Interpreting the seven trumpets of Revelation

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The Seven Trumpets

The Creation Concept

Charles D. Alexander
Herbert W. Armstrong
William Barclay
Gregory K. Beale
James B. Coffman
John Darby
A. C. Gaebelein
George Gifford
David Guzik
E. W. Hengstenberg
H. A. Ironside
B. W. Johnson
Alonso T. Jones
Jack Kelley
William Kelly
Don Koenig
Gordon E. Ladd
Clarence Larkin
Francis Nigel Lee
David B. Loughran
John MacArthur
Henry Madison Morris
Robert H. Mounce
John H. Ogwyn
David C. Pack
Jon Paulien
J. Dwight Pentecost
Peter Pett
Bob Pickle
Vern S. Poythress
John H. Pratt & Edward B. Elliott
Ken Raggio
James Stuart Russell
Tyconius
John Walvoord
Ronald Weinland
James White

Francis Nigel Lee

1st trumpet

the judgmental and bloody destruction of the leaders as well as the followers of the Christ-rejecting Judean Judaists by fire and by "hail" in A.D. 70 the judgmental and bloody destruction of the leaders as well as the followers of the Christ-rejecting Judean Judaists by fire and by "hail" in A.D. 70  as well as a picture of judgment on apostate Church Members both then and thereafter. as well as a picture of judgment on apostate Church Members both then and thereafter.

2nd trumpet

Now the first judgment had fallen upon the "land" (probably meaning the terrain of first-century Judaea) and its apostate contents (including its plants and its men). But the following or second judgment was to fall upon the sea and its inhabitants  on its fish and on "those who go down to the sea in ships." Yet here again, only one-third of the inhabitants (of the sea) was destroyed.

The Geneva Bible comments here that the burning "mountain" cast into the sea, means that various or "divers sects of heretics were spread abroad in the World." Throughout Scripture, the word "mountain" is frequently used as an image of Israel.

Again, the word "sea" is frequently used throughout Scripture as an image of the power-wielders in the Gentile World. Previously, after the sounding of the first trumpet  the burning up of the trees and the grass, probably refers to the destruction of Jerusalem (alias 'Egypt') by fire. And now, after the sounding of the second trumpet  the object which was "as it were a great mountain burning with fire" was perhaps the scorched remnant of apostate Judaea, scattered especially after A.D. 70 (and also in subsequent centuries) throughout the "sea" of the Gentile World. For the burning mountain of Judaism (thus Mauro) fills "the third part of the sea" of the Gentile World with blood and death and destruction. Then, it also filled the international communications media with anti- Christian propaganda (albeit only partially so). Too, the second trumpet probably also heralds "the invasion of the Roman Empire [including its apostate 'Christian' citizens] by foreign nations and by the barbarians" (thus Bengel).

3rd trumpet

This time, destruction fell upon one-third of the fresh waters which thirsty men need to drink. The great star which fell from the sky burning like a lamp, is probably Lucifer himself or one or more or all of his agents (such as apostate clergy etc.).

Lucifer was the greatest star or created Angel. Yet, instead of upholding (luci-ferre) the Son of God as The Lamp of the Universe Lucifer himself futilely tried to illuminate men like The Lamp and Light of the World!

In himself trying to be The Lamp and Light of the World  Lucifer fell. Indeed, he continued to fall even further, in various stages, ever since the creation of man. And his fall was steep  especially since Christ's resurrection and ascension and the resultant (at least nominal) christianization of the Roman Empire previously dominated by Satan himself.

So the great star falling from the sky, and burning like a lamp, is probably Lucifer himself or one or more of his agents. The "rivers" and "fountains of waters" into which he fell, are probably the well-springs of Christianity.

Accordingly, this event of the star falling  after the sounding of the third trumpet  probably indicates Satan's pollution of the Christian message by poisoning the well-waters of the life-giving Gospel. As such, it would then refer to the terrible spread of Satanic heresies even on the fringes of the Christian Church herself  throughout the Roman Empire.

This took place in particular during the first five centuries in Pseudo-Christian movements like judaizing Ebionism, paganizing Gnosticism, dematerializing Docetism, compromising Syncretism, dispensationalizing Marcionism, pseudo-glossolalic Montanism, mysticistic Mithraism, dualistic Manichaeanism, philosophistic Alexandrianism, and modalistic Sabellianism. It further occurred also in 'Jehovah-Witness'-like Arianism, assumptionistic Nestorianism, consubstantiationizing Eutychianism, ultraarminianizing Pelagianism, and in Proto-Romanistic Semi-Pelagianism etc.

As the Geneva Bible comments, the 'bitter waters' here "signify false and corrupt doctrine." For all of those heresies, like poisoned wells, certainly killed many men  spiritually.

Yet they polluted only a minority (or "a third") of the spiritual waters. This left the other two-thirds of the waters unpolluted  for the enjoyment of the true Christian Church.

4th trumpet

Here, the heavenly bodies (sun and moon and stars) were smitten  though only the third of them. This probably refers to the eclipse of influential leaders in the civilized World at that time. For such astronomical symbols are frequently used to refer to ecclesiastical and political leaders. As such, the prediction probably refers especially to the corruption of the but-recently-christianized Roman Empire  with the "darkening" of its political and ecclesiastical leadership. Here one thinks of Julian the Apostate  and particularly of the attacks of the Goths, the Huns and the Vandals; the fall of Rome to such Pagans; the later demise of Justinian; and the advent of the 'Dark Ages' at the beginnings of the rise of the Papacy.

Again, however, this "darkening" was only in part. For true Christianity, like Moses' burning bush, could not and cannot be consumed. Once illuminated by Christ the Light at the time of His incarnation  the increasing irradiation of the World by the now-ignited bonfire of Christianity could not and cannot be extinguished.

5th trumpet

the particular 'fallen star' mentioned here, was Mohammad (570-632 A.D.) ... The smoke "represents abundance of heresies and errors, which cover Christ and His Gospel with darkness." ... "Mohammed, the fallen star, opened the pit and let loose the darkening power of Satan; and he flooded the eastern part of the christianized Earth, and considerable portions of the western also, with doctrines which can justly be termed hellish in their nature and effects." ... Calvin: "The Turks in the present day...proclaim...with full throat that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is their God ? yet by their rejection [of the Deity and Saviourhood] of Christ," they "substitute an idol in His place." ... For, as from A.D. 622, Mohammad's Arabian armies of Moslem horsemen swept not only northward and eastward  but also westward across Christian North Africa and then on into Western Europe. Thus they terrorized the previously-'christianized' Armenia, Cyprus, Crete, Syria, Persia, Kazakstan, Babylonia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Numidia, Mauretania, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Corsica, and France  until the great Charles Martel the 'Hammer' finally stopped them in A.D. 732 at the Battle of Tours in Northern France. "Like swarms from a beehive or like locusts darkening the air, the one Arabian tribe after the other emerged and rolled to the North, and then spread out in great hordes to the East and the West." Thus the Arab Moslems then almost totally wiped out the Christian Church  all the way from Northern India to Northwest Africa. 

Nor did they go forth specifically to kill men, but rather hurt-fully or forcibly to convert them to a false religion  and thus to torment their souls. Thus: "to them it was given that they should not kill them  but that they [their victims] should be tormented, five months. "Now their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.... And they had tails like scorpions." Just like locusts, scorpions too are creatures of the Arabian desert. "And there were stings in their tails. And their power was to hurt men, five months."

This "five months," when construed strictly, is the average duration of a plague of locusts in the insect world. However, construed prophetically (according to the day-year principle of interpretation), it would imply five (thirty-day) months of day-years  alias about one hundred and fifty years or about a century and a half of sustained tormenting of their victims.

That very period, interestingly, corresponds exactly to that of Islam's pressures against Christian civilization from the rise of Mohammad (beginning at his first battle when only twenty years old in 590 A.D.)  to the final arrest of those pressures by Charles the Hammer (in 732 A.D.).

6th trumpet

Now similar as the Turks were to the previous plague of Arabian "locusts" in fact, essentially a Moslem extension of that earlier Moslem scourge there were also certain differences. For the Islamic Turks did not merely hurt men without killing them (as did the Islamic Arabians). But they actually slew fully one-third or "the third part of men"  in the eastern part of what was indeed at least a nominally-Christian Eastern- Orthodox Civilization.

It is true that the Turks (reinforced by Mohammedan Mongols from A.D. 1250 onward) conquered Constantinople in A.D. 1453  and then overran parts of Russia and the Ukraine and Romania and Hungary and Austria, and the whole of the Crimea and Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and Albania and Greece. And it is also true that Islam, with its slave-traders, continued to march southward first through West Africa and then through East Africa and thereafter into Southern Africa. Nevertheless, the power of Islam peaked around A.D. 1560  just four years before the death of Calvin.

7th trumpet

we should not think that the final judgment is already at hand as soon as the seventh trumpet is blown. For that seventh trumpet is blown as a warning about the temporal judgments (and blessings)which are still to come, thereafter. ... This in no way implies that Christ has not been ruling here on Earth prior to that as-yet-still-future time being referred to here. To the contrary. He has been ruling as God from all eternity. And He has also been ruling as manever since His ascension and heavenly session. ...John was accordingly next transported to the time of the Final Judgment itself. Then, "the twenty-four Elders who sat in front of God upon their seats [or thrones]fell upon their faces and worshipped God." At that time, they say: "We give thanks to You, O Lord God Almighty, Who is and Who was! For You have taken Your great power unto Yourself. And You have kept on reigning.... The Nations were angry; but Your wrath has come and the time that the dead should be judged."  ...The time has come too "that You should give reward to Your Servants the Prophets and to the saints and to them who fear Your Name, small and great." The time has come, that You "should destroy those who destroy the Earth."

Copyright © 2010 by Douglas E. Cox
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