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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you, trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. Day 78. We got a lot of Revelation to cover. Revelation chapter six, all the way to revelation chapter 11. Gonna try to cover a lot of ground on day 78. So if you've done the reading already, good job. 78 days down, 287 days to go. And Manny Rango is proud of you. If you haven't done the reading, then what we talk about probably won't make that much sense. And so you want to just go ahead, hit pause on this recording, whether it's audio or video, do the reading, and come on back. Big chunk of reading today, smaller chunks the past couple of days, but a big chunk of reading for today. But a great this. We're kind of getting into the heart of the book. This is probably a lot of the stuff that Revelation is, like, known for. Like, Revelation is really, really known for. Like these symbols and images and numbers. And so today we are really going to get into the seals and the trumpets. There's a structure for the seals, the trumpets and the bowls. And so I'm going to kind of give you that structure right up at the top so that you can have kind of context. So this is our first context clue for the day. And I'm actually going to just read this out of how to read the Bible book by book. It's an amazing resource. How to read the Bible book by book. It's right here. Awesome, awesome little resource. Like same authors as how to read the Bible for all it's worth. And man, I have been using this guy for years. So how to read the Bible book by book. I'm gonna just read from page 431. And it says this. Although part of the preceding vision, the account of the seven seals also begins a series of three visions. Seals, trumpets, bowls, all of which have the same structure. A series of four, a series of two, an interlude of two visions, and then a seventh. Okay, so I'll say that again. The seals, the trumpets and the bowls can get really confusing. You can get really, really lost in just like what's going on. But they have the exact same structure. A series of four, a series of two, an interlude of two visions, and finally a seven. So that's how the seals, the trumpets and the bowls are all organized. We're going to read Revelation, chapter 6, verse 9 through 11. I'll read it for you. It says this. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God. Okay, so Christians who have been persecuted and the testimony they had maintained, verse 10, they called out in a loud voice. Now what they say is really important. How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood. Verse 11. Then each of them was given a white robe and they were told to wait a little longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been. And so what are the seals, trumpets and bowls? They are a pouring out of God's wrath on the earth. Now, I think we need to put God's wrath into this context. Okay? Revelation, chapter 6, verse 9, 11 is a context for wrath. And that context is justice. Okay, so like imagine, right, imagine, I think that sometimes the wrath of God is an area where we can kind of make it seem like God is just this angry, wrathful person. And then there's kind of, like, this temptation sometimes in church to pretend as if there is no wrath in scripture, that. That God is not wrathful, but that is not like a truthful or a holistic and truthful representation of God because he is wrathful. And I'm glad that he's wrathful for two reasons. Let's. So let's start with number one. Number one, a God that has no wrath or God with no anger would mean a God that's apathetic, okay? If you ask me, why are there times where I get mad, I get mad because I care, okay? Anger is the proof that there's love. So you can't have a loving God, but then a God who never gets angry, Okay? I love my wife. I adore my wife. I absolutely love my wife. Let's say I went home and I found out that someone had broken into my house and, like, be beat up my wife, like, and imagine I just went, eh, it's okay. Like, it's. It's all right. You would think that I'm like, a sociopath, like, something's wrong, right? Like, anger would actually prove that I love this woman. And if I were to be apathetic towards her suffering or to an injustice done towards her, then it would kind of leave everybody kind of confused as to why I did not care more, okay? So God is wrathful because God gets angry. And God gets angry because God is loving and he cares, okay? And so when humans do things to destroy other human beings, when humans do things to destroy this good earth that God made, he's angry at that. He's angry at sin. And that's like, good. That's like a good, good thing. We can't act as though apathy would be, like, preferable, but there's a lot of people who is almost like they want an apathetic God, but an apathetic God would not be a loving God, okay? That's number one. Number two, a world with no wrath or no anger would also mean that God is not a God of justice. So here's what. What do we have here? These are people who have been killed. Killed for. For professing faith in God. Not killed because they did anything that's actually worthy of persecution. No, they just. We shouldn't persecute anybody. It's not like I'm just defending Christians here. We shouldn't persecute anybody. We shouldn't persecute Buddhists. We shouldn't. We shouldn't persecute Mormons. We shouldn't persecute anybody. Okay? So These are people who have unjustfully been persecuted. And here's what they say. They're, they're crying out to a just God, to a God of justice. And they're saying, how long, sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the, of the earth and avenge our blood? That God doesn't only avenge the blood of Jesus, but he avenges the blood of people who have been slaughtered innocently. So God pours out wrath because people have endured innocent persecution. And that's good. Like that's a good thing. This again, we don't want an apathetic God and we don't want an unjust God. So I think there are well meaning Christians who just try to like gloss over the wrath of God. Like, oh no, he's not actually wrathful. Ah, yes he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, actually God is wrathful. That's not a problem. Like, that's not a, that's not something that Christians need to be like ashamed of or that's not a turn off. God's wrathful because God's caring, he's loving and he's just. That's why he's wrathful. And that's good. Here's what God isn't. God doesn't have a temper. God's not out of control. God's not unfair. God shows no partiality. God knows the full story. God's not prejudiced. God's not like there's all kinds of things that make God perfectly the right person. He doesn't let you avenge your own pain or your own blood. He says, that's my job. And the thing that these believers who have been killed are crying out for God to do is to avenge them into act with justice. This is good. Like, and, and this is good holistic biblical theology now. So what is God's response? His response is going to be a series of seals, trumpets and bowls. Okay? Seals, trumpets and bowls are all going to be the vehicles for wrath. In this section of Revelation. Bible nerds, I have an announcement. My brand new book Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really God's solution to chaos is not never peace. But rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into. And that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order or head thecrushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life, and that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast. I want to kind of dissect a couple of images from the trumpets because we're going to get seals, trumpets, and bowls. And so let's go ahead and dissect some of the images from the trumpets. You can go to Revelation, chapter eight, verse, verse six. Okay. And it says, then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet and there came hail. Already. Hail should, already. You should have an image in your head when you think hail and fire mixed with blood. Okay. Blood. I, I definitely. This is. I, I know I can, I can see the painting. I can see the writing on the walls here. And was hurled down on the earth. Okay. Second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain all ablaze was thrown into the sea. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. So this is interesting that the sea is now being plagued or being attacked. Third angel sounded a trumpet. Great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and the springs of water. Okay, so we get water again. The name of the star was Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. A fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon and a third of the stars, and a third of them turned dark. Now we get darkness. As I walked, I heard an eagle flying in midday call in a loud voice, whoa. And then we get a fifth angel sounds his trumpet. The star falls, and a star was given the key, the shaft of the abyss. And then we get locust, verse 7 of chapter 9. And the locusts look like horses. And this stuff gets weirdly interpreted a lot. And then we get a sixth angel. And the sixth angel A third of mankind was killed by plagues of fire. So keyword there. Plagues, Smoke, sulfur that came out of their mouths. All right, so I'm just kind of. I'm doing, like a very cursory reading of those trumpets, and I just want to give you a second to think, like, what is. What is John alluding to? I'll actually give you one of the nerdy nuggets that I really like. There are over 700 allusions to the Old Testament in the book of revelation. Okay? Over 700 allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation. And sometimes John quotes the Old Testament, but sometimes he just lose to the Old Testament. We got hail, we got darkness, we got locusts. Come on, like, what does that make you think of? Yep, you got it. The plagues on Egypt. Let's remember something about the plagues on Egypt. The plagues on Egypt were really not. They were effective at communicating the power of. Of Yahweh, but they weren't effective at making the. The Egyptians and Pharaoh particularly, like, stop or change his mind or repent. Okay? It's not until the chariots are drowned in the Red Sea that Pharaoh actually go, is just defeated. He has no. He's. He's beyond the point of return at that moment. So the plagues are a demonstration of Yahweh's power, but they don't cause people to actually repent. And so what are we going to see? Verse 20. The rest of mankind who are not killed by these plagues still did not repent. This is chapter 9, verse 20. In the work of their hands, they did not stop worshiping demons, the idols of gold, silver and bronze, stone and wood, idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality, or their thefts. They did not repent. They zero repentance happening. And so what John wants us to see is he wants us to superimpose the imagery of the Exodus onto this. That the same way that God heard the cries of his people and delivered them from Egypt, that same God is going to hear the cries of his people and deliver them from the Roman Empire. That's like the big idea. So we got some context clues, we got some nerdy nuggets. Now let's move into our timeless truth. Revelation, chapter 10, verse 8 says, Then a voice that I'd heard from heaven spoke to me once more. Go take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land so, so I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, take it and eat it and it will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. So I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. And that's our timeless truth for the day, because the word of God is sweet to the taste. However, then now John is drawing imagery, okay, from the Old Testament. He's not the first person to eat a scroll, but it turns sour in his stomach. And Eugene Peterson has this book. It's called Eat this Book. It's one of my favorite books by Eugene Peterson. And he writes this. The Bible is a most comforting book. This is page 66. The Bible is a most comforting book. It is also a most discomforting book. Eat this book. It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will also be bitter to your stomach. You can't reduce this book to what you can handle. You can't domesticate this book to what you are comfortable with. You can't make it your toy poodle trained to respond to your commands. This book makes us participants in the world of God's being in action. But we don't participate on our own terms. We don't get to make up the plot or decide what character we will be. This book has generative power. Things happen to us as we let the text call forth, stimulate, rebuke and prune us. We don't end up the same Eat this book. But also have a well stocked cupboard of Alka Seltzer and Pepto Bismol at hand. So we eat this book. We, we eat the words of God, but the Word tastes good. But it's not easy to digest. And that's the challenge of encountering the Scriptures. A lot of us, we want to eat it because it tastes great. Man, that sermon helped me, man, that it, it tastes good. But then our flesh has to actually digest the Word. And that process causes friction. That process causes the Word to actually do something to us. And that process doesn't feel good. So the word, there's this juxtaposition where the word tastes good, but when I put it into action, it doesn't always feel good. But that does not mean that it is not good for me. That's my timeless truth for the day that as you are about to walk into day 79 of reading the Word of God, that don't Just taste it and spit it out, but actually taste it, chew it and swallow it and digest it. And yeah, it's gonna confront your fear, it's gonna confront your anxiety, it's gonna confront your lust, it's gonna confront your pride, it's gonna make your stomach hurt because it's not compatible with your flesh. But don't let that stop you from continuing to digest and let it transform you and change you and then continue to eat because it tastes good, but the temptation is to taste it, spit it out. Because you know that if you actually let it, let it, like, get into your system, it's going to combat who you are and the parts of you that are not consistent with the image of God. And so, anyway, eat this book by Eugene Peterson. Phenomenal. He really, like, uses this metaphor From Revelation, chapter 10 over and over and over again. So that's my encouragement to you today. Hey, tomorrow we got day 79. If you're on a streak, don't break it. And I'm so proud of you. I'll meet you right here as we go through revelation, chapter 12 to 16 tomorrow. I love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible Department and on Instagram. Hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.