7 Trumpets of REVELATION

Drawn/taken from the book Daniel & Revelation by Uriah Smith---Study Guide by Stephen Bohr---Sermon by Walter Veith---Commentaries from Matthew Henry/Adam Clarke

--Intro 

--7 Trumpets & 7 Plagues

--Opening Scene

--FIRST Trumpet

--SECOND Trumpet

--THIRD Trumpet

--FOURTH Trumpet

Intro

The introductory vision to the trumpets describes the starting and ending points. 

--The starting point is the Day of Pentecost when Jesus began His intercession at the golden altar of incense in the holy place. 

--The series ends when Jesus throws down the censer, ceases to intercede and takes over the kingdoms of the world.

Earlier in Revelation God described Himself as the one who was, and is and is to come (Revelation 1:8), but in Revelation 11:17 (when the seventh trumpet sounds) He is spoken of as the one who is and who was and has taken His great power and begun to reign. O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come;

*The literary structure divides the book of Revelation into two major sections: 

(1) a historical section (Rev. 1-14) that emphasizes the experience of the church and related events during the Christian era, and 

(2) an eschatological (end time) section (Rev. 15-22) that focuses particularly on end-time events and the end of the world.”
The series of the trumpets occur in the historical section of Revelation. Consequently, we should seek for their fulfillment in historical time, the Christian era.
The prophecies of the trumpets have only one prophetic fulfillment.

--Trumpets are used in many contexts in the Old and New Testaments—worship, sanctuary and judgment. 

In the case of Revelation’s seven trumpets it is clear that the trumpets bear a relationship with the idea of judgment. 

The purpose of the feast of trumpets was to announce the upcoming Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:23, 24). 

The trumpets that the priests blew as they surrounded Jericho announced God’s upcoming judgment against the city (Joshua 6).

7 Trumpets & 7 Plagues

The trumpets and the plagues afflict the same things, in the same order:

First trumpet and plague: Afflict the earth
Second trumpet and plague: Afflict the sea
Third trumpet and plague: Afflict rivers and fountains of waters
Fourth trumpet and plague: Afflict heavenly bodies
Fifth trumpet and plague: Heavenly bodies darkened
Sixth trumpet and plague: Mention of the Euphrates
Seventh trumpet and plague: Possessing the Kingdom
The evidence seems to indicate that the trumpets represent

preliminary and partial judgments that fell upon the oppressors of God’s people beginning with the destruction of Jerusalem and ending with the setting up of Christ’s everlasting kingdom. 

*The fact that the trumpets only fall on thirds and not on the totality indicates that the trumpet judgments are preliminary and partial. 

--The trumpets series indicates that repentance during the blowing of the trumpets is possible.
--The plagues, on the other hand, describe final and total judgments of God upon end time Babylon after the close of probation.

Without determining what is matter of controversy in these points among learned men, we rather choose to make these plain and practical remarks: - 

(1.) Where the gospel comes to a people, and is but coldly received, and has not its proper effects upon their hearts and lives, it is usually followed with dreadful judgments. 

(2.) God gives warning to men of his judgments before He sends them; He sounds an alarm by the written word, by ministers, by men's own consciences, and by the signs of the times; so that, if a people be surprised, it is their own fault. 

(3.) Corruptions of doctrine and worship in the church are themselves great judgments, and the usual causes and tokens of other judgments coming on a people.

Opening Scene

And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all 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. 

“Christ proclaims Himself our Intercessor. He places His merit in the golden censer to offer up with the prayers of His saints, so that the prayers of His dear children may be mingled with the fragrant merit of Christ as they ascend to the Father in the cloud of incense.” E.G.W.

And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
Revelation 8:2-6

The fire is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and 

the incense represents the prayers of the saints 

mingled the merits of Jesus.

FIRST Trumpet

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. Revelation 8:7

Hail and fire mingled with blood - This was something like the ninth plague of Egypt. See Exodus 9:22-24: The Lord sent thunder and hail - and fire mingled with the hail - and the fire ran along upon the ground.

The Bible tells us that judgment must begin at the house of God (1Peter 4:17) so the judgment must begin with the Jewish nation. 

In the first destruction of Jerusalem, the man clothed in linen commanded the destroying messengers to begin their work at God’s sanctuary (Ezekiel 9:6). The second destruction of Jerusalem [A.D. 70] parallels the first..... the historicist method requires that the blowing of the trumpets begin in apostolic times. 

*Furthermore, the first trumpet must refer to a judgment that falls

upon those who first oppressed God’s people. 

Q: What judgment fell upon oppressors of God’s people in apostolic times? 

A: There is only one possibility—the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.

“The long-suffering of God toward Jerusalem only confirmed the Jews in their stubborn impenitence. In their hatred and cruelty toward the disciples of Jesus, they rejected the last offer of mercy. Then God withdrew His protection from them and removed His restraining power from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the leader she had chosen.” E.G.W. 

*It fell on the third part of the trees, that is, say some, The most severe calamities have their bounds and limits set them by the great God. A third of the trees means that the trumpets were partial and preliminary judgments that point forward to greater judgments in the future. 

*Fire falling from heaven signifies a judgment from God against apostate Jerusalem. 

*Blood Symbolism--As we have previously seen, the Jews in Pilate’s judgment hall clamored for Christ’s crucifixion and cried out, “His blood be upon us and our children.” Jesus also predicted that God would require from that generation all the righteous blood, shed from the time of Abel.

*Trees - Luke 23:27-31: These are the most important verses to understand the first trumpet: And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him.  But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!' Then they will begin 'to say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" [Fulfilled finally in Revelation 6:16, 17; Revelation 1:7; Matthew 26:64; Matthew 23:39] For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? 

This must be seen in the light of the fig tree that dried up by the roots because they condemned Jesus who is represented by a green tree. The key phrase is ‘dried up by the roots’. Thus, the Jewish nation was the dried up tree.

*Grass - the voice said, Cry out! and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:6-8.

SECOND Trumpet

Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Revelation 18:8,9

Mountains in Bible prophecy represent kingdoms so the fall of a kingdom must be in view in the second trumpet. 

*This mountain must represent a kingdom that destroyed Jerusalem and persecuted God’s people.
Daniel 9:26 states that ‘the people of the prince’ destroyed Jerusalem the second time in the year AD 70. 

The prince in Daniel 9 is Christ. 

If the prince of verse 26 is Jesus, then the people of the prince must be the Jews (remember that the word ‘people’ throughout Daniel 9 always refers to Israel (see verses 15, 16, 19, 20, 24). 

Q: Did the Jews destroy their own city and sanctuary? 

Q: Did not Titus and the Romans destroy the city and the temple?
A: Three ideas coalesce in this verse. [1] God used the [2] Roman armies (spoken of as His armies) to destroy [3] those murderers and to burn their city.

Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. Jeremiah 51:25: The prophet Jeremiah compared the kingdom of Babylon with a destroying mountain.

Eventually this destroying mountain became a burning mountain that was thrust into the sea (the passive voice ‘was thrown’ indicates that this is God’s judgment). This is the key verse to understand the second trumpet.

Jeremiah 51:42: The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves.
The waves of the sea destroyed Babylon and made her desolate. In this case, the sea represents the multitude of nations that arose against Babylon and destroyed her.

Revelation 17:15: Then he said to me, The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.

Since the days of Daniel, four major kingdoms have risen to power and fallen. They are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. 

*The power that ruled in the days when John wrote the book of Revelation was Rome. 

*Literal Babylon had already fallen when John saw his vision of the trumpets therefore the mountain of the second trumpet cannot refer to the fall of literal Old Testament Babylon.

In Revelation 17, we see a dragon beast with seven heads. However, the heads are actually seven mountains. Each of these heads/mountains represents a kingdom that ruled beginning with Babylon. 

The burning mountain that cast into the sea at the sounding of the second trumpet was the fourth of those mountains or heads of Revelation 17, namely the Roman Empire.

--The Jews in the intertestamental period understood that the Roman Empire was a ‘new Babylon’: “. . . then shall come a great star from heaven into the divine sea, and shall burn up the deep sea and Babylon itself, and the land of Italy on whose account many faithful saints of the Hebrews have perished, and the true people.” 

Sibylline Oracles, lines 158-161
--1 Peter 5:13: She who is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son.
Many scholars believe that Babylon in this text is a cryptic reference to Rome. There is persuasive contextual evidence that this is so. God appointed Peter as His messenger to the Jews. Peter wrote his first epistle close to the end of his life and we know that at the end of his life he was in Rome where he would die as a martyr by the hand of Nero.

*Fish--Habakkuk 1:14-15: Why do You make men like fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with a hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet.
Ecclesiastes 9:12: For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.
*Ships - In Scripture, ships generally refer to trading and commercial prosperity. Ezekiel 27:9, 25, 29: Elders of Gebal and its wise men were in you to caulk your seams; all the ships of the sea and their oarsmen were in you to market your merchandise . . .  the ships of Tarshish were carriers of your merchandise. You were filled and very glorious in the midst of the seas . . .  All who handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea will come down from their ships and stand on the shore.

--At the sounding of the second trumpet, instead of temporal prosperity, the barbarians invaded the Empire, destroyed the routes of commerce, and decimated the prosperity of Rome. 

The judgment of the second trumpet brought the collapse of the entire social and economic order of the Roman Empire.

Gibbon uses this significant language: "Genseric, a name which, in the destruction of the Roman Empire, has deserved an equal rank with the names of Alaric and Attila."

THIRD Trumpet

Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch; and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. Revelation 8:10

There can be little doubt that the ‘falling star’ of the third trumpet refers in a primary sense to Satan. Yet this star cannot refer to the original fall of Satan from heaven because that happened before creation week.
Though this trumpet cannot refer primarily to the fall of Satan from heaven at the beginning or at the cross, nevertheless the language is very reminiscent of the fall of Lucifer from heaven as described in Isaiah 14:12-14 and Revelation 12:7-9.
The terminological links between the third trumpet and Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12 leave little doubt that the fall of Satan stands in the background of the third trumpet. Satan, the star of the morning, who was originally perfect, apostatized and became a fallen star. He then defiled and poisoned Adam and Eve with his specious teachings and through them, the entire human race. The result was that the entire race came under the sentence of death (Genesis 3:1-6, 19).

The fall of this star portrays the great apostasy that defiled the church from within when Papal Rome rose to power from the shambles that the barbarians left in the Roman Empire. 

--Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 tell us that the little horn/beast persecuted the saints for 3.5 times or 42 months. 

--However, Revelation 12 presents a parallel, but different picture. The text tells us that the work of persecution was the work of the dragon for 3.5 or 1260 days (Revelation 12:6, 13-14). 

Thus, when we compare Daniel 7/Revelation 13 with Revelation 12 we find that Satan ruled during the 1260 years through his emissary, the Bishop of Rome.

2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4 explicitly tells us that the man of sin would exalt himself to the height of God even to the point of sitting in the temple of God claiming to be God. 

The language is quite similar to what Satan attempted to do at the very beginning when he was cast out of heaven (Isaiah 14:12-14). 

In fact, the text tells us that Satan would energize the man of sin (2Thessalonians 2:9).
*The backdrop to the idea expressed above is that Satan does not

accomplish his work in person but rather through his seed or body. 

*What he was not able to accomplish in heaven he does on earth through his vicegerent. As Christ works through His seed or body to accomplish His purposes on earth, so does Satan.

In all the great lines of prophecy pagan Rome is always followed by papal Rome.

In Revelation 1:20 the seven stars in the right hand of Jesus represent the seven churches -- seven consecutive eras of church history so the seven stars must represent the messengers that proclaim God’s message to the church in each of those eras. That is to say, each of the seven churches has one star.
In Revelation 12:1, the twelve stars on the crown of the woman represent the twelve apostles of the lamb who taught the truth as it is in Jesus. 

In Zechariah 9:16 the prophet saw the final remnant under a symbol of stars on a crown of glory.

When the stars cease preaching the gospel and preach human tradition, they become fallen stars.

--Revelation 8:10 indicates that the ministers and teachers (the angel or star of the church of this period) of the church were supposed to shine as a lamp. Instead, they fell from their post and defiled the waters.

--The fountains of waters are different from the raging waters of the sea (Isaiah 17:12, 13). The fountains of waters are life giving waters that refresh, restore and perpetuate physical and spiritual life.
--Deuteronomy 29:17, 18: Gall and wormwood describe the terrible consequences that would ensue if Israel drank from the polluted waters of apostasy.
Amos 5:7: When righteousness in the earth is forsaken, the result is wormwood: You who turn justice to wormwood, and lay righteousness to rest in the earth!

--The word "wormwood" denotes bitter consequences.

*The rivers and springs of water must have been clean before the fall of the star defiled them. 

--This is another indication that the third trumpet’s theme is apostasy in the church. 

When the star falls, it pollutes the fountains of waters with wormwood and bitterness and many people die.

FOURTH Trumpet

Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third o the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.” Revelation 8:12

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. Genesis 1:16
Note: We shall find that the use of the words ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ to refer to the sun and moon are very significant.

But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; Malachi 4:2
When Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. John 8:12

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned. Matthew 4:16

“Christ makes no apology when He declares, "I am the light of the world." He was, in life and teaching, the gospel, the foundation of all pure doctrine." E.G.W.

John the Baptist and the Old Testament were lesser lights [represented by the moon] whose purpose was to lead to the greater light, the person of Jesus Christ. 

John the Baptist was not ‘THE’ light but he was ‘a’ light to bear witness to THE light (John 1:6-8).

The Scriptures and God’s People Are Lesser Lights:

And when they say to you, Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law [the writings of Moses] and to the testimony! [The writings of the prophets] If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:19-20

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105

God’s People are ‘Moons’ Reflecting the Light of Jesus.

“As the moon and the stars of the solar system shine by the reflected light of the sun, so, as far as their teaching is true, do the world's great thinkers reflect [lesser lights] the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. Every gem of thought, every flash of the intellect, is from the Light of the world.” E.G.W.

The wise who understand Bible prophecy are like stars: Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. . . Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand. Daniel 12:3; 12:10

Eclipse of the Two Witnesses: 

1260 Years of Darkness

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. Revelation 11:3
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. Isaiah 50:3
The two witnesses (the lesser lights, Old and New Testaments) were clothed in sackcloth during the 1260 years. Sackcloth is a black fabric that symbolizes darkness, affliction and death.

The Greater and lesser lights pointed to Jesus dimly because the papacy partially eclipsed them: 

“The period when the two witnesses [the lesser light] were to

prophesy clothed in sackcloth ended in 1798. As they were approaching the termination of their work in obscurity [darkness], war was to be made upon them by the power represented as "the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit." In many of the nations of Europe the powers that ruled in Church and State had for centuries been controlled by Satan, through the medium of the papacy. But here is brought to view a new manifestation of Satanic power [the fifth trumpet or first woe].” E.G.W.

The Papacy Darkened the Sun and Moon

Darkening the Sun and the Moon:
In order to understand the darkening of the sun and moon during the fourth trumpet we must study the ‘daily’ that the little horn removed from the Prince of the Host. What does the word ‘daily’ mean?
It is difficult to interpret the word unless we go to other places in Scripture that explain it. The word is an adjective that has no noun to qualify. So the question is: 

Q: The little horn took away the daily what? 

A: The meaning of the word tahmid is simply “something which goes on continuously without interruption.” 

Q: However, what is it that ‘goes on continuously without interruption’ in Daniel 8?

It is important to keep in mind that the word tahmid has the definite article ‘the’. It is THE daily (hatamid) that the little horn took away (see also Daniel 11:31; 12:11). The King James Version translators added the word ‘sacrifice,’ thinking that tahmid refers to the morning and evening sacrifice. 

The Old Testament makes it abundantly clear that this word refers to the daily ministration of the priest in the court and in the holy place of the sanctuary. 

A: This means that the little horn was going to attempt to take away from the Prince of the host His ministration in the court and in the holy place of the sanctuary.

In summary, two princes are struggling for the souls of human beings. 

--One Prince, Jesus, performs a continual ministry of salvation in the heavenly sanctuary by pleading the blood of His one and only sacrifice before the Father. 

That Prince feeds His people with the Word of God (the table of showbread), keeps the light of the church burning by the power of the Holy Spirit (the candlestick) and forgives those who come to Him in penitence and prayer (the golden altar of incense).

--The other prince, Satan, unable to overthrow the heavenly ministry of the Prince, establishes a counterfeit continual ministry (the mass, tradition, the confessional, the pope) in the earthly temple—the church (see 2Thessalonians 2:3-4). 

By shifting the attention of the people from heaven to earth,  he casts down the place of the sanctuary and prevents human beings from discerning the saving work of Christ in heaven! Not being able to discern the saving work of Christ in heaven, souls perish in sin!