Bible Commentaries
Revelation 8

Verse 1

VIII

THE OPENING OF THE SEALS

Revelation 6:1-8:1

The theme of this chapter is the opening of the seals, or the gospel as preached from John’s time to the final advent of our Lord. As you observe, this study concludes with Revelation 8:1, separated from its context by artificial chapter division – it should be Revelation 7:17. The study introduces the prophetic element of the book, which extends to the end. From the standpoint of the writer, it is the first revelation of "the things which shall come to pass hereafter."

We will consider first the Revelator. In the gospel, our Lord is himself the revelation of God the Father: here he is the Revelator. He is presented in Revelation 5:6 thus: "A Lamb standing as though he had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God." The seven horns indicate fulness of authority and power in each of the seven churches. The seven eyes, explained as the seven Spirits of God, indicate his sending of the Holy Spirit, who on earth is his vicar and bears witness to him alone, and through whom he is present with and controls the seven churches. His worthiness to be the Revelator, and to constitute his people a kingdom and priests, and to receive all power, riches, wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessings, and dominion, is expressly ascribed to his vicarious expiation of sin as the Lamb slain. This appears in Revelation 5:9-10; Revelation 5:12-13, and his worthiness on this ground is recognized by the united voices of Cherubim, Elders, all the Holy Angels and by the whole creation. So qualified, he opens the seals and reveals in sublime imagery the future of the kingdom of God. And so this revelation is prophecy.

The seven disclosures which follow the opening of the seven seals are divided into two distinct groups: a group of four and a group of three. The four are introduced, one after another, by the four Cherubim in succession, and in response to their "Come," "Come," "Come," appear horses varying in color. With the group of three the Cherubim appear to have no direct connection. The fifth seal disclosure reveals the impatient martyr cry for vengeance, uttered on earth indeed, but here presented as it reaches heaven, and the sixth seal discloses portents which herald the long delayed vengeance for which the martyrs prayed. The opening of the seventh seal is followed by these words: "There was silence in heaven for half an hour." That is to say, temporarily there is no disclosure of what followed the opening of the seventh seal – the climax for a while is suppressed. We do not get to what that seventh seal would have disclosed until we reach the climax in Revelation 20, and in every other synchronous view there is a pause, or a suppression of the climax which, when it comes, fits all four of the synchronous views. We have already seen the agency of the Cherubim in giving revelations to Isaiah and Ezekiel. Now, let us take up this study in order. The First Seal: When our glorified Lord opened the first seal, one of the Cherubim shouted like thunder: "Come" – not "come and see" as the King James Version has it, as if spoken to John; not "come Lord Jesus, in thy final advent" as the premillennial interpreter would have it. The Cherub says "Come," and he is not calling either John or Jesus – they are both there with him. We know what each Cherub called for by what appeared in answer to the call. There appeared in succession, following the "Come," "Come," "Come," "Come," four horses with their riders. This imagery of different colored horses is borrowed from the book of Zechariah. In a paragraph of chapter I and in the whole of Revelation 6, we have Zechariah’s vision of the different colored horses and the chariots, which are explained as the four spirits which stand before the throne of God, and go forth unto all the earth at the bidding of God, and by whom all the earth is quieted. Here in our lesson we see these horses all going forth at the bidding of the four living creatures. In Zechariah the result of the going forth is the crowning of Joshua the high priest, followed by these words: "Behold the man whose name is the Branch, and he shall grow up out of his place; and he shall build a temple of Jehovah, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both" – that is, between the king and the priest – "and the crowns shall be distributed among his followers."

Here in our study the result is somewhat the same – the crowning of Christ the royal priest is followed by the crowning of all his followers. In Zechariah we have the type of the successful issue of the rebuilding of the Temple through Joshua and Zerubbabel, or high priest and civil government, and that in spite of all opposition. Here in Revelation, through these opened seals, we see the antitype, Christ’s successful building of his spiritual temple and the crowning of all his followers. In Zechariah all the chariots, no matter what the color of horses, contribute an appropriate part toward the glorious result, so here the work imaged by all these horses, whether apparently good or bad in individual result, conspired together to one glorious result. We cannot rightly interpret Revelation without antecedent understanding of these horses and chariots of Zechariah. But more particularly:

When one of the Cherubim said, "Come," the record states that there appeared a white horse and a rider who had a crown on his head, and carried a bow, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. This imagery shows the saving power of the gospel preached, to those who lovingly receive it, even unto the end of time. We shall see this same white horse and his rider reappear in the last synchronous view, (Revelation 19:11), but in a somewhat different role. The Old Testament prophecies throw much light on this royal rider and conqueror. In this connection turn to the Psalms 45:1-8: My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter; I speak the things which I have made touching the king: My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men; Grace is poured into thy lips: Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty One, Thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride on prosperously, Because of truth and meekness and righteousness: And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp; The peoples fall under thee; They are in the heart of the king’s enemies. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: Therefore God, thy God, bath anointed thee With the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia; Out of palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad.

Now, that tribute to the king in Psalm 45, going forth conquering, shooting his arrows, is very similar in meaning to this rider on the white horse that goes forth conquering and to conquer. So to interpret our vision, we must conceive of the risen, ascended, and glorified Christ receiving the kingdom, as it is set forth in Daniel 7:13-14: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto Son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the people, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroy-ed." In Daniel 7:18 it says: "But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even for ever and ever."

That passage in Daniel 7 tells of Christ’s ascension, and of his reception of the kingly power, and the manner in which he enlarged the kingdom here upon earth. It is in line with this rider on the white horse, going forth conquering and to conquer.

Again we have a similar thought in Psalm 2. "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision, Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion," and it concludes by saying: "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little," and "all the uttermost parts of the earth are given unto him for his possession." Psalm 2 is in line with Psalm 45, arid with Daniel 7, and portrays substantially what is accomplished by the rider on the white horse going forth conquering and to conquer.

Again, in Psalm 110 it is said: "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." That is spoken to Christ when he ascended into heaven after his resurrection. And then it goes on to show that from his throne in heaven Christ reigns here on earth, and that in the day he leads out his armies his young men shall be volunteers – not conscripts. And they shall go forth in the beauty of holiness and be as multitudinous as the drops of the dew in the dawn of the morning. Christ in heaven, having received his kingdom, is dispensing his word on earth through the Spirit, the churches, and the preachers. So the going forth of the white horse with its rider, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, signifies the gospel preached in its triumph. It brings life and peace to those who receive it and love it. It is so presented in Matthew 10:13: "When you go into a city or unto a house, say, Peace be on this house, and if there be in that house a son of peace, this peace shall rest on him."

This is the signification of the opening of the first seal, and we see the agency of the Cherubim in bringing it about.

The Second Seal (Revelation 6:4): "And another horse came forth, a red horse, and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, that they should slay one another. And there was given unto him a great sword." That means, in plain English, this: The divisive effect of the gospel preached to the end of time, in harmony with these words in Matthew 10:34-36: "I came not to send peace, but a sword, for I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother- in-law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household."

This red horse shows the same gospel preached, but having a different effect, according to the words of our Lord, as I have just read them. Now while the gospel is intended for love and peace, as presented in the imagery of the first horse and his rider, and while that effect follows when the gospel is lovingly received, yet on account of its high demands many reject it, and so it becomes the occasion of bitterness, contention, and strife. You can easily see why this is true, because the gospel wars against all selfishness, all impiety, all social evils, all idolatry, and every wicked business. Those following these evils array themselves against the gospel as its bitterest enemies when its preaching disturbs them. Take the case presented in Acts 16. Paul in the city of Philippi finds a poor girl possessed with a demon, ’owned by a syndicate of men, who count her money value in proportion to her subjection to the demon that possesses her, and they make their money out of the prostitution of this woman’s soul to Satan. Now the gospel comes there in the mouth of Paul and casts out that evil spirit. The result is that this syndicate, when they saw that the hope of their gain was gone, arrested Paul and Silas.

It had precisely this effect at Ephesus. It went forth conquering and to conquer, like the white horse. After a while it strikes the business of Demetrius, a silversmith, and other silver-smiths, who were making a big pile of money out of selling silver shrines representing the goddess Diana, and as Paul preached that "these be no gods that are made with hands," Demetrius said: "This man is breaking up our business," and he raised a row, with the result that Paul finally left the city. Now, every-where that the gospel is preached some will receive it lovingly, and some will reject its high claims and make for division, bitterness, and strife.

If any one of you go to a place and preach, and a mother of a family is converted, the unconverted father gets mad – or the daughter is converted and the son gets mad. There the gospel seems to have been the occasion of strife.

The Third Seal: "The third cherub said, Come, and I saw, and behold, a black horse, and he that sat thereon had a balance [that is, a pair of scales] in his hands. And I heard, as it were, a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying: A measure of wheat for a shilling; and three measures of barley for a shilling." What does that imagery represent? It represents the gospel in the hands of the hireling and apostate church, doling it out in tiny bits at high famine prices. The Bible is locked up in the Latin Version, the people are shut out from it only as it is vouchsafed in corrupt fragments, and a charge is made for every religious service from the cradle to the grave. The house of God has scales in it, and when the weary soul comes up the minister weighs out a fragment of consolation for so much. "If I baptize your baby, so much; if I marry you, so much; if I visit you in sickness, so much; if I attend your funeral, so much; if I pray for your dead, so much; for an indulgence, so much." It was Tetzel’s sale of indulgences that provoked the Reformation. Its blessings are beyond the reach of the poor. For example, in Mexico, as a distinguished Mexican general told me some years ago when I was in Mexico: "The multitude of our people cannot marry – they cannot pay the price that our priest charges; hence concubinage all over the land. They cannot read the Bible; the priest doles out to them such parts as he judges to be good for them and that must be accepted as the priests interpret it." The famine as it is represented by this horse, is not of food for the body, but of food for the soul. As Amos says (Amos 8:11): "Behold the day is come, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah." Now, that is the kind of a famine that this black horse indicates. Through many centuries since Christ died some ecclesiastics have thus doled out, not only God’s word, but have put a price on every religious favor.

The Fourth Seal (Revelation 6:7): "And when he opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying: Come, and I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and he that sat upon him his name was Death, and Hades followed with him." Hades is the state of being disembodied. When the body is killed the spirit goes into the spirit world. "And there was given unto him the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and famine, and death, and the wild beasts of the earth." Now, what does that mean? This imagery represents the lovers of the true gospel as persecuted unto death – sword, hunger, death, and the wild beasts are all literal. Some Christians are put to death by the sword, some die of starvation, some put to death by torture or the martyr’s stake, and some cast to the wild beasts. The application is to all persecutions for conscience’ sake at any time, whether Pagan, Papal, or Protestant. Our Lord foretold that as they went forth to preach they would be persecuted, and told them to fear not them that killed the body only, but rather to fear him that was able to destroy both soul and body in hell. It refers to the persecution then going on in John’s time, and to the ten years’ tribulation that followed in Smyrna, the death of their pastor and all the other persecutions until the apostate church becomes enthroned at Rome. Then all the Roman Catholic persecutions, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Lollards, Huss, Jerome, Luther, the horrible persecution in Spain and in Holland and all the Low Country under the Duke of Alva and his soldiers; and it also refers to the persecution by the Protestants when they were in power, and the persecution of the Baptists by Luther, the persecution of Servants by John Calvin, the persecution of the Baptists in England and the United States.

The idea of the four horses is not necessarily successive. In any age all four results of the gospel preached may appear. That is not the thought, but these are four different views of the gospel as it is preached. You may find all of them illustrated in two persons. A sermon may be preached, two men sitting side by side. One of them receives it and he is at peace; the other, his brother, hates it, and there is a strife between the two brothers. Finally, the brother that hates gets so far away from the word of God that in his soul there is a famine of the word of God. Then his hate becomes so intense that he kills his brother.

In the parable of our Lord, called "the sower," or the four kinds of soil, you have a thought very similar. The sower went forth so sow, and the seed fell in four different places, and what became of the seed as it fell in these four different places is explained by our Lord in his interpretation of the parable.

The Fifth Seal (Revelation 6:9): "And when he opened the fifth seal I saw underneath the altar the souls of them who had been slain for the word of God, for this testimony which they held, and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given unto each of them a white robe, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet a little while that their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course."

In all persecutions under the fourth seal, each impatient martyr, while yet suffering, was crying out for God’s vindication. In effect the complaint against God’s delay of vengeance was an impeachment of divine justice. On earth these prayers seemed vain. But the object of the disclosure of the fifth seal is to show you heaven’s reception of the martyr cry for vengeance uttered on earth. The idea is similar in Genesis 4:10-11; God’s words to Cain: "The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive it." Spurgeon, in glowing imagery, pictures Abel’s spirit, evicted from its clay tenement by murder, rushing into heaven’s court and crying: "Vengeance on my murderer," and happily contrasts it with Christ’s blood, "which speaketh better things for us than the blood of Abel, even crying: Father, forgive them, they know what they do." A good exposition of the fifth seal may be found in our Lord’s parable (Luke 18:1-8). The Lord is exhorting men to pray all the time for vindication, and not to faint, illustrating it by the widow and the unjust judge, and concluding by saying: "And shall not God avenge his own elect that cry to him day and night, and yet he is long-suffering over them." Then he adds: "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh shall he find that faith on the earth?" What faith? The faith that God will untimately avenge the injuries done to his people. It does not mean, shall he find saving faith on the earth? There are hundreds of people – thousands of them – who have saving faith, but yet seem to have little or no faith that God will vindicate all their wrongs.

I want to present that more particularly, as it is very important. In Bulwer’s drama of "Richelieu," the Queen of France – Anne of Austria – said to the skeptical cardinal, who was her enemy: "The Almighty, my Lord Cardinal, does not pay every week, but at the last he pays." The things occurring here in which for the time, being evil triumphs, give the saints great discouragement, and they cry out because God does not speedily execute judgment on their oppressors. So the object of the fifth seal is not to show us the prayers as they are uttered here on earth, but what becomes of them when they get to heaven. He saw, under the altar, the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of the Lord, and they cried out "how long?" That cry was uttered on earth, but is here shown as heaven received it. His reply is: "I will clothe you in white now, but rest a while, wait until the time of vengeance comes; wait until all other martyrs fulfil their course, and then all at once God will fully avenge you."

Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic and his History of the United Netherlands tell how the Spaniards capture city after city. No mercy is shown; the men are killed, the women are subjected to shameful indignities; the children are impaled on spears or their heads cut off and fastened to spikes, and every conceivable evil and horror is visited upon them, until the question rises: "Where is God?" We need to recall the words of the German poet, Von Logau, The mills of God grind slowly, But they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.

Law writers tell us that laws restrain crime only as punishment is speedy and certain. An Old Testament writer anticipated their wisdom: "Because sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed, the hearts of evil-doers are fully set in them to do mischief." Shakespeare, in Hamlet, makes "the law’s delay provocation for suicide. So the lesson of Paul is hard: "Avenge not yourself – give place to God’s wrath; if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink, and by doing so heap coals of fire on his head."

God’s delay in avenging is explicable by the facts:

1. No criminal can escape.

2. No bribery, perjury, or technicality can avail.

3. The sufferer is trained in patience by tribulation.

4. No witness can abscond.

5. The punishment will be complete and exactly proportioned to the heinousness of the offense.

6. God delays to punish that there may be space for repenting. (See Acts 3:14; Acts 3:19; Romans 2:4; 2 Peter 3:8-9; 2 Peter 3:15)

John Milton quotes our very passage (Revelation 6:10), and applies it to the evils perpetrated on the Albigenses by the Roman Catholic Church. He says: "’Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold."

The Sixth Seal: "And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, that there was a great earthquake of hair, and the whole moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken by a great wind, and the heaven was removed as a scroll as it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich and the strong and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves, and the rocks of the mountains, and they say to the mountians and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who is able to stand?" The opening of this seal reveals the portents that herald God’s final vengeance.

Now, you see that that sixth seal brings you to the end of time. Our Lord also says in his great prophecy in Matthew 24:29: "After the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened as by an eclipse, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars shall fall." It is certain that there comes a time when God does answer the long-deferred petition of his people for vengeance upon their oppressors.

Revelation 7 presents this great thought: That God’s imminent wrath, just about to fall, is suspended until all the righteous are sealed and so safeguarded. And then follows the sealing of the 144,000 of the Jews; a ’symbolic number representing 12,000 or a complete number from each tribe, and then a great multitude that no man can number, out of every nation and tribe and tongue and country. Every one of them must be saved before those terrible convulsions that attend the advent of our Lord, when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, when the whole world shall be wrapped in fire. It cannot take place as long as a righteous man is living on the earth, or a righteous man’s dead body is sleeping in a grave. These must get out of the way first. As when Abraham said to God: "You are about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? It may be there are fifty good men in that city; will you destroy them?" He said, "If there be fifty, no" – perhaps forty – perhaps thirty – perhaps twenty – perhaps ten. And when not ten could be found, the angel grasped hold of the only righteous man, Lot, and said to him: "We cannot visit God’s wrath upon this place until you get out," and they dragged him out. So the vengeance that comes with this advent does not reach this earth until each child of God is secure.

The Seventh Seal: It says that when the seventh seal was opened "there was a silence in heaven for half an hour." Which means) that there is no disclosure just yet. The silence will be broken when the climax of all the synchronous arrives. That climax is Revelation 20:11-15, which agrees with the climax of our Lord’s great prophecy – Matthew 25:31-46, and with Paul’s climax, 2 Thessalonians 2:6-11. In the same way and for the same purpose, the disclosure of the seven thunders is sealed up for awhile. That is, that silence will be broken after a while, and you will be told what would have happened right there – it is just a temporary suspension of the climax, which will be clearly stated when you come to it. Every one of the parallel views before you: the seals, the trumpets, the two women, the great holy war, every one of them will stop just before the climax. And then in Revelation 20:11 we have the climax that fits every one of them. He means to say that there must be silence and no record of what the seventh seal would disclose for awhile; so when the seven thunders were about to sound, he says: "Do not record that; wait."

QUESTIONS

1. In a word, what do the disclosures following the opening of the seals represent?

2. What is the symbol of the Revelator, and meaning of seven horns and seven eyes?

3. On what meritorious ground is all the worthiness of this Revelator based?

4. Name, and discriminate between, the two groups of these seven disclosures.

5. State negatively and affirmatively to whom the Cherubim say "Come"

6. From what Old Testament book is the imagery of the colored horses borrowed, and what is the meaning and result in this lesson?

7. Describe the first horse and his rider – what is the meaning and where again in this book do this horse and rider appear?

SEALS

8. Cite at least four Old Testament prophecies whose forecast is similar to the meaning here.

9. In a word, what phase of the gospel preached is expressed in the imagery of the red horse and his rider, and what saying of our Lord expressed the same thing?

10. Why is this divisive effect of the gospel preached, and illustrate by two notable instances in the Acts?

11. In a few words explain the imagery of the black horse and his rider, holding a pair of scales, and illustrate historically,

12. Meaning of the imagery of Death riding the pale horse, following by Hades?

13. What parable of our Lord exhibits some likeness to these four horses?

14. Explain the disclosure under the fifth seal, citing Genesis case and Spurgeon’s use of it.

15. What parable of our Lord expounds the fifth seal, and the meaning of "that faith"?

16. Cite the passage from Bulwer’s "Richelieu." From Von Logau.

17. What things help to explain the delay in God’s vengeance?

18. How does Milton apply the cry of the martyrs in Revelation 6:10?

19. What does the opening of the sixth seal reveal?

20. Where in our Lord’s great prophecy are they similarly presented?

21. What is the great thought of the seventh chapter?

22. Explain the silence after the seventh seal.

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?