The seventh trumpet opens the Day of the Lord. The temple in heaven is opened, seven angels come out with seven plagues in golden vials, and the nations are angry because God's wrath has come. In Scripture a "day" often means a period of time, as the six "days" of creation do, and "the time has come" means that a period has begun. The Day of the Lord is such a period: the forty-five days in which God's wrath is poured out through the vials and the other judgements the prophets describe.
Signs in the sky
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
— Matthew 24:29
Joel 2:31 and the sixth seal (Revelation 6:12) likewise speak of a darkened sun and a moon like blood. These signs come in the two and a half months, the 30 and 45 days, after the great tribulation ends.
"Stars falling" means meteors: a century or two ago that is what a falling star was called, before scientists changed the meaning of the word. A large body from space passing near the earth, trailing rocks, could pull many meteors down at once. It could also explain the darkness: if such a body comes between the sun and the earth, like an eclipse that does not pass quickly, the sun stays black for a long time, and the moon, short of light, looks red. Isaiah 13:10 adds that the stars will not give their light either: the many small rocks travelling with such a body would block the light from reaching the earth by day and by night, so the sun looks black and no stars are seen. The sixth seal's other events come at the very end, but this darkening may last through much of the period, perhaps all forty-five days.
The earth shaken
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage…
— Isaiah 24:20
Isaiah 24:19–20 and 13:13 speak of the earth being shaken and removed out of its place. When a fast train passes a platform we feel a jolt; so a fast body passing close would jolt the earth in its orbit. Then the sky would seem to shake, as Isaiah 13:13 says, and the orbit itself would shift slightly, perhaps shortening the year from 365 to about 360 days and changing the length of days.
Such bodies exist. 'Oumuamua, a rock several kilometres long (its name means "messenger"), raced through the solar system from outside it and left again; another, 3I/ATLAS, has been detected entering the solar system. A reeling earth would swing nearer to the sun and then further away, bringing extreme heat and cold.
Heat and fire
The present earth, says 2 Peter 3:7, is reserved for fire. The Day of the Lord comes as a thief; the elements melt with fervent heat and the works of the earth are burned up (2 Peter 3:10). Metals such as iron, gold and silver melt ("the earth melted", Psalm 46:6), while cloth, wood and plastic burn. Malachi 4:1 says the day will leave the wicked neither root nor branch, none of their descendants. So the fourth vial:
And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
— Revelation 16:9
Skin burns like a flatbread left on a hot griddle.
Who is left
Believers who now walk in the Lord's way, and receive the message of the seven thunders during the half hour, will be ready and taken in the rapture when it ends. Those who believed and were baptised but made no such preparation are left behind. They hear the two witnesses for 1,260 days, then the 144,000; they refuse the mark and are killed. By the seventh trumpet all these martyrs are dead.
Only those whom the Lord has directed, the 144,000 and the woman, Israel, are kept safe through the forty-five days. The rest are killed, and then only the wicked remain, on whom God's wrath is poured until they die. A few who are good by their own conscience may barely survive. Isaiah 24:6 says the inhabitants of the earth are burned and "few men left", whether from crowded Europe and Asia or thinly populated lands; Isaiah 13:12 says a man will be more precious than gold. Gold will remain; people will be rare.
The first six vials
- First (Revelation 16:2): foul, painful sores fall on those who took the mark, as foretold.
- Second: the sea becomes like the blood of a dead man, and everything in it dies. Perhaps meteors carry chemicals that turn the water red and poison it; we do not know.
- Third: rivers and springs turn to blood; those who shed the blood of saints and prophets are given blood to drink.
- Fourth: the sun scorches men, as above.
- Fifth: the beast's kingdom is full of darkness. Day and night still alternate, so this is the loss of the light of God's word. Those who taught it have been killed, and the 144,000 and the woman may be hiding, so no one is left to say what to do.
- Sixth: the Euphrates dries up so that the kings of the east can cross and attack the kings of the west in the last war, which the next session takes up with the seventh vial.
Takeaway
Believers who walk in the Lord's way now, and take to heart the message of the seven thunders, will be ready to meet Him; belief and baptism without that preparation leave a person behind to face all this. A red moon seen today means nothing. The one to watch for comes after the great tribulation ends.