It is significant that throughout the history of interpretation the tendency has been to equate ‘fulfillments’ of prophecy with current events. Our own age is no exception. The early ‘Preterists’ (and with some colour indeed) read the Book of Revelation in terms of the impending fate of the Roman Empire. They were right and wrong: right in that Revelation is designed to help, comfort and guide the Lord’s people in all ages of the church, wrong in supposing that the message of the Book applied to their own time and to no other. After the accession of Constantine, the mood changed and current events were seen in terms of the Millennium, and the falling stars of course became the heresiarchs, such as Arius who had come down to trouble the church. In later times, the first four trumpets were supposed to be emblematic of the four great Barbarian generals before whom the Western Empire of Rome fell - Alaric and the Goths, Gaiseric and the Vandals, Attila and the Huns, and finally Odoacer - all intensely interesting, and fitted into the prophetic history with much skill and plausibility, but hardly applicable to the 20th century or in keeping with the universal principle of Rev. 1, verse 3.
The later historicists found the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars (Napoleon himself being the antichrist), and the fall of the Papal temporal power in 1870, as being most prominently featured in John’s inspired vision - but Napoleon is long since dead; this is an age of revolutions, and the temporal power of the papacy as been restored.
Our task is not to declare that world history as affecting the church has no part in our prophetic Book, but to avoid those exclusive interpretations which see all contemporary events as having been foretold in the Apocalypse.
We must not despise the sincere efforts of the historicists, though their great work must ever act upon us as a cautionary tale. We must not repeat their mistake by supposing our own day to be the culminating day of prophecy, and so invest current events (constantly changing) with a prophetic significance which time may very speedily dissolve. The temptation is strong to claim for our own generation all the significant prophecies, but if we would be wise, we should always go back to first principles, so clearly expressed in the first chapter of the Apocalypse, that OUR BOOK OF REVELATION IS ABOVE ALL THINGS A SPIRITUAL BOOK AND MUST BE SPIRITUALLY UNDERSTOOD, WITH A RELEVANCE FOR ALL TIME AND FOR EVERY AGE.
The seven trumpets of Rev. 8 and 9 summon the agents of divine providence to war against those who oppress the people of God. They mark the loosing upon mankind of those plagues which exactly recompense the assault made by the power of this world against the kingdom of Christ.
The plagues and calamities described in our two chapters (8 and 9), are no ordinary plagues. They are not diseases and pestilences which, when they occur sweep away all and sundry of mankind indiscriminately, whether they be Christian or heathen, Asiatic, African or European, saint or sinner. They are judgments of an inward and spiritual character, just as the darkening of sun and moon and the falling of stars has nothing to do with those heavenly bodies which rule our day and night.
The armies which we see coming forth under the fifth and sixth trumpets described in chapter 9, are not the barbarian hordes which successively overwhelmed Imperial Rome, or the ragged hosts of Turks and Saracens (so beloved of our historical brethren) who served a providential purpose in the wisdom of God of limiting the empire of antichrist, thus bringing relief to the persecuted church. They are not the Mongol hordes of Jenghiz Khan or Timur the Terrible, which swept across Asia and into Europe itself, leaving behind them pyramids of human skulls and the smoking ruins of ravaged cities to mark their course across the continents. At least they put a stop to the Moslem conquests which threatened the very existence of Europe.
Let the history books tell us of these horrors, and let us see in them tokens of the hideous depravity of the human race. Let us see in them also the punitive providence of God in using evil to set limits to evil. But let us not apportion whole areas of our spiritual Book of Revelation to these ancient calamities or we must continue to wonder and mourn at the futility of John’s counsel right at the outset of the Book – “Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” (Rev. 1”3)
The Locust Woe of the fifth trumpet, and the vast Euphrates squadrons of the sixth, are not to be confused with anything ever to be seen on earth. The locusts are not locusts as described in books of Natural History anyway, as all parties must agree. The 200,000,000 horsemen of the Sixth Trumpet likewise cannot be fitted into any part of history, past, present, or future, despite the brave attempt of some of our up-to-date Futurists to get the Chinese to fill the part. Their efforts appear to savour more of guesswork than serious exposition. Apparently anything will do for the interpretation of prophecy provided no rules are observed - especially the rule quoted above, from Rev. 1, verse 3, which must needs be forgotten by the theorists - or all is lost.
Perhaps after all the locusts are demons from the pit (for they certainly are said by John to ascend from the same), and likewise the 200,000,000 horsemen may turn out to be the uncountable armies of hell, risen from the abyss to plague apostate mankind. At least no embarrassing questions of logistics (the military science of equipping, supplying and transporting troops) will arise. But everything in its own time and order.
We proceed to a more detailed exposition of THE GREAT WOE JUDGMENTS.
The last three trumpet judgments are so described, as Woe Trumpets, because of the words with which they are introduced:
“And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!” Rev. 8, verse 13.
Most modern authorities follow the reading of some manuscripts that it is an EAGLE which flies through the midst of heaven, not an angel. We see no point in arguing the matter. Angel or eagle, the meaning is the same, because the description is entirely symbolic. Neither angel nor eagle actually flew through the sky crying “Woe, woe, woe”. Some have been fascinated by the idea that the cry of an eagle sounds very much like the Greek word here translated ‘Woe’ but it is not on such novelties that the meaning of scripture depends . For our part we see no reason either here or anywhere else to depart from that text used by our great translators in the days of King James.
The significance of the cry of Woe, lies in the intensity of the judgments of the last three trumpets. These judgments culminate in the end of the world, at the sounding of the Last Trumpet.
(Chapter 11, vv. 14-15)
THE FIFTH TRUMPET (THE FIRST WOE)
At the sound of this trumpet a star falls from heaven, to whom is given the key of the bottomless pit. He opens the pit, and there arises therefrom a smoke like that of a great furnace. The sun and air are darkened, and from the murky depths of the filthy cloud comes a terrible army of locusts to settle upon and torment all who are not sealed unto God (according to chapter 7). The plague lasts five months, and is so excruciating that men prefer death to their sufferings, but are compelled to continue in the endurance thereof. There follows a detailed description of the locusts, showing them to be no locusts at all, for they have faces of men, hair of women, crowns of gold on their heads, breastplates of iron, tail-stings like scorpions, and a king over them whose name is given in Hebrew and in Greek, spelling out his character and identity, which, if we mistake not, is no-one save Satan himself.
All agree (as agree they must) that we are entirely in the region of symbol, though the interpretation of the symbol is another and very different matter. But if we are here in the world of symbol, we must insist that the Apocalypse is a symbolic Book.
The star which falls from heaven can only be Satan himself. His Fall took place originally in heaven: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” (Isaiah 14: 12) “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” declared the Saviour when the seventy disciples returned to Him and declared with rejoicing, “Even the devils are subject to us through thy name.” (Luke 10:17-18) Satan is always being cast down. We see him in chapter 12 of our Book of Revelation being ‘cast into the earth and his angels with him’ (v.9). In chapter 20 we see him cast into the bottomless pit, and in due time being loosed again for his last campaign against the saints. Likewise Satan’s kingdom, under the figure of the terrible beast, which was, and is not, and yet is, is represented as ascending out of the bottomless pit, into which it is constantly being cast. (see Rev. 17:8)
HOW GOD RULES
It is a mistake to suppose that these instances mean Satan has alternations of liberty and restraint as though sometimes he is ‘in 'heaven’, sometimes on the earth, and sometimes under it! These terms refer to the constantly recurring phases of Satan’s manifestation. The providential government of God ordains periods of unleashing of Satanic power, and again, periods of restraint according to the unfolding of the divine plan in relation to the kingdom of Christ. We know from the Book of Job that Satan is the slave of providence. He cannot act without the divine permission, and hence must from time to time appear before the throne of God and give an account of himself. We contend with all our soul against the pernicious imagination that Satan represents a Second Force in the universe. There is no second force. Only God rules. There is only one control. There is only one hand which holds the reins of power and authority. Where Christ has His seat, the devil is always cast down.
Hence in this chapter now before us, Satan is cast down from yet another phase of his activity, and ‘there is given to him the key of the bottomless pit.’ (v.1) The heaven from which he falls is not the region of light and blessedness, but that region of providence which decrees to what extent Satan is to be given liberty to act. Always that liberty is ordained by God in relation to the righteous administration of the world. Sometimes that liberty is given so that the people of God should be tried and proven as to their faith and patience, the prime example being Job. Always it is ‘so far and no further’ - again as in the case of Job – ‘touch not his life.’ (Job 2:6)
If God is not in absolute control of His own creation, then He is no God and we must look for another who IS in control, and learn to worship and fear him.
Satan fills a most important function in creation - though it is none of his intention or desire so to act. The apostle speaks of delivering some to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so the spirit may be saved in the day of Christ (1 Cor. 5:5). Again, Paul speaks of those whom he has delivered unto Satan so that ‘they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1:20). They who will not submit to God must find them selves in the hands of Satan. We must await the judgment day to perceive how exquisitely balanced are the ways of God and how perfectly adjusted to the holy principles of His justice and truth.
So in the course of history God permits (nay even commands) the emergence of Satan from the darkness of his hideous retreat, to act as the tormentor and executioner of the wicked powers of earth, their rulers and peoples, to set them against each other, and thus to employ evil to the punishment and destruction of evil. This we see in the great judgments of these Woe Trumpets. The nations which forget God and the systems which arise to persecute the people of God, find themselves at length in the grasp of forces greater than earth can muster, and down comes their pride, their prosperity is destroyed, their wealth is cankered, their gold rusts, their frantic policies are in vain.
THE EGYPTIAN LOCUSTS
Proceeding from the smoke of the newly opened hell beneath them, the armies of hell march as a vast army of locusts, foreshadowed in those Egyptian locusts which fell upon the ancient oppressors of the church: “Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.” (Exodus 10:14). No, not even the locusts of our chapter, for the locusts of Egypt were in fact locusts, of such destructive variety as to be unparalleled in all history, whereas these in Revelation are not locusts at all, but devils, equipped with every device for plaguing that portion of the human race given into their hand. So they exceed in terror the Mosaic locusts of long ago, but the object of their foray is the same - to fulfill the divine purpose of breaking the power and the pride of the wicked.
ISAIAH’S LOCUSTS
The locusts appear again in Isaiah where they are loosed upon the enemies of the OT church. At that time Babylon was the great power which had risen to oppress the people of God and the impending judgment was as the ruin caused by the locust, the dreaded scourge of the east: “Your spoil (i.e., the spoil of Babylon) shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them.” (Isa. 33:4). That chapter is one of a section each of which (with one exception) begins with the significant word “Woe” (chapters 28-33). The exception is chapter 32, which bids us behold the righteous Lord who arises to be king over His people and who is an hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land (verses 1 and 2, etc.). The passage looks beyond the state of affairs in the days of the prophet, and like so many OT prophecies states a temporal deliverance of Israel but really uses that deliverance as a figure of the coming of the gospel, and the spiritual reign of Christ over His people, the church. This is how prophecy is to be understood. All points to Christ’s spiritual kingdom and reign, without the recognition of which we have only the skeleton of a Bible.
JOEL’S LOCUSTS
Joel, the prophet of Pentecost, likewise speaks of judgment, and has much to say about the army of locusts which wrought the will of God upon an apostate church:
“That which the palmerworm hath left, hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.” (Joel 1:4)
No, not the natural history of the locust insect: these four insect varieties are the successive Four Monarchies of Daniel’s prophecy, which should devastate and dominate the people of the Old Covenant (because of their apostasy) till Christ should come - Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Nor does Joel prophesy a restoration of natural Israel, except that limited revival which took place under Ezra and Nehemiah. The time of the true and final deliverance would be ushered in on the day of Pentecost, for thus did Peter proclaim on that great day, when in the midst of Jerusalem, in the very court of the temple, he proclaimed that Joel’s prophecy was then and there being fulfilled – “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel ….” (Acts 2:16) All Old Testament prophecy terminates in Christ and the Kingdom He set up in His death and resurrection, His ascension and in the shedding forth of that which on the day of Pentecost, Peter said, ‘ye do now see and hear’.
JOHN AND JOEL
That Joel’s locusts are John’s locusts too, therefore no locust at all but those created powers which God employs for the chastisement of the wicked, is clear from his second chapter from which John’s vision takes its substance:
“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be anymore after it, even to the years of many generations.
A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them , and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.
Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?
Joel is in fact speaking of the Chaldean woe then about to break upon the people of Israel, and he sets forth in most graphic language, the irresistible nature of the impending judgment. The Holy Spirit causes John to see the judgment upon the enemies of Christ’s kingdom in precisely similar terms, from which we conclude that the vision is one and the same, and that once again we have an example of the telescopic nature of OT prophecy, wherein a calamity near at hand (to the time of the prophet), becomes only the type of that which finds its full development in relation to the Kingdom of Christ. In other words, the Chaldeans were only a human symbol of that far more terrible power which arises from the bottomless pit to destroy the wicked, though, like the Chaldeans, it is not in the mind of the demon locusts to fulfill the will of God, but only to express the hate and envy they feel against the human race.
THE WICKED WORK THE WILL OF GOD
The whole is explained clearly and firmly in Isaiah 12 where God remonstrates with the Assyrian to whom He had given a secret charge against the people of His wrath (verse 6) to take the spoil and prey and tread the people down like the mire of the street. Yet, though the Assyrian did in fact execute the divine decree, his motive was far otherwise:
“Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so: but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.” (v.7)
Thus does the axe in the hand of God boast itself against the Lord who heweth therewith, and the saw magnifies itself against him that shaketh it (verse 15). Therefore when the Lord has performed His whole work of judgment on Mount Zion He will punish the stout heart of the Assyrian and bring down the glory of his high looks (v .12) .
The same principle operates in the mystery of the Lord’s decrees as executed by Satan. Satan issues forth from his pit, armed with a commission from God against the enemies of the church, and right well he executes it; yet all the time he does so unwittingly. It is not in Satan’s plan to do the will of God, any more than in the case of Job, but in the outcome Satan sees that all the time he expresses his own hate and enmity against man, he is in fact the slave of the divine omnipotence to bring forth a higher good than otherwise could be. This is Satan’s hell, and it is the hell of the wicked too.
THE BOTTOMLESS PIT - WHERE?
Where and what, then, is the bottomless pit? It is not a geographical feature somewhere in the unseen universe. Some of the ancient Fathers of the church were very near the mark when they said that the bottomless pit is the heart of the wicked. Let that be pondered. Milton has Satan saying, “I am hell” - and Milton was on the verge of a profound truth. If the eternal fires are the fires of an awakened, yet unsubmitted conscience, which perceives that all the soul has intended to do against God has only been against itself, judge what the remorse of Satan will be - and let sinful man hear and flee from this wrath to come.
ARAB AND TURK DISAPPOINT THE HISTORICIST
Much has been attempted in explanation of the ‘five months’ duration of the locust plague. Some have attempted to fit it into the life cycle of the locust insect. The Futurist with baffling simplicity prefers to take the period as precisely what it says. The historicist taking a day for a year, and 30 days to the month, has found himself in possession of 150 years which he promptly takes to the history book to find whatever might fit the period. Nor does he look in vain, even though he sometimes finds it necessary to make arbitrary adjustments in pursuit of exactitude. Thus we have the expositors who settle for the “Saracenic Woe” extending from the Hegira (the flight of Mahomet) to the building of Bagdad which marked the end of the Saracenic period of conquest. Thereafter the Turks took over, and (according to the Historicist) came into the prophetic picture as the frightful army described under the sixth trumpet.
Even so, the 150 years baffle exactitude, for the Hegira period (AD 602-762) exceeds by ten years the required time, while a secondary calculation from the time that Mahomet began to preach, still exceeds by three years (AD 609-762).
There are other interesting calculations however Bellarmine, the Roman Catholic theologian settled for Luther and the Protestants as the locusts of the Woe. The later Lutherans reckoned it was Calvin and the Calvinists: Vitringa goes back to the Goths and Vandals, while the Preterists find the total fulfillment in the wars leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Others with much greater plausibility have seen in the locusts the vast army of monks, nuns, and Jesuits.
On the whole the ancient opinion that evil spirits are intended seems highly preferable. They at least are always with us, an ever present evil, but who cares now for Saracens and Turks, Barbarian conquerors of Rome, or the squadrons of Napoleon? The principle of Rev. 1:3 must ever be observed.
Dr. Hengstenberg’s calculation is, that as five is the half of ten (and ten is a number of perfection), we have here a shortened or preliminary judgment followed by the intensification of the sixth trumpet.
TIME-NUMBERS in REVELATION
Contrary to the accepted opinions of most contending parties, we may yet see that none of the numbers throughout our Book of Revelation is intended to be a measurement of time. We have already seen that the 144,000 of Rev. 7 is a symbolic figure otherwise to be understood of that which cannot by man be numbered. As soon as specific values are given to time measurements in Revelation away goes the general principle of chapter 1, verse 3, and we cease to have a Book of any final spiritual value at all.
We have also to recognise amid this welter of Saracenic, Turkish and sacerdotal speculations, that these woes are intended for the unbelieving world, particularly for that portion of the world which oppresses the people of God; the elect are not to be injured in any way. It is difficult to see how the Turks could differentiate between the elect and the wicked when putting whole populations to the sword. On the other hand the agents of the Papacy certainly regarded the true believer as being the legitimate target of their cruelty, and therefore were the principal agents in the agelong persecution of the true church. It may appear that there is here an apparent contradiction to our interpretation. But it is only an appearance of contradiction.
The elect are only promised immunity from these judgments so far as these woes are God’s answer to His church in her cry for justice. In other words, it is because the church does suffer at the hands of the world or of false religion, that the trumpets of God’s justice sound. It is out of great tribulation that the church is brought to her promised rest (Rev. 7) but her tribulations are not the tribulations of the wicked. “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.”
(2 Thess. 1:6)
The order is: the church suffers at the hands of the world; church cries to God in prayer, and the martyred saints under the altar cry ‘How long?’; the holy justice of God turns the tables upon the wicked powers which have been inspired by Satan to destroy the people of God, and in their turn they are given into the hand of Satan and his demonic host to be deceived and led to their final doom.
At least the demons from the pit have no difficulty in differentiating between the children of God and the children of this world. They never make a mistake in those categories - but foiled in their purpose to raise the power of this world to the utter destruction of the righteous, their colossal energies are diverted by the providence of God against the persecutors, and thus the prayers of the saints and martyrs are answered, and the world receives a fresh lesson that all history is about REDEMPTION, and the one clue to the meaning of history is the church, her sufferings and testimony in the world.
ELUSIVE DEATH
There should be no difficulty in understanding the meaning of verse 6 - the seeking of death and not finding it. This shows the extremity of the despair arising from a tortured conscience. There is a difference between the availability of escape by suicide, and the agonised endurance which most persons accept in hope of a merciful end to their sufferings by the normal processes of mortality. The figure is from Jeremiah 8, verse 3: “And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts.” Jeremiah is prophesying of the extreme calamity about to overtake Judah and Jerusalem because of the apostasy of the nation.
The tormented conscience of the impenitent in their eternal abode will lead them to prefer extinction of being, to continued existence - but extinction of being has no place in the moral order of the Almighty One, despite the annihilation inventions of the modern cults, or the atheism of the masses. Life is a deeper mystery than we know and the Creator does not ordain it merely to pinch it out at the last.
v.10: The locusts are like unto war horses, wearing on their heads ‘as it were’ crowns like gold. They have faces like men, hair like women, teeth like lions, and tails like scorpions.
Some serious Historicists, fanatically committed to the theory of Turks and Saracens, have seriously suggested that the crowns could be regarded as the turbans worn the Arabs, who at that time wore their hair long, but wrapped it up inside their headdress. To such extremes do they descend whose enthusiasm for literal history has led them into interpretations which have no relevance to any spiritual purpose.
NAHUM’S LOCUSTS
But the figure is taken not from history but from prophecy, and will be found in the Book of Nahum, chapter 3, verses 15-17, where the description is of the host of the invading Assyrians, raised up by the decree of God for the chastisement of an apostate people, but themselves condemned to destruction when their season of ascendancy has expired: “Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.” So God limits the time during which the powers of evil are permitted to come forth to chastise the wicked - five months are allocated, as a dividing of time, for the demonic host of John’s fifth trumpet before they are recalled to their habitation to prepare for a yet more terrible foray against apostate mankind.
APOLLYON
v.11: “And they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.”
This monstrous being whose name in Hebrew or Greek means the same - a Destroyer - can be none other than the prince of hell, the fallen Lucifer, the outcast of heaven, in whom all evil originated when he departed from the purpose of his own creation and rebelled against the part which perfect love and wisdom had allocated to him. He was appointed to be the guardian and servant of Man, an inferior creation designed to surpass the angels of heaven in glory. One who should come forth from the Godhead would take upon Him, not the seed of angels but the seed of Abraham, that He might have a chosen, elect Bride exalted from deep modesty and humility to be partner with Him in the Eternal Throne.
Satan rebelled against the servility of his charge and by so doing exalted himself above God in his own pride: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God … I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14); “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground….” (Ezekiel 28:17 - see the whole of this chapter). True, Isaiah was writing of the Assyrian, and Ezekiel the prince of Tyre, but the spirit in those men was the spirit of the Evil One, and Satan is discerned through the trappings and boasting of these men of pride. In the character of the Assyrian, whose delight was in destruction, Satan appears in Revelation as the real Abaddon, the true Apollyon, the Destroyer, who only succeeds at last in destroying himself.
THE NAPOLEONIC SAGA
In passing, we note one of the curious results which often attend the preoccupation of our Historicists with almost anything in history which suggests a possible connection with these prophecies The name of Napoleon was too closely interwoven with the orthography of Apollyon (NAPOLLYON) for them to resist the temptation to equate the two, and even after the downfall and early death of the Great Corsican, the mantle fell upon his nephew, Napoleon III who for a season was groomed by Historicist and Futurist alike, for the vacant throne of antichrist. But the Prussians saw to it in 1870 that no-one bearing that name should ever disturb the peace of Europe again. Alas, the epilogue to the Napoleonic saga was the untimely death of the Third Napoleon’s only son and heir, a noble and gallant youth, modest and unassuming, who through the cowardice of an officer companion, when fighting under the British flag, was deserted and left to be slain by Zulu warriors - who paid tribute afterwards to the youth’s peerless spirit and indomitable courage. At home Queen Victoria fulminated against her commanders in the field who had received specific charge not to permit the young man to be exposed to danger, while his widowed and desolate mother the Empress Eugenie, an exile at Victoria’s court gave the world an example of patient and humble submission to the mighty hand of God.
So do events often disappoint the guesswork and speculation which too frequently pass for prophetic interpretation. Our reader by now will no doubt perceive, as we ourselves have been force to perceive, that little help is to be found in most of the books written on Revelation. An extract from the Speaker’s Bible (the scholarly commentary of last century produced on the suggestion of the Speaker of the House of Commons) will be found helpful here:
“On the fact that scarcely any two expositors agree in the division of the same subject among these trumpets, Mr. Faber observes: ‘So curious a circumstance may well be deemed the opprobrium of Apocalyptic interpretation, and may naturally lead us to suspect that the true key to the distinct application of the Trumpets has never yet been found, or, if found, has never yet been satisfactorily used.’
That this exposes the present writer also to the same judgment is readily acknowledged, but at least more than a century has rolled on, and history is now taking a new and ominous course. Perhaps we are in a position to learn somewhat by the mistakes of our predecessors, and by avoiding their pitfalls find a more excellent way. In this we can only submit ourselves to the judgment of our readers, and ask them at least to give careful consideration to our overruling principle –
REVELATION SPIRITUALLY UNDERSTOOD.
The demonic activity of the locust woe is clearly identified by the appearance they present. They have on their heads ‘as it were’ (note) crowns like gold - for they claim to rule over the consciences of men. They resemble battle horses, for they are the devil’s cavalry riding over mind and conscience, and trampling down truth wherever they find it.
They have faces like men and hair like women. Woman, in the bad sense, is the symbol of false religion - (see the examples of Aholah and Aholibah in Ezekiel 23, the adulterous sisters who represent the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in their idolatrous state). In Revelation, adultery is idolatry but faith is virginity of soul (Rev. 14:4). Yet though they have the hair of women they have the faces of men, who, under the guise of religion come only to destroy and devour with their lion’s teeth. Let us look therefore for a religious delusion which is idolatrous in its nature.
The breastplates of iron indicate their doctrine of human righteousness with which all the arrows of divine conviction are repelled.
The sound of their wings resembles war chariots racing to battle, indicating that their true purpose (as worked out in the false forms of religion) is not to save men but to destroy them eternally.
Their limited period of activity - five months - shows that their work will be fully accomplished in the time allotted to them by God.
THE SIXTH TRUMPET - THE SECOND WOE
This is the most devastating of all the six trumpets. Its special importance is marked by the solemnity of the voice of God coming from the horns of the golden altar of incense. The action is designed to show the connection between the intercession of the troubled and persecuted church, and the answering judgment upon those who afflict her.
“The sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.” (v.13)
It passes comprehension therefore that any commentator ancient or modern, should interpret these judgments as involving any way the sufferings of the people of God. The altar symbol in chapters 6, 8, and 9 specifically teaches that the judgments are the answer to the church’s prayers. Hence the repeated charge to the powers of evil that those who are sealed unto God, that is, the whole company of the redeemed on earth, are not to be hurt by them. John is still on Patmos, the victim of Rome’s persecuting power and the entire Book is the Book of the preservation of the Lord’s people and their assured victory over all the power of evil which can rise against them.
This is reinforced in the case of the terrible sixth trumpet that the angel of that judgment acts only as he is instructed by the voice from the altar - the same altar where the prayers of the saints are offered and received.
There is of course no altar in heaven. The altar is part of imagery of the Book, pictorialising the inner reality of the power of prayer, and the readiness of the Lord to come to the aid of His suffering people, moving heaven and earth and hell to make way for them down the ages of their conflict.
The voice from the altar proclaims, “Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.” It is the voice of omnipotence, in grand control of all the forces for good or evil in the universe. The angels bound are evil angels, for good angels are not bound, and the hand that bound them is the same hand of sovereign power and justice, wisdom and purpose, which now looses them to let those sullen waters of Euphrates arise to overwhelm the wicked world.
No, not the ancient river which flows those thousand miles and more across the Eastern wilderness, but that great river of turbid and fallen humanity on the banks of which constantly rises the Babel of oppressive worldly power. In John’s vision the great river rises again in flood, not in watery judgment but as worldly power is roused and inspired by armies of implacable spirits of evil setting the hum race against itself.
Satan and his myriads have no intention of helping God against the wicked, but they are compelled to be the agents of providence afflict the idolaters and adulterers of this world. Evil angels are as much the ministers of God as the angels of light (Psalm 78:49: “He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath and indignation and trouble, by sending evil angels among them”).
They who choose the devil as their friend will have the devil as their enemy and oppressor. Satan’s purpose is to destroy the people of God, but all he is able to do is prepare the ground for their deliverance and enlargement, as in the case of Israel in Egypt.
When Israel in turn gave themselves over to idols that was their destruction too: “They tempted and provoked the Most High God and kept not his testimonies. They ... moved him to anger with their graven images.” (Ps. 78:56-64) But always the eye of God is on that remnant of the flock, the true elect people of the covenant, the nation within the nation whom He preserves and delivers. Of them He speaks in the remaining verses of the 78th psalm: He refuses the tribe of Joseph and chooses the tribe of Judah, ‘the Mount Zion which He loved’, builds His sanctuary and calls for the heavenly David, the Prince of heaven to feed His flock.
THE KING of the BOTTOMLESS PIT
The agents of God’s justice, even though they be evil angels, are irresistible in battle, because they are urged on by divine decree. Their number is overwhelming. Their armoury is invincible. Their defence is impenetrable. Their armour and equipment show them to be other than human. Their scorpion tails (the horse-tails borne by, the Turkish pashas as symbols of authority, says one eminent Historicist!) -- tails with serpent heads - indicate that they are hellish squadrons led by the great Serpent himself - the devil and Satan. See him here at the head of them, directing operations. He is the fallen star who opens up the abyss and from its smoky depths sends those destructive, demonic forces which plague mankind by driving them to self-destruction and despair. He is the king of the Bottomless Pit (for he was the creator of it), Abaddon, Apollyon, the Destroyer, the overlord of death and the grave by which mankind is held in bondage and fear. The grave is the symbol of death and destruction, and this is the devil’s business. He who aspired to rule creation, has gotten to himself an empire indeed - but finds it to be an empire of darkness and death, of gloom and despair. What a territory to rule! What a hellish fate for one who was created in the beauty of the divine holiness, and dedicated to life, light, truth and love - now he has only death, darkness, the lie, and hate as his chosen sphere.
SATAN’S BINDING AND LOOSING
Over all presides the wisdom of the Eternal, whose decree has bound the hosts of darkness and releases them only to serve the holy purpose of His glorious throne. Hence the Voice which commands, “Loose the four angels bound in Euphrates ....” Satan himself is bound (Rev. 20:2), for ‘a thousand years’. In our chapter 9 is a valuable clue to the understanding of that mystery of Satan’s binding, which according to our theory is a restraint imposed upon Satan for the duration of the gospel testimony in the earth. The binding of the four Euphrates angels means that their liberty is reserved for specific season, which is expressed very significantly in verse 15 – “And the four angels were loosed which are prepared for an hour a day, a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men.”
They are bound in the Euphrates river, not because angels are or can be actually located in the waters of a river, but because the action is symbolic of a releasing of an evil power the identity of which is figured by the Euphrates river. The attempts by Historicist and Futurists alike to prove that the actual river is meant is sufficiently refuted by the fact that angels are said to be bound therein – an impossible conception. As the angels and their releasing are symbolic, so must be the river in which they are said to be bound. Likewise the number of the angels is of great significance. Four in the Bible is ever the prophetic number of the world, as in chapter 7:1.
This use of the figure four is seen by Hengstenberg to denote comprehensiveness and intensity in the nature of the judgment about to break in answer to the prayers of the saints. Some have seen in it the FOUR MONARCHIES of DANIEL’S prophecies, symbolic here of the united power of this world urged on by Satan to its own destruction.
The literal view of this Woe is clearly impossible, whether we take it from the Historicist with his Turkish tale, or the Futurist with his army of Chinese. There is not room on the earth for the maneuvering of an army of 200,000,000 horsemen, even if sufficient warriors could be found to mount this unobtainable number of horses And if all is to be taken literally, let us be consistent and have literal horses breathing fire and brimstone and biting with their serpent tails! The best our Futurist friends can do is to tell us that these are not really horses but monstrous tanks exploding with murderous fire. Indeed! Then away goes their literalism and the, must treat the entire Book as a symbolic Book. They admit the horses are not horses, and later on they confess that their antichrist does not in fact have seven heads and ten horns (chap. 13. 1), nor does there sit on his back, or the devil’s back, a harlot woman who is the paramour of all the kings of the earth. (chap. 17:1-2)
“LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH”
The author of the latest boasted ‘best seller’ “The Late Great Planet Earth” tells us the 200,000,000 army is literal, and that China will supply that number of ‘militiamen’, and that they will wipe out one third of the earth’s inhabitants, by ‘fire, smoke and brimstone’ which he associates with thermo-nuclear warfare, but says nothing of the horses which in the prophecy are even more prominent than the riders. It is not the only place by any means where this author, happy no doubt with the colossal sale of 1,600,000 copies of his sensational book, departs from the strict text of Revelation, avoiding the impossible and symbolising where he can - or must - while claiming all the time to be a Literalist.
If Mr. Lindsey’s book really had been fulfilling some sanctifying purpose, one could be lenient with the absurdities, but sad though it may be to say it, he has given us nothing to satisfy the hunger of our hearts for Christ and holiness and evangelical truth, whereas John wrote (and this Mr. Lindsey appears to overlook) that those who read should keep the sayings of the Book and by that means obtain blessing. But Mr. Lindsey is only the latest of a long line of authors who succeed in writing books exceedingly profitable for themselves (1,600,000 sale) but only sensationalising the Book of Revelation without any awareness of any spiritual or sanctifying purpose. The blurb on the cover reads, “A penetrating look at incredible prophecies involving this generation.” So say they all, for hundreds of years past - everything is always for ‘this generation’. But no doubt we shall see.
ROME IMPERIAL AND ROME PAPAL
We cannot exclude from these woes a foreshadowing of the rise and establishment of a great Christian apostasy. Rome Imperial is swept away by the besom of history. Rome Papal rises upon its ruins. We see the great falling away, the great delusion, first foretold by the apostle Paul in 2 Thess. 2 - the revealing of the MAN OF SIN who exalts himself above God, and sits in the temple of God (which we hope to prove from Rev. 11, verses 1 and 2, is the sphere of the visible church) showing himself that he is God. This masquerade of Christianity, which has become one of the fundamental facts of Christian history, is a mystery of iniquity which arose to oppress the church over a longer period of time and with greater danger to the soul, than was allotted by divine providence to the imperial Caesars.
This religious fraud was fabricated in hell itself, but it could not have succeeded without the permission of God who, as the great Ruler and Arbiter of all, reserves to Himself the righteous prerogative of giving over to delusion and deception those who refuse the light of truth. “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thess. 2:10-11). This is a principle of the divine government which must not be ignored, for it works out not only in the history of the ages, but in the individual soul in any and every age, where light is given, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Hence there is a point where the divine justice hands over to Satan individual souls, nations, generations, ages (Romans 1:28: “even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which were not convenient”). There is a restraint which God exercises even upon the wicked, but there is a point where rejected mercy passes into punitive and exact justice. The western races are even now treading perilously near the brink of that pit.
EUPHRATES
EUPHRATES is the symbol of the flowing stream of fallen humanity. On its banks, rise Babel and Babylon, Satan’s empire of confusion and ignorance. The unbinding of the four angels imprisoned in its waters means the unleashing of fearful spiritual powers in the human race, hitherto restrained. Satan’s masterpiece of fraud and deception reaches its zenith and the way for the appearance of antichrist is ready. A locust swarm of plausible preachers of human merit and the righteousness of works arises to insult the righteousness of Christ: the disguise falls away and the devil’s troopers of a vile spiritual and ecclesiastical tyranny ride booted and spurred over the conscience.
“Dreadful spiritual powers were claimed by these priests. Every priest, however humble his origin, was invested with superhuman dignity. His consecration enabled him to perform the supposed miracle of changing bread and wine into the body and blood of God. The church claimed to hold in its power the destiny of every soul.” Frank C. Raynor (“THE GIANT MASQUERADE”) AGE OF RATIONALISM
Again, however, we may not commit the error of maintaining that the papacy is alone in the fulfillment of these woes. As the locusts give way to the horsemen; as breastplates of iron give way to armour of lurid fire, and jacinth, and brimstone; as faces of men give way to heads of lions; as death despaired of, gives way to spiritual slaughter, so we have seen in history (and are seeing now) how this principle is ever at work. The papal tyranny no longer claims so wide an empire. It has lost much of its power to deceive and destroy, but the Age of Rationalism, a new thing in human history, now bears down upon us, sweeping away all religious lies and delusions, and in place thereof banishes God entirely from creation, destroys all principles of morality and righteousness, and substitutes the mind of man for the wisdom and the throne of God.
Science, art, philosophy, music, letters - all are corrupt by the spirit of atheism which now controls the human mind. The squadrons of an invincible and hellish delusion ride roughshod over fallen and revolted humanity - and only the elect are immune and preserved. The true church of the redeemed Satan cannot touch, but all the rest is given into his hand.
His are the 200,000,000 demon horsemen who rush upon the human race. Even the papacy has only a limited number of sacerdotal troops, but the unseen armies which beset our fallen humanity are beyond computation. Let them be what they will however, their liberty to act is prescribed and limited by One who has overcome the darkness and death which are their chief weapons of fear. Likewise their eventual and eternal ruin is as certain as the throne of Him who declares -
“I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”- Rev. 1:18.
v.15: An hour a day a month and a year.
Endless speculations by the Historicists have been woven around these enigmatic words. They have calculated 396 days or thereabout (how baffling that hour is to the year-day theory!) Carrying the calculation to the history books to see what might correspond with it! But the enigma is simply solved, and the Old Testament holds the key: It simply means that judgment will begin at the appointed time fixed by the unerring wisdom of God from the beginning, as in the case of Genesis 7:11:
“In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the 17th day of the month …”
Num. 1:1 – “On the first day of the second month in the second year after they were come up out of the land of Egypt”. All is under God’s control. Judgment is restrained until His moment comes. Hengstenberg quotes Bossuet: “The time being so precisely marked by the prophet, lets us see how exactly God determines the periods.”
v.19: Power in mouth and tail.
False doctrine in the mouth, reinforced by absolute power over the soul, the tail being like unto the serpent’s head.
v. 20-21:
“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”
The human race in its apostasy chooses the gods of gold and silver, wood and stone, and continues in its course of murder , sorcery (taking the devil as its master), of adultery and theft – as we see today in modern society - and must pursue its chosen road till the time of the final judgment comes. The Seventh Trumpet is yet to sound.
The grosser forms of idolatry which prevailed in John’s day, have given way to more subtle forms, but the principle remains ingrained in the unregenerate human heart. Wherever man departs from revealed religion regulated by the Word of God, he falls into idolatry, and the gate is opened to all violence, deception and shame.
Incorporated in the judgments of these chapters we see all the ills and penalties suffered by THE MAN OF JAPHETH (the “third part of men” - verse 18) throughout Christian history. Again and again these judgments are verified by historic events, yet they recur down the centuries in changing forms which are the same in principle. They are at work now. A false science has now arisen, which not only darkens the mind but defiles the soul, and thus fulfils Satan’s ultimate aim: to destroy the image of God in the human race.
But inasmuch as it is the Lord Himself who warns us of these things many ages in advance, this is yet another sure indication of the divine control. What God foreknows He has foreordained for it is unthinkable that God should have prior knowledge of such developments in history, yet remain powerless and impotent, unable or unwilling to intervene successfully so as to prevent and thwart the plot.
But God has thwarted all that Satan will ever do - as He thwarted Satan at the Cross, which Satan thought was his greatest victory, the crowning triumph of his warfare against God - only to find that he had destroyed himself by his own seeming triumph: “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain.” (Acts 2:23)
“For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined before to be done.” (Acts 4:27-28)
Satan's greatest weapon is death and all its accompanying terrors and despair. By yielding Himself into the hand of Satan for Satan to work his will upon Him in awful death, He who was God, being the Son of God, destroyed death, and brought life and immortality to light.
This is how God foreordains. This is how He overcomes: not by power but by weakness; by submission and humility; by meekness and yielding. This is the way of eternal wisdom, which is ETERNAL LOVE. All else is idolatry and sin and death. THIS is life – LIFE ETERNAL - LIFE MORE ABUNDANT.
Sola Scriptura 
