God Turns The Wisdom Of The Wise To Folly
GOD TURNS THE WISDOM OF THE WISE TO FOLLY
REVELATION 8:7-13
“If God wills” is not a pious formula, but a serious statement of fact. God has all the forces of nature at his command to stop us, if he wishes to.
The essentially symbolic nature of the woes announced is seen most clearly in 8:12. A disaster to sun and moon would decrease the total quantity of light given or reflected by them. What it could not do would be to cause darkness for a third of the night and day. In fact one third, and similar proportions, are a regular feature of such prophecies (Zechariah 13:8f.; Ezekiel 5:2,12). Major, but not irreparable disaster is indicated. At the first God’s judgments are intended to be educational. It is only when they are ignored that they finally overwhelm humanity in disaster.
The reading “eagle” (8:13) is justified not merely by very strong manuscript support, but also by the impossibility of explaining its presence, if “angel” (KJV) had been original. It must symbolize war, and the sequel in chapter 9 supports this. That being so, we may infer that the sufferings under the first three trumpets were from natural catastrophes. The fourth probably represents the trouble caused by the failure of the leaders when faced with these things. Such people repeatedly seek to justify themselves by turning to war in the hope that the people will forget their failures when faced with greater perils.
There is undue willingness in certain circles to see in any disastrous natural phenomenon a sign of the near coming of Christ. It would be far better if we were to stress that they show most effectively the hollowness of humanity’s claim to dominate nature. In many cases, they are also clearly a divine answer to the claim that humanity has everything under control, and so they do not need God, even if he exists. Politicians who believe that they are masters in their own house and need no divine guidance and help find these natural occurrences especially galling. They cannot humble themselves to confess there are forces completely outside their control.