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