Seven Trumpets, Seven Bowls

 

My imagination used to run wild when I read the descriptions of the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, in Revelation. I envisioned meteors hitting the earth, the earth ceasing to rotate, and catastrophes wiping out a third of mankind. And then, a second whammy -- God pours out seven more bowls of judgment. I was also taught that Christians would be raptured before the Great Tribulation, when all these cataclysmic judgments would occur. So, my imagination could run rampant. I was safe.

Eventually I came to understand that the trumpets were warnings, not judgments. Like a shot over the bow of a ship, they are a warning sign of impending doom and destruction. Then another light came on, the bowl judgments are describing the exact same events as the seven trumpets, just from God’s perspective, rather than from man’s own doing.

The trumpet warnings are found in Revelation 8-9, and the bowls are found in Revelation 16. The events are depicted in apocalyptic visions, obviously not in modern vernacular.

Trumpet #1 is WW1. It was the first war in the history of mankind to use aircraft, large artillery, chemical warfare, and to drop bombs from the sky. Large tracts of land were burned to eliminate camouflage. The death toll was 18 million.

Trumpet #2 is WW2. Large numbers of warships were destroyed in this war, including Pearl Harbor. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan resembled “something like a great mountain burning with fire.” The death toll: 70 million.

Trumpet #3 describes Chernobyl, using that nuclear disaster, in 1986, as a flagship of the entire nuclear age. The star that fell from the sky was nuclear fallout, poisoning the land and water throughout much of eastern Europe. The name, Wormwood, is actually translated in the Ukrainian Bible as “Chernobyl”. The nuclear age began innocently in the early 20^th century, but became a “sword of Damocles” hanging over the heads of mankind ever since WW2.

Trumpet #4 is describing climate change, a result of the industrial revolution of the last 250 years. The sun and moon are blocked out by smog in the description. The first UN Conference on Climate Change took place in 1972. Yes, I know -- liberals want to fix the problem, while conservatives deny it. But God says that climate change is real, and it is a sign of the end of the age.

Trumpet #5 is a lengthy description of the Gulf war back in 1990-91. So many details of that war were foretold – the smoke from the 600 oil wells set on fire, Saddam Hussein’s name means “destroyer”, the five-month period, and the highway of death augmented by the famous picture of an Iraqi soldier sitting in his truck “wishing he could die”.

Trumpet #6 has not yet occurred. We are in the wait and watch mode for this one. It foretells the buildup to the battle of Armageddon, which is mentioned many times in Revelation.

Trumpet #7, along with bowl #7 and also seal #6, all describe the final world-wide judgment of God upon evil, unbelieving mankind, including signs in the sun and the moon, lighting, rumblings, large hail, and severe earthquakes, The last trumpet is also the pinpoint time when Jesus Christ returns and Christians are caught up in the rapture.

And there you have it, an interpretation of the seven trumpets that may be new to you. History is the best interpreter of prophecy.

Seven Is The Perfect Number

 

Seven is an important number in the Bible. It’s the “perfect” number. It represents the perfect design of God. Beginning with creation, and throughout the Old Testament, then again in the Book of Revelation, God uses the number seven.

Consider the many occurrences of the number seven. God’s incredible acts of creation took place over the course of seven days, as recorded in Genesis. The Sabbath was instituted by God to be observed on the seventh day of the week. The blood of the sacrificial animal was to be sprinkled on the altar seven times. Several Old Testament Feasts were observed for seven days, and three of the seven holy observances were in the seventh month. Daniel’s vision in chapter nine was a vision of seventy “weeks” of seven. The Jews were in Babylonian captivity for seventy years. This list is by no means complete, but we get the picture.

Now for a list of sevens found in Revelation. There were seven churches addressed by Jesus. There are seven blessings spoken throughout the entire book of Revelation. There are seven seals, seven trumpet warnings, and seven bowl judgments. There are seven heads on the beast of Revelation 13, representing seven world-ruling, oppressive nations through the course of history. This number, seven, is conspicuously woven into the prophecies of the Church age and the events of the end times. It represents
the perfect design of God in all that would come to pass, from the first century on, until the return of Christ.

But then we get to Revelation 17, and the perfect number seven has an addendum added to it. There is an eighth beast that is the centerpiece of the very last “hour” of the end of the age. Now the number eight is not a special number in the Bible. Nevertheless, the eighth beast is really significant, regardless of its imperfect number. The eighth beast is an Arab-Islam alliance of ten nations, represented by the ten horns on the seven-headed beast. This alliance will bring the prostitute, America, to ruin. Then, with nothing to restrain them, they will have a green light to cross the Euphrates and invade the holy land. They are the enemy of God and of His chosen people. That has been true for several millennia, and Armageddon will be the climax of their hatred for Abraham’s chosen descendants. But Jesus Christ will come back to earth and defeat the 8^th beast and establish His earthly millennial kingdom.

And there you have it, a summary of chapter 4 in my book, Right At The Door. And a teaser to dig deeper into the understanding of Revelation 17. The eighth best is on the rise, and Armageddon will erupt very, very soon.

Left Behind

 

The Left Behind series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, helped to shape and solidify the concept of Christians being raptured before a seven-year Great Tribulation. Their books “took the earth by storm”, selling over 65 million. Rapture became as popular as zombies, aliens, and UFOs. The presupposition upon which the series is built is the belief that Christians are “taken up” in the rapture while non-believers are "left behind” to endure the great tribulation and the Antichrist.

But the fact is, Christians will not be taken up in the rapture, preemptively, leaving non-believers behind to endure the Tribulation. That is a totally false notion, built upon some very faulty Biblical interpretation. It arose in the mid-19th century and became embedded in American last-days teachings. Then Tim LaHaye popularized it.

The Biblical phrase underlying the “left behind” concept is taken from the teaching of Jesus. He said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man…. that is how it will be…one will be taken and the other left.” (Mt 24:37-41; Lk 17:26-35).

Christians are not the ones who will be taken – in the rapture. That is not accurate. Look closely. Jesus is likening this future scene to what happened in the days of Noah. “People were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away” (Mt 24:38-39). It was the wicked who were taken, not the righteous. “Taken” is a military term used to this day to denote the casualties inflicted upon an enemy. Clearly, those who are taken are not Christians being taken up in Rapture, but rather causalities in war and destruction.

That leads us to conclude, then, that those who are left, as in the days of Noah, will be the few who survive the judgment of God and live through to the next era in His redemptive plan. There will be some people around the world who will live through the extreme tribulation and judgment of the last days. They will be the initial inhabitants of Christ’s Millennial kingdom (Rev 20:4-6).

The Left Behind book series amplified a very dangerous teaching. The saints will not be “taken up” in the rapture prior to the Tribulation. We Christians will endure the sword, famine, and plague of the last days alongside our fellow man. The rapture will indeed happen, but not before the time of Christ’s second coming. To be forewarned is to be prepared. That is the purpose of Revelation.

Antichrist

 

Antichrist is a dominant figure of the end of the age, for sure, but nothing like what we have made him out to be. Antichrist gets far too much notoriety in modern books, and movies. Far more than what the Bible itself gives to him. That title, Antichrist, does not even appear in Revelation, Daniel, or Ezekiel. The Antichrist, if we must use that name, is the same person as Gog in Ezekiel 38-39, as well as the man of lawlessness that Paul describes at length in 2 Thessalonians 2. He is the same person mentioned in Revelation 17:11-14, the leader of the ten-nation Arab alliance that will attack Israel and battle with the returning Messiah. It would make sense, then, that the man of lawlessness will be an Islamic Imam or Caliph.

But Antichrist is not the beast of Revelation 13. That is where most people get there colorful, larger-than-life image of Antichrist. The seven headed beast refers to seven nations, not the Antichrist. That is why I hesitate to even use the name, Antichrist, because it conjures up false images from Revelation 13 and Daniel 9:27. Antichrist is not going to lead a one-world government for seven years. He is not healed from a deadly wound. And he is not going to desecrate the temple.

The Apostle John is the one who coined the name Antichrist -- not in Revelation, but rather in his epistles (I John and 2 John). John was gravely concerned about the lies and deception that the Gnostics were spreading, particularly their teaching that Jesus was not the Christ. John’s intent was not to coin a name for the future man of lawlessness, but rather to give a creative moniker for the Christ-denying gnostic deceivers. They were anti-Christ deceivers.

So, what exactly do we know about Gog and the man of lawlessness. Paul wrote that the man of lawlessness will lead a great rebellion (confirmed in Ez 38-39 and Rev 17). He will exalt himself to be God, usurping God’s heavenly temple. He will be enabled by Satan to display all kinds of power, signs and wonders, deceiving those who are perishing (2 Thess 2: 3-4, 9-10).  Ezekiel wrote that God’s main purpose for drawing Gog into the great battle of Armageddon and striking him down is so that “the nations will know that I the sovereign Lord am the Holy One in Israel” (Ez 39:7).

If we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, rather than letting our imagination run wild with speculation, we get a much more accurate picture of the Antichrist of the last days. When the man of lawlessness rises on the scene in the Middle East it will fulfill the final sign of the end of the age, the sixth trumpet warning – Armageddon.