The Seven Trumpets – The Breaking up of the Empire of Rome. – Fall of the Western Empire.
Questions
1. What scene was presented to the prophet, following the vision of the seven seals?
Revelation 8:2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
2. Of what is the trumpet a symbol?
Jeremiah 4:19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
1 Corinthians 14:8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
Note: The seven trumpets deal with the wars of nations; the first four with the downfall of the western division of the Roman Empire. The division of Rome, as prophesied by Daniel, was to be brought about amidst war and tumult. The four attacks that really shattered the Western Empire are here covered.
3. (A) Before opening to the prophet’s vision the desolation of war, what view was presented?
(B) Do our prayers actually reach heaven?
(C) With what are they mingled?
Revelation 8:3-4 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. 4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
Note: As though to reassure the saints who were to witness the coming calamities of war, the Lord shows how surely the prayers of the saints on earth came up before His throne. The incense, ascending with the prayers of Israel, represents the merits and intercession of Christ. This picture must ever comfort believers who will pass through the last struggle of the nations, when war and tumult is to fill the earth. Verse 5 seems to pass to the close of the heavenly ministry and the final desolation of the earth. See the study of the seventh plague Revelation 16:17-21
Revelation 8:5 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.
4. (A) What followed the sounding of the first trumpet?
(B) Where did the desolating effect fall?
(C) What was the result?
Revelation 8:6-7 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. 7 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.
Note: “Hail and fire mingled with blood” suggests war from the north, with fire and sword. The Goths fell upon Rome from the icy north like a hailstorm, A. D. 395-419, particularly under Alaric. Compare these significant phrases from the historian Gibbon’s account with the language of the prophet: “They [the Goths] deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet.” “Armies . . . issuing from the frozen regions of the north.” “The consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greater part of seventeen provinces of Gaul.” “His [the poet Claudian] trees, his old contemporary trees, must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country.” The text says, “The third part of trees.” The phrase, “the third part,” often repeated in this series, evidently has reference to the division of the empire into three parts, effected in Constantine’s day,—the eastern, with Constantinople the capital: the western, including Britain, Gaul (France), and Spain; and the central division, having the city of Rome as capital.
5. (A) What was seen when the second trumpet sounded?
(B) Where was this burning mountain cast?
(C) What was the effect?
Revelation 8:8-9 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; 9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Note: The next crushing attack was from the burning regions of the south, by the Vandals, A. D. 428-476. The sea is the scene of conflict. Under Genseric, “Monarch of the sea,” naval attacks were made upon the empire, aptly described in the symbol of the burning mountain cast into the sea. Twice he burned the entire Roman fleet. Carthage, in northern Africa, was his capital. “He beheld,” says Gibbon, “the final extinction of the Empire of the West.”
6. (A) What was seen, following the sounding of the third trumpet?
(B) Where did this star fall?
(C) What was the name of the star?
(D) What was its effect upon the waters?
Revelation 8:10-11 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
Note: Invasion of the Huns under Atilla, whose forces struck most heavily in the regions in which the main river systems of the empire have their fountain head. His career in Western Rome was brief, as a blazing meteor, A. D. 451-453. Atilla gloried in the titles, “The Scourge of God,” “The Terror of the World,” and bitter as wormwood was the cup of affliction pressed to the lips of the inhabitants of the desolated regions.
7. What scenes transpired as the fourth trumpet sounded?
Revelation 8:12 And 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 as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
Note: “In the political firmament of the ancient world, while under the reign of imperial Rome, the emperorship, the consulate, and the senate shone like the sun, the moon, and the stars.” Keith. After the conquest of Italy (A. D. 476), Odoacer, king of the Heruli, abolished the office and title of emperor in Western Rome, and in the course of history soon following, the consulship (in 545) and senate (542) were also set aside, “till Rome was without an emperor, a consul, or a senate.” The original Roman Empire had been divided. The ancient seat of empire, the city of Rome, was henceforth to enthorne a pope instead of a Cesar. In coming up he had schemed the overthrow of three of the ten new nations, the Heruli, Vandals, and Ostrogoths, and in A. D. 538 the political supremacy of the Papacy was established, with seven nations in the territory of Western Rome, represented in the present-day nations of western Europe. Constantinople was the sole imperial city. And in the events of the next two trumpets the scene is transferred to the East.
8. What more ancient prophecy was fulfilled in the history of these times?
Daniel 7:23-24 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. 24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
9. After the three kings had been plucked up, what work by the little horn power was to follow?
Daniel 7:21-22 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; 22 Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.
10. (A) Do papal principles still oppose the truth?
(B) Do the kingdoms of divided Rome still exist in our day?
(C) For what may we look next?
Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
11. What assurance for the times of conflict before us have we in the word of prophecy, showing God’s overruling hand in history?
Isaiah 45:9-11 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? 10 Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? 11 Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.
Isaiah 40:9, 22-23, 29-31 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: 23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
| A.D. 395. 1st Trumpet. Invasion of the Goths under Alaric. Revelation 8:7. |
| A.D. 428. 2nd Trumpet. Invasion of the Vandals under Genseric. |
| A.D. 451-53. 3rd Trumpet. Invasion of the Huns under Atilla. |
| 476. 4th Trumpet. Invasion of the Heruli under Odoacer and after results. |
| 622. 5th Trumpet. First Woe. Sarcens. July 27, 1299.————Othman. Revelation 9:11. 150 years. |
| July 27, 1449. 6th Trumpet, Second Woe. Turks. Four Sultanies loosed. Revelation 9:14, 15. 391 years, 15 days. |
| August 11, 1840. Message, Rev, 10. Time no longer. Quickly. |
| 1884. 7th Trumpet. Third Woe. Revelation 11:14-19. Angry Nations. Wrath of God. Investigate Judgment or Cleaning of Sanctuary or Finishing the Mystery. The Seven Last Plagues——————- |
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