Sermon Tone Analysis

| *The Seventh Seal*(Revelation 8:1–5) |

* *

*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.

Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

(8:1–5)*

 

Intro.

- The future Day of the Lord will be the climactic time of judgment that ends man’s day and Satan’s rule on earth.

During that time, God will take back the earth in a final holocaust of wholesale destruction.

* The first five seals (false peace, war, famine, death, and vengeance) describe the preliminary judgments leading to the full outpouring of divine wrath during the Day of the Lord.

* As horrifying as those preliminary judgments are, they pale before the terrors of the sixth seal, which marks the beginning of the Day of the Lord.

* So terrifying are the judgments of the sixth seal that people are finally forced to acknowledge God as the source of the calamities.

* At that point they will cry “to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’ ” (6:16–17).

When the Lamb opens the seventh and last seal on the little scroll that was the title deed to the earth (5:1), the judgments of the Day of the Lord will intensify and expand dramatically.

* This final seal contains within it the full sweep of the remaining divine judgments of the time of the Great Tribulation, including the trumpet and bowl judgments.

* Though some believe the events of the trumpet and bowl judgments happen simultaneously with those of the sixth seal, it seems better to understand them as telescoping out of each other sequentially.

* That the seventh seal contains the seven trumpet judgments seems clear, since there is no description of judgment in the seventh seal, but an anticipation of severe judgment followed immediately in the text by the seven trumpet judgments.

* In a similar manner, the seventh trumpet does not describe a judgment (10:7; 11:15–17), but rather contains the anticipation of heavenly rejoicing over the judgment to come, which will lead to the final destruction and establishment of the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ.

* As 10:7 indicates, the seventh trumpet is the “finish.”

* Chapter 15 verse 1 makes clear that the seventh trumpet, which finishes the work of judgment, contains the final fury of God’s wrath, which the pouring out of seven plague judgments pictures: “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.”



* Chapter 16, verse 1, identifies these seven plagues as “seven bowls of the wrath of God.”

They are then described in detail in the remainder of chapter 16 (vv.

2–21).

* The progressive judgments within the seventh seal will take place over an indefinite period of time; the effects of the fifth trumpet, for example, will last for five months (9:10).

* While the exact timetable for the trumpet and bowl judgments is not revealed, their escalating devastation indicates that they all occur during the last half of the Tribulation.

* Therefore, the seventh seal encompasses all of God’s final wrath up to the triumphant return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

* Four key words may be used to describe the events associated with the opening of the seventh seal: silence, sounding, supplication, and storm.

1. Silence

*When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

(8:1)*

1.

As the rightful heir to the universe, *the Lamb* took the scroll (the title deed to the earth) from the Father’s hand (5:7).

As He unrolled it and broke the first six seals, divine judgments were poured out on the earth.

2.       But when He *broke the seventh seal *a unique response occurred: *there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.*

3.        A review of the visions up to this point makes it clear that John had heard a good deal of noise in heaven.

a.        Emanating from God’s throne were “sounds and peals of thunder” (4:5).

b.       “The four living creatures … [did] not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come’ ” (4:8),

c.        while the twenty-four elders added their song of praise (4:11).

d.

In 5:2 John heard a “strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?’ ”

e.

In response to the Lamb’s taking of the title deed to the earth (5:5–7), first the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders (5:9–10), then an innumerable host of angels (5:11–12), and finally all of creation (5:13) joined in praising God.

f.

When the Lamb opened the first seal, John “heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, ‘Come’ ” (6:1)—as he would when the second (6:3), third (6:5), and fourth (6:7) seals were opened.

g.

With the opening of the fifth seal came the cries of the martyrs for vengeance (6:9–10),

h.       while the breaking of the sixth seal brought the loud roar of a powerful earthquake (6:12).

i.

In the interlude between the sixth and seventh seals, an angel “cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, ‘Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads’ ” (7:2–3).

j.

Later in that interlude John saw a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they [cried] out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever.

Amen.” (7:9–13)

4.       But after all that loudness, as the full fury of the final judgments is about to be released, *silence *falls on the heavenly scene.

a.

The implication is that when the judgment about to happen becomes visible as the seventh seal is broken and the scroll unrolled, both the redeemed and the angels are reduced to silence in anticipation of the grim reality of the destruction they see written on the scroll.

b.

The *half an hour *of silence is the calm before the storm.

It is the silence of foreboding, of intense expectation, of awe at what God is about to do.

c.

And silence is the only proper response to such divine judgment.

d.

In Psalm 76:8–9 the psalmist wrote, “The earth feared and was still when God arose to judgment.”

e.        Habakkuk declared, “The Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before Him” (Hab.

2:20).

f.         “Be silent before the Lord God!” exhorted Zephaniah, “for the day of the Lord is near” (Zeph.

1:7).



g.       Zechariah 2:13 commands, “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for He is aroused from His holy habitation.”

5.        While eternal heaven has no time, the apostle John who is seeing the vision does.

a.

Each minute of that half hour of silence must have increased the sense of agonizing suspense for John.

b.       Heaven, which had resounded with loud praises from the vast crowd of redeemed people and angels, became deathly still.

c.

The hour of God’s final judgment had come—the hour when the saints will be vindicated, sin punished, Satan vanquished, and Christ exalted.

d.

The greatest event since the Fall is about to take place and all heaven is seen waiting in suspenseful expectancy.

2.

Sounding

*And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.

(8:2)*

a.

Following the half hour of heaven’s silence, John experienced a new feature of the seventh seal, namely *the seven angels who stand before God.

*

b.

The use of the definite article appears to set them apart as a unique group, which some have called the “presence angels.”

c.

The verb translated *stand* is in the perfect tense, which indicates that they were in the presence of God and had been there for a time.

d.       Scripture describes various ranks and orders of angels, such as cherubim (Gen.

3:24), seraphim (Isa.

6:2), archangels (1 Thess.

4:16; Jude 9), thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities (Col.

1:16), and powers (Eph.

6:12).

e.

These seven appear to be one such order of high-ranking angels.

Gabriel, who appeared to Zacharias and Mary, may have been one of them, since he identified himself to Zacharias as , who stands in the presence of God” (Luke 1:19).

f.

As John watched, *seven trumpets were given to *these angels, in preparation for the trumpet judgments that will shortly follow.

i.

As they did in the seal judgments (6:1, 3, 5, 6, 7) and will in the bowl judgments (16:2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 17), angels participate in the trumpet judgments.

ii.

That involvement is consistent with the teaching of Jesus that angels will play an important role in God’s eschatological judgments (e.g., Matt.

13:39–41, 49–50; 16:27; 25:31).

g.       *Trumpets *are the most significant musical instruments in Scripture, being associated with many different events.

i.

In the Old Testament, trumpets were used to summon the congregation of Israel (Num.

10:2),

                                                              ii.      to sound the alarm in time of war (Num.

10:9; 2 Chron.

13:12; Ezek.