The Sounding of the Seven Trumpets

When the Lamb opens the seventh seal, there is silence in heaven for half an hour.  Then the seven angels which stand before God are given seven trumpets.   As each angel blows his trumpet, a judgment occurs, Revelation 8:1-2.
It occurs to me to first write a warning.  I have often heard big mouths tell me all about Scripture. When I was still a teenager this might have impressed me. I wonder how vacant headed these people take me to be?  And also how vacant headed they must be themselves to rattle off such nonsense.   That's what caused me to feel it was so important to know what Scripture does say. 
One man told me, when I was a teenager, that only 144,000 people would go to heaven.  I wouldn't be one of them.  He also told me that the rapture had already occurred, because the sealing of the righteous in their foreheads was invisible, or something like that, and all that would be sealed had already been sealed.  He said I must give away all my belongings or I would go to hell, which he had told me already was unavoidable whatever I did.  Also I must never marry.  On and on.  Another man, who was trying to sell me a mattress pad, claimed to have a doctorate in theology from somewhere, and be fluent in all the original languages of the Bible.  My how he was revered.  He had a little group of gullible people he had gathered together into a church.  One of them asked me to buy a gun for them while I was traveling to Arizona.  I didn't.  I forgot all about it.  But I found out later that it was so they could sneak this gun to this man so he could have an unregistered gun.  And I could be the one who committed a felony.  Anyway, part of his spiel about the mattress pad was that it had many magnets in it.  Did I know that the reason the Israelites, like Methuselah,  lived to be hundreds of years old was because they walked around barefoot and, the earth being a magnet, came into contact with their feet?  I knew that I was being told a falsehood.  Methuselah wasn't an Israelite.  He lived hundreds and hundreds of years before there were any Israelites.  The Israelites weren't any longer lived than we are.  Oh, and I don't know of any evidence that they walked around barefoot.  Or that Methuselah did either.   Apparently some people think it's very gullible of me to believe the Bible and if I'd believe that I'd believe anything.  And a man was trying to impress me once about his knowledge of Scripture.  What was his knowledge?  Well, he knew that one of the Gospels was called the Gospel of John.  He told me that this book was written by John the Baptist.  No, wrong John.  The John who wrote the Gospel of John was the disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ who also wrote the book of Revelation.   He was so loud about his ignorance and claimed his love of Scripture, of which he knew very little.  
The point of this is that the Bible must be taken as the infallible and inerrant Word of God.  And I also take it literally unless there is strong indication that the meaning is figurative.  Oh, I've heard people say they believe the Bible is infallible.  But they also believe that other people besides Noah and the people in the ark with him survived the Flood.  How could that be? I asked.  The Bible says that water covered the entire earth at least 15 feet above the highest mountains for the better part of a year.  What log did they hold onto in the middle of the ocean for a year?   And they thought that when Adam and Eve lived, their children married "the other people that were on earth at the time."  Where does it say that there were other people in the Bible?  Oh, it's in there somewhere, they insisted.  If the Bible isn't taken as the inerrant truth of the Word of God, there's all kinds of boloney that can be invented, and the reasons people want to invent them are never good.   It just doesn't take that much Bible study to see through these people.  I think people who invent error and try to prop it up with Scripture are out to get the people they are lying to and to cause them serious harm.  Beware.  
Back to the seven trumpets.  First, the number seven is an important number in the Bible.  God created the heaven and earth in seven days as one example.  Seven golden candlesticks.  Seven churches.  Seven angels with seven trumpets.  There are other significant numbers, such as the number three, the number 12, the number 40 - the rain fell for forty days and forty nights in the Flood, Jesus fasted for forty days.  These are numbers that indicate a holy significance.  Then there are numbers that are not so good.  In fact, they're plain evil.  Like the number 666.  Oh, what's so bad about that???  I'm not sure, but it is man based.  I have heard that we have a 60 minute hour because the Babylonians measured time that way.  Babylonians bad.  They used a base 60 number system.  God's number is 3, Satan's number is 6, the false 3.  I guess I've exhausted my knowledge of Bible numbers.  
Another interesting thing about Revelation 8:2 is the phrase, "the seven angels which stood before God."  Are there only seven angels who stand before God?  Well, angels have rank.  Only two angels are named in the Bible, Michael and Gabriel.  There are types of angels, arch angels, the highest ranking, and cherubim and seraphim.  I would say "the seven angels" are very special anyway.  Who are they?  
Why are angels so secretive anyway?  Elusive, mysterious?  Well, I guess their business isn't our business.  
The Seven Trumpets judgments are seven judgments broken into two parts, the first part with four judgments and the second part with three judgments, like the Seven Seals judgments.  Also like the Seven Seals, the seventh trumpet heralds the next round of seven judgments, the Seven Bowls. 
Before the seven angels begin to sound their trumpets, another angel with a golden censer is given incense to offer with the prayers of all saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.  Then he takes the censer, fills it with fire from the altar and flings it on the earth!  Voices, thunderings and lightning are heard, then there is an earthquake.  
Then the first angel sounds his trumpet.  A third of the trees are burnt up, and all the green grass is burnt up.   
The second angel sounds his trumpet and a great mountain burning with fire is cast into the sea, and the sea turns to blood.  A third of life in the sea dies, and a third of the ships are destroyed.  Vulcano?  

to be continued...