Have you ever spent an afternoon in the backyard, maybe grilling burgers, weeding the garden, or enjoying a game of croquet, when suddenly you notice that everything goes quiet? The air seems still and calm—even the birds stop singing and quickly return to their nests.
After a few minutes, you feel a change in the air, and suddenly a line of clouds ominously appears on the horizon—clouds with a look that tells you they aren’t fooling around. You quickly dash in the house and narrowly miss the first fat raindrops that fall right before the downpour. At this moment, you might stop and ask yourself, “Why was it so calm and peaceful right before the storm hit?”
It’s an intriguing phenomenon that people have recognized for centuries, but what on Earth causes this calm? Storms need warm, moist air as fuel, and they typically draw that air in from the surrounding environment. As the warm, moist air is pulled into a storm system, it leaves a low-pressure vacuum in its wake, creating the sensation of the calm before a storm.
How many of you have ever experienced this phenomenon known as “the calm before the storm?” Some of you are probably thinking, “This is what I experience every day right before my kids get home from school?
Well, Revelation 8 is a lot like the calm before the storm. Verses 1-6 is the calm and verses 7-13 is the storm. Let’s take a closer look at this quiet calm in heaven before the great storm of judgment upon the earth!
The Quiet Calm in Heaven (1-6)
In verse 1, Jesus the Lamb opens the seventh seal on the scroll, just as he had broken the first six. John was surely shocked by what he heard—silence in heaven for about a half an hour. All of the angels and saints in heaven, who were just depicted as singing, shouting, praising, and worshipping God in chapter 7, now fall completely silent. Something major is about to happen. This silence is a dramatic pause as all in heaven wait expectantly for the Lamb to reveal the contents of the scroll and bring his plan of judgment and redemption to completion. This is the eerie calm before the winds of judgment are about to blow.
During this short period of silence, seven angels step forward and receive seven trumpets from God. The current silence will soon be contrasted with the loud trumpet blasts, which are symbols of God’s next series of judgments upon the earth. In the first century, trumpets were used for signaling warfare, not the making of melodies.
Meanwhile, another angel steps before the alter holding a golden censer. A censer is a bowl or fire pan that is designated for holding live coals and incense. The coals and incense were burned as an offering to God in Jewish temple worship, producing a pleasing aroma that went to God. The bringing of incense often accompanied prayers as they do here in this passage. As in Revelation 6, those who have suffered and died on earth are now in heaven and praying for God to executing divine justice by judging the inhabitants of the earth. There is silence in heaven so that God can hear the prayers of the saints.
The fact that the angel takes the censer and hurls the fire upon the earth is a clear sign that God has heard the prayers of the saints and is about to pour out his judgment on the earth. Just like in the book of Exodus, when God broke his 400 year silence and judged Egypt, who persecuted his people, God is about to break the silence again with thunder and rumblings and trumpet blasts that unleash his wrath upon the world. The plagues that he sent upon the Egyptians are now recapitulated on the inhabitants of the earth during the church age and inaugurate his final judgment. This is indeed the calm before the storm.
Like other places in the book of Revelation, this passage reminds us that God hears the cries of his people who suffer. He sees everyone who is mistreated, abused and persecuted, and he is already restoring justice by executing judgment upon the earth. These current judgments will one day culminate during the final judgment when Jesus returns to the earth.
For those of you who suffer injustice and persecution now, be encouraged! Hang in there! Keep the faith! God is on the move! He is already restoring justice now and he will one day return to the earth to finish his work in person!
The Storm of the Trumpet Judgments (7-13)
In verse 7, the first trumpet blasts and begins a series of seven trumpet judgments. The trumpet judgments are not separate from the seal judgments, but they are a recapitulation and intensification of the same judgments. It is simply a different picture of the same event.
Just as the first four seals were inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Christ and began the tribulation period, the first six trumpets began at the same time and will continue throughout the church age. Like the fifth and sixth seal, the seventh trumpet will take place when Christ returns for the final judgment of the earth.
Therefore, the first four trumpet judgments (that we are about to see) began at the death and resurrection of Christ, are currently taking place right now, and will continually intensify throughout history until the return of Christ. Let me explain.
The First Trumpet- Food Shortage (7)
When the first angel sounded his trumpet in heaven, John saw hail and fire mixed with blood. This plague is reminiscent of the seventh plague on Egypt, where God sent hail and lightning to destroy their crops. The hail, fire, and blood in this passage are not meant to be understood literally, but collectively, they are symbols for famine. “A third of the earth” is also a metaphor for a large part of the earth. This trumpet plague recalls the judgment of the third horseman of the apocalypse in Rev. 6:6, where wheat and barley became scarce.
This plague depicts God’s judgment upon earth by attacking its food source. Throughout the past 2000 years there has always been widespread famine across the earth.
Three of the worst famines in history include the Great Famine of Bengal, India, that took place in 1769; 10 million people died of starvation. The Great Potato Famine began in Ireland in 1845; one million people died and another 2 million immigrated to the United States. The Great Chinese Famine began in 1878. This famine proved to be more deadly than both the Great Famine of Bengal and the Great Irish Famine combined. During a two-year drought 20,000,000 people died of starvation.
Even though America has been relatively immune to famine, other countries around the world are suffering food shortages—places like Somalia, Ethiopia, and North Korea. Famine will continue to be a growing problem until the return of Christ!
The Second Trumpet- Salt Water (8-9)
The second trumpet judgment, like the first, introduces a plague that attacks the world food source. This time it happens from salt water rather than land. Like the first plague on Egypt where God turned the water of the Nile into blood and all of the fish died, God uses this plague to attack the food source from the sea and maritime commerce.
The Washington Post recently reported that an international group of ecologists and economists warned that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses.
Human greed is consuming all of the resources that God has blessed us with. This, too, will continue to increase until the return of Christ. We are watching this judgment before our very eyes!
The Third Trumpet- Fresh Water (10-11)
With the third trumpet, the judgment of famine continues with the world’s fresh water supply being attacked. The star that falls upon the rivers and makes the waters undrinkable recalls Exodus 7 where Moses told Aaron to stretch out his hand and turn all of the streams, canals, ponds, and reservoirs to blood, rendering them undrinkable. “Wormwood” is a bitter herb that can make water poisonous. This plague depicts a shortage of good water and people suffering from drinking bad water.
Like the others, we are watching this judgment of God befall the earth before our very eyes. Today the World Water Council reports that 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water—2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation—1.8 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases—3,900 children die every day from water borne diseases. And it is getting worse all the time.
The Fourth Trumpet- Darkness (12)
The fourth trumpet continues the same theme of judgment from the preceding trumpet, but it doesn’t refer to the physical realm. Early Jewish tradition understood the plague of darkness over Egypt as having symbolic significance. The darkness is a theological metaphor where that is an ominous spiritual darkness sets in over the land. In Egypt, the darkness was used to prove God’s sovereignty over the Egyptian Sun god Ra and to punish the people for their idolatry.
So, today we have an ominous spiritual darkness that has set in over large portions of our world today. This is part of God’s punishment on the inhabitants of the earth for their unashamed idolatry. Vast segments of the world population have been blinded by their sin and cannot see God’s truth for what it really is. Like the other judgments, the spiritual darkness continues to spread all over the land.
These judgments are happening now and they continue to intensify as time goes on and we get closer to the return of Christ. These judgments have the same purpose as the seal judgments in Rev. 6—they serve as punishments for those who refuse God and persecute his people, but they also serve to purify God’s people and draw them closer to him. These judgments remind us who is really in control of the physical and spiritual world, and call us to put our trust in Christ.
The calm before the storm has passed—we are in the storm right now—it’s going to continue to get worse—are you ready?