The Seven Trumpets Of Revelation (Part One)

The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

Revelation 8:7

Not too long ago, I’ve completed a series of study on The 7 Seals of Revelation, done as meticulously as I could, and this post from today, is a continuation to the earlier series, discussing the subsequent set of sevens; the seven trumpets.

Unlike what most other preachers or writers would do to provide a holistic explanation of this wrath and from the devotional perspective its implications, my approach is more towards focusing on the essential signs associated with it, as the Bible gave vivid accounts of what these calamities are about, how they look like and what effects they will bring with them when they arrive. And of course, my usual method of looking for exemplary precedents in the past, whether such things have occurred before and if yes they did, what did the Scripture said about it.

Before The Seven Trumpets

We read in Revelation 8:1-6, that prior to the unleashing of the seven trumpets by the seven angels who stood before God, there was another angel having a golden censer with him, approaching God’s altar.

And this was what ensued, the angel was given a lot of incense, and he offered it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. If we refer back to Revelation 6:9, this golden altar could very possibly be the same altar of souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God.

In Luke 11:49-50, Jesus said, “Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ THAT THE BLOOD OF ALL THE PROPHETS WHICH WAS SHED FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD MAY BE REQUIRED OF THIS GENERATION, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished BETWEEN THE ALTAR AND THE TEMPLE. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”

Jesus drew the parallels to the word altar and the context of what He spoke concerning avenging the blood of all prophets that were killed since Abel who perished between the altar and the temple, to the golden altar of the souls that were slain, crying out eternally for justice (Revelation 6:10), and to the golden altar before the throne. These altars, mentioned three times in three separate Bible verses, are very likely referring to the one same altar, that is the one in the temple of God before the throne.

What we read further in Revelation 8:3-6 is, the prayers of these saints were mixed with the incense and ascended before God, getting to His attention. Subsequently, we read that the one angel with the golden censer, took fire from the altar and threw it to the earth, causing noises, thundering, lightning and earthquakes.

And with that said and done, the seven other angels prepared themselves to sound their trumpets, leading us to the first trumpet, the topic of discussion in this post.

The Sounding Of The First Trumpet

The Bible kept the information on the first trumpet, very short and sweet (or perhaps not!). In Revelation 8:7, “The first angel sounded: And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.” The keywords here are hail, fire, blood (iron oxide) and the calamity it causes; that is, one of third of land mass will become completely destroyed.

By now, all of us know what hails are. Even in Malaysia, where hails falling from the sky, a type of weather phenomenon that never occurred before in this part of the world, is already beginning to happen here. Recently, we have seen rainstorms that fell together with bits and pieces of ice balls, causing rattles as they hit our roofs, randomly in Malaysian cities.

The next element is more boggling to our minds – fire. According to amateur astronomer Gill Broussard who is also a Christian believer, Gill suggested that the fire from the skies mentioned in the first trumpet are likely to be either a meteor or comet shower. Here’s the disturbing part according to Gill, if it is meteors, they will be thrusting to earth at speeds of 40,000 miles/hour and if they are comets, we are probably looking at much high speeds of 97,000 miles/hour. In the image below, Gill illustrated meteors or comets of the size of a “talent”, and drawing our attention to the possible amount of damage each one of these could do on its impact to the earth.

If these estimates are correct, therefore we can assume that for a meteor or comet shower to wipe out one third of land mass together with large hails, this event is most likely going involve massive amounts of meteors, comets and hails being thrown down to earth from heaven all at once.

Similarities Between The First Trumpet & The Seventh Plague Of Egypt

If there is any Bible precedent we could think of that resembles this coming trumpet of fire, hail and blood, it would have been none other than the seventh plague that God brought upon Egypt described in Exodus 9:13-35. We read in verse 23, that Moses stretched his rod and the Lord sent thunder, hail and fire to the earth. The destructive elements are similarly identical to the first trumpet.

We all know that during the incident in Egypt, the Lord sent the plagues against the Pharaoh because he was enslaving the Hebrews and God had demanded that the Pharaoh let His people go. And if God is sending hails, fire and thunder one more time for the same identical reasons, then perhaps we need to ponder what is God not happy about this time. Are His people being enslaved again, as we saw in chapters in Luke and Revelation quoted above, how the martyrs were crying out and demanding for justice. Who are the ones praying to God to consider His wrathful actions? And who is the “Pharaoh” this time, whom shall be targeted by God’s wrath?

We also read in Jeremiah 2:29-30, “Why will you plead with Me? You all have transgressed against Me,” says the Lord. “In vain I have chastened your children; they received no correction. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” This verse gave us some hints when God’s prophets were killed by the false prophets and priest of Israel’s kings and princes.

And if all these trail of murders done against the saints or the true prophets, leading to Christ Himself saying that THE BLOOD OF ALL THE PROPHETS WHICH WAS SHED FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD MAY BE REQUIRED OF THIS GENERATION, we are likely living in this payday generation who will see God’s wrath unfold before us when the trumpets are blown, beginning with the first one of hail, fire and blood.

As such, if you are in this generation, and you are also a false prophet or false teacher or false preacher carrying on the traditions of your predecessors, the situation in coming months or years is not going to be rosy for you and the people associated with you. Jesus said the blood of the saints, shall be on your hands. And their obsession with angels, claiming to see angels or their constant prying for angels disguised as men, shall soon become a real world experience for these false prophets, when the Lord instructs His angels with the convening of the trumpet calls.