“These are the last days …” – every generation needs someone to be saying that and hearing it. I certainly have even from a child with every catastrophic event in the world I have been warned that the end is nigh.
We are moving into some of the most difficult passages to read in the Bible.
As we have already seen, trumpets in the Bible signify the raising of the troops for war, they are an alarm, getting the city ready, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm …” (Joel 2:1)
So we move from the seven seals to the seven trumpets.
As we read these next verses keep in mind how nature is going crazy, they call them natural disasters, they put the blame on how mankind has cared for its world, but it is far greater than this.
“Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, 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 turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in mid-air call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!” (Revelation 8 v 6-13)
John certainly would have had the Egypt story in his mind and the judgments do resemble the plagues. We have seen the connection with the story of Egypt already with the Passover Lamb and once we get through these difficult to read events we will see how God’s people “sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb” (15 v 3)
The question has to be when does all this happen? Has this happened? Is it taking place now or is this to come? Yes is the answer.
Let’s just look at 2022.
At the start of the year we had floods in Brazil and Iran; heavy destructive snowfall in Turkey, Pakistan and the US; fires out of control in Spain and Argentina; volcanoes erupting in Ecuador and Tonga. Throughout the year it didn’t get any better and even over this last few months we have seen a 1/3rd of Pakistan under water; severe heat over the Middle East, Africa and Europe leading to wildfires and droughts; the largest river in Asia, the Yangtze dried up in the heatwave; Typhoons in Japan and South Korea and the US; the list goes on.
So the answer is yes, in every generation, why?
This is not complete total judgment, it is a third, these are trumpets; they are warnings. Not from earth to earth but heaven to earth. Heaven is warning the ‘inhabitants of the earth’ (v13). Those who are earth bound, with no interest in heaven, no thoughts towards God and His throne. These are warnings to repent, to change, to move towards God.
So we are right to say, ‘These are the last days …’ we are right to say these natural disasters that are ever before us are not natural but supernatural. They are the trumpets of God.
Missions Paul 