REVELATION 8
The opening of the seventh seal is followed by “silence in the heaven about half an hour”. It is something like the “Selahs” which we find in the Psalms; a solemn pause indicating the momentous character of the subject in hand and its demand for the quiet consideration of heaven. It ushers in a new series of judgments, which follow upon “the prayers of all saints” being presented at the golden altar before the throne. No doubt the Angel who stands at the altar is Christ, and He has much incense by which efficacy is given to the prayers which He presents. “All saints” on earth are praying — it is the only hint of what they are doing while the first [p. 112] six trumpets are sounded — and their prayers are being presented by Christ as the Angel-Priest at the golden altar before the throne. We have seen in chapter 6: 9 that there will be saints on earth who will have the word of God, and will hold the testimony; from chapter 7: 14, we learn that there will be others who will wash their robes; and now chapter 8: 3 indicates that they will all be marked by prayer. These features are of deep interest, as shewing how different families of saints are morally related to each other. For they are features which mark saints of the assembly today.
But when we consider the character of their prayers — which we may learn from the answer given in the sounding of the trumpets — we see at once that God’s ways will have changed. The prayers will be no longer, “Lay not this sin to their charge”, but will be a cry to God to come in and set aside by His holy power all the lawlessness which robs Him of His pleasure in men, and is destructive of all true happiness for men. It is the happiness of the saint that he has been brought, by infinite mercy, into subjection to God; he can therefore truly say, “Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done as in heaven so upon the earth”. But saints now are in communion with God’s longsuffering patience and grace, knowing that it is the day of salvation. But then the saints will understand that the time has drawn near when God will deal in judicial power with all that is evil here, and they will be in accord with what He is doing. They will pray in communion with the mind of God at the moment. And the judgments come in answer to their prayers, just as sinners are converted and blessed today in answer to the prayers of God’s people.
[p. 113] The altar at which the Angel stands is the brazen altar — the place where the sweet savour of Christ came out sacrificially when He was found in the place of sin and death! — and it is from the fire of that altar that He fills His censer and casts it on the earth. The prayers of the saints are presented at the golden altar, which is where the fragrance of Christ as the Living One is before God for His saints. He sustains them in an intercessory way in all His own sweet odour and acceptability. The Angel is seen in relation to both altars. Both have been available in grace for men, but they both necessitate that what is not in keeping with them must eventually go out in judgment if it does not go out under the sway of grace. The fragrance of perfect obedience, and of perfect devotedness to the will of God, has been found here in Christ, and He has died so that men might learn the blessed will of God as the source of infinite good. But if Christ has been offered to establish the will of God it is impossible that what He suffered for can be allowed to continue indefinitely.
The Lord Jesus standing at the altar suggests that the time has come when His death will have its answer in a public way. There has been a long period of divine testimony during which men have had the opportunity of repenting in the light of what has been displayed in Christ and in His death, and of being delivered from lawlessness in the way of infinite grace. But if lawlessness does not yield to the testimony of divine grace in Christ it must go out in judgment. Its judgment in the coming day is as distinctly the answer to the cross as all the wealth of blessing is today. It is not possible in God’s universe that lawlessness can escape destruction. His people are being “salted with fire” now; grace is reigning in the way of bringing men to self-judgment in the light of Christ and of His death. The fire of the altar is being cast into men’s souls now that they may judge themselves, and turn to God in repentance, and find that He is a Saviour God. But Revelation 8 speaks of a time when the fire of the altar will be cast on the earth, and all that is lawless will come under judgment.
In connection with the opening of the fourth seal we find inflictions on “the fourth of the earth”. But when the trumpets are sounded what is characteristic is that they bring inflictions on “the third part”. It is touching to see that, even when acting in wrath God remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3: 2). He gives evidence of what His heart desires even while doing “his strange work” and performing “his unwonted act” of judgment (Isaiah 28: 21). He does not at once act universally in His visitations, but moves from stage to stage in such a manner as to give opportunity even yet to the greater part of men to repent when they see His dealings with others. The fact that it is recorded that “the rest of men who were not killed with these plagues repented not”(chapter 9: 20) shews at least that they had had opportunity of doing so, and that the possibility of such a result had been in view. It is an affecting testimony to the compassion of God, as well as a sad witness to the obduracy of man’s heart. God’s thought for man is that he should repent and be blessed.
It may be well to remark here that of the various divine actings brought before us in Revelation 6 - Revelation 16 the opening of the seals takes the first place, not only in the order of presentation but morally, for it is of [p. 115] primary importance that faith should recognize the power and title of the Lamb to deal with all things so that the will of God may be established here. It will be a great stay for saints of that day to know that events which issue in such tremendous overturning are the result of the Lamb’s actings in heaven, and that they have in view the bringing to pass within a brief time universal blessing. The trumpets of the seven angels follow — a seven-fold testimony to the consciences of men in a solemn series of inflictions which have as their end the completion of the mystery of God. Then the bowls are the outpouring of the fury of God upon what is apostate and openly rebellious. Not its final destruction, but inflictions which will make manifest during its continuance that it is the subject of divine wrath.
The first four trumpets bring inflictions upon the earth, the sea, the fountains of waters, and the heavenly luminaries. These four things embrace the whole of the conditions in which man is set as a creature, and they are figurative of the whole system of things in which men live. The earth is the place where man flourishes “like a green tree in its native soil” (Psalm 37: 35) — striking contrast to the one who can say, “I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God” (Psalm 52: 8) — and where “all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass”(1 Peter 1: 24). God will bring destructive influences upon man’s prosperity here. Then the sea speaks of the masses of mankind (chapter 17: 15). “As a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea”. The casting down of some great power, which has become itself a subject of divine judgment, will be caused to affect the mass of humanity in such a way [p. 116] that a great part of the life of the world which is dependent on international conditions and commerce (”the ships”) will perish.
Then when the third angel sounds, “There fell out of the heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters”. This seems to be a moral influence which embitters people as moving together in certain directions — “rivers” — would suggest this — and which affects the sources from which men draw their life morally. It is “a great star”; some influence that appears to men to bring light from above; but it is really “wormwood”; it embitters everything that it comes in contact with. We can see that there are many different “rivers” in the world today! Different classes of men moving together in certain social and intellectual channels, and with certain definite objects in view. And we can hardly be blind to the fact that it would not be difficult to embitter the different classes against one another. “The fountains of waters” represent the sources of thought and feeling, all that forms the moral springs of conduct. When this “great star” falls these will be greatly embittered in a large part of the earth. The result will be — not happiness or prosperity for any class, but moral death.
The fourth angel sounds, and the third part of the sun, moon, and stars is smitten. All that has been in the place of rule as divinely ordained is darkened. I think this indicates a change in the character of government. Instead of being in favour of righteousness, as all government is in principle today, it will cease to be divinely supported, and will become morally darkened. Authority will become arbitrary [p. 117] and unjust, and increasingly marked by oppression and mercilessness.
At this point there is a break, dividing the first four trumpets from the last three, and calling attention to the inflictions which would come when the three last trumpets were sounded as more to be dreaded than those which had gone before. “And I saw, and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to them that dwell upon the earth, for the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound”.