Broad meadows

The beginning of Revelation 8 reads this way:

“When he opened 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.
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” Revelation 8:1-5

As we read this, there is an exact correlation to this event in Ezekiel 10:1-2 & 6-7:

“I looked, and I saw the likeness of a throne of lapis lazuli above the vault that was over the heads of the cherubim. The LORD said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in.”

”When the LORD commanded the man in linen, “Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim,” the man went in and stood beside a wheel. Then one of the cherubim reached out his hand to the fire that was among them. He took up some of it and put it into the hands of the man in linen, who took it and went out.” When he goes out, the trumpets begin.

Recall that in the fifth seal, white (linen as stated later in Revelation) robes are given to the souls of those who died in the Lord. The man in linen would be the Elijah/Michael character that we have been following after his death. In Ezekiel 8-10, we have all of the symbols associated with Michael present in this section with profound prophecy contained within those passages.

In Ezekiel 8, we have an angel that bears a striking resemblance to the angel of Revelation 10 giving visions of God to the prophet. In chapter 9, God shows the prophet men bowing down to the sun and “putting the branch to their nose.” In other words, even though Jesus, the branch, is among them during the millennial reign, some end up worshiping the angel Michael. The apostle in Revelation is told three times not to worship the angel. This appears to be the problem that ends up in the destruction of the current heaven and earth to make way for the new at the end of the millennial reign. This could also be why the devil has usurped the goat symbol as his own to deceive those not in this age, but after he is released from the Abyss as stated in Revelation 20:7-10.

”When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth —Gog and Magog —and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

It appears that he will seek to impersonate Michael to incite those alive at the end of the millennial reign to attack Jesus and his followers in Jerusalem. Many are focused on who the Antichrist could be now, but as the Apostle John, who wrote Revelation, says in 2 John 7, “I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.” And yet in the book of Revelation he never uses that term.

I’ll finish this writing with the first four trumpets. I believe the first four trumpets are the same event, but with different effects. Revelation 8:7 says, “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.” This seems the obvious effect of the angel emptying the censer on the earth in verse 5. In fact, the first five trumpets all describe something coming from heaven and having the described effects. They are the fulfillment, I believe, of Joshua 10, where the sun stands still in the sky for a full day so that Joshua can destroy the Amorites.

It would appear then, that the angel of the LORD appears over the earth, causing the described destruction. The second trumpet sounds: “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.” Revelation 8:8-9. The angel in Revelation 10 has foot on the sea.

Revelation 8:10-11 reads, “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.” If you recall from near the beginning of this series that a “blazing torch” passes through the animals of sacrifice in Genesis 15 in God’s covenant with Abram. This signifies the beginning of a new epoch in God’s plan. Secondly, the bitterness described here may be the message that he carries. In Revelation 10, the angel gives the prophet a scroll that tastes like honey his mouth, but causes bitterness as well.

The fourth trumpet has the sun and the moon being struck . I believe these, as we discussed earlier, are symbols for the two witnesses. It could be that the angel is attacked by the leaders of the nations, perhaps using missiles. Apparently, this just makes him mad.