THE CASTING OF THE ALTAR-FIRE ON
THE EARTH
THE SOUNDING OF THE SEVEN TRUMPETS
THE CLOSING VISION AND SONG
Revelation 8:5-6; 11:15-19
In the previous chapter, we considered the beautiful
vision of the Angel-Intercessor standing by the golden altar of incense—a
vision conveying so many lessons of consolation and encouragement. The
prayers of the hundred and forty-four thousand are received into His censer.
There is room there for all; from the petitions of the lisping child or
trembling penitent, to those of the full-grown saint in the manhood of his
spiritual being. The hands of this true Moses on the Heavenly Mount
never grow weary, and the omnipotent "Father, I will" is never uttered in
vain.
But while the vision has its message of unspeakable
comfort to the believer, it has its utterances also of solemn warning
to the sinner and to the world; for we read, that immediately subsequent
to the reception of the prayers of the saints, the same Angel-Priest "filled
the incense burner with fire from the altar and threw it down upon the
earth; and thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and there was a terrible
earthquake." This imagery calls to mind the same vision of Ezekiel to which
we formerly had occasion to refer, wherein a the "man clothed in linen" was
commanded to "go in between the wheels under the cherub, and fill his hand
with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the
city." In both cases we have the unmistakable symbols of judgment.
The hot ashes, thrown by the very hand that had just been
revealed as 'strong to save,' indicated that to "the fearful and
unbelieving" His arm was 'strong to smite.' These glowing coals, if
they mingle not with the prayer-offering of the saints, will be cast forth
amid despisers and scorners. The fire which does not purify, will, as
in the case of Nadab and Abihu, destroy and consume. Where shall the
prayerless—those who have never cast one offering into the censer—be found
on that day when the Lord shall make inquisition? "Their drink-offerings of
blood," says the Savior they have rejected, "will I not offer, nor take up
their names into my lips."
You who have never known what it is to bend the knee in
prayer, who are now living on with no interest in the intercession of
Christ—no part in these angel-pleadings, think how you will be able to
confront on that day, an injured Savior, when He addresses you in the words
He spoke to Philip of old, "Have I been so long time with you and yet have
you not known Me?" Have I been with you so long in the preaching of My Word;
in ordinances, in sacraments, in afflictions, in the Patmos-chamber of
sickness, at deathbed scenes, at the solemn grave—and yet, has My golden
censer not received one solitary petition, has no breathing of yours ever
helped to fuel the incense-cloud?
Go to the unfrequented prayer-chamber; let the untrodden
way to the mercy-seat be no longer choked with the rank weeds of
forgetfulness. Let it be henceforth a beaten path. As the Divine Aaron this
night lights the lamps—kindles the altar-fires in the upper sanctuary, let
there be altar-fires on earth too, kindled for the first time. Let angels
carry the glad tidings to Heaven, "Behold, he prays!"
Let us pass now to a few observations on the vision of
the Seven Trumpets. These Apocalyptic trumpets evidently do not
refer to the silver trumpets used on the great festival which bears the
name. These latter summoned to a joyous celebration, corresponding (as has
been supposed from its date in the Jewish calendar, as "the beginning of
months "), to our own New Year's day. It was to the Jew the anniversary
festival of the world's 'genesis.' Trumpets emitting jubilant notes, were
appropriately employed in memory of the glad occasion when "the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." It formed a
prelude and preparation also, for the most sacred of their convocations, the
great day of Atonement.
But the trumpet, to the Hebrew of old, had other and
different associations. It was used to sound the alarm of war, or to be
blown by the sentinels on their cities' watch-towers, when the enemy was in
sight or danger was at hand. The present symbolic soundings have a similar
reference; they are premonitory of battle and conflict, the
precursors of judgment. As the vision of the Seals was
designed to minister to the comfort of the Church in the midst of her
trials, by the assurance of her ultimate deliverance and safety; so the
vision of the Trumpets immediately following, was intended to be
prophetic of God's judgments on the Church's enemies, and the certainty
with which that punishment is to overtake them.
As a commentator has well observed, the moral of the
seven seals is, "Say to the righteous it shall be well with
him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings." The moral of the seven
trumpets is, "Woe unto the wicked; it shall be evil with him,
for the reward of his hands shall be given him." All commentators, from the
earliest to the latest, have with singular unanimity pointed out the evident
allusion in these apocalyptic trumpet-blowings to the occasion of the
siege of Jericho on the entrance of Israel into the land of
Canaan. Numerically, as well as otherwise, the resemblance is remarkable. On
seven successive days was the Canaanitish stronghold to be encircled by the
armies of Israel. Trumpets were to sound as the desert warriors marched
round the walls, preceded by the Ark of the Covenant—the token of the Divine
presence. And when we remember the seven vials, which in the Book of
Revelation follow the seven trumpets, we are forcibly reminded of the
special additional injunction regarding Jericho, that on the seventh day of
the seven trumpet-blowings there was to be a sevenfold encircling of the
city and that not until the seventh circuit was completed and "a long blast"
was given with the rams' horns, accompanied with "a great shout," were the
gigantic walls to fall and the conquest obtained of this key to Palestine.
The whole of the Apocalypse may be regarded as a New
Testament and gospel history, of the march of the true Israel through the
successive stages of the world's long wilderness, to the heavenly Land of
Promise. It is a history of gradual aggression against the powers of
evil; the triumph of the true Joshua-Jesus over all His adversaries,
until He has secured for His people permanent rest within the celestial
Canaan. And as the siege and conquest of Jericho presented to the Hebrews
alike a vivid memorial and rehearsal of their long struggles and a pledge of
final victory; so it forms no unbefitting type and picture of the greater
and more glorious struggle, with its ultimate triumph and rest, which
belongs to the Church of God.
The whole history of the Church, as embraced in the book
of Revelation, is a history of the siege of a moral Jericho—the compassing
of the walls of the world's giant unbelief, and their final fall before the
might of Him, of whose glorious Person and presence the ancient Ark of
Israel was the significant type. Trumpet after trumpet sounds its
judgment-blast, each separate peal is directed with symbolic import against
some department or element of outer nature—the earth, with its trees
and green grass; the sea, into which plunges a mountain burning with
fire; the rivers and fountains of waters, poisoned with a
falling meteor; the luminaries of heaven, sun, moon, and stars,
smitten with darkness.
As the Apostle in the previous sealing-vision had
obtained the pledge of Israel's security, the Church's ultimate safety
and triumph; so, through this new series of symbols, he receives the
pledge and assurance of God's judgments on an unbelieving world—the
overturn and destruction of every citadel and bulwark of evil which has
hitherto opposed the triumph of truth. The progress of the siege is
necessarily slow. It may be seven encirclings and yet seven again. The faith
and the patience of the true Israel is sorely tried, as they cry aloud in
the anguish of hope deferred, "Lord, how long?" The scoffers on the
battlements seem to hurl their taunts and missiles with impunity—no split is
seen in the walls, no premonitory symptoms of a breach. But come it will.
Since John stood in Patmos, many circuits have been
completed; many a time have these herald-angels, in the past history of
Christendom and of the world, sounded their martial trumpets; nation has
risen against nation and kingdom against kingdom; every fresh blast, every
fresh mustering of the hosts for the battle—every startling calamity—the
famine, the pestilence, the fall of the Siloam-tower, the storm which has
strewn the coast with wrecks and filled desolate hearts with agony—all these
tell of the nearer approach to the grand consummation, when 'the shout of
the people,' the cry of united Israel—the prayers of the true Church of God,
now ascending apparently in vain—will obtain the expected response in a
voice from Heaven, saying, "It is done!"
In the midst, then, of these very judgments which now
passed before the eye of John—amid these trumpet-peals which carried the
sound of woe to the guilty world, there were blended notes of comfort and
encouragement to every drooping, desponding spirit. The triumph of truth
might be chequered, but it would be sure and complete. As in
the case of Jericho, "our weapons are not carnal, but mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds." Human might and human power can do nothing
in themselves against the bulwarks of evil. "We have no might against this
great multitude, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon You."
"Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." "Stand still, and
see the salvation of God." "For He brings down those who dwell on high; the
lofty city He lays it low, He lays it low even to the ground, He brings it
even to the dust." "The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of
the Lord does valiantly." "The haughtiness of man shall be laid low, and the
Lord alone shall be exalted on that day." As of the type, so of the antitype
will it be in due time said and sung: "By faith the walls of Jericho fell
down, after they were compassed about many days."
We may even carry further the resemblance to this old
story of Israel's border city—connecting it with the reference which we have
previously pointed out in the palm-bearing vision, to the Feast of
Tabernacles. That feast, among the other incidents it commemorated, embraced
that of the siege of Jericho. For we are told that during its continuance, a
procession, bearing branches of palm, accompanied with the sound of
trumpets, entered the courts of the temple for seven successive days; and
that, on the seventh day, they compassed seven times the altar with the same
trumpet-blowings, singing their Hosanna.
At the true Feast of Tabernacles in the Heavenly
Temple, when the redeemed enter on their everlasting bliss and
everlasting rest, they will be able to commemorate, with triumph, their
toilsome struggles, their long marches around the defiant walls of earth's
unbelief, when they had nothing but faith to sustain the assurance of
ultimate victory.
And as a befitting termination of this necessarily rapid
and cursory reference to the trumpet-visions, let us only farther note the
closing picture given under the sounding of the seventh Angel. "The temple
of God was opened in Heaven" (Rev. 11:19). The impenetrable veil which
screens from mortal sight the mysteries of that true "Holy of Holies,"
was for the moment drawn aside. And what is the disclosure made to the eye
of the Apostle? It is another old memory of Jericho, more sacred even than
its trumpets. There was seen in this Temple "the Ark of His covenant."
Glorious and comforting vision with which to terminate all these terrific
trumpet-soundings—these symbols of wrath and judgment—the voices of
lightnings and thunders! The walls of the world's Jericho have fallen—its
bulwarks are demolished, and Israel's possession of the better Canaan is
secured. But, as if to remind John, and to remind the Church in every age,
of the secret of all her past victories, and to give her the pledge of her
eternal rest, he gazes on the familiar symbol so often and so long
associated with the fortunes and the history of the Hebrew people—the
safeguard of their liberties—the rallying-point in every hour of disaster;
but which had now to him a still deeper and holier significance as the type
of the Great Propitiatory—the true Covenant Ark. In the glories of His
Divine person and the fullness of His mediatorial work, Jesus is set in the
Heavenly Temple, the pledge and guarantee of eternal safety and peace to the
Church purchased with His blood. "Because I live you shall live also."
In the same closing vision, the twenty-four Elders—the
symbolic representatives of the whole Church of the redeemed—are further
pictured as falling down on their faces in an act of supreme adoration, and
breaking forth in one glorious ascription, saying, "We give You thanks, O
Lord God Almighty, the One who is, and who was, because You
have taken Your great power and have reigned."
Be it ours, meanwhile, patiently to wait such an assured
and glorious consummation; "looking for, and hastening unto, the coming of
the day of God." Let us take our festal palm-branch and follow the pealing
trumpets—trumpets of joy to the Church, trumpets of woe and judgment to the
world. The seventh Angel not having yet sounded, let us raise our
Hosanna—the "Come, Lord Jesus!"—the reiterated key-note of the Book, with
its divine harmonies. "Yet a little while and He that shall come will come,
and will not tarry." "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible." "The coming of the Lord draws near."
The downfall of the world's anti-christian powers—the
destruction of its moral Jerichos—will be coincident with this great event,
for which all creation longs. May He who holds the seven-sealed roll in His
hand hasten the day, when the last trumpet voice shall be heard, and the
last shout of prayer ascend, "Your kingdom come!"—bringing the glad
response, ushering in the longed-for moment and announcement, "The kingdoms
of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and
He shall reign to the ages of the ages!"