October 29, 2006
Seventh Trumpet Sounds/Revelation 11:15-19
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and voices could be heard shouting in heaven, calling, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.
The twenty-four elders, enthroned in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and touched the ground with their foreheads worshipping God with these words,
We give thanks to you, Almighty Lord God, He who is, He who was, for assuming your great power and beginning your reign. The nations were in uproar and now the time has come for your retribution, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for those who fear your name, small and great alike, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth.
Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail.
Cecil B. DeMille eat your heart out
[posted by david @ 10/29/2006]
2 Comments:
At 5:51 AM, david said...
Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it.
The ark represents the presence of HaShem's glory and acted as a standard for the armies of Israel as they marched into battle. El Shaddai -- the Lord of hosts is about to go to war against the armies of the earth. Everything to this point has been preamble.
At 1:29 PM, forrest said...
I'm really sorry that I let so much of this go by without comment, because we're in critical territory here.
If you want to look at what's going on in the gospels we all consider so familiar and nonproblematical... Jesus goes around proclaiming that the "Kingdom of God" is arriving.
This is IT! That "kingdom" meant God's Reign, not God's realm... And that is precisely what this passage is talking about, the time when that reign becomes apparent.
There's also that awkward matter: Who are "those who are destroying the earth"? Oh help, oh help, oh bother; I think I have an idea that I don't like! But that will be for another post.
2 comments:
Being fairly new to scripture I actually find much of this book quite frightening and worrying. Can someone explain, did the author believe this all is actually going to happen, is it metaphor, is it a warning, what should I look for or try to learn from it? Please help, I'm feeling abit lost.
QuakerBear
A lot of people find this book unnerving. Back when I joined this blog, there were several active members reluctant to get into it. So were some members of my local meeting's study group, when we took it up. Several of us had read it as children and been frightened--as if it had plopped us into an inescapable universe run by a most unpleasant version of God.
So studying it, reducing it to perspective, finding more meanings in it, having less fear that God could really be as wiggy as the author sometimes gets--was reassuring to the study-group members who persisted.
If you read through the comments in this blog's archives, I hope you'd find them more interesting than scarey.
Maybe it's best to think of it as a monumental dream... for which people have found a multitude of interpretations, these last 20 centuries.
When I look straight at this world, I certainly find frightening elements. And yet this is the same world which God created, and called good--and which most of us are reluctant to leave.
So. What do you think? About human history as we find it, and whether this book has got the mood right?
Is there, as the ancient Jews believed, meaning and purpose to all this Fuss?
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