“I looked and heard an eagle flying high overhead, crying out in a loud voice, ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining trumpet blasts that the three angels are about to sound!’” (v. 13)

Yes, it gets worse.

But not for you.

When we read John’s Spirit-given vision of the eschaton—the end—we are struck. The awfulness of the unmaking of the earth is, in fact, striking. Judgment comes. Nature is undone. Death follows.

And that’s just the first four trumpet blasts!

Each promise, as it unfolds, seems worse and worse for the world—and still worse is coming.

But, if that frightens you, please know:

You won’t be there.

(I mean, probably. I’m about to cut through generations of theological debate here. You may disagree. But this reading is, I believe, sound.)

Because…where is the believing church when all this happens?

Already around the throne! Rescued, raptured, and relieved. How else do we explain the great multitude suddenly appearing in the vision in Revelation 7?

Let that comfort you. Let it also spur you evangelistically, so that your family and friends and neighbors might be awakened to faith—and spared the worse and worse.

It will get worse. Just not for you.

— Tyler