Studies in The Book of Revelation | Lesson 10

Seven Trumpets (Continued) The Fall of the Eastern Empire of Rome.

Questions

1. To what point did the close of the fourth trumpet bring us?

Answer: To the extinction of Western Rome. Henceforward the empire was perpetuated only in the eastern division, to which our attention is now turned.

2. Calamitous as were the times under the first four trumpets, what is said of those to follow?

Revelation 8:13 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!

3. Shortly after the closing events of the fourth trumpet, what power began to gather strength as a scourge upon the remaining or eastern portion of the empire?

Answer: Islam.

Note: The very next century after the events growing out of the fourth trumpet, the rise of Mohammedanism began to prepare the forces that brought ruin upon Eastern Rome. Mohammed was recognized as a prophet and entered Medina as prince in the year 622. In the next ten years he gathered nearly all ‘Arabia to his standard, and following his death (in 632), the ‘fanatical warriors were ready to burst forth from the Arabian deserts.

4. Describe the view as the fifth trumpet sounded.

Revelation 9:1-3 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

Note: The word translated “bottomless pit” means a waste or desert region. How graphically the figures of speech describe the swarming forth of the Mohammedan forces, like clouds of locusts from the desert of Arabia, darkening the sky.

5. What was the command to these forces?

Revelation 9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Note: When Abubeker, who succeeded Mohammed, sent forth his followers against Syria, he issued the command: “Let not your victory be stained with the blood of women and children. Destroy no palm trees nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees.” He said they would find certain ones living retired lives in the service of God who were to be let alone and not harmed. But of those with “shaven crowns,” of “the synagogue of Satan,” he said, “be sure you cleave their skulls and give them no quarter till they either turn Mohammedan or pay tribute.”—Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of Rome, chap. 51, par. 10.

6. What development was seen in the organization of Mohammedanism?

Revelation 9:11 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.

7. What foreboding of doom to the remaining, or Eastern, empire of Rome is implied in the name given this organized force?

Revelation 9:11 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.

Note: In Greek the word Apollyon means “a destroyer.”

Note: Othman founded the empire which was used as the agency for the overthrow of the Eastern Empire of Rome. His name gave to this empire its title, Ottoman or Turkish Empire. From his time the fanatical Moslem forces were thrown directly against the Eastern Empire to destroy it. “It was on the 27th day of July, 1299 of the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster.”—Gibbon, chap. 64, par. 14.

8. What definite prophetic period is here assigned to this power?

Revelation 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

Note: In literal time these “five months” are 30 days or 1 month times 5 which is “150 days” or “prophetic 150 years.”

9. Dating from the invasion of Roman territory by Othman, to what time and event does the period reach?

Note: One hundred and fifty years from July 27, 1299, the date the preservation of which the historian regarded as significant (though he little knew the prophetic significance of it), brings us to July 27, 1449. Through all the 150 years the Moslem forces had harrassed and destroyed, until, in 1449, the emperor succeeding to the throne of Constantinople took the office only by permission of the Turkish sultan, who thus, says Gibbon, “announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfall of the Eastern Empire.”

10. What, word is spoken at the close of the sounding of this fifth trumpet?

Revelation 9:12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

11. What was let loose when the sixth trumpet began to sound?

Revelation 9:13-14 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

Note: The Mohammedan government was composed at that time of the four great provinces, or sultanies, of Bagdad, Damascus, Iconium, and Aleppo. All the Moslem forces were now to be let loose upon the Eastern Empire for its final destruction.

12. What general view of the conflict was given the prophet?

Revelation 9:16-19 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

Note: Gibbon tells of the “myriads of Turkish horse” engaged. The discovery of gunpowder and its adaptation to war in firearms, which the Turks made use of in the siege of Constantinople for the first time in history (the Greek inventor having deserted to their side), answers exactly to the view the prophet had of battle attended by puffs of smoke and blazing brimstone.

13. How long a period of supremacy was assigned to this power?

Revelation 9:15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

Note: “An hour” (one-twenty-fourth of a prophetic day, or literal year)= 15 days literal time; “a day”-1 year; “a month”= 30 years; “a year” =360 years; total 391 years and 15 days, time of Turkish supremacy, from 1449, when that supremacy was acknowledged.

14. To what date are we brought by the two prophetic periods of this chapter?

Answer:

15. What occurred at the ending of the period?

Answer: Ottoman supremacy and independence ceased.

Note: By accepting intervention from the powers, prescribing a settlement with its own vassal, Egypt—which had revolted and seemed about to establish its independence—the Turkish Government acknowledged its dependence upon the great powers. A report from Constantinople, published in the London morning Chronicle, Sept. 18, 1840, states that an ultimatum was officially placed in the hands of Mohemet Ali, of Egypt, so completing the arrangement of the powers, on the nth day of August, 1840, and the Turkish sultan’s independence was gone, inasmuch as it was the powers and not the sultan that were responsible to maintain the terms of settlement. Since then he has been helped to stand by the intervention and the jealousies of the powers, and the Eastern Question has constituted a perpetual menace to the peace of the world. The Advent Movement was well under way at this time, and in 1838, Josiah Litch, an associate of William Miller, had published the announcement that some event marking the close of Turkish supremacy was to be looked for on August 11, 1840. Hearts were stirred to new energy in preaching the advent warning by this fulfilment of prophecy before then- very eyes.

16. Has the world learned the lesson of history?

Revelation 9:20-21 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: 21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

17. What follows after the closing of the sixth trumpet on August II, 1840?

Revelation 11:14  The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.