AS TIME RUNS OUT

#600                                                AS TIME RUNS OUT

Scripture  Revelation 9:13-21, NIV                                                                              Orig.  2/4/1979

                                                                                                                                 Rewr.   6/8/1989

Passage: 13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.

17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. 18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. 19 The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.

20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Purpose: Continuing the series from Revelation for class study, here describing the sixth trumpet to show that time is running out.

Keywords:        Bible Study                  Judgment                    Tribulation                  Unbelief

Timeline/Series:           Revelation

Introduction

            In the concluding verse of chapter six, we read the hopeless acknowledgement of those confronting the “wrath of the lamb.”  The sixth seal had just been opened, and calamities of the broadest proportion fell upon men.  They were terrors bespeaking the wrath of God.  The people were heard to cry out:

            “For the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?”

            In the next chapter, however, God has His messenger, in the person of one of the elders, to say:

7:14f “These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb. . . and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.”

            The RSV, by the way, translates that last phrase: “. . . He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence.”

            For the unredeemed, the tribulation continues and intensifies.  In chapter eight, the first four trumpet judgments are described.  We read about God’s judgment upon a material universe.  In the following chapter we first viewed the fifth trumpet, called a “woe,” depicting horror [illegible] result in death to one-third of the human [illegible] . . . . way you perceive it, time is running out.

I.          First, We Want to Talk about General Positions Relative to Interpretations.

            Basically, there are four.  Preterist—regards the book as referring to its own day; it pictured the church’s struggle, but it was a struggle with Rome.  Historical—that the book was designed to forecast the whole range of church history: From John’s time—Revelation 1:1 “things which must shortly come to pass” [and] 1:19 “Write . . . the things which are, and the things which shall be”; it is a kind of “vision” of the ages.  Futurist—the book forecasts the time of the Lord’s coming and the end of the world: we hear more about this; position of evangelists, [illegible] preachers.  Spiritualists—that the book has nothing to do with historical event: A depiction in figurative language of the great principles of divine government.

            I want us to spend some time at this point  on the historical position and follow it through.  At the time of John, Rome was in the ascendancy of her power: Begun after the time of Alexander; from 3rd Century B.C., for 600/700 years; reached her zenith about 200 A.D.  She knew no rival or peer for 500 years.  Civil war church persecuted—for 800 years no foreign invader; radical change after 5th Century A.D.

            The historists say that the trumpet judgment assesses the coming decline of the Roman Empire. 

·         The first trumpet:  Read 8:7, “and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth, and 1/3 of trees, . . . all grass.”  The Goths descended from the north, left behind scorched earth, burned cities, about 409 A.D.

·         The second trumpet: Read 8:8, “And a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and 1/3 part of the sea became blood, and 1/3 ships.”  The vandals entered Italy about 422 A.D.  They swept through Gaul, Spain, North Africa. Built an armada, fought Rome 30 years. After 600 years control, Rome defeated.

·         The third trumpet: Read 8:10, “And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the rivers and fountains of waters . . . and the name of the star is called Wormwood.”  While still struggling against the Vandals, the Huns arrived about 440 A.D.  From Central Asia, Attila came to the banks of the Danube with 800,000 men.  H.H. Halley writes (p716) “Pushing westward, he met the Roman armies and defeated them in awful slaughter, successively on the River Marne, River Rhone, River Po, so that these rivers actually ran with blood.  Some historians say that the River Danube was actually turned anise and Attila buried in its bed.

·         The fourth trumpet: Read 8:12, “And a third of the sun, . . . moon, . . . and stars were smitten, and day and night affected by one-third.  History records that Odoacer besieged and took Rome in 476 A.D. (Barbarians).  Someone notes “The light of Roman civilization went out and the Dark Ages of the world began.”

·         The fifth trumpet:  Read 9:1, “A star fell . . . and was given the key to the bottomless pit . . . and there came out locusts.”  Equated with rise of Mohammedanism.  Fierce, relentless horsemen, famous for beards, long hair.  Mohammedanism taught them to spare growing things.  Some say it lasted from 630 A.D. to 796 A.D., about 150 years, or five months.

·         The sixth trumpet: Read 9:16, “The number of the army of the horsemen were 200 thousand thousand.”   The Turks did not enter the picture until 1057 A.D., but did they ever.  The Eastern Roman Empire fell at Constantinople in 1453 A.D., or 396 years.  On the day/year theory (see v15), a day, month, year, totals 396.  Nothing has yet been said about the empire being in three parts: Western, Rome; Eastern, Constantinople; and Trans Mediterranean, Alexandria.

            This makes for very interesting theorizing especially to historians.  It disengages the immorality of the Roman Empire.  It even strikes a blow at Roman Catholic.  It does very little, however, to speak to the struggling church of 1st Century.  Which would mean that it means little to the struggles of our own day.

II.         Now Let’s Take a Renewed  Interest in the Sixth Trumpet.  V13, “And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God.”

            There is ONE authority as we move toward a final day, and it is God.  Comparing the sixth seal (6:12f), there came the “day of wrath,” (v17).  Messenger is dispatched “having the seal . . . God.” 7:2a.  Believers were to be sealed, identified.  The seventh seal gave way to the seven trumpets.  The first four trumpets reveal Judgment upon man’s habitat.  Have you been to a zoo lately?  A Safari Compound?  They are marvels in artificial habitat.  What we can create for any species of mammal, we cannot create for us.  Our ultimate downfall may stem from the abuse of our environment.  June: dinosaurs; May: Swiss forests.

            The fifth trumpet began the time of “woe.”  A time of real, or imagined, calamity.  I Corinthians 9:16b, “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.”

            The sixth trumpet (woe) continues what God absolutely controls.  Remember that God’s people are sealed (7:3).  They are to be removed from, or delivered through, these calamities.  Only the third trumpet mentions human death.  (Seems to be natural.)  The fifth warns against it.  Now, death has become a foregone conclusion (v15) “for to slay the third part of men.”  The voice came from the altar.  See 8:3-5, 6:9 (intercedings).  The voice instructs (v14) that the “four angels” will be loosed.  Euphrates: eastern border; compares with Isaiah 8:5-8; see Ezekiel 47 flood of holy waters, see Psalm 75:1-6.  These are the angels of death. Revelation 6:8 (4th seal), 1 in 4 killed by man’s own ineptitude. 9:15, now 1 in three will be slain in this race to judgment.  Hour, day, month, year, may mean only that perfection at work.

            A cavalry force of 200 million is pictured.  There were never this many Turks, but it looked like it.  They are described with such lethal depiction, could these be indescribable modern weapons.  Fire, smoke, brimstone different.  Could describe war, atomic accident, earthquake, eruption.  Reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24.  Whatever else they are, such monsters from the underworld are stylized portrayals of the subversive powers of demonic forces leading people away from God and to destruction.

·         Jim Jones episode in Guyana

·         Displays in China: 6/89

            In v17 John’s only mention “vision.”  With all of the above, there is still no repentance. Every lost person should wince; every believer/lost relative. Sin has become entrenched.  Devil worship; idol worship; murder, sorcery, fornication, the pharmakeia.