a beast or a dragon or the antichrist. No! The central revelation of the book of Revelation is the Lamb Who Was Slain! We’re called to read all of Revelation, and all of the Bible in fact, through the lens of the Revelation of Messiah Jesus as the Lamb Who Was Slain— the One who supremely and finally reveals the love of God, the justice of God, the full character of God. So, we’re unapologetic about the Jesus Lens through which we interpret this book—because it’s the lens this book (and the whole Bible) gives us! As Michael Gorman puts it so well: [Slide 5]

“Revelation does not contain two competing Christologies [teaching about Christ] and theologies [teaching about God]—one of power and one of weakness—

1 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles

symbolized by the Lion and the Lamb, respectively. Rather, Revelation presents Christ as the Lion who reigns as the Lamb, not in spite of being the Lamb. [...] ‘Lamb power’ is ‘God power,’ and ‘God power’ is ‘Lamb power.’ If these claims are untrue, then Jesus is not in any meaningful way a faithful witness.”1 This Jesus Lens will be come particular important as we look at some of the more challenging passages like the one we’re going to read this morning. This morning we’re going to read aloud (as the book instructs us to) the portion of Revelation that speaks of Seven Trumpets. But before we jump into the text, I’d want to remind us of what kind of literature Revelation is. Revelation is not the LA Times. Revelation is not a textbook. Revelation is not some journalistic account of future events. Revelation uses symbols to represent realities that are true of the past, true of the present, and (yes) even true of the future. [Slide 6] But John the Seer is not trying to give an eye-witness description of some future event. Even though that’s how a lot of American Christians have been trained to read texts like this. But it’s a mistake. This morning, we’re going to see that, like Eugene Peterson said, Revelation’s purpose is not to give us New Information. Revelation is instead telling us the same Gospel story in a New Way— using vivid symbolism to revive our imaginations.2 [Slide 7] We’re going to see today that this text unveils the reality of: 1) The Day of the Lord; and the reality of: 2) the In-breaking Kingdom of God. So, naturally, I’ve entitled this message: “Seven Trumpets: Unveiling the Day of the Lord and In- breaking Kingdom of God.” Our text today is divided into two parts. [Slide 8] John of Patmos, inspired by the Holy Spirit, does something brilliant in the midst of these dramatic depictions of judgment —he gives us a rest from the seemingly relentless onslaught of disturbing images. So, as we saw last week, chapter 7 is an interlude that breaks up the opening of the seven seals.3 This week, we’re going to cover all seven trumpets. But that means we will skip over the respite John gives his readers in chapters 10 and 11, up to verse 14. So, let’s all take a deep breath and dive into our passage: chapter 8, verse 1: [Slide 9] 1 When the Lamb broke the seventh seal on the scroll, there was silence throughout heaven for about half an hour. 2 I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and they were given seven trumpets. 3 Then another angel with a gold incense burner came and stood at the altar. And a great amount of incense was given to him to mix with the prayers of God’s people as an offering on the gold altar before the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, mixed with the prayers of God’s holy people, ascended up to God from the altar where the angel had poured them out. 5 Then the angel filled the incense burner with fire from the altar and threw it down upon the

1 Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness Following the Lamb Into the New Creation (Cascade Books, 2011), p.139. 2 Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination (HarperCollins, 1988), p.xi-xii. 3 Table adapted from Darrell W. Johnson, Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey Through the Book of Revelation (Regent College Publishing, 2004), p.192.

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earth; and thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and there was a terrible earthquake.

Our text begins with some overlap from the seven seals sermon pastor Kevin gave two weeks ago. Here, we see that the seven trumpets are part of the fulfillment of the seven seals. And we see that what precipitates the seven trumpets are the prayers of God’s people that act like coals which light the incense that rise before the throne of God. [Slide 10] This is important because what it communicates is that the judgment that is about to be unleashed is in response to the cries of God’s people who are experiencing extreme persecution. These are the cries of those in chapter 6 who cried out to God “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?” (v.10) We must be careful, those of us who have not experienced violent persecution for our Christian faith, that we do not grow insensitive and insulated from these cries which rise to God’s throne even today from all over the world. [Slide 11] In the decade before this one, from 2000 to 2010, Todd Johnson of Gordon-Conwell’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimates that close to 1.1 million Christians were martyred for their faith in countries as far apart as Sri Lanka (where 20,000 Christians were martyred) and Sudan (where 50,000 Christians were martyred).4 [Slide 12] Open Doors USA is another Christian organization that monitors the persecuted church around the world. They estimate that every month 322 Christians are martyred, 214 churches are destroyed, and 772 acts of violence are committed against Christians (such as beatings, rapes, abductions, and imprisonments).5 So, before you or I are disturbed by the judgment we will see in this passage, we must ask ourselves, Have we heard the cries of our martyred sisters and brothers from beneath the altar? And Could it be that our extreme safety, relative to many of them, skews our perspective on judgment? Or, alternatively, we may need to ask ourselves: Have we been deceived into thinking that powerful governments will ultimately rid the world of evil, not God? Have we begun to believe the lie that if enough countries just band together with enough fighter jets, tanks, and bombs, human beings can destroy evil by ourselves? Sisters and brothers, we must pray! For our persecuted family around the globe and for God’s reign to come on earth as it is in heaven! If we don’t, we simply “haven’t yet considered the seriousness of sin.”6 Whether we can see it now or not, judgment is Good News. Judgment means our choices matter. Judgment means God take sin and evil seriously. Judgment means God is not indifferent to nor tolerant of the injustice done to human beings nor the suffering we have endured. Judgment means God is taking action to put right the world gone wrong!7 So let’s read on: [Slide 13]

4 Todd Johnson, World Christian Database (Lieden/Boston: Brill, accessed July 2014), http:// www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/documents/1martyrdomsituations.pdf (accessed 6/2/2016). 5 Open Doors USA, “Christian Persecution” https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution (accessed 6/2/2016). 6 N. T. Wright, Revelation For Everyone (Westminster John Knox, 2011), p.81. 7 Paraphrase of Johnson, Discipleship on the Edge, p.193.

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6 Then the seven angels with the seven trumpets prepared to blow their mighty blasts. 7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood were thrown down on the earth. One-third of the earth was set on fire, one-third of the trees were burned, and all the green grass was burned. 8 Then the second angel blew his trumpet, and a great mountain of fire was thrown into the sea. One-third of the water in the sea became blood, 9 one-third of all things living in the sea died, and one-third of all the ships on the sea were destroyed. [Slide 14] 10 Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch. It fell on one-third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 11 The name of the star was Bitterness. It made one-third of the water bitter, and many people died from drinking the bitter water. 12 Then the fourth angel blew his trumpet, and one-third of the sun was struck, and one-third of the moon, and one-third of the stars, and they became dark. And one-third of the day was dark, and also one-third of the night. 13 Then I looked, and I heard a single eagle crying loudly as it flew through the air, “Terror, terror, terror to all who belong to this world because of what will happen when the last three angels blow their trumpets.” Okay, that got a little scary, but you’re doing great. Hang in there with me, because we’re just getting warmed up. To start, it’s critical that we keep in mind that numbers, like everything else in Revelation, are symbols! That means, we are not to take the 1/3 fraction that is continually repeated in this passage as a literal 33.3%. Instead, what this fraction actually symbolizes is mercy! As one commentator put it: [Slide 15]

“None of the numbers in Revelation are to be taken with mathematical literalness. The fractions are symbols, not statistics. After all, if one-third of the sun, moon and stars are darkened, everything on earth would cease to function. One-third is a symbol—a symbol of mercy. Judgment is not total. The sounding of the seven trumpets does not bring total judgment. (The pouring out of the seven bowls does).”8

This is a good time to talk about the symbolism of trumpets themselves, because by now we should be asking “If the judgment revealed in the trumpets is not total, what is it for?” The answer is repentance. God’s goal is to sound the alarm. This was the most general use of trumpets in the Old Testament. But we can also see a parallel here to one of the most famous use of trumpets in the Old Testament: the bringing down of the walls of Jericho. [Slide 16] The Israelites circled Jericho once a day for seven days and then on the seventh day, they circled Jericho seven times. At the blast of their trumpets (which were actually ram’s horns), the city walls fell. In this portion of our passage, there is a deliberate contrast between the victorious mood of trumpets blasting and terrible reality of plagues being meted out. It is much like the contrasts we’ve been

8 Ibid., p.194.

4 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles reading throughout Revelation so far. John hears one thing, but sees something entirely different. John hears that the Lion of Judah has conquered, but turns to see a little, slaughtered lamb. John hears the living creatures lift up prayers to God when the seals are opened, but he sees destruction upon the earth. John hears that 144,000 Jewish people are sealed, but he sees a multitude too numerous to count made up of people from every tribe and people group on earth. Here again, John hears the victorious trumpet blast, but sees horrible plagues. And they only get worse from here! But before we move on, there’s at least one more important thing to be pointed out: It would not have been so easily lost on John’s original hearers as it is on us today, that the descriptions of the first four plagues closely mirror the plagues meted out upon Egypt in the story of the Exodus. [Slide 17] Hail and fire devastate a third of the earth and its vegetation echoing the thunder and hailstorms that devastated Egypt’s crops; A third of the entire sea, not just the river Nile, turns to blood; The poisonous waters of the third plague likewise remind us of the ruined Nile river; The fourth plague echoes the ninth Egyptian plague, bringing darkness for one-third of the time when before there had been light.9 But why this callback to Egypt? It’s because “the importance of the Exodus story for shaping the Jewish people’s knowledge of God cannot be overestimated.”10 It’s the Exodus story that most clearly gives the central revelation of Revelation its meaning: the Lamb Who Was Slain. [Slide 18]

“The plagues which John now envisions would resonate, in the minds of his hearers, with the ancient Egyptian plagues, and assure them of the same result. We have already seen that Passover plays a significant part in the story John is telling. Indeed, the lamb himself is who he is because he is the true Passover lamb. We should not be surprised, then, that just as Egypt was smitten with plagues as both a warning and a means of liberation, so the whole world is to be smitten with similar plagues in order to warn its inhabitants and to deliver God’s people.”11 So, the Lamb is not the only symbol John borrows from the Passover story; God’s judgment is also symbolically represented here as a call to repentance to the Pharaohs of the world and assurance to the people of God that he has heard their cries and is bringing liberation. Alright, buckle up! Just when you thought it couldn’t get any scarier or weirder... enter the locust army! [Slide 19]

1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. 2 When he opened it, smoke poured out as though from a huge furnace, and the sunlight and air turned dark from the smoke. 3 Then locusts came from the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power to

9 Paraphrase of Wright, Revelation For Everyone, p.82-83. 10 David DeSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Hendrickson, 2013), p.111 11 Wright, Revelation For Everyone, p.82.

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sting like scorpions. 4 They were told not to harm the grass or plants or trees, but only the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were told not to kill them but to torture them for five months with pain like the pain of a scorpion sting. 6 In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them! [Slide 20] 7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces. 8 They had hair like women’s hair and teeth like the teeth of a lion. 9 They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails that stung like scorpions, and for five months they had the power to torment people. 11 Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer. 12 The first terror is past, but look, two more terrors are coming! Okay, take a deep breath. Breath in; breath out! You’re doing great! These images can be scary, but we must keep in mind they are symbols. And that’s why I have to climb up on a soapbox for just a few moments. There are very few passages in the book of Revelation that are more often used to predict some futuristic, Terminator 2-like final apocalyptic war than this one! Popular end times prophets thrive on imagery like this to convert Revelation into a one-to-one description of an end-times military battle. But what betrays them is that the enemies these images depict always seem to conveniently point to the enemies that are presently scaring their audiences. [Slide 21] In the 80s, toward the end of the Cold War, a lot of these end times prophets were sure the Soviet Union was the Beast and that the United States was headed into an end times battle with its locust armies. In the 90s it was Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War. And today, I’m sure ISIS is everyone’s favorite interpretation. [Slide 22] But, somehow, miraculously, when those enemies disappear from history, these prophets keep their jobs! [Slide 23] A famous example of this style of interpreting this passage and that’s very popular, is to see the “locusts” here as helicopters, the “horses prepared for battle” are heavily-armed attack helicopters, or tanks. The “crowns of gold” are the helmets worn by their pilots, and the “sound of their wings” are the “thunderous sound of many attack helicopters flying overhead.”12 A pastor here in metro LA also has a highly speculative interpretation of the cloud-spewing abyss. He writes that it must be something like a “worldwide atomic blast.”13 [Slide 24] These sorts of interpretations are great for scaring people and creating the false unity of “us” versus “them”—with “them” being whoever are the enemies we’re most afraid of at the moment. But once again, this fundamentally misunderstands what kind of writing this book is. These symbols are not eye-witness reports of some

12 Doug Cox, “Faces of men, hair of women: the locust plague of Revelation 9” https:// creationconcept.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/faces-of-men-hair-of-women-the-locust-plague-of- revelation-9 (accessed 6/2/2016). 13 John MacArthur, “Hell on Earth” http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/66-33/hell-on-earth? term=Book%20of%20John%20Chapter%208 (accessed 6/2/2016)

6 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles futuristic war. No, these are symbols of realities that were as true in the first century as they are today! Once again, what is not obvious to us, as unfamiliar as we often are from the biblical narrative, would have been obvious to John’s audience. This scene is a surrealist, grotesque, and nightmarishly vivid flourish on the prophesy of Joel chapter 2. The prophet Joel warns of the “Day of the Lord,” a very common theme in the prophets. But his prophecy is one of the most vivid. He writes, [Slide 25]

1 Sound the trumpet in Jerusalem! Raise the alarm on my holy mountain! Let everyone tremble in fear because the day of the Lord is upon us. 2 It is a day of darkness and gloom, a day of thick clouds and deep blackness. Suddenly, like dawn spreading across the mountains, a great and mighty army appears. Nothing like it has been seen before or will ever be seen again. [...] 4 They look like horses; they charge forward like warhorses. 5 Look at them as they leap along the mountaintops. Listen to the noise they make— like the rumbling of chariots, like the roar of fire sweeping across a field of stubble, or like a mighty army moving into battle. [...] [Slide 26] 9 They swarm over the city and run along its walls. They enter all the houses, climbing like thieves through the windows. 10 The earth quakes as they advance, and the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars no longer shine. [...] 12 That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. 13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. [...] [Slide 27] 15 Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem! Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. [...] 17 Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence, stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar. Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord! 18 Then the Lord will pity his people and jealously guard the honor of his land. [...] 20 “I will drive away these armies from the north. I will send them into the parched wastelands. [...] 25 The Lord says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.”

In the Scripture-saturated hearts and minds of John’s original readers, this crazy montage of monstrous destruction would have called to memory the prophecy of Joel which begins with a trumpet blast, contains scary images of an invading locust army, but and ends with a promise of God’s mercy. “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts.” This is how the church is meant to read this passage— not as a secret decoder ring for the final end-times battle! But as a wake-up call to repentance and a promise that God is merciful! [Slide 28] But let us not think that the Day of the Lord is no less an awesome and terrible thing! "Awesome" as in inspiring awe and "terrible" as in

7 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles inspiring terror. (That’s what Joel calls it in verse 11.) Jesus told us the “Day of the Lord” will come like a thief in the night. That is why he told us we have to get ready. He said we have to watchful and prepared. Because, sisters and brothers, the scariest truth is that Not everyone is going to experience the Day of the Lord the same way! The Day of the Lord will be awesome, because in that day the prophet Amos says that justice will roll down like mighty rivers and righteousness like a never- ending stream. The Day of the Lord will be awesome, because in that day Paul says in Romans that glory will be revealed in the children of God—a future for which the whole creation groans in anticipation. The creation itself will be liberated from bondage to decay. And we who are the children of God will receive what we've waited patiently for and hoped eagerly for—the redemption of our bodies. The Day of the Lord will be awesome, because in that day the prophet Isaiah says that weapons of violence and war like swords and tanks, will be transformed into instruments of cultivation and fruitfulness like plows and tractors. The Day of the Lord will be awesome, because in that day a new world will be born, a new heaven and a new earth. The Rightful King, Messiah Jesus of Nazareth will reign, and God's shalom, God’s peace, justice, wholeness, and right relationships between people, will cover the earth like the waters cover the seas!

! But not everyone will experience the Day of the Lord the same way...

The Day of the Lord will also be a dreadful and terrible day, because God’s righteousness will expose all unrighteousness—all wickedness, all corruption, all evil. The Day of the Lord will be a dreadful and terrible day because God’s holiness will expose all unholiness, all perversion, all malice, all defilement, like when the lights come on and the roaches scatter!. The Day of the Lord will be a dreadful and terrible day because the God’s justice will expose all injustice, all oppression, all slavery, all human trafficking. The Day of the Lord will be a dreadful and terrible day because God’s wrath will be revealed against all godlessness, all suppression of truth, and all idolatry.

Scripture says that God is a consuming fire. How we will experience the fire of that Day will depend on the “stuff” we’re made of. Have we been formed by idolatrous practices into perishable materials like wood, hay, or straw? Or have we been formed by our worship of the One True God into materials that will be refined by that fire and made pure, like gold, silver, and precious stones? In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, [Slide 29]

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built

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survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Jesus and Paul both speak of the Day of the Lord. (Remember? Pastor Kevin mentioned these verses last week.) Jesus said, [Slide 30]

30 Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. — Mt. 24.30-31

And Paul echoes Jesus in I Thessalonians: [Slide 31]

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. — I Thessalonians 4.16

This is why Eugene Peterson says we don’t read the book of Revelation to get new information. It’s all been said before in the Law and the prophets, in the epistles and the Gospels. John of Patmos is reiterating the same message as Jesus and the other apostles through a different genre of writing, to deliver the message in a new way. The single trumpet blast Jesus and Paul speak of is reimagined and serialized as seven trumpet blasts. Just as Jesus’s prophetic warnings in Matthew 24 about war and famine and pestilence became the four horsemen in chapter 6. And when the sixth trumpet is blown in the next section of this passage, we’ll see a reimagining of Jesus’s words about the angels gathering the elect from the “four winds.” In John’s vision, this will become four angels. We’re in the home stretch! Hang in here with me! I promise the trumpets are going to end with Good News! [Slide 32]

13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice speaking from the four horns of the gold altar that stands in the presence of God. 14 And the voice said to the sixth angel who held the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River.” 15 Then the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were turned loose to kill one-third of all the people on earth. 16 I heard the size of their army, which was 200 million mounted troops. [Slide 33] 17 And in my vision, I saw the horses and the riders sitting on them. The riders wore armor that was fiery red and dark blue and yellow. The horses had heads like lions, and fire and smoke and burning sulfur billowed from their mouths. 18 One-third of all the people on earth were killed by these three plagues—by the fire and smoke and burning sulfur that came from the mouths of the horses. 19 Their power was in their

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mouths and in their tails. For their tails had heads like snakes, with the power to injure people. [Slide 34] 20 But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk! 21 And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Okay, now you breath a sigh of relief because the worst of it is behind us now. You did great! The nightmarish images have reached their climax. These images of an invading army are the worst fear of any ancient peoples. And at the time when Revelation was written, the Euphrates river was a boundary for the Roman empire. On the other side were the feared Parthians.14 But I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the historical cultural context of this vision and why it would have been scary to the John’s original hearers, because what’s most important about this passage isn’t the scary images, but what John says brought about all this destruction: Idolatry. In verses 20 and 21, John says the trumpet blasts did not result in the repentance of those who practice idolatry. That’s because God has not given his church a trumpet to blow, but a Gospel to preach. And when the seventh and final trumpet sounds we’re going to see the content of that Gospel proclaimed in the heavens. But before we conclude with the seventh and final trumpet, I want to talk briefly about idolatry and God’s judgment, because I think there is a lot of confusion on this point. Idolatry is not sinful because God is vain and doesn’t want us worshipping anyone but him. God is not some insecure, narcissistic tyrant. No! God is a loving parent who knows that idolatry destroys his children. [Slide 35] Idolatry is sinful because human beings were created to bear God’s image in the world. That means we were created to reflect like a mirror the loving reign of God into the world—to reign on God’s behalf caring for this world and cultivating it, making it fruitful. We were created to serve as priests in God’s temple—the whole world is God’s temple. And as priests were called to stand before God on behalf of all creation and on behalf of God to all of creation. But here’s the key: Loving and worshipping God is what forms us into the kind of people who faithfully bear God’s image. This is why the Greatest Commandment is two-fold: Love God and Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. The chief way we are formed into neighbor-lovers is by being God-lovers. If we love and worship money more than God, we will be jealous of our neighbor and take his stuff (that’s why theft is talked about in this passage). If we love and worship sex more than God, we will commit adultery (that’s why sexual immorality is talked about). If we love and worship power more than God, we will kill our neighbor (that’s why murder is talked about in this passage). The consequences of sin are self-destruction. The Psalmist makes this abundantly clear: [Slide 36]

15 The idols of the nations are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands. 16 They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot

14 Wright, Revelation For Everyone, p.89-90.

10 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles

see. 17 They have ears but cannot hear, and mouths but cannot breathe. 18 And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them.

[Slide 37] When we worship false gods, idols of money, power, and sex the image of God we’re called to reflect become distorted like a fun-house mirror. And our humanity is corrupted and diminished. This is why we call the merciless treatment of animals “inhumane”, not human, not bearing the characteristics of God’s goodness in our humanity. N. T. Wright puts it like this: [Slide 38] “You become what you worship: so, if you worship that which is not God, you become something other than the image-bearing human being you were meant and made to be. [...] Worship idols—blind, deaf, lifeless things—and you become blind, deaf and lifeless yourself. Murder, magic, fornication and theft are all forms of blindness, deafness and deadliness, snatching at the quick fix for gain, power or pleasure while forfeiting another bit of genuine humanness.” The things we worship in place of God have the power we give them to control our lives, and with that power they can destroy us. But thanks be to God there is Good News in the seven trumpets! We’re going to wrap up this passage with the seventh and final trumpet in chapter 11, starting in verse 15: [Slide 39] 15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.” 16 The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshiped him. 17 And they said, “We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign. [Slide 40] 18 The nations were filled with wrath, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.” 19 Then, in heaven, the Temple of God was opened and the Ark of his covenant could be seen inside the Temple. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and roared, and there was an earthquake and a terrible hailstorm.

The New Testament opens with Jesus preaching the arrival of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. His message was simple: “The Kingdom is arriving! Repent and believe the Good News! (“Gospel”)” And the Gospel is still the same. In and through Jesus and the Spirit, God has opened up his covenant with Israel to all the peoples of the earth. By God’s grace, through faith in God’s Messiah, Gentiles can now come into God’s family! This is very Good News! The thing we absolutely must not miss is that the Lordship of Jesus doesn’t begin on the Day of the Lord. Jesus is reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords RIGHT NOW! There may be many kings and prime ministers and presidents who exercise power in the world today, but Jesus reigns over all of them! Revelation reiterates the Gospel that the Lamb Who Was Slain has become the King of Kings and

11 Seven Trumpets — T. C. Moore, New City Church of Los Angeles

Lord of Lords—the One who stands at the center of God’s throne—and the one who judges the world, through his life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. So the ultimate question that we are confronted with by this passage is not what army is going to invade what country or what government official is the fallen star. No! The ultimate question that we are confronted with by this passage is: Have you turned away from idolatry and placed your trust in Jesus? Have you heard the Good News, the Gospel, that God’s Kingdom is arriving to redeem the world, and have you repented and turned to Jesus? If you have, Praise God! Rejoice! And work with God to see God’s reign fully established on earth as it is in heaven. A follow-up question: Have you been initiated into God’s family, the church, through baptism? If not, I will be meeting with baptismal candidates today at 1:30 in the church offices. If you have not repented and believed this Gospel, I encourage you to spend some time now taking inventory of your life before God. Nothing is hidden from God anyway, so open your heart to God. God is merciful; he forgives and he has created you to bear his image as a priestly ruler in the Kingdom of God. Let’s pray.

[Prayer]

[Slide 41] Benediction:

And now, to the One Who Was, Who Is, and Who Is To Come, And to the Lamb Who Was Slain, To the God who is a consuming fire, Be glory and honor, power and praise, forever.

May we be consumed and refined by your fire, May our hearts be open to the cries of our sisters and brothers who suffer for your Name May we be found ready for the Day of the Lord And may Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done, In Downtown, in LA, in California, in the United States, and in the world

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!

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