Interpreting the seven trumpets of Revelation

+ Larger Font | - Smaller Font

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

Henry Madison Morris

1st trumpet

The inhabitants of earth had just experienced an amazing electrical storm plus a violent earthquake, and now followed a mighty storm of hail. Accompanying the pelting hailstones were balls of fire and drops of blood (possibly blood-colored water-blood itself is over 90 percent water). ... it may be possible that angelic hosts will divert the path of one of the many comets with which the solar system abounds so that the earth will pass through its tail. ... Another possibility might be that of worldwide volcanic eruptions, a normal consequence of a worldwide violent earthquake. The masses of water vapor blown skyward might well condense in the intense updrafts as hailstones, and showers of burning lava might be "cast upon the earth with them." The blood of entrapped men and animals might be mingled with them, or possibly showers of liquid water drops might be so contaminated with dust and gases as to appear blood red.

2nd trumpet

A fiery mass like a great mountain crashed into the sea--probably the Mediterranean Sea. ... The mighty explosion on impact will dwarf that of an atomic bomb and will be terrifying beyond imagination. ... But how could all this destroy "a third part of the ships?" The answere probably is that the same gigantic impact which poisoned the waters would also have generated mighty tsunami waves which would batter to pieces great numbers of ships anchored on shore, even though producing little effect (except in the immediate vicinity of the impact) on ships in the open ocean.

3rd trumpet

A "deadly projectile from outer space" falls on the waters of the sea, and on the rivers, and on the "fountains of waters," poisoning a third of them.

4th trumpet

"the visible luminaries in the heavens for a time, maybe a day, maybe several days, slow down their internal reactions in such a way as to reduce their power output by a factor of one-third. The day and night, as a result are only two-thirds as bright as normal, even though the skies are completely clear of haze or anything else to obscure the light."

5th trumpet

This bottomless pit which he forthwith unlocks is literally "the pit of the abyss." The word "abyss" comes from roots meaning "without depth" and so is properly translated "bottomless." It is apparently the very center of the earth and so, in truth, has no bottom. Its boundaries in all directions are all ceilings; one cannot go "down" in any direction. The pit of this abyss of Hades is apparently one of its imprisoning cells, and it is only this one to which Satan actually receives the key.

But when he opens the gate, an amazing phenomenon occurs. Great billows of subterranean smoke pour forth on the earth, spreading around until it darkens the air worldwide, even dimming the sun's light. This indicates that there must be somewhere on the earth an opening leading to a great shaft, leading down from the earth's surface, through the crust, mantle and core, all the way to Hades and the pit itself. Man has never discovered this shaft because it is apparently blocked at its exit, but this does not men it doesn't exist. It has been "ordained of old" by God and its walls are impregnable, from within or without, designed by the Creator to withstand all rupturing pressures, natural or supernatural. But when the key is finally turned, great billows of smoke, presumably from the earth's internal heat and pressure, flow toward the surface and finally out to surround the earth itself. ... out of the smpoke the inhabitants of the earth see emerging wave after wave of hideous flying creatures like locusts. ... They swarmed the darkened sky like locusts, they had emerged from the earth like locusts, and they left misery in their wake like locusts.

But they had emerged from Hades itself. The center of the earth is hardly a breeding place for locust larvae, and the strange appearance and even stranger activities of these locust-like hordes prove their demonic character.
   
How long these creatures wreak their vengeance on men is not revealed, though it was presumably long enough for all to feel their vicious stings. For, unlike ordinary locusts, they had received the ability to inflict tormenting stings on men, stings so painful they could only be compared to scorpion bites. There are a number of varieties of scorpions, with some more poisonous than others, but the scorpion of the mideastern deserts is said to produce the most painful sting known to man.
   
There seems no escaping the conclusion that these locusts from hell are, indeed, demonic spirits, long confined in the pit of the abyss but now released for a little season perhaps so men would understand the fearful consequences of the choice they were making by continuing to reject God's great salvation. ...

The plague is so dreadful and the pain so fearful that people will utterly despair. They will even seek death, futilely hoping that the grave might relieve their suffering, even though they surely know by now that hell is waiting for them, and these very creatures of torment will be there too. But they can't even commit suicide. Guns misfire, knives slip from their grasp, poisons lose their ptency; men cripple and injure themselves byut somehow they can't kill themselves. And before they can try again, they must suddenly flee another of these ubiquitios persuing locust-like demons. ... Five months will be ample for men to experience this awful judgment. They will flee to the mountains, to the seas, to the deserts; they will bar the windows, cringe in cellars. But there is no escape. These are spirit beings and not even solid walls deny them access. In their fury, they swarm over the earth, penetrate fortresses, swooping on men and women wherever they can flee, and none escape.

6th trumpet

Maybe the Euphrates mentioned here is the antediluvian Euphrates rather than the Babylonian Euphrates. It is barely possible that, deep in the earth, remains the underground storage chamber which controlled the primeval flow into the garden of Eden. ... The fifth and sixth trumpet plagues will probably occupy a total of eighteen months. ... Like the scorpion-locusts under the preceding trumpet, this will be a demonic legion of nightmarish animals indwelt by evil spirits, hitherto bound up in the Euphrates with their four evil overlords. It must be that these frightful "horses" and "horsemen" are demon-possessed creatures whose bodies are especially created by God for the awful judgment which they are thereby enabled to inflict upon mankind. Their bodies are real physical bodies, capable of generating physical fire and brimstone and causing the physical death of those men and women whom they attack. This suggests that the bodies are specially created right at the time of the release of the unclean spirits from their prison, and are then immediately taken over by the ascending spirits.
   
Like a great storm, they spread forth from their pit, raging over the earth to take vengeance on mankind, whom they regard as responsible for their miserable circumstances. No longer constrained as they once were by the need of some kind of physical body wherewith to enslave men, they are now able to use their newly-secured bodies to destroy men.
   
Skeptics who deny the existence of a literal hell often are heard to rationalize that men make their own hell right here on earth. They don't realize how literally true such sophistries will become. With two hundred million creatures, all arrayed in fire and brimstone, sweeping over the earth, it will indeed appear that the fires of hell have enveloped the earth.

7th trumpet

[Source unavailable]

Copyright © 2010 by Douglas E. Cox
All Rights Reserved.