The First Five Trumpets
The opening of the seventh seal introduced the seven trumpets. The seven trumpets provide more detail concerning Satan’s effort to oppose God’s plan for humankind. However, we should refrain from reading the seven trumpets with strict chronology and literalism. No recorded events in humanity’s history match those portrayed in the first six trumpets. The narrative associated with sounding the first five trumpets informs us that Satan exhausted all the means at his disposal to, if possible, prevent the birth of the Messiah. Fortunately for humankind, Satan did not succeed in his efforts. Also, the trumpets’ soundings show that God is firmly in control despite Satan’s crafty efforts. Therefore, Satan’s evil deeds were neither universal nor global but relatively local. Even though he was the prince of this world, Satan could not destroy the world. The Sovereign Creator only has the power to destroy the earth.
The first four trumpets in Revelation depict Satan’s efforts to drive humankind so far away from God that salvation would be impossible. To this end, Satan employed humankind’s agencies to inflict every kind of violence and evil deed at his disposal. In contrast, God continually ensured humankind that his plans to save the world would become a reality. During the time of the first five trumpeters, God prepared people through whom he would bring the Messiah into the world. God began by calling Abraham. Through Abraham’s descendants, the Messiah came into the world. God called Abraham because he knew that Abraham would command his descendants to obey God. Unfortunately, Abraham’s descendants did not always remain faithful to God. Accordingly, God preserved a remnant in Judah that remained faithful to him. Through the faithful remnant, the Messiah did come into the world. Often, the remnant was small but, with God’s help, productive and committed to him. Noah is an example of a small remnant. Genesis 6:8. With God, even one person is a majority.
The fourth trumpet reveals the warning concerning Satan’s concerted effort to frustrate God’s plan for humankind. “Then I looked, and I heard an angel flying directly overhead, proclaiming with a loud voice. Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe to those who live on the earth because of the remaining sounds of the trumpets of the three angels who are about to blow them.” Revelation 8:13, NET. The time covered by the next three trumpets depicts Satan’s concerted and uninterrupted efforts to frustrate God’s plan. However, concurrent with Satan’s efforts, God prepared the Messiah’s way to come, depose the prince of this world and save humankind.
The sounding of the sixth trumpet; read the next blog.
