Let’s recap…
Jesus sent one long vision to John (which was given to Jesus by God and communicated by His angel)… This vision is to be given to Jesus’ bond-servants so they will know the things which must soon take place… John has been writing down the things he is seeing in the vision…
John saw a vision of Jesus, Himself, along with Jesus’ messages to the seven churches… John was shown the very throne room of God… He saw Jesus take a book, which was secured with seven seals and contained judgments on all of creation, out of the right hand of God… He saw the Lamb break each seal, one after the other, until the first six were broken… Each seal revealed terrible and intensifying judgments…
Then, in an interlude from the seals, he saw two scenes—one on earth of 144,000 who were to be sealed as the bond-servants of God and one in heaven of a great multitude which came out of the great tribulation…
After the interlude, the Lamb broke the seventh seal, and there was silence in heaven… The seven angels who stand before God were given seven trumpets… John continued to watch until the angels began, one by one, sounding their trumpets…
We have observed the four judgments of the first four trumpets… We are about to watch, through John’s eyes, a widespread broadcast proclaiming the advent of the remaining three trumpet judgments…
Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!” Revelation 8:13
John continued to look and understood through the vision that an eagle was flying in midheaven. Midheaven is actually what we often call the upper atmosphere. The lower heaven is the part of the “sky” in which we live—it is the air we breathe around us. The highest heaven is where God is seated right now and includes the first, second, and third heaven. The upper heaven or midheaven includes the universe. This eagle seems to be flying high above the lower atmosphere in the skies above—the same place where we normally think of birds flying—not in heaven with God, but not down low toward the ground of the earth; just high in the skies.
The eagle was loudly proclaiming a message—there will be three “Woes” which will cause exceeding sorrow and lament to those who dwell on the earth. The eagle directly connected these three woes with the blasts of the remaining three trumpets the other three angels were about to sound.
The seventh seal is literally the seven trumpets. In our overview, we have seen three trumpets sound so far; the fourth trumpet is sounding now; and there are three left to be sounded. Think with me a moment. How are the three woes connected to the three remaining trumpets? Yes, the fifth trumpet is the same as the first woe. The sixth trumpet is the second woe and the seventh trumpet is the third woe. And just as the seventh seal is, in point of fact, the seven trumpets, so too, the seventh trumpet (the third woe), in reality, is the seven bowls. Let me show you the chart again.
(Seals)1 2 3 4 5 6 7=(Trumpets)1 2 3 4 5 6 7=(Bowls)1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Now… honestly… how are you doing? Are you with me so far? I hope so. This is not too difficult, is it? It’s pretty straight forward. We haven’t really seen anything that is too caliginous have we? (Well, except maybe for the word caliginous!).
No, you may not understand every single thing about it at this point, but then, learning doesn’t work that way, does it? Learning is done a little at a time, putting one piece in place and then the next.
And no, we haven’t studied the tribe of Dan either (Thank you very much, Caleb! …sorry, family joke) but we’re not trying to figure out the obscure things in Revelation, only the main and plain. We are going to stay up on top of the mountain peaks and get an understanding of the overview of the whole mountain range. Until we understand the book of Revelation as a whole we cannot begin to study the smaller details on the sides of the mountains. Our goal is to see the skeletal structure of the entire mountain range in order to gain a firm foundation for further study.
Observing Revelation might take a little review and attention, but it’s not rocket science. We can do this! You can understand the book of Revelation if you will listen carefully to what He says. After all, God had John write it down in the first place so that we would know the things which must soon take place!
