20b The Seven Thunders

 

Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown

Part B: The Seven Thunders

Readings: Revelation 10:1-4 and Psalm 29

        The seven thunders are the second distinct part of the second woe.

      The allusion in the seven thunders of Revelation 10:1-4 appears to be to psalm 29.  God’s voice is likened to thunder in several parts of Scripture (e.g. 2 Sam. 22:14, Job 40:9, Ps. 18:13, John 12:28-29).  In psalm 29, the powerful voice of the Lord is described in a seven-fold way as thundering; as striking with lightning; as breaking and damaging trees (twice); as shaking desert places; as powerfully affecting a country, and as able to shake mountains (perhaps therefore implying an earthquake).

      We are not told what these seven thunders are.  Their meaning is sealed up and hidden from us.  This introduces an element of mystery into the chronology of the outworking of God’s purposes in the sixth trumpet.  God’s purposes are not revealed to us fully.  Just as we do not know the day or the hour of the rapture, so too there are these seven thunders whose meaning is withheld from us.  So the outline of the chronology of the days of the sixth trumpet contains a definite element of mystery.  All we do know is that the events associated with these seven thunders are sandwiched chronologically between the war in the Euphrates region (Part A of the sixth trumpet) and the first half of Daniel’s seventieth week (Part C of the sixth trumpet).  However, the fact that the major theme of the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets is the rise, emergence and reign of Antichrist, might suggest that these seven thunders are acts of divine judgement manifested in the physical creation in response to this rise and spreading power of Antichrist.

      We do not know where the events associated with these seven thunders will happen, what they will involve, or for how long they will last.  They may happen sequentially after one another, or some of them may group together and happen more or less at the same time, as with the first four trumpets.  However, because thunder is itself a phenomenon of creation, and because of what the voice of the Lord is said to affect in psalm 29, it is reasonable to suggest that these seven thunders refer to powerful events of judgement in the realm of physical creation.  Again, God speaks through powerful events of judgement in creation in the hope that people will extrapolate from them the need to repent from sin and turn in faith to him.

      Part B of the sixth trumpet is summed up in Table 20.2 below:

Sixth Trumpet: Part B   Revelation 10:1-4   The seven thunders   These are sealed up.  The link between Parts A and C of the sixth trumpet is hidden from us by the sealing up of these seven thunders.   This introduces an element of mystery into the unfolding of God’s purposes in the time of the sixth trumpet.

Table 20.2 Part B of the sixth trumpet: the seven thunders

 

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