Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #3 of Revelation, chapter 8, and we are going to continue looking at Revelation 8:1-2:

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

We have been discussing “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” and we saw how that relates to the first part of the Great Tribulation, a time when virtually no one was being saved anywhere in the world; and no one at all within the churches, but there may have been a handful of individuals outside of the churches.

Then that “silence” ended and God sent forth the “latter rain,” after the 2,300 “evening mornings,” and in September 1994 the “latter rain” began to fall and the Lord began to save a great multitude out of the nations of the world.

Let us continue on here in Revelation 8:2:

And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

Now, once again, the number “seven” is appearing here in the Book of Revelation.  There is nothing surprising about that; it has shown up repeatedly because God uses the number “seven” to describe or represent “perfection” of whatever He is speaking of and, in this case, it is “seven angels” which are given “seven trumpets,” so it is the perfection of angels and the perfection of trumpets.

But who, or what, do these “seven angels” represent?  The answer (I think) can be found when we look earlier in the Book of Revelation and, also, as we look later in the Book of Revelation.  As we read about “seven angels” back in Revelation, chapters 1, 2 and 3, God used the figure of “seven angels” as He addressed an Epistle to each of the seven churches of Asia Minor.  He addressed it unto the “angel of the church of Ephesus,” or unto the “angel of the church of Philadelphia,” etc.  We saw as we tried to understand who the “seven angels” represented, there was one particular verse that helped us, in Revelation 1:20:

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Here, God makes the identification.  He links together the “seven stars” with the seven churches.  He says, “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.”  If you have been following along in our study in the Book of Revelation, we spent some time talking about how the stars typify the believers, as God said to Abraham: “I will make thy seed as the stars of the heaven for multitude.”  There are many other verses that make that connection between God’s elect and the stars (as a figure of the elect).

So God says that the “seven stars” are the “angels of the seven churches,” and it would be better for us to understand “angels” as “messengers,” because this Greek word “angelos” can be properly understood as “messenger” or “angel,” an angelic being.  But, in this case, it would be better understood as “messengers” and it is pointing to God’s elect within the congregations during the period of the church age.  One other thing that confirms this is also in this verse in Revelation 1:20:

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand&hellip

We took time to see that the “right hand” of God points to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and relates to salvation.  So the “seven stars” (as they are used to figure the true believers) are in the right hand of Christ and that would indicate salvation and, so, God addresses each of the Epistles to the seven churches unto the “angel” or “messenger” of each church.  This means that God wrote to His people within the congregations and they are His messengers that carry His Word to the church as a whole – to the corporate body. 

So that is one place where we saw that the “seven angels” were not angels at all, but they typify God’s elect.  But there is another place in Revelation where God refers to “seven angels.”  It says in Revelation 16:1:

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

Here, “seven angels” are carrying the seven last plagues (the seven vials full of the wrath of God) and this is describing God’s process of pouring out His wrath in the Day of Judgment, and “seven angels” are instrumental in carrying out the task of pouring out the judgment upon the unsaved people of the earth.  Who are these seven angels?  We are greatly helped in understanding who they are, when we look at Revelation 15:5-6:

And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:  And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.

So these are the same “seven angels” that are given the seven vials full of the wrath of God and they are instructed to pour out their vials upon the earth.  Notice that God, in describing the seven angels as they came out of the temple, says they were “clothed in pure and white linen.”  That is interesting because why would God tell us that if these were angelic beings (spirit beings that are sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation)?  Why would they be clothed in pure and white linen?  That clothing does not fit with the idea of angelic beings – there is no need for them to be clothed in pure and white linen.  Why not?  Well, let us turn to Revelation 19, where we read of the “bride of Christ,” the New Jerusalem, and it says in Revelation 19:7-8:

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

You see, here, God defines what “fine linen, clean and white” refers to: it is the righteousness of saints – the righteousness of sinners for whom the Lord Jesus Christ obtained righteousness: “by the obedience of one, many shall be made righteous,” Romans 5 tells us.  So we were sinners and we had no righteousness.  The Bible says: “There is none righteous, no not one.”  Therefore, we desperately needed righteousness in order to stand before God, so Christ made us righteous through His obedience and in taking upon Himself the sins of His elect and paying the penalty for them, completely fulfilling the will of God for His salvation program.  Therefore, as it says in this verse, we are clothed “in fine linen, clean and white.”  The great multitude in Revelation 7 was also clothed in that fine linen, as it says in Revelation 7:9:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

Then it says in Revelation 7:13-14:

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The pure linen, white and clean, has to do with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ which is granted to God’s elect – and only to God’s elect – and that is why we can know (absolutely) that these “seven angels,” or messengers, are God’s elect, when we read Revelation 15:6:

And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.

These are God’s elect, just as we saw with the “seven angels,” concerning those that were the angels of the seven churches – they were “stars” in the right hand of Christ and they were also God’s elect.  So, too, the “seven angels” at the time of the end during Judgment Day (the time of God’s wrath being poured out upon the wicked of the world) are utilized by God in carrying out the task of bringing the last vials full of the seven last plagues of the wrath of God.

Lord willing, when we get to that chapter, we will see how that relates to our present time, as God’s people are left alive, remaining upon the earth in the Day of Judgment.  What are we doing?  We are declaring and we are speaking forth the Word of God that is pronouncing judgment on the world.  It is actually a fulfillment of what we read in Revelation 16.

But, right now, we are still in Revelation 8:1:

… seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

So, as we look back at the church age, we saw the “seven angels” identified with the true believers and, as we look ahead to the time of the Day of Judgment on the world, the “seven angels” also identified with the true believers, so we have no reason to think that the “seven angels” referred to here in Revelation 8:1 are not also true believers. 

We actually have further confirmation of this in an historical parable which God gives us in Ezekiel 9:1-2:

He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate&hellip

Now, notice this speaks of “men,” and it says in Ezekiel 9:2:

And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them *was* clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.

With this language it is not easy to see this, but it is actually speaking of “seven men,” because six men are carrying slaughter weapons and there is one man “clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side,” so that makes a total of seven.  So this “one man” with the inkhorn would be the Lord Jesus Christ and the other six would be His people, as the Bible tells us, in 1^st Corinthians 6:2:  “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?”  It also says in 1^st Corinthians 6:3: “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?  The Bible indicates that the Lord Jesus comes in judgment with His saints and this judgment began at the house of God – that is when the judgment process began.

So we find these “seven men,” just as we find “seven angels” in Revelation 8:1.  So what happens in Ezekiel regarding this account?  It says in Ezekiel 9:3-4:

And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which *had* the writer's inkhorn by his side; And JEHOVAH said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

What is God saying here?  The man with the inkhorn is to “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”  Of course, the ones that “sigh and cry” because of the sins of the city of Jerusalem would be a reference to a child of God (someone that is born again) who is grieved by the apostasy and grieved at the “falling away” of the churches.  At the time of the judgment upon it, the churches and congregations are going more and more astray and the true believers are grieved by the degree to which God’s Word is being dismissed, ignored and not hearkened to. 

So the first thing God is going to do is to instruct the man with the inkhorn (and now we can see why that “man” must be a type of Christ) to “set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry.”   This identifies very much with what we read in Revelation, chapter 7; before God would bring judgment on the churches or on the world, first something had to happen, and it said in Revelation 7:3:

Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

Then we read that twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes were sealed (a figurative “144,000” in all).  The implication was that once they were “sealed,” then you may “hurt.”  That is when God brought judgment on the churches and congregations – only after the “firstfruits” were safely gathered in and only after God had saved everyone He intended to save through the ministry of the church during the church age.  Not until all of the “144,000” (which is only a figure to represent all the elect during the church age) had that “seal,” which pointed to the Holy Spirit and the earnest of their salvation, then judgment could begin on the church.

Likewise, not until the “great multitude” were saved could God bring judgment upon the unsaved inhabitants of the world, as the “great multitude,” too, had to be “sealed,” (even though Revelation 7 does not use that language of being sealed), but it means that they had to first be saved.  So, here, in Ezekiel 9, Christ is the man with the inkhorn and He is the one that does the “sealing” and the saving of sinners, and He set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sighed within the churches.  Now He has accomplished that task and saved all those He intended to save within the churches.  Then what happens?  It says in Ezekiel 9:5-6:

And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

Notice, here, that God now has judgment without mercy.  Notice who are the objects of His wrath: it is young and old, maids, and little children, and women.  When God ended the church age and removed the Light of the Gospel and He stopped saving people among the churches and congregations, He knew full well that entire families would not hearken to Him; they would not come out of the church or leave their congregation and, therefore, they could never become saved.  This meant “destruction” for old and young, male and female and even little children, some of which were born in the churches when the famine was taking place; it was a famine of hearing, so no one could hear the Word of God because the Holy Spirit was not there to open their ears so that they might hear unto salvation. 

So a child could have been born in 1990 or 1995, for example, and they never experienced the situation of the “latter rain” that was taking place outside of the churches; they spent their entire lives within the congregations and some of these children may even have died after being born in the churches after the end of the church age and they died well before 2011.  They died without the possibility of God blessing His Word to them because they were born within the churches during an awful period in history, and this is all part of the outpouring of the wrath of God.  It is a terrible grievous, hard thing that God brought judgment upon the people called by His name. 

The grave error of some today is in thinking that God would not do the very same thing to the unsaved inhabitants of the world.  “Oh, no,” they say, “God would not abandon the world and He would not leave the world without the possibility that individuals could be saved.  After all there are young children and young people in the world.”  Yet, why would God not do that when He had already done this first with those “called by His name,” to those He had an intimate relationship with and that professed to be His people.  If God would do this to His own people, then why would anyone think he would not do it to “strangers,” the wicked in the world with whom He has no relationship?  It really is “backward thinking.”  The idea is not that the world receives preferential or better treatment.  God said He would begin judging those that were called by His name, then how much more would be do the same thing with those He had no relationship with.

So, this is what God did – He began to judge the churches and congregations and we see that the “seven men” are utilized by God to pour out this judgment, in Ezekiel 9, and they began to slay those within the city of Jerusalem, and that points to those slain within the churches and the congregations at the time of the end when judgment began at the house of God.  That is what Revelation, chapter 8, is going to get into; just as those “seven” men went forth to slay, in Ezekiel 9, and they began at God’s sanctuary, so, too, the “seven angels” are going to go forth and begin to declare the judgments of God.  They will “sound the trumpets” that they were given; they were given “seven trumpets,” and these point to the perfection of the declaration of His wrath, as we saw earlier in our study in Revelation 1, where the word “trumpets” came into view.  At that time we learned what the trumpets relate to, as the Apostle John was speaking as He is beginning to receive the divine revelation that would become the Book of Revelation.  It says in John in Revelation 1:10-11:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia&hellip

Here, the link is made to this great voice and His voice is “as of a trumpet.”  Of course, Christ is the Word made flesh and His voice completely identifies with the Word of God, the Bible.  The Bible is the “trumpet.”  This is why (when God opened the Scriptures and revealed the information concerning the approaching Day of Judgment in the days leading up to May 21, 2011) God also opened up the information that the “watchman,” the true believers, when they see a sword coming upon the land, they must blow the trumpet and warn the people.  We witnessed this and we experienced exactly what that means.  It means you must take the information that God reveals from His Word and share it with people.  That is performing the “blowing of the trumpet.”  That is accomplishing that task and putting the trumpet to our lips and sounding, spiritually speaking.   When we share information from the Bible, we are blowing the trumpet.

The seven messengers are given seven trumpets and they will sound those trumpets and those trumpets are language describing the bringing forth of the message of judgment from the Word of God upon the churches and (then) upon the world.  The first four trumpets blew and the judgment fell on the “third part” and then the last three trumpets blow and the judgment transitions to the world and all the unsaved.