The Seventh Seal- Lent 8, 2022

The shofar, or trumpet as it’s often translated, was sounded repeatedly in Scripture.  It was used for many reasons such as sounding an alarm, announcing a battle, engaging in spiritual warfare, honoring holy days like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, worshiping God, heralding the Return of Christ, and proclaiming Judgment to come.  Often it was associated with God’s victory, whether past, present, or anticipated.   What else would you expect from God, the Alpha and Omega, “who is and who was and who is to come” (Revelation 1:8)?

In Revelation, there are seven shofars or trumpets announcing 7 plagues.  They don’t get sounded until the seventh seal is broken.  I try to picture it like nested boxes or those matryoshka dolls where smaller ones are nested inside the bigger one.  Only the closer to the core of this nesting, the power is more destructive.  

Seals 1-6 have been opened and then heaven stands silent in holy awe upon the judgments about to be commissioned from the throne. 

Revelation 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.  2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them…5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.   6 Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.

I can’t say it any better than Richard Bauckham in his book “The Theology of the Book of Revelation”.  He writes,

“There are three series of judgments, the seven seal-openings…the seven trumpets…and the seven bowls.  As seven is the number of completeness, in some sense each series completes God’s judgment on the unrighteous world…
…The three series are so connected that the seventh seal-opening includes the seven trumpets and the seventh trumpet includes the seven bowls. Thus each series reaches the same end, but from starting points progressively closer to the end. This is why the three series of judgments are of progressive severity: the judgments…a quarter…a third… and those of the bowls are unlimited.” 

And evil, in the end, is utterly destroyed as a final act of divine judgment.

Thought for today:

The seventh seal has not been opened in our human timeline.  The seven trumpets have yet to sound. Are you ready for Judgment Day?

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2022 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
•  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
• Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
• Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
• Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
• The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.