Seven Trumpet Warnings (part 2 of 2)

They Are Happening Now

Trumpet Warning #4

The fourth trumpet (Rev 8:12-13) describes a third of the sun, moon, and stars being struck, resulting in the length of both days and nights becoming shortened. This is not describing a physical event, such as the axis of the earth shifting and days becoming 16 hours long instead of 24 hours. Apocalyptic visions are very symbolic. Time will be shortened and the world as we had always known it will be experienced differently. This trumpet warning may be referring to the same prophetic events recorded by Daniel (Dan7:25), “He will… try to change the set times and the laws.” The world began to change with the industrial revolution, like nothing ever before. Then came electronic and atomic development, which began to change our world exponentially. After WWII the United States rose up to become the dominant world power, unique since the fall of the Roman empire. The computer and internet age once again changed the world, almost faster than mankind could keep up. Communication and commerce could be transacted almost instantaneously, rather than taking weeks or months. Time became truncated. After the fall of the Berlin wall a new age of globalization began to develop and it has only grown and expanded through the years leading up to the end of the age. This world is nothing like your great-grandpa’s world.

Trumpet Warning #5

The fifth trumpet (Rev 9:1-11) describes a bottomless pit of fire causing a massive amount of smoke, like a gigantic furnace, blocking the light of the sun. During the Gulf War, as Iraqi soldiers were exiting Kuwait, they wreaked destruction with a “scorched earth” strategy, igniting over 600 oil wells around the deserts of Kuwait. These were some of the largest underground wells of oil on the planet. From the seemingly bottomless holes in the ground, smoke entered the atmosphere and blocked sunlight for three months. With Sadam Hussein as their president, whose name means “Destroyer” or “Abaddon” (see Rev 9:11), Iraqi soldiers invaded and occupied Kuwait in August, 1990. Five months later (see Rev 9:5), in January of 1991, the ultimatum was given by the United States and the UN for Hussein to exit Kuwait. After weeks of ground battles, the Iraqi rebels retreated from Kuwait, but were slaughtered on the “highway of death”, on Feb 26, 1991 (see Rev 9:6). Tension and turmoil, war and death, have continued in the Middle East ever since.

Trumpet Warning # 6

The sixth trumpet is yet to sound (Rev 9:13-19). When it does it will unleash yet another great war which will occur near the Euphrates River, the historic boundary between Israel and her enemies to the East. Four angels will be released and command an army of 200 million soldiers. A third of mankind will be killed by fire, smoke, and sulfur. With a population of more than 1 billion people, China can field an army of 200 million soldiers. Perhaps. More likely, Arab countries united under the Islamic faith could create an army of that size.
We might be tempted to call this cataclysmic confrontation World War 3, but in Revelation it is called Armageddon (16:16). The many visions of John’s Revelation overlap each other and dovetail with each other. They are not strictly successive. This sixth trumpet war is probably the same war as detailed in the sixth and seventh bowl judgments (16:12-16), and also the war described at the return of Jesus, when the Lamb defeats an alliance of ten “kings” (17:11-14).
“Learn a lesson from the fig tree…. When you see all these things, you know it is near, right at the door” (Mt 24:32-33). Trumpet warning #6 is the only one yet to happen before Jesus returns.

Trumpet #7, the Last Trumpet

The last trumpet is not a warning to mankind, as the previous six. It is the trumpet call to harvest. This last trumpet is lengthy in description (Rev 10-14) with several interconnected apocalyptic mini-visions interspersed. The description begins with the pronouncement, “There will be no more delay!” (Rev 10:6), and it ends with the announcement, “the time to harvest has come” – two harvests to be exact (Rev 14:14-20.).

The first harvest is that of the saints, those who have chosen to trust in Jesus. This great harvest is the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the rapture of the living saints. From heaven’s perspective it is an ingathering of the harvest that has been ripening since the creation of mankind. The imagery of this harvest (Rev 14:15-16) is similar to that of Matthew 24:30-31. “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” The great apostle Paul describes this incredible event this way: “At the last trumpet… the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (I Cor 15:52; I Thes 5:16-17).

The second harvest is far different. It is the harvest of grapes for the winepress of God’s wrath. This harvest is the outpouring of judgment upon all the unbelieving people and nations of the earth, and all evildoers. This judgment is delineated and augmented in the following seven bowl judgments (Rev 16). Go ahead, take a peek. See what it will be like.  

This last trumpet marks the end of human government and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, on earth. Jesus will come again, this time as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

How do you stand with your relationship with Jesus? Are you ready for His return? Will you live forever in His love, or forever suffer God’s wrath and judgment? The decision is yours, and you better decide soon. Maybe even today, because Today will not last much longer. Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus. His second coming is our blessed hope (I Jn 3:2-3).

Dave Eymann, author of Apocalypse Puzzle, available on Amazon.com

Seven Trumpet Warnings (part 1 of 2)

They Are Happening Now!

Don’t say you weren’t warned. When the seventh trumpet sounds it will be too late to give heed to the preceding six. Unfortunately, very few people have heard the trumpets. They give no credence to their warning. The only way to be prepared for the seventh trumpet is to acknowledge God’s eternal plan and trust Jesus as Savior, Lord, and coming King. When the last trumpet sounds the saints will be gathered up to be with the Lord and the nations will be judged. God will begin to set up his eternal, perfect kingdom. And that kingdom will not include any who refuse to believe His truth and trust His love. Surrender to the God of the universe. That is your ticket to enjoy His love and presence forever.

The seven trumpet warnings are found in Revelation, chapters 8 to 14. Some interpreters think that they are trumpet judgments, apocalyptic foretelling of God’s coming wrath. Not so. His wrath and judgment are revealed in the seven bowl judgments (Rev. 15-16) that follow the seventh trumpet. The seven successive trumpet warnings are catastrophic events that man himself initiates, not God, events that should sound a desperate warning that we are bringing upon ourselves the end of the world, the coming judgment of God. But once again, no one is paying attention. Even in the description of the seven trumpets it says that no one pays attention (Rev 9:20-21). No one turns from their evil ways to trust God – not in mass, that is.  

Trumpets have long been the means by which warnings were sounded. In ancient days a walled city was built on a hill. A watchman could survey the surrounding landscape and watch for approaching danger. If needed he would sound the trumpet to gather all the city’s dwellers to come in from the surrounding fields to be safe inside the walls. During wars such as the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the bugle would sound to give orders and warnings.

Trumpets have not always been the brass instrument that we are familiar with. But in whatever shape and form was common to a people and an era, the trumpet has been the means by which to send out a signal, far and wide. And the most crucial signal to send and to heed is that of a warning of impending danger. That is why the imagery of seven trumpets is used in Revelation. They are warnings to mankind.

Trumpet Warning #1

The first trumpet in John’s apocalyptic vision (Rev 8:7) describes hail and fire mixed with blood falling to the ground, and approximately 33% of all of the grass and trees in the known world destroyed. During World War I, large amounts of artillery shells and chemical agents were released on troops for the first time in history through modern warfare, killing as many as 18 million people. Soldiers on both sides burned vast tracts of land in order to eliminate any natural or man-made items that their enemies could use.

Trumpet Warning #2

The second trumpet foretold another great war, World War II (Rev 8:8-9). The Bible explains that a third of the ships involved in the conflict would be destroyed. During World War II, that is what occurred -- approximately one third of the ships that participated in the conflict were sunk. Additionally, the nuclear bombs deployed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki resembled “something like a great mountain burning with fire” (Rev 8:8), a sight that was phenomenally new on the world stage. Death toll estimates range as high as 70 million, the deadliest in world history.

Trumpet Warning #3

The third trumpet (Rev 8:10-11) prophetically describes the nuclear age which we live in, with the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl being the flagship. Apocalyptically, this disaster is described as a star, called Wormwood, falling and affecting a third of the waters. Take note that “chernobyl” is the Ukrainian translation for the word “wormwood”. Furthermore, the nuclear radiation that emanated from the Chernobyl meltdown contaminated more than 33 percent of the water supply in Europe and Western Asia, killing thousands and affecting hundreds of thousands of other citizens with diseases caused by the radiation.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age at the beginning of the 20^th century, mankind has lived with the fear of nuclear contamination, nuclear meltdowns, and nuclear warfare. While recently touring the Reactor B plutonium site at Hanford, I noticed a quote made by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leading scientist on the Manhattan project.  When the first atom bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico, he remarked that it brought to mind words from a Hindu writing: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Fearful that the Germans would beat the allies in developing a nuclear weapon, physicist Albert Einstein wrote to FDR, urgently pushing America's atomic bomb development. But after the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he and many scientists on the project publicly expressed deep regret. “I made one great mistake in my life”, he wrote in 1954, “when I signed a letter to FDR recommending that atom bombs be made.”

The atomic bomb is such a significant warning to mankind of the impending end of the age that it is actually mentioned at least three times in the prophecies of Revelation – 8:8; 8:10; 13:13; and possibly 9:18 (although that war seems to be conventional -- tanks, artillery and aircraft).

Flirting With fire

King David sent his army out to battle while he stayed back in the city (I Chron 20:1). That seems innocent enough. So innocent that I have never heard anyone else belabor the point and explain why that comment is included by the chronicler of the kings’ stories. But I think I have come to understand how much meaning is packed into that little statement. Allow me some imaginative license in interpreting the story, embellishment you might call it, because I think we need to hear it. It was not innocent happenstance that occurred when David looked down from his rooftop.

David was a warrior. Always was. Never going to quit. To stay home and send Joab out to lead his army was more than significant. It had intrigue written all over it. Sad thing was, the few who could see and know what was going on, they all kept silent and let David blow it big time. After all, no one tells a king what he should and shouldn’t do. No one, that is, except God. And God chose to wait and let this whole thing run its full course before He sent the prophet Nathan to David’s front door.

David had just conquered the city of Jebus, probably less than ten years prior to this story. He made it the “City of David” -- Jerusalem, as it would come to be known. But at this point in his life he had only built his palace, and homes for his thirty mighty men surrounding the palace. One of those homes was that of Uriah and Bathsheba.

While it may have been customary for people to go to the roof of their home to take a bath in the warm sun, it could have, and should have been done modestly and discreetly. I don’t think the first viewing of Bathsheba bathing on the roof top below happened after the army went out to war. It had begun months earlier. In fact, she may have even known that David was watching her. I even suspect that there had already begun some flirting and clandestine liaisons taking place. Definitely some flirtatious glances and suggestive gestures. That is the underlying reason why David stayed behind in the city instead of going out with his army. The lure of seduction and an affair with a beautiful woman incapacitated his ability to be reasonable and responsible. He was swept off his feet with the possibility of how far this affair could go if Joab and the other mighty men were all gone, and he was home alone. That’s the nature of sexual addiction. Blind and reckless.

So, now, Joab is gone, and the opportunity is ripe. David sent for Bathsheba to come to his palace, maybe for lunch, or afternoon tea. And what had started as flirting and lustful desires burst into a blazing fire. There were probably repeated visits, and everyone turned a blind eye. David was so blinded by the fire of his passions that he essentially tuned out God for a year of his life and followed the passion of sexual desire. So much so that he tried to cover over her pregnancy, and with that attempt failing, he had Uriah killed. With Uriah dead David may have hoped that the story in the headlines of the Gazette would read, “King David steps up to the plate, honorably refusing to leave Uriah’s pregnant wife as a widow.”

But the fire still would not have gone out. What started as a spark began to smolder and catch flame. Then the raging fire wreaked havoc, as sexual lust and unleashed pleasure always do. Only God could put out the fire and restore the damage. He sent the prophet Nathan. And David responded wholeheartedly, a man after God’s own heart. His confession is as real as real can get (Psalm 51).

The lesson for us, both men and women, is to be aware how dangerous it is to flirt with fire. Knowing glances, playful comments and gestures, wishful desires -- they all have disaster written on the label. Flammable. And secondly, if you find yourself making plans to fulfil your lustful desires, you have one of two choices. You can pour gas on the fire and let her rip. Or you can disclose it to a friend who will keep you from shipwreck. And for God’s sake, if you have a friend disclose to you impending disaster, take them seriously. Don’t stand back and watch the flames.

“Guard your heart, with all diligence, for it is the well spring of life…. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? … So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her will not go unpunished.”  (Prov 4:23; 5:27,29)