6.18 The Seven Trumpets                                             

 

1. Under what symbols was the following series of thrilling events, following the seven seals, shown to the apostle John?
Revelation 8:2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

 

2. With what do these trumpets deal?
Jeremiah 4:19-20
19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.
Joel 2:1-11
1 Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
2 A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
4 The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.
5 Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
6 Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
7 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:
8 Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.
9 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
10 The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
11 And the LORD shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for He is strong that executeth His word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?
Note: The trumpets indicate wars, turmoil, and political disturbances that end in the disintegration and downfall of the Roman Empire. The first four deal with the fall of Western Rome, the fifth and sixth with the fall of the Eastern Empire, and the seventh with the final fall of Rome in the broadest sense, or of all the kingdoms of the world.

 

3. Under what imagery is the first trumpet described?
Revelation 8:7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
Note: “Before the Roman Empire was permanently divided into two parts, a tripartite division of the empire had taken place at least twice. The first was in 311 AD when the empire was divided between Constantine, Licinius, and Maxin. The other in 337 AD at the death of Constantine, when it was divided between his three sons, Constantine, Constans, and Constantinius” According to Albert Barnes on Revelation 12:4. To Constantinius Constantinople and the East were given; to Constans, Italy, Illyricum, and North Africa; and to Constantine II, Britain, Gaul, and Spain. The Trumpet describes the first major invasion of Western or Old Rome by the Goths under Alaric, from 395 AD to 410 AD. C. In 408 he invaded Italy, the middle “third part”. He plundered and burned the cities and slaughtered the inhabitants. Gibbon says in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chapter 33, the final sentence: “The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved; its genius was reduced to dust, and armies of unknown barbarians, coming from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious dominion over the most beautiful regions of Europe and Africa.”

 

4. What striking image is used to describe the destruction wrought under the second trumpet?
Revelation 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Note: This describes the invasions and victories of the Vandals under the feared Genseric, first in Africa and later in Italy, from 428 to 476 AD His conquests were largely achieved at sea. In one night, near Carthage, he destroyed more than half of the Roman fleet, which consisted of 1,123 ships and over 100,000 men, by fire and sword. See Gibbons, “Decline and fall of the Roman Empire,” chapter 36

 

5. What took place under the third trumpet?
Revelation 8:10-11
10 And 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 waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
Note: The disturbing invasions and conquests of Attila, the Hun, are foretold here. His conquests were characterized by fire, the sword, and plundering along the Rhine, in Gaul, and northern Italy. He claimed to be a descendant of Nimrod, called himself the “Scourge of God” and the “Terror of the World,” and boasted that grass would never again grow where his horse had set its hooves. His greatest blow was at Châlons, in Gaul, in the year 451 AD, where it is said that of his 700,000 men, between 100,000 and 300,000 remained dead on the battlefield. (See Gibbons Rome, chapter 35 and “Fifteen decisive battles of the world,” by Sir Edward Creasy, chapter 6.) Gibbon says in chapter 34: “during the reign of Attila the Huns again became the terror of the world;” and he further describes “the character and deeds of that formidable barbarian, who,” he says, “alternately insulted the East and the West and made invasions, and hastened the swift fall of the Roman Empire.

 

6. What would happen under the fourth trumpet?
Revelation 8:12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
Note: This trumpet brings us to the fall of Western Rome in 476 AD, when the Heruli, who were barbarians, under the leadership of Odoacer, took possession of the city and of the scepter of Rome; and the great empire, which until then had ruled the world, became a poor duchy tributary to the bishop of Ravenna. His stars or civil rulers were struck and had ceased to shine. Italy now indeed became a province of the Eastern Empire. The Roman Empire in the west had ceased to exist after having been an empire for 1229 years, reckoned from the founding of Rome. (Myers’s “General History,” p. 348)

 

7. What would be the character of the last three trumpets?
Revelation 8:13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

 

8. What power arose in the east, after the fall of Western Rome, to overrun the Roman world in the east and in the west and to spread throughout the land?
Answer: Mohamedanism, known as the Turkish or Ottoman power, coming from Arabia and beginning there with Mohammed in 622 AD.

 

9. How is the fifth trumpet, or the first woe, ushered in?
Revelation 9:1-3
1 And 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.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Note: Attila is symbolically represented as the star of the third trumpet (Revelation 8:10, 11); Muhammad by the star of this trumpet. The pit of the abyss undoubtedly refers to the desolate region of the Arabian desert, from where the Mohammedans, or Saracens of Arabia, came like swarms of locusts. The darkening caused by the smoke rising from this pit aptly represents the spread of Mohammedanism and its teachings over Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe. Their power as scorpions was strikingly seen in their powerful and swift attacks on and victories over their enemies. Over a large part of Spain, over the North of Spain, Egypt, Syria, Babylon, Persia, the North of India, and parts of Central Asia, the customs, the language, and the religion of scattered by the Arab conquerors; with varying degrees of complete exclusion of the own customs, language, and worship of the countries themselves. Myers’s “General History,” p. 401.

 

10. What command was given to these locusts?
Revelation 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
Note: When the Arab tribes were assembled to conquer Syria in 633 AD, Caliph Abu Bakr, the successor of Muhammad, ordered the heads of his army that their victory should not be stained with the blood of women and children, that no palm trees should be destroyed, nor grain fields burned, no fruit trees cut down, nor any harm done to the livestock, and that those religious persons should be spared who lived in seclusion in monasteries and whose purpose was to serve God in that way. But, he said, “you will find another kind of people, who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven heads: ensure that you split their skulls and do not let them escape until they either become Mohammedans or pay tribute.” Through these words, Mohammedanism reveals itself to be a scourge for apostate Christianity. In a short time, they, the Mohammedan Saracens, had already taken the principal ancient Semitic lands—Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Babylon—from the Aryans. Egypt would soon be added to these.
Encyclopedia Britannica, article “Mohammedanism.”

 

11. What were those locusts said to have over them?
Revelation 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Note: For hundreds of years the Mohammedans and invading Tartar tribes, like the locusts (Proverbs 30:27), had no king over them, but were divided into troops or tribes, under separate leaders. In the twelfth century, however, Temuljin, king of the Mongols or Mughals, A kingdom at the cost of, as one estimates, cities and villages and five million human lives.(Myers in his General History p. 461) This king was described as the most terrible scourge which has ever tormented the human race. This was followed by the more enduring Tartar kingdom, founded a century later by Othman and which is usually known under the name of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Sultan.

 

12. Which specific period is mentioned under this trumpet?
Revelation 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
See also verse 5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Note: It was on the twenty-seventh of July of the year 1299, Gibbon says, “that Othman first invaded the territory of Nocomdia, in Asia Minor,” and he further says that “the peculiar accuracy of the date seems to bring to light a certain foreknowledge of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster.” (Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 64, par. 14) This is maintained for the beginning of the era referred to in this text. Five months are prophetically 150 days. Setting a day for a year would be 150 years. These would therefore extend from July 27, 1299 to July 27, 1449. During this era, the Turks were almost incessantly at war with the Greek Empire, yet without conquering it.

 

13. With what statement does the fifth trumpet conclude?
Revelation 9:12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

 

14. What command was given under the sixth trumpet?
Revelation 9:13-14
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
Note: These four angels are understood to refer to the four principal Turkish sultanates, Aleppo, Iconium, Damascus, and Baghdad, from which the Ottoman Empire, situated in the land through which the river Euphrates flows, was composed.

 

15. What warlike scene is depicted under this trumpet?
Revelation 9:16-17
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
Note: In the year 1453, Muhammad II the Great, Sultan of the Ottomans, laid siege to the capital (Constantinople) with an army of more than 200,000 men. After a brief blockade, the place was taken by storm. The cross, which had stood on the dome roof of the Church of St. Sophia since the time of Constantine the Great, was replaced by the crescent moon, which still stands there today, (Myers “General History,” 1902 edition) Thus, Constantinople, the eastern seat of the Roman Empire since the time of Constantine, was conquered by the Turks. Reference also seems to be made here to the use of guns, which the Turks began to use towards the end of the thirteenth century and which, when seated on horseback, would give the appearance of fire and smoke from the mouths of horses going out.

 

16. What was the result of this warfare, waged by means of “fire and smoke and sulfur”?
Revelation 9:18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
Note: This demonstrates the deadly effect of this new way of waging war. Constantinople was brought down, its empire destroyed, and its religion trampled in the dust by Muslim conquerors.

 

17. Which specific period is mentioned under this trumpet?
Revelation 9:15 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.
Note: An hour in prophetic time is equal to 15 days; a day is given for a year, a month for thirty years, a year for 360 years. Taken together, this amounts to 391 years and 15 days, the time granted to Ottoman supremacy. Beginning on July 27, 1449, the date of the ending of the fifth trumpet, the end of this era would fall on August 11, 1840. In meticulous fulfillment of the words of the inspiring prophecy, this is the date of the fall of the Ottoman Empire as an independent power. So exhausted by a war waged with Muhammad Ali, Pasha of Egypt, that there was no hope of recovery, the Sultan of Turkey submitted to what was prescribed to him by the four great European powers—England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—and, through his minister Rifat Bey, placed in the hands of Muhammad Ali, precisely on that day, August 11, 1840, the decree, or ultimatum, issued by these powers. Since that time, Turkey has existed only through the aid or permission of the great powers of Europe.

 

18. With what announcement does the sixth trumpet conclude?
Revelation 11:14 The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
Note: The designated period under the sixth trumpet brings us to the year 1840, when Turkey lost its independence.

 

19. What will be fulfilled when the seventh trumpet is about to sound?
Revelation 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.
Note: The mystery of God is the gospel (Ephesians 3:3-6)(Galatians 1:11, 12) Therefore, when this trumpet sounds, the gospel will cease to be proclaimed and the end will come. The time of tribulation of Daniel 12:1, the seven last plagues, and the war of Armageddon spoken of in Revelation 16 will take place when this trumpet begins to sound.

 

20. What event characterizes the sounding of the seventh trumpet?
Revelation 11:15-17
15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.
16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
17 Saying, We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned.
Note: The seventh trumpet therefore brings us to the establishment of God's eternal kingdom.

 

21. What is the state of the nations, and what other events will occur in that time, or will be imminent?
Revelation 11:18 And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

 

22. What scene in heaven was shown to the prophet when the seventh trumpet was about to sound?
Revelation 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Note: This powerfully draws attention to the closing work of Christ in the heavenly Sanctuary.