XXV. THE SEVEN TRUMPETS - Covers Revelation 8 & 9

Study from 2009

The Revelator was brought down by the Spirit to the morning of the great day of God. At the time he saw the seventh seal of the little book opened, his attention was called to seven angels with trumpets. (Rev. 8: 1, 2.)

A trumpet is a prophetic sign of war; the sounding thereof signifies battle. These trumpets signify the war-elements that will finally wage war against Babylon and help to break down its power. The sounding of the trumpets belongs to the morning of the great day; but even that development of the dual plan has its duplicate. Here we will give a brief sketch of the shadowing trumpets:

1. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood." The first blow on Rome was delivered by Alaric, commanding the Goths. In the fourth century he invaded the Roman empire, burned its cities and villages, left the country behind him a wilderness and made the people slaves. He claimed to be the "scourge of God."

2. "The second angel sounded, and as it were, a great mountain of fire was cast into the sea." Genseric gathered the Vandals under him in the middle of the fifth century, and by a powerful navy he destroyed the navy of Rome and greatly injured the commerce and cities of the sea coast.

3. "The third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of water." Attila followed almost in the wake of Genseric and gathered together a very large army of different classes of people, among whom the Huns were the most prominent. He almost covered the breadth of the Roman country, following up the streams and the fountains of water of the third division of the Eastern empire which was divided by Constantine for his three sons. The splendor of that great leader shone as a "burning lamp" among the people. In three successive battles, he conquered the armies of eastern Rome.

4. "The fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and a third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars." Odoacer, in the latter part of the fifth century, mixed the Huns with tribes of wild people and thus formed a fearless army. He invaded the Eastern empire. He first conquered Italy and then besieged Constantinople, the sun of the world. His conquest darkened that sun and all the other lights in the empire. The glory of the empire faded and gradually sunk down into darkness. Western Rome was then already crushed.

The Revelator followed the movements of the destroying forces. He saw an eagle (not angel) in the mid-heaven that cried with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, which are yet to sound !" What he saw was a reflection of the Roman standard upon which was the figure of a flying eagle. "Defeat, defeat, defeat !" was heard as an echo from the great people.

5. "The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. He opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace." An exploding meteor falls from heaven with a crushing blow on Babylon. Mohammed, by a seemingly supernatural power, developed a powerful and fearless army. He opened his batteries on Rome which already was shaken way down to its foundation. By the invention of what they called "Greek fire" (a composition similar to powder that a Greek by the name of Callinicus invented), the long-haired Arabs astonished and overpowered the Romans. That invention was the very key to the "bottomless pit," from which the nations ever since have gathered their firearms. To illustrate that pit, we will quote a passage from a paper that describes Krupp's gun-factories, from which the nations have received a great amount of their war-implements:

"In the Essen works there are 1,556 big ovens, 493 steam boilers. 450 steam engines (representing 18,500 horse power), 1,622 machine-tools, 92 steam hammers, 21 rolling trains, 1,648 furnaces, and the daily consumption of coal and coke is 3,100 tons. The work goes on night and day, except Sundays. In a month they can produce 250 field pieces; 30 35 7 inch cannon, 15 19 33 inch cannon, 8 11 inch cannon, 1 14 inch gun of 47 tons weight. About 1,500 bombshells daily, in connection with other great quantities of iron works. About 21,000 men are employed at the establishment."

This woe-trumpet, as well as the following, has its time limited. They are allowed to carry on the battle for a certain length of time; but they come to a sudden halt like an army when the trumpet signals retreat. New orders are required for its onward march. The time for the fifth trumpet's continued torment was limited to 150 years. (Rev. 9: 5-12.) Five moons make 150 prophetic days. The eleventh verse shows when these years should commence: namely, when the king Abaddon (the destroyer) should rise to lead the battles of the demolishing Arabs. He is also called "the angel of the bottomless pit;" thus, the very being that sets in motion the flowing stream of firearms.

In the thirteenth century, Ozman or Ottoman (man of might) arose among the Arabs. They had no civil head then, but were divided into four divisions under as many headquarters of religious influences. Ottoman organized them into a civil government which was called the Ottoman or the Turkish empire. The 27^th of July, 1299, that king of destruction brought his enormous army against Eastern Rome. A continual warfare was kept up until the same time of the year 1449, when Palealogus, the emperor of Constantinople, had become so weakened that Deacozes, then succeeding him, dared not mount the throne without permission from the Turkish sultan. Thus, the first woe-trumpet (as a foreshadow). ended.

6. "The sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying to the angel which had the trumpet: Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men." This makes 391 years and 15 days. The natural River Euphrates flowed through old Babylon and was the very means by which Cyrus entered that great city when he conquered it. It constituted a foreshadow to the Mohammedan stream running through the mystical Babylon.

The four angels represent the four divisions into which the Mohammedan people were divided. Their headquarters were at Damascus, Aleppo, Iconium and Bagdad. When the sixth trumpet called to battle, the religious ties that held the divided people to those posts burst, and the warrior, Mohammed II., started the whole stream of people flowing towards Constantinople. With their powerful firearms, they finally conquered that old stronghold of the Coesars and made it their own capital.

Adding the 391 years and 15 days to the 27^th of July, 1449, when the 150 years of the fifth trumpet ended, their termination would be the 11^th of August, 1840. What marked that time? The "Berlin-treaty," which made the Sultan subject to the great powers of Europe, was framed on that day, and from that time the Sultan has been called "the sick man." The sixth trumpet was limited, and the Mohammedan stream was again tied to four dividing posts by the above-mentioned treaty. The mistress of the world, great Babylon, has a resting spell again; but in fear of what is coming, she is now raising up the old beast from the "bottom,-less pit" to defend her. She feels her foundations shake at the mere reports of an approaching demolisher. The smoke from the "bottomless pit" is now coiling up toward heaven night and day, which signifies the united trust that the "Christian" nations place in the red dragon which is to defend them against the "Prince of the covenant." The river Euphrates running through the mystical Babylon is to swell and will cause a terrible disturbance in the camp of the Babylonians. The `Berlin-treaty" will be broken and then comes the crash. But the fifth and sixth war-trumpets have yet to call to battle. The sixth one does not finish its sounding until the blood of the two witnesses of Jesus has been drunken by the woman who rides the ten-horned beast. At that time, the seventh trumpet commences to sound.

In Is. 21^st chap., the prophet deiscribes the great conflict which shakes down Babylon.

"As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert (Arabia) from a terrible land. A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, 0 Elam! (Ishmael—Hagar's son's descendants): besiege 0 Media! (barrier—one that draws the boundary line). All the sighing thereof (in Babylon, caused by the oppressive class) have I made to cease."

The prophet follows the war-scene to the end by means of the prophetic telescope and becomes heartsick because of the terrible things he heard and saw. He says:

"I was dismayed at the seeing of it. My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me—Prepare the table, watch in the watch-tower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield" (he hears the sound from the battlefield). Finally he hears one cry, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen!"