Week 50, Days 1 and 2

​Week 50, Days 1&2
December 12 &13, 2022
Scripture: Revelation 8 and 9
 
I’ve combined today and tomorrow’s reading because they are better understood together. Really all of 8-11 are better understood together. But here we go.
 
Some of the most confusing and difficult passages of scripture are right here in the seals and trumpets passages.
 
Back in Revelation 1, trumpets are what is used to make an announcement. Here, we see another announcement. While in chapter one it was a beautiful vision of Jesus, here, it is a warning to all humankind and creation.
 
To be clear, the seven trumpets serve as a warning to humankind. 
 
What is often used as a passage to describe the wrath of God, might be better understood as a display of the patience and mercy of God. 
 
Hear me out. As we ask "how long O God" will you allow this struggle to go? We find the answer becoming, we will endure this until there is no more chance for repentance. Difficulty will continue until humankind is so hardened to God, that there no longer remains any possibility of their return to God. The stubborn rejection of God has a limitation. We aren’t sure how long, but we do know there is an end.
 
What we find is a patient and merciful God who is beckoning people to return to him in the midst of their suffering. Yet the oppressed people, amid sin and the fruit of suffering that comes from it, seem hell-bent on never repenting. The text tells us as much, “The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts” (Revelation 9:20-21).

The trumpets announce a warning to all humankind, “in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them” (9:6). 
 
Repentance is available to everyone, and many never will.

In short, where the seals and trumpets teach us of a world filled with famine, death suffering, and earthquakes. Amid such horrifying difficulty, the Church will not be broken, it will prevail. The trumpets give explanation of a world marked with suffering and people who refuse to turn to God. 
So, I invite you to see this troubling passage as oddly comforting. The suffering of the world is great. All of it, everything that happens in life is hopefully a reminder to wake up and turn to God. Turn from evil and walk with the Lord.
 
God’s love will win out. Turn to Him today!