Armageddon For Beginners - Dave Mckay (10 best books of all time .TXT) 📗

shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we which are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." (I Thessalonians 4:16-17)

Put that together with what Christ himself said: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days … they will see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matthew 24:29-31)

All of these passages refer to trumpets, and in particular, to the last trumpet, "after the tribulation".

It would be nice to think that all of the unpleasant parts of The Revelation are for someone else, and that we can float to heaven on flowery beds of ease; but if we are only interested in making the book say what we want it to say, we will never learn anything from it, and we may as well not study it at all.

The picture that Jesus gives of the period just before his return (and after the start of the Tribulation) is one of great confusion, with many of his followers expressing dismay that he has not arrived. This is consistent with a situation where people have been conned into believing that he should have come before the troubles started.

Jesus describes the start of the tribulation (Matthew 24:16-22) and then says that false prophets will be making false promises about him arriving secretly: "Then if anyone shall say to you, 'Lo, here is Christ,' or 'There!' do not believe it. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. So if they shall say to you, 'Behold, he is in the desert,' go not forth. Or 'Behold, he is in the secret chambers,' believe it not. For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:23-27)

So much for secret raptures!

In conclusion, there are two prophetic periods of time which have often been confused. The first is the Great Tribulation, which lasts for three and a half years. The second is The Wrath, which lasts for only a short period of time, and concludes with the Battle of Armageddon. The Tribulation is marked by a series of seven trumpets, while the Wrath is marked by seven containers being poured out on the earth.

In the next chapter we will study the events associated with the Great Tribulation.

Appendix, Chapter 14

Romans 5:9. Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

I Thessalonians 1:10. Wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come.

I Thessalonians 5:9. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3:6. Because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.

Romans 2:5. Because of your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath, against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

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15. The Seven Trumpets

As you read through this chapter, it would be helpful to get a Bible and follow along with what is being said. We will cover most of three chapters (Revelation 8, 9, & 10), and we will be adding very little to what is actually written in the Bible.

Most of the text from the King James Version of The Revelation appears at the end of this chapter. However, we have changed a word or two here and there (e.g. from "striketh" to "strikes") and have occasionally left out a few words to make the text fit the space available. There are serious warnings about tampering with the words of prophecy. (See Revelation 22:18-19.) This is because there is always a temptation to bend things to make them fit our imperfect interpretations. When we do that, we could upset an important part of the code, which will only become clear in time. This is the problem with modern translations, and one reason why we prefer the King James Version. (It is more "literal" than other translations, with less effort made to smooth out the rough spots.)

But having said that, you may be just as qualified as anyone else in guessing what it is that John was describing, given his limited First Century understanding of modern day technology. Some of what he describes may, as yet, be foreign to us as well. Just don't get too cocky about your own interpretation of what he was saying. It should become clearer as we move closer to the actual fulfilment.

We earlier noted that the first four seals (i.e. the four horsemen) of the sixth chapter of The Revelation were inter-related. In the same way, the first four trumpets of the eighth chapter seem to herald four aspects of the same catastrophe.

The second and third trumpets sound like almost identical catastrophes. In one "as it were a great mountain burning with fire" is "cast into the sea". In the other "a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp" fell on "the fountains of waters" and on a third of the rivers. The waters became "bitter" as a result, killing many people.

Note: Watch for the phrase "as it were". It means John is not being literal. He is just trying to find some comparison from his limited knowledge to describe what he actually saw.

We are told in Revelation 8:11 that the star's name is "Wormwood". Apparently the word "Chernobyl" (the Russian city near where the world's worst nuclear accident occurred in 1986) is Russian for Wormwood! It may be just a coincidence. Or it could be a clue that the star's real threat to earth will be that it is radioactive.

The prophecy says that Wormwood will fall on "the fountains of waters". The Chernobyl disaster contaminated ground water over a huge area; but it spread even farther in the atmosphere. The source of most rivers is in the sky, where rain is formed. High levels of atmospheric radioactivity could affect water vapour in the clouds, bringing a deadly cocktail of "acid rain" down on the earth.

The movie Armageddon is based on the theory that these first four trumpets are predicting a collision between earth and a comet or meteor. This does appear to be what will happen.

We are told that one-third of the life in the oceans and one-third of the ships at sea will be destroyed by the "burning mountain" that crashes into the sea. Such devastation would be consistent with such a violent collision and the unprecedented tidal waves that would circle the globe.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet tells of God punishing the earth before he establishes his rule over all the world. The description Isaiah gives uses several phrases which seem to suggest that the earth's orbit will be affected when this happens, causing the earth to wobble "like a drunkard". Isaiah says, "Behold, the Lord will make the earth empty, and make it waste, and turn it upside down, and scatter abroad the inhabitants of it… The windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down. The earth is clean dissolved. The earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard." (Isaiah 24:1, 18-20)

It may be that, along with the radiation will come actual fires from a massive meteorite storm. This may explain the destruction associated with the first and fourth trumpets: "The first angel sounded and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth. The third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up…

"The fourth angel sounded and the third part of the sun was smitten and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, so that the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." (Revelation 8:7, 12)

The "fiery hail" of the first trumpet may be a storm of meteorites, but it could also be describing a great number of weapons launched (possibly by accident) from satellites circling the earth. Whatever it is, it apparently results in fires over much of the planet. The smoke of so much burning would certainly blot out much of the light from the sun, moon, and stars. Such widespread burning might also create weather conditions that would result in what we normally think of when we talk of hailstones. The hot air from so many fires would force rain far up into the atmosphere, where it would freeze. If this happened repeatedly, the hail might well become so big by the time it finally fell to earth that it could kill people.

The next two trumpets (numbers five and six) announce two quite different disasters. In one a different sort of "star" falls to earth after the fifth trumpet sounds. This "star" is a person, most likely the Devil himself, and he lets loose a great swarm of stinging insects which appear to originate from hell. The grass, which has grown back from the earlier fires, is protected from these "locusts like scorpions". The twelve tribes who have the "seal of God" on their foreheads are also protected; but these insects bring torment to the rest of the world for five months.

The insects are described in detail. They could be mutations, viruses, or some kind of military weapon. It is anyone's guess.

Then the sixth trumpet sounds, and four angels are let loose. They appear to control an army of two hundred million "horsemen". The description of the horses, however, suggests some modern-day military machine "for their power is in their mouth, and in their tails." In just over thirteen months, one-third of the earth's population is destroyed "by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths." (Revelation 9:15, 18-19)

The death and destruction caused by this army appears to be even worse than that which occurs during the Battle of Armageddon at the end of the Wrath.

There are various theories about what these descriptions represent; but the bottom line is that some incredible disasters lie ahead, which will result in more than a billion deaths. And more significant is the prediction that, for all of the suffering that the world will go through at that time, people will still, on the whole, not repent and turn to God. (Revelation 9:20-21)

Finally, the seventh trumpet sounds. A special angel appears. John hears thundering voices, but he is not allowed to write what he hears. Then the angel, with a "little book" in his hand, lifts his hands up to heaven and swears "that there should be time no longer".

The Bible says that, at this point, "the mystery of God shall be finished, as he has declared to his servants the prophets". (Revelation 10:1-7)

There is always an element of mystery with regard to prophecy, up until the point at which it is finally fulfilled. So there will always be flaws in our theories about what it means. However, today we have more reason to believe these prophecies than people did hundreds of years ago. Things which sounded impossible at the time they were written are becoming far more believable now. We will shortly discuss a New Testament prophecy which rivals that of Daniel's Seventy Weeks for being irrefutable, as we see it taking shape before our eyes.

One final comment, regarding the phrase "time shall be no more".