Rev. 8:1-2 ... "When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them."
In the impressive scene in heaven described in chapter 5, John saw in the hand of God a book that "was sealed up with seven seals." This book, which evidently contained God's will for the future history of the earth, was handed to Christ, who alone was found worthy to take the book and to break its seals. As He opens each seal, a segment of future earth experience is revealed with respect to God's inter-action with human affairs. In chapter 6 we read of the opening of these seals and of what happened on earth as a consequence. Before the seventh seal is opened in 8:1, however, there is the intermission of chapter 7, in which God seals His faithful people on earth. This action signifies two important things: first, that God is claiming His people on earth; and second, that God is testifying to the authenticity of these people as really belonging to Him.
Beyond these two things, however, and perhaps even more significantly, the sealing of chapter 7 represents God's special action to preserve His true people from certain austere judgments that He is about to inflict upon mankind. For when Jesus opens the seventh seal in 8:1-2, we see trumpets being given to seven select angels; and in the portion of Revelation following, we see that the sounding of each trumpet results in a severe judgment of God inflicted upon mankind while they still dwell on earth. As the account proceeds from the seven seals of chapters 4-7 to the seven trumpets of chapters 8-11, one is reminded of the extending of a telescope. The seven trumpets extend from within the seven seals, just as one section of a telescope extends from the last; and as it does, another whole vista of future earth experience is brought into focus.
We are not to suppose that these trumpets signify the Final Judgment at the end of the age like the trumpet of I Ths. 4:16. The note given in Rev. 9:20-21 reveals that the purpose of the judgments of these trumpets is to bring the greater part of mankind to repentance, whereas the trumpet of I Ths. 4:16 signals the Last Judgment after which man's fate is sealed without further extensions of God's grace for repentance. After all, the usual purpose of a trumpet was to warn, and what occurs when each of these are blown indicates that to warn is also their intent. For the judgment that comes with each does not affect all the wicked. Usually, it is only a third of the evil people, or of their things, that are destroyed, (vs. 7, 8, 9, 10; 9:15, 18). Unto these people it is, in a sense, a "final judgment" since it terminates their existence on earth. They pay for their ungodliness with their lives! But unto the greater part of mankind it is a warning to repent, (9:20-21).
The nature of what is presented in the scenes of these trumpet-soundings seems to suggest that, dur-ing the course of history, God uses such events as great storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, droughts, wars, and pestilence to punish one segment of mankind for its evil, and by the same action to warn the rest to repent in view of the approaching great and Final Judgment. Such events as divine judgments are explicit in the Old Testament, (see especially Amos 4:4-13), and God is now the same God He was then. In Mat. 16:1-4 Jesus speaks of how much more important it is to "discern the signs of the times" than it is to discern the signs of the weather. The person who interprets tragic events in human experience with respect to the "trumpets of judgment" in Rev. 8-11 may indeed be "discern-(ing) the signs of the times" as Jesus directs. And if he is thereby warned and led to repentance, great good for him is achieved, even if what he observed is more of a random act of nature than a specific judgment of God.
