Bible Commentaries
Revelation 10

IX

THE SOUNDING OF THE TRUMPETS

Revelation 8:2-10:1

We now take up that section of the book of Revelation that relates to the sounding of the seven trumpets, which commences at Revelation 8:2, and extends to the end of chapter II. But I shall not be able to expound the entire section in one chapter; I will try, however, to cover so much of it as extends to Revelation 10:8, leaving for the next study the most of Revelation 10 and the whole of II. You will observe that, as in the seals, here there are two groups, four and three. There was quite a distinction between the first group of seals and the three that followed; and so there will be quite a distinction between the group of four trumpets and the three that follow.

The general meaning of the sounding of the trumpets is the gospel as prayed from John’s time to the second coming of Christ. The seals, you will remember, were the gospel as preached from John’s time to the second advent. Every sounding of a trumpet comes as a response, not to a sermon, but to a prayer. We make a great mistake when we limit the power of the gospel to its preaching, for a very large part of its power is dependent upon its praying. The preaching is more conspicuous, and oftentimes a preacher takes credit to himself for the power of his sermons, when perhaps the power came from some obscure member of the church who prayed while he preached. Realizing this, I made it a habit of my pastoral life to engage a number of the most spiritually minded members of my church to enter into a covenant to pray for me every Sunday while I preached. Even the apostle Paul felt his great dependence upon the prayers of his brethren and sisters, and earnestly solicited their prayers. Just so I would count the friends of the seminary who prayed for its endowment as upon the agents who worked for its endowment. It is an old saying that "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees."

The key passage of this section is as follows (Revelation 8:3-5) : "And another angel came and stood over the altar" – that means not the brazen altar of sacrifice, but the golden altar of incense "having a golden censer, and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel taketh censer and he filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake."

A Bible student should understand the relative positions and distinctive purposes of the brazen altar and the golden altar. The first was in the outer court and for sacrifices. The other was in the holy place, and was for prayer based on the preceding sacrifice. Hence, the prayer "for Christ’s sake" – that is because he died for us. Prayer without expiation has no foundation.

It is evident from this key passage that what the trumpets will tell us about comes as a response to prayers offered to God, and when that censer is emptied upon the earth, then the trumpets begin to sound, each trumpet a response to prayers.

Let the reader note that this angel standing over the golden altar with the golden censer, which holds the incense, representing prayers on earth coming up before God in heaven, is the great high priest Jesus Christ himself, the angel of the covenant. Throughout the Old Testament the offering of incense before the mercy seat symbolizes prayers offered in the outer court. David says: "Let the lifting up of my hands be as the incense." And when the high priest entered into the holy of holies he carried that golden censer filled with frankincense, and kindled it with a coal from the brazen altar, and as it kindled the smoke went up in a fragrant cloud; it represented the prayers ascending to God. You are to understand that the prayers are uttered on earth, but this is a picture of their presentation in heaven – the reception accorded these petitions and the responses given, and you must distinguish between the martyr cry of the last lesson and these prayers here. That martyr cry was for a single thing – it came from martyrs only. These are the prayers of all God’s people continually going up.

Now, seven angels stood, each with a trumpet, prepared to sound just as the high priest, having offered these prayers poured out on the earth coals of fire from the altar. The first angel sounded (Revelation 8:7): "And there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth, and a third part of the earth was burned up, and a third part of the trees was burned up, and all the green grass was burned up." In telling you what I conceive to be the meaning of these seven trumpets I speak with great diffidence – I will not be as dogmatic about it as I am about some of my interpretations. The wisest men and the greatest scholars on the earth may well differ in interpreting some of the imagery of this wonderful book. I am satisfied in my own mind, however, that I am giving you the true meaning.

In order, then, to get at the meaning of this first trumpet you are to ask: What, or who, was the great enemy in John’s time oppressing the church? It was pagan Rome – that fourth great world empire that Daniel saw, and that was terrible. At this particular time, Rome had commenced a worldwide persecution of the Christians; John himself was in exile on account of it, and not a church in the empire was safe from its cruel hands. Now, of course, the Christians prayed about that; they could not help it. And the first trumpet sounded. I understand that first trumpet to mean the judgment upon the Roman Empire – the pagan Roman Empire – that caused its decline. And thus judgment means the invasion of nations from the North; Scandinavia, Germany, and beyond the Danube even from the shores of the Baltic – out of their forests came the untamed Germans and Goths, and across the Danube came the Vandals and Huns. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, shows how the invasion of these hordes from the German forests and across the Danube broke over all the boundaries of the Roman power, and carried their wasting influence with fire and sword into Italy itself. That is the meaning of the first trumpet.

Revelation 8:8: "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, and there died a third part of the creatures that were in the sea, even them that had life, and a third part of the ships were destroyed." Now, a mountain in Revelation means a city, and near to the city of Rome was that great volcano, Vesuvius, whose eruptions, when they poured into the sea have attracted the attention of the world. Pompeii and Herculaneum, two cities, were buried under one of these eruptions (A.D. 79). So this second trumpet signifies the downfall of the state of Rome itself. The first trumpet prepared for it; the second trumpet strikes at the Roman Empire in its heart and center. Dr. Lyman Beecher says it took Rome 300 years to die, and Gibbon, as he writes about the decline, writes also about the fall – the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I shall not attempt here to give the number or order of the irruptions of Northern barbarians that first shattered and then completely wrecked imperial Rome. That empire, according to the prophecy of Daniel, divided into ten kingdoms. But, anyhow, this great civilization that built roads that are good today, and walls that stand today, and whose iron organization held the whole civilized world in its sway, went down at last because poor women and children and fathers, Christians, prayed.

The third angel sounded, "and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers and of the fountains of waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood; a third part of the waters became wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter." That word "torch" really means a lamp – "There fell from heaven a great star, burning as a lamp." A lamp in this book stands for a church, and hence the meaning of this passage is that one of the luminaries that God intended for enlightening the world became apostate, this is the symbol of the paganized church, which succeeded pagan Rome, and hence after that it was called the "Holy Roman Empire." In a later revelation we will find similar reference (Revelation 13:3) where, when the pagan head of the empire was wounded unto death, it was healed by an ecclesiastical head.

You will notice its effect upon the fountains and the rivers, that this apostasy poisoned the sources of life – the very sources of thought and reason and life among the people. The imagery of casting wormwood into water which all must drink is very striking. It reverses the miracle of Moses, who cast a tree into the bitter waters and made them sweet (Exodus 15:23-25). There was great glorification when Constantine, the Roman emperor, united the church and state, and gradually the state became subordinate to the church. And when the state perished, the church survived, claiming that it held both ecclesiastical and civil swords. The Pope today demands that nations send their ambassadors to him, because of his claim to be a civil as well as ecclesiastical ruler. For quite a while there were many papal states – that is, states under the Pope, who was as much their ruler as the English king is the ruler over England; Lombardy, Venice, Tuscany, and quite a number of others, and that civil power was exercised more or less until Garibaldi arose, and until Victor Emmanuel established a free church in a free state – that is, he separated the civil from the ecclesiastical power.

The fourth angel sounded, "and a third part of the sun was smitten, and a third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars, and that a third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for a third part of it, and the night in like manner." What does that mean? That following the establishment of the apostasy of the Romish church, the sources of light were eclipsed and the dark ages followed. Our book commences with luminaries – sun, stars, lamps, appointed to lighten the world. But apostate churches and preachers lose their shining power. Here he is not referring to the material sun, moon, and stars, they are symbols. The dark ages, so thoroughly known in history, followed the establishment of the papacy as a Holy Roman Empire. There were hundreds and thousands of nominal churches and nominal preachers, but the preachers did not preach the gospel, and these socalled churches did not shine; the light that was in them was darkness. The virgin Mary supplanted Christ, and so the sun of chapter I was darkened. Ordinances were fearfully perverted and sacraments added. The saddest volumes of the annals of time that I read today are the volumes that tell about the dark ages following this assumption of power by the papacy.

I read Revelation 8:13: "And I saw and heard an eagle" – or as some versions, and better ones, have it, an "angel" – flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice: Woe, Woe, Woe" – that is, three woes – "for them that dwell on the earth by reason of the voice of the trumpet of the three angels that are yet to sound." This is a prelude to the second group – a group of three, – distinguished by a "woe" for each trumpet. It means that when a perverted ecclesiasticism, such as the papacy was, dominates the world, woes of incalculable horror are sure to follow. So we note the next (Revelation 9:1): "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen unto earth", now, don’t read that: "I saw a star falling unto the earth," that is not what it says; that star used to belong to heaven, but it was already fallen when seen here. Satan was once called Lucifer – that means brightness of the morning, and he is so styled in the Old Testament before his downfall. He is the fallen star here, and as the church lights are eclipsed through apostasy, so this apostate angel. He will get in a subtle, malicious piece of work here, as we will see, "And there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss" – you might say the key to hell itself – "and he opened the pit of the abyss, and there went up smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun was darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke of the pit came forth locusts upon the earth, and power was given them as scorpions of the earth have power, and it was said unto them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only [notice whom they are to hurt] but only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads; and it was given them that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months." Any one who has studied the history of the locusts knows that the locust period is five months. But if we follow the numbers of Revelation we will find that every day represents a year. The five months, therefore, would represent about 150 years, though the five months are put in here because they correspond to the locust period. "And their torment was as the torment of scorpions when it striketh a man. And in these days men would seek death but should in no wise find it, and they shall desire to die and death fleeth from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto a horse prepared for war, and upon their heads crowns like unto gold; their faces were as man’s face; they had hair as the hair of a woman; their teeth were as the teeth of lions; and they had breastplates, as it were, of iron, and the sound of their wings was as of the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to war, and they had tails like unto the scorpion and stung, and in their tails was their power to hurt men five months. They had over them as a king the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek Apollyon, which means destroyer" – which also means the devil.

The special points to note here are:

1. This hell smoke darkened the sun and the air. That is, by darkening the atmosphere, the medium through which sunlight shines on the earth, the sun could not be seen. See account in Genesis I, where the heavenly luminaries, though existing, do not appear until the atmosphere is created. As in this book, the spiritual lights are Christ, the churches, and the pastors. Any smoke the devil may send will prevent the earth from being illumined by them.

2. That the haze of this smoke generates tormentors, compared to locusts.

3. That those tormented are not the children of light, but the children of darkness. They hurt not Christians, but torment infidels and atheists.

4. The connection between a corrupt ecclesiasticism and atheism. The latter follows the former as a natural result.

5. The meaning of the locusts. When we were in the Old Testament, in the prophecy of Joel, under the imagery of locusts a great evil was symbolically presented. And in this symbolic language you should not look for real locusts, but what they symbolize. The devil is their king; they come out of hell itself. It is not their purpose to kill men, but to torment them. They are not allowed to torment a Christian, for he has light; but only those who by the smoke are hindered from seeing the light; those that have not the seal of God on their foreheads. Whatever these tormentors are, they trouble only infidels and atheists.

Some interpreters very foolishly construed these locusts to represent the Saracens or Mohammedans, but when the Saracens struck they killed and the chief objects of their vengeance were the Christian nations. They did not seek so much to torment as to kill, and so that interpretation fails to fit the case. What, then, is the thought symbolically presented in this cloud of locusts that torment men who were not Christians? My answer is, a corrupt ecclesiasticism, especially when united with the state, breeds atheism and theism breeds restlessness and torment. It looses the tiger. The Jews have a proverb: When the tale of brick is doubled then comes Moses. It is also a proverb: Given the ecclesiastical corruption in France – then comes Voltaire. Given Voltaire and then the tiger is loosed. The testimony is abundant that the Romanist hierarchy became corrupt from Pope to priest. Monasteries and nunneries were as cages of unclean birds. In the interest of morality nations suppressed them. See the history of them in England. The priests had no gospel. The churches and cathedrals were full of idolatry. When men go to church to find Christ and see only the virgin Mary; when preachers are substituted by priests; the gospel exchanged for ritualism; there comes in a revulsion of public sentiment from the Christian religion, embodied in the only form they see it. Infidelity in France, voiced by Voltaire; rationalism in Germany, or in England led by Bolingbroke, Hume, and Taylor, in America by Paine and Ingersoll – all of it is a rebound from corrupt ecclesiasticism. All sacred things become profane; they are without God and hope in the world.

Now we are coming to the locusts. Take God away from man – power away from prayer, no church to visit, no sermons to hear, turned away from all supernaturalism, the ship of life hails from no port and is bound to none, drifts on uncharted seas without helm or compass, at the mercy of winds and tides and sunken reefs; when all standards of authority are lost, when no solution of life’s problems can be found in the conflicting vagaries of philosophy – the mind preys on itself. Restlessness and discontent pervade the masses. Then swarm those tormenting locusts of atheism. There were certainly in dark ages, and even later, periods of awful horror. Maniacs filled the forests. All law was gone. Freebooters, banditti, free companies, roved at their own will and nowhere were peace and safety. It was a time of torment. The devil delighted to torment the very people he had beguiled. He agreed with them that their church was bad, and suggested that they follow him. Such was the first woe.

The author adds: "Behold, there come yet two woes hereafter," but it gives only one of them, as the woe of the seventh trumpet is reserved for the latter part of the book. Revelation 9:13: "And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God, and one saying to the sixth angel that had the trumpet: Loose the four angels that are bound at the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, that had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month and the year, that they should kill the third part of men. And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand: I heard the number of them [that means two hundred million]. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and they that sat on them, having breastplates of fire and hyacinth and of brimstone: and the heads of the horses are as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three plagues was the third part of man killed, by the fire, and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses was in their mouths, and in their tails, for their tails are like unto serpents and have heads, and with them they hurt. And the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they repented not of their murders and their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."

Now, I have twice in my life changed my own mind as to what is symbolized by that great army of horsemen, coming from the Euphrates, from over the east. I once thought that it symbolized the European wars commencing with Napoleon Bonaparte and lasting to the present time. But I do not now think that is right. There was a power in history that did come from the East, and it was an army of cavalry of uncounted numbers, and they did sweep over the fairest part of the earth, and particularly did they strike hard against apostate churches, both the Roman and the Greek Catholics. They were the Saracens. Mohammed, who was the founder of their religion, arose in the sixth century. As it grew in power it swept over all Asia from the Euphrates to Constantinople, captured the Holy Land, all Asia Minor, including the territory of these seven churches, crossed the Bosphorus and the Balkan mountains to thunder at the gate of Vienna. They captured Greece and the eastern Mediterranean islands, captured North Africa, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and founded a kingdom in Spain, entered France and would have swept all Europe but for the disastrous defeat at Tours by Charles Martel. Against their strongholds in the Holy Land the Crusades of confederated Europe were broken. It is yet a great power, kindling today its fires of war in the Balkans. God used the Mohammedans to strike the apostate Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic churches. These, as I think, were the horses of the sixth trumpet, the second great woe.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the general meaning of the trumpets? And what is the key passage disclosing this meaning?

2. Where in tabernacle and Temple was the golden altar and what its relation to the brazen altar of sacrifice, and what did incense symbolize?

3. Who was the angel with the censer?

4. What great enemy at this time, by cruel and worldwide persecution, was driving Christians to prayer?

5. What, then, probably, the meaning of the first trumpet?

6. In this book what does a mountain symbolize?

7. What natural prodigy in Italy probably suggested the imagery of a volcano overturned in the sea?

8. What is, probably, the meaning of the second trumpet?

9. What is the meaning of a torch in Revelation 8:10?

10. When, a fallen luminary like a burning lamp, poisons the fountains and rivers, sources of life, making the waters bitter, and causing the death of many – what probably is meant by the third trumpet?

11. What miracle of Moses reversed the thought here?

12. What probably is the meaning of the fourth trumpet?

13. What is the meaning of the prelude to the second group of trumpets (Revelation 8:13)?

14. Who is the fallen star of Revelation 9:1? Cite his Old Testament name and two names here.

15. What effect on the luminaries by this hell smoke? And how brought about?

16. What then, probably, the locusts?

17. What is probably the meaning of the sixth trumpet and second woe?

Verses 1-19

X

THE SOUNDING OF THE TRUMPETS (CONTINUED)

Revelation 10-11

We have seen under the first trumpet the decline of the pagan Roman Empire, brought about by the barbaric nations from the German forests and the lower Danube. We have seen under the second trumpet the complete overthrow of pagan Rome as a volcano is erupted, turned over into the sea. We have seen under the third trumpet the apostasy of the Roman church, resulting in papal Rome poisoning all the sources of life. We have seen under the fourth trumpet the dark ages resulting from this apostasy, dimming the light of the luminaries appointed to lighten the world. This was the first group of trumpets, four in number.

In the succeeding group of three an emphasis is added – each trumpet is followed by a woe, the second woe worse than the first, and the third to be more direful than the second. The fifth trumpet, we have found, introduces the first woe, which is directly attributed to Satan. Resulting from the apostasy and its corruption comes a revolt against all sacred things, taking the direction of infidelity, rationalism, and atheism. Satan’s hell smoke increases the darkness by thickening the atmosphere through which light would shine, breeding restlessness of spirit and torment of soul in all who are thus without God and without hope in the world. The torments are compared to locusts with scorpion stings.

Under the sixth trumpet, sounding the second woe, we have seen the rise and conquest of Mohammedan power, sweeping with fire and sword from the Euphrates to Vienna in one direction, and in another direction from northern Africa into Spain and France. For its idolatries and corruptions we have seen the Greek Catholic apostasy lose all its territory to the Saracen, including the Holy Land, Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople; and the Roman Catholic apostasy smitten in the Mediterranean and in southwestern Europe, and all its crusades buried back as waves repulsed by a mountain coast. The seven thunders are merely announced, what they mean is sealed up for the present (Revelation 10:4), but to be given in a later revelation from a different angle of vision, to wit: the seven plagues inflicted on the apostate church under the symbol of the harlot woman in purple and scarlet (Revelation 15-16). It is also announced that when the seventh trumpet does sound then will be finished the mystery of the kingdom of God (Revelation 10:7), but before this conclusion is reached the Revelator will answer certain questions, to wit: in all this record of apostasies, and the consequent dark ages and persecutions and judgments on the apostasies, what becomes of the true church and the pure gospel? Does the Spirit dispensation fail? Are all the candlesticks removed? Do all preachers abandon the gospel and become priests of heresy?

Revelation 10-11 answer these questions, and bring us to the glorious triumph of the seventh trumpet, omitting only for the time being the last woe, to be given in Revelation 18, from another synchronous view. We take up, therefore, the interpretation of these glorious chapters.

"And I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet were as pillars of fire." This evidently, from the description, is the angel of the Covenant) our glorified Lord himself. "And he had in his hand a little open book." This little book is not the sealed book of Revelation 5:1. That was the book of future events concerning the kingdom. This little book, named again in Revelation 5:8-10, signifies the restored gospel, which had been shut up by the apostasy.

"And he set his right foot upon the sea and his left upon the earth; and he cried with a great voice, as a lion roareth, and when he cried the seven thunders uttered their voices, and when the seven thunders uttered their voices I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel that I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created the heavens and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea and the things that are therein, that there shall be delay no longer."

We note first the posture of the angel – one foot on the land and one on the sea, to signify that all the earth, land’ and sea, is under his authority. We note second the mere announcement now of the seven thunders, not recorded now, but to be given as the seven vials of wrath in a subsequent vision (Revelation 15-16). We note third the oath of the angel (Revelation 10:6) "that there shall be delay no longer" – the King James Version obscures the meaning of this glorious promise.

The promise directly responds to the martyr cry of the fifth seal: "How long, O Master, the Holy and True, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:10). The answer given them was: "Rest yet for a little time, until thy fellow-servants also, and thy brethren, who shall be killed even as ye were, shall have fulfilled their course", but now the answer is: "There shall be delay no longer."

Revelation 10:7 further assures, what will be stated more particularly at the end of chapter Revelation 11, that the mystery of the kingdom of God will be finished when the seventh trumpet sounds. We find all that in Revelation 11:15-19.

We must connect with the reply to the martyr cry in Revelation 6:10, and the different reply here: "There shall be delay no longer," the great lesson in 2 Peter 3:3-13. The "little time" of waiting for vengeance is little in God’s sight, not ours: "But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Thus in Revelation 6:3-7, having anticipated for assurance’ sake later things, the Revelator resumes the story of the little open book in Revelation 6:8-11. Let us read them: "And the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard it again speaking with me and saying: Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel that standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, saying unto him that he should give me the little book. And be saith unto me: take it, and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and when I had eaten it my belly was made bitter. And they say unto me: Thou must prophesy again over many peoples and tongues and nations and kings."

We repeat that this book differs in important particulars from the book of Revelation 5:1. That was sealed – this is open; that was written on both sides – not this one. This one is expressly called the little book, Greek bibliridion. That book remained in the Revelator’s hands – this one is given to John and eaten by him. Being eaten it was sweet; after eaten it was bitter. After eating it he should prophesy again over many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.

Just here I commend again the very able and judicious comments of Dr. Justin A. Smith on this passage, but I give you briefly my own interpretation:

1. The result of the great apostasy was to pervert and shut up the true gospel, until the Reformation of the sixteenth century. It was a typical event when Luther found a chained Bible. An ecclesiasticism combining defunct Old Testament elements with many pagan superstitions offered as a gospel that which was another gospel, and contrary to the true gospel.

2. The little open book, therefore, represents the restored gospel of the Reformation. When Victor Emmanuel entered Rome, breaking down the civil power of the Pope, he carried at the head of his army an open Bible, that Rome had not known for centuries.

3. When that restored gospel is eaten, appropriated, and assimilated by faith, a new era of missions to many new nations would dawn. An open Bible in the hands of the people scatters the superstitious rubbish of the false ecclesiasticism and propagation of the recovered gospel extends to earth’s remotest bounds. The idea of Revelation 10:11, is thus repeated in a subsequent vision (Revelation 14:6): "And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having eternal good tidings to proclaim to them that dwell on the earth; and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people." It is a noticeable fact that missionary operations commenced with the rescue of the Bible; it was translated into the tongues of the people, and preachers began to carry it to the ends of the earth, and ever since that day missions to all nations have taken colossal strides.

Having thus in Revelation 10 seen the restored gospel, we consider in Revelation 11 the questions: What about the true church in the dark ages of the apostasy? Measured by man, the church in the West, that is, in Europe, is the Roman Catholic apostasy; and the church in the East is the Greek Catholic apostasy, and man will tell you that within that time there were no other churches. Your average church historian will tell you that. But we will let God answer that question (Revelation 11:1) : "And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that worship therein. And the court which is without the temple leave without and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations) and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." Under this unique measurement only the true temple with its altar of sacrifice and its few worshippers are counted. The outer court and all the holy city are left out. These are trodden under foot by the nations forty-two months, which equals one thousand two hundred and sixty days of the next verse. And in this book a prophetic day represents a year; as in its Old Testament analogue, Ezekiel. The forty-two months and their equivalent, 1,260 days, symbolizing 1,260 years, date the dark ages of the apostasy – beginning in the third century and extending to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The true church in this period is an inner circle determined by divine spiritual measurement. When in Zechariah a young man attempts to measure the poor little Jerusalem of the restoration, a voice from heaven says: "Stop that young man," and announces that Jerusalem shall become immeasurable, overflowing into the villages and country round about, a forecast of the Jerusalem in Revelation 21:22.

Now let us read again: "And I will give unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth." Note that during all this dark period of 1,260 years, two witnesses never cease to testify, though in sackcloth. Their testimony is costly to them – it is testimony as at a funeral, mourning for the apostasy of Zion, and for the slain of the true people of God.

Here the important question arises: Who are these witnesses? The Old Testament analogue, in the third and fourth chapters of Zechariah, suggests the clue to the right answer. In the dark ages when Israel was restored after exile in Babylon, there were two anointed witnesses accused of the devil, despised of men, namely, Joshua, the high priest, and Zerubbabel, the civil ruler. In themselves was no power. Considering the mountain of difficulty which obstructed their work they were contemptible agencies of success. But considering the divine help, it was said: "Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting: Grace, Grace unto it." Truly in that case it was "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." So in this case, as in that case, are two witnesses, but the question recurs: Who are they in this case? My answer is that the key passage of this book, Revelation 1:12-16, tells us plainly: "The candlestick and the star are the light-bearers" – i.e., the church and the preacher; they are the lower lights to illumine the world. The gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ’s church: the testimony of true ministers shall never cease. It has always been a surprise to me that commentators should be in doubt about these two witnesses. The true church and the true minister should testify in sackcloth for 1,260 years. They should be in mourning for the apostasy, for the slain of its persecution.

In the next synchronous vision the true church symbolized as a glorious woman of Revelation 12:1, shall be driven into the wilderness, hidden but not lost, for this precise period –,260 years (Revelation 12:6). The power ascribed to these two witnesses is set forth under the imagery of Revelation 12:5 and Revelation 12:6: "And if any man desire to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man desire to hurt them in this manner must he be killed. These have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire." This imagery applies to their use of the conquering word of God in denouncing judgment on their enemies, or else in the power of their prayers, as in the case of Elijah shutting up the heavens that it rain not.

Again counting a day for a year, we will see in what I soon quote that for three and a half days (or three and a half years), both of these witnesses seemed to be dead: "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh out of the abyss [beast always signifies government, and the abyss signifies that it is a hell government, and we will find all about it in Revelation 17] shall make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb [not that]. And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them and make merry; and they shall send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth."

That faithful churches – and faithful preachers – would point out their sins, cry out against their backsliding, was a torment to the apostasy through all the 1,260 years. "And after the three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that beheld them."

We may well ask just here what event of history corresponds to this prophecy. Here I cannot do better than to cite a remarkable passage from Dr. Justin A. Smith’s commentary.:

No purpose of God, as regards the gospel of man’s salvation, fails. He permits to his gospel a fiery ordeal, extending through many centuries. But at the fit time he appears again in its behalf, and through chosen instruments causes it to be once more declared, as here represented in the little book, in primeval simplicity, and in a ministry that bears it "to all the world." By what appears in the eleventh chapter, we are given to understand that while the outer court of the symbolical temple, and the city itself, are trodden under foot by the enemies of God and truth and righteousness, the inner sanctuary is kept safe; in other words, there survives, in the very worst of times, a faithful remnant by whom an undesecrated altar is preserved, a true worship offered, and that truth which embodies the substance of ancient types maintained. These are the witnesses. The voice of a true testimony in God’s behalf does not die out of the world, even when persecution rages most hotly; nor is it holy ground even when the world’s loud tumult is at its worst. These witnesses do, indeed, testify – "prophesy" – "in sackcloth" – the garment of distress and mourning. Such of the Lord’s true people as survive in such times are a hunted flock. The truth itself is under reproach, the deriding voices rave against it. The true church and its ordinances are, in the world’s esteem, placed in humiliating contrast with the shows and splendours of that apostasy which for the time is supreme, while everything beautiful and sacred and beneficent in Christianity is as if clad in sackcloth of humiliation, and lamenting, in the language of the ancient prophet, that there are none to stand upon the Lord’s side. And there comes a time when the triumph of evil seems complete. It is the deeper gloom that precedes the dawn. All the powers of darkness triumph. The murderers of the witnesses rejoice over them and make merry, and send gifts one to another. But the triumph is brief. Just at this crisis God appears for His truth and His people. The slain witnesses stand upon their feet. They rise into vigour of life like the glory that shone in the person and face of the risen Lord. Their enemies behold them with consternation, and the triumph which now comes to them in turn is like the Lord’s own ascension to heaven in a cloud, receiving all power in heaven and in earth. Effects follow which show how truly divine is that intervention. The hostile power shakes, as when earthquakes rock the globe, while the great and wicked city, in whose streets the slain witnesses have lain, feels the shock.

This is, in general, the picture sketched for us in the striking symbolism of this chapter. If we have read this symbolism right, there can be, it would seem, only one answer to the question where the historical counterpart shall be sought. There is one point of crisis in modern times which fulfils in a remarkable degree the conditions of an adequate historical parallel to the Apocalyptic picture here sketched. Not as fulfilments of the prophecy in exact detail, but as indicating some general aspects of the period as having this significance, we note the following:

In A.D. 1512-17, a council was held in Rome, called from the place of its assembly – the Church of St. John Lateran – the Fifth Lateran Council. At the eighth session of this council, held in December, 1513, a papal bull was issued, in which was a summons to all dissidents from the papal authority to appear before the council at its next session, in the following May, and to show cause for their continued refusal to acknowledge the Pope’s supremacy. When the Council came together in that session, May 5, 1514, no answer appeared to this summons. Not that there were no longer those in Christendom who refused allegiance to the usurped authority of Rome, nor because any one could have imagined that opportunity for a free protest before the Council would have been allowed; not because, joined with the impossibility of a response under such conditions, it was a fact that just at that time there actually was no one ready, like the Wyckliffe and the Huss of a former age, or the Luther who was soon to appear, to give a voice to the spirit of revolt against Rome, which, though widely prevalent, was for the most part nursed in secret. "Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom," says Elliott – and his words are true in the sense just explained – “Christ’s witnessing servants were silenced" – they appeared as dead. The orator of the session ascended the pulpit, and, amidst the applause of the assembled Council, uttered that memorable exclamation of triumph – an exclamation which, notwithstanding the long multiplied anti-heretical decrees of popes and councils, notwithstanding the more multiplied anti-heretical crusade and inquisitorial fires, was never, I believe, pronounced before, and certainly never since: "Jam nemoreclamat, nullus obsistit!" – "There is an end of resistance to the papal rule and religion; opposers exist no morel" And again, "The whole body of Christendom is now seen to be subjected to its head, that is, to thee." Three years and a half later, October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg church door!

It is undoubtedly true that for some time previous to the meeting of this Fifth Lateran Council, as described, the murderers of God’s people had been especially active, with results of intimidation and the apparent silencing of dissent and protest highly gratifying to the hierarchy. The crusaders against the Albigenses and Waldenses had well-nigh extirpated those troublesome heretics. The measures of the Inquisition in various parts of Europe had succeeded to the utmost wish of those by whom they were carried on. A threatening schism in the papal body itself was healed during the session of this Council. So fully, in view of all, did the members of the Council sympathize in the exultant confidence of their orator that upon the final adjournment they celebrated the triumph which Popery seemed to have achieved in a feast, whose splendour had never in Rome been equalled. It was like the rejoicing, the merrymaking and the sending of gifts of which our prophecy speaks. It is also matter of history that in that same Council there was an emphatic reaffirmation, of the long-standing papal law that the bodies of heretics should be denied all rights of Christian burial; so that here, also, we find almost literal fulfilment of the words: "Do not suffer their bodies to be put in graves." These conspicuous examples of the application of this law in the exhuming and burning of the bones of Wickliffe, at an earlier date, by command of the Council of Constance, and the direction given by the same Council that the ashes of Huss should be cast into the Lake of Constance, are familiar facts. It may be added that in like manner the ashes of Savonarola were thrown into the Arno, and that it was common for the papal bulls to ordain that the heretics against whom they were fulminated should not only be put to death, but should be denied Christian burial.

Just three and a half years from that time all Europe was ablaze with the Reformation, and the Romanist power has never recovered from the shock it received.

Three things are said in our lesson of the effect of the revival of the witnesses:

1. "Great fear fell on all those who saw the revival" – which means that all the Romanist hierarchy trembled when the Reformation fires began to break out in so many places and among so many peoples of Europe.

2. The Romanist hierarchy heard the voice calling the witnesses up to heaven (Revelation 11:12). Heaven here is not the final abode of the blest, but the apocalyptic heaven, the scene of the vision, and means simply that their enemies witnessed honor and open exaltation conferred of God on these long despised witnesses.

3. Revelation 11:13, means the convulsions which followed the Reformation in which Rome lost and Protestantism won most of France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, and Scotland.

We come now to the last of the chapter:

THE SEVENTH ANGEL SOUNDS
Having thus disposed of the question: What about the true gospel and what about the true church during the dark ages, the last angel will sound, and will omit only the last woe, we will get to that in Revelation 18, and we will see that woe as it strikes the Papacy.

"And the seventh angel sounded: and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said: The kingdom of the world is be-come the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders re-presenting the eternal priesthood of Christ’s people], who sat before God on their throne, fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying: We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who art and who wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give thy rewards to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. And there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in this temple the ark of the covenant, and there followed lightnings and voices and thunders, and earthquake, and a great hail."

I showed you that the seals gave one panoramic view of the gospel as preached to the end of time, and that the trumpets gave you another panoramic view parallel with it, of the gospel as prayed to the end of time, and so this passage here: "The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ," shows that the recovered gospel in the Reformation times will never be silenced any more – Rome will never be able to shut again that open book! she will never be able to chain that Bible again; she will never be able to stop the onward march of missions that is today reaching the utmost parts of the world, and I would very solemnly impress upon you that it is the Spirit dispensation, and the dispensation of a true church, and the dispensation of a true ministry that will bring about this glorious consummation, which will be more fully discussed when we come to the Millennium in Revelation 20 of this book. I want to make this very impressive, because when you talk missions you must talk in faith of their triumph. It is the open restored gospel, and under its power you must preach confidently to any nation, to any king, to any people, and your heart must be assured that by this gospel preached, will every man be saved that is ever to be saved in this world. I will tell you that that is one of the key passages in Revelation: "The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ." The candlesticks were lighted to illumine the world, and though when in Revelation 2-3 we showed the pitiful imperfections of the churches, we wondered if such instrumentalities could ever enlighten the world, and when we saw the deficiencies of the preachers, we wondered if by men like these the kingdom of this world should ever become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ; yet when we saw the heavens opened and what powers were employed there to help the churches and preachers, we no longer wondered. As they preached they conquered; as they prayed they conquered; stricken down as if dead, they revived again and the fire broke out into a greater blaze, and was more widely spread than before. That is the crowd I belong to.

QUESTIONS

1. Give briefly a review of the seals & trumpets, and then tell what questions Revelation 10 answers, and what other questions Revelation 11 answers.

2. Who is the radiant angel of Revelation 10:1?

3. The meaning of his posture – one foot on the sea and the other on the land?

4. Why the temporary sealing up of the voices of the seven thunders? When and how do they reappear and find record? Where and for similar reasons have we found a temporary silence in a preceding section?

5. State the oath of the angel as wrongly rendered in the common version, and then as better rendered in the Standard Version.

6. (a) To what previous question is the oath a final answer, and (b) compare it with the answer then given, and (c) with what parable is it in agreement, and (d) give Peter’s reason for the delay, and (e) why does this delay seem long to us and only "a little while" to God?

7. Discriminate between the book of Revelation 5:1, and the book of Revelation 10:2, and then (a) tell what this book means, (b) the meaning of eating it, and (c) explain its application to Revelation 10:11.

8. What is measured in Revelation 11:1-2, and what does it mean?

9. (a) In the Old Testament are two measurements somewhat similar to the one in Revelation 11:1-2 – where are they, and (b) where in this book is another one? (c) Explain their relation to each other, and (d) what is the meaning of this one?

10. (a) How long will this small measure last, and (b) explain the symbolic numbers, forty-two months (Revelation 11:2), 1,260 days (11:3), and by comparison of Revelation 11:2-3, with Revelation 12:6, prove that "temple" in Revelation 11:1, and the woman in Revelation 12:1, mean the same thing.

11. (a) What is the Old Testament analogue of Revelation 11:3-4, and (b) the two witnesses there, and (c) who are the two witnesses here?

12. Meaning of "prophesying in sackcloth"?

13. Give the historic fulfilment of the death and revival of the witnesses and all the attendant circumstances of Revelation 11:7-11.

14. What is the meaning of Revelation 11:12?

15. What historical correspondence to Revelation 11:13, showing the effect of the revival of the witnesses?

16. Where will we find the third woe named but not given in Revelation 11:14?

17. What glorious consummation follows the seventh trumpet, and what parallel in the last synchronous view?