Book of Common Prayer

The seventh trumpet: (i) the worship of Heaven

¹⁴ The second disaster is now past, and I see the third disaster following hard upon the heels of the second.

¹⁵ The seventh angel blew his trumpet. There arose loud voices in Heaven and they were saying, “The kingship of the world now belongs to our Lord and to his Christ, and he shall be king for timeless ages!”

^16-18 Then the twenty-four elders, who sit upon their thrones in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and, with bowed heads, worshipped God, saying: “We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth!”

¹⁹ Then the Temple of God in Heaven was thrown open and the ark of his agreement within his Temple could be clearly seen. Accompanying this sight were flashes of lightning, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a violent storm of hail.

Jesus brings sentimentality down to earth

²⁷ And while he was still saying this, a woman in the crowd called out and said, “Oh, what a blessing for a woman to have brought you into the world and nursed you!”

²⁸ But Jesus replied, “Yes, but a far greater blessing to hear the word of God and obey it.”

His scathing judgment in his contemporary generation

^29-32 Then as the people crowded closely around him, he continued, “This is an evil generation! It looks for a sign and it will be given no sign except that of Jonah. Just as Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a sign to this generation. When the judgment comes, the Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation and she will condemn them. For she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and there is more than the wisdom of Solomon with you now! The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and will condemn it. For they did repent when Jonah preached to them, and there is something more than Jonah’s preaching with you now!”

The need for complete sincerity

³³ “No one takes a lamp and puts it in a cupboard or under a bucket, but on a lamp-stand, so that those who come in can see the light.”

^34-36 “The lamp of your body is your eye. When your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light, but when your eye is evil, your whole body is full of darkness. So be very careful that your light never becomes darkness. For if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in shadow, it will all be radiant—it will be like having a bright lamp to give you light.”