HE who is worthy now opens the seventh seal And yet there is delay before the awful blasts of judgment are sounded. “There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” These are angelic judgments. “And I saw the sever angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” God can use the powers and principalities He has created. The silence in heaven denotes the pause before those judgments begin.
There is another very marked change. The Lord Jesus does not now present Himself as the Lamb during these judgments.
Verses 3-5. These verses are taken by some as giving authority to pray now to angels. But is not this the Lord Jesus in angelic form? “There was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.” It is true the action is not at all as the intercession which He, as our great High Priest, makes for us now before the throne of grace, as we see in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is that we may find grace and help in time of need.
Here the prayers of the suffering saints are answered in judgments on the earth. “And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” This reminds us of the man clothed with linen, scattering the fire of judgment from the throne of God over the city. (Eze. 10:22And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight. (Ezekiel 10:2).) It is that man clothed with righteousness to whom all judgment is given, that hears the prayers of the suffering saints, and answers their prayers with file from off the altar. Men have rejected His grace and free forgiveness, they must now have His judgments. Sin must be purged or judged. In Isa. 6 we see, when the seraphim took fire front the altar and laid it on the mouth of the prophet, his iniquity was taken away, and his sin purged. Jesus has passed through the fire of divine judgment. Have you received the testimony of God to the cleansing efficacy of that blood which cleanseth from all sin; or are you still hasting on to that day when angelic judgments, that is, judgments direct from heaven, shall be cast on the earth?
This is no vain speculation to amuse you. These things will shortly come to pass. God is slow to execute wrath. “There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” We have seen in chapter 6, that there were those on earth that were slain for the word of God; and they were bidden to wait until their brethren were killed. Here then we have the prayers of their brethren presented with the efficacy of the intercessor as an angel of judgment.
We only know of one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. There is, then, not a shadow of authority in the word of God, to pray to angels or saints. These are evidently Jewish figures, borrowed from the temple. The golden censer was a type of Christ Himself. The incense was brought into the most holy, before he blood, pointing to the glory and excellency of His Person, who should make atonement, whose blood should be presented before God. He alone then could offer the prayers of all saints with the sweet savor of His blessed Person, as known only to the Father. Out of His blessed hands, perfumed with His own excellences, those Prayers will ascend to God. But all is changed now not for continued grace, but for judgments.
Is it not then most suited that He who is known to us as the Lamb of God should then assume the character, as in days of old, of the angel of judgment?
“The altar” of incense is the golden altar that stood before the throne in the holy place. The altar from which the fire was taken is the altar of burnt offerings. So that the measure and character of judgment on Christ, as our Substitute, on the altar—the cross—will be the character of the wrath cast on the earth upon the rejecters of forgiveness through the death of the cross.
Verse 6. “And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded; and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth; and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
The loftiness of men will be smitten and destroyed; and the green grass, the prosperity of men, will also be utterly destroyed. Thus in these more direct blasts of judgment from God, the circumstances of men are first smitten. What a warning this is!
Man, as a fallen sinner, has no right even to the things of this life: it is all the mammon of unrighteousness. Whilst the men of this world are grasping to possess that which they little think they will have soon to give up, surely it becomes us to take heed to the teachings of the Lord as to worldly goods, and the example of the saints in the beginning of the church’s history in Acts 2; 4, This is a very serious matter. Surely this Revelation of Jesus Christ is intended to have a separating power on us as to all present circumstances. Do we really believe that we are about to be taken away from this whole scene, and that then these judgments will follow?
“And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain, burning with fire, was east into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood,” &c. This would set before us some empire that had long been considered as a mountain. The judgment of God falls upon it, and it falls burning into the raging billows of the people, as angry waves, and the result is those waves of men become blood.
The figure seems clearly to imply great destruction of all that appears stable. And this is not limited to the earth, or the seat of the four empires, but extends to the sea; that is the people beyond their limits. With this there is great destruction of trade, the ships and resources of men. Oh, how little men know what is before them! And all along, as we read of these judgments close at hand, the voice so well known to us still says, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Do we hear him? Do we believe Him?
In the third trumpet-blast of judgment, it is still the circumstances of men. Some very eminent person falls, as a burning lamp. In hot countries rivers are very expressive of fertility, and earthly blessing. The Christian, receiving, from Christ, becomes a river of water of life to others. (John 7:3838He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38).) And there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. (See also Rev. 22:1, 21And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1‑2).) Here it is the very reverse “The third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.” Oh the bitterness and death that await the inhabitants of this world!
“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten,” &c. There seems now to be darkness falling on the governing powers of the third part of the earth. That is of the prophetic earth—the seat of the four great empires—it is utter moral, and perhaps also political perplexity or darkness. Men’s minds will be terribly affected.
There is now a break and a change, marked by “an angel flying through the midst of heaven; saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound.” The judgments of the first four trumpets have been on the circumstances of men, Now the three deeper woes are about to fall on the persons of men.
Chapter 9. “The fifth angel sounded; and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to HIM was given the key of the bottomless pit [or abyss].” This is a person: and it would seem to be Satan permitted to let loose the fallen angels out of their prison, on to the earth. All government is now darkened by diabolical agents. Earthly symbols are used, but they are only figures. To these locusts was given power, “as the scorpions of the earth.” Then they are not locusts or scorpions of the earth, but as, or like them. The air is filled with demons let loose, like clouds of locusts; and their torments are like the sudden stroke of a scorpion. Oh, what will it be then to remember the grace and mercy once offered to men?
Mark, their dreadful work will not be to hurt, the grass, that is, the circumstances of men: neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. God will preserve the sealed of Israel from the torment of these demons.
It is evidently the minds of men that will cc smitten with these torments for a given time, as. they have no power to kill. Nay, “In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
Verse 7. Perhaps no words can be found to express the terribleness of these symbols. Their shape: they assume strength and power “like unto horses prepared unto battle.” “On their heads as it were crowns like gold.” They assume, as it were, divine righteousness. Faces as men-intelligence. Hair as women—they may assume warming gentleness but their teeth are as the teeth of lions. Who can hurt them in return; for they have breastplates, not of (righteousness) gold, but of (destruction) iron? They are swift in the spread of their tormenting poison. “And the sound of their wings was as the sound of, chariots of many horses running to battle.” It is the thoughts or doctrines they leave behind them—they have stings in their tails. They have a king over them; and he is the angel of the bottomless pit. And his name is Apollyon, the destroyer.
Oh, ye parents, is it for these scenes you are, so carefully bringing up your children in the fashions and pleasures of Satan’s world? Remember, these things will surely come to pass yea, quickly come to pass. Are there not symptoms of their near approach? From the palace to the cottage is there not distress of with perplexity and fear, for the things; that are coming on the earth? Oh, what will it be when the true church is taken away, and God sends men these strong delusions? Awake, behold the Bridegroom! And will you be forever shut out and left to these terrible judgments on which we have been dwelling? We entreat you not to cast these things aside. God is bringing, out this “book of Revelation in all its explanations with clearness for the time is short.”
May God awaken every reader of this little paper to the fact, that the last days, long foretold; are fast running out their course. Fellow do we believe God? He has given us. this revelation; do we believe it? And these things as—yet are but the beginning of the wrath God about to be poured out on a Christ-rejecting world.