The six trumpets of Revelation 8–9 fall at mid-tribulation, after the seventh seal, when God again deals with Israel as a nation and Israel flees into the wilderness. The messenger with the golden censer is the second person of the Godhead in the capacity of the Angel of Jehovah, serving as high priest. The coals from the altar are for purification, as when Isaiah’s lips were cleansed so that he could pronounce judgment on Israel. Unbelievers are purged from Israel, and this messenger completes the dispensation of law.
The dispensation of grace ends at the catching away of the Church. A short interval follows in which the man of lawlessness, the harlot, and the ten kings rise. These things occur after the Church is gone. The setting is after the war of Gog and Magog, in which the man of lawlessness is killed and later resuscitated. The seven messengers prepare to sound. Six trumpets sound in this section. The seventh does not sound until after the Millennial Kingdom and is the final manifestation of the wrath of God.
The trumpets are directed against the Gentiles around the Mediterranean. Their purpose is the protection of Israel by distraction. If the Gentiles were not occupied by these judgments, they would pursue Israel. The revived Roman Empire is trampling Jerusalem, and the man of lawlessness will set himself up as God in the temple. The judgments follow the pattern of the plagues of Egypt.
The first messenger sounds, and hail and fire mingled with that which has the quality of blood are cast on the earth. A third of the trees and all the green grass are burned. The blood is not literal human blood; it rots and stinks as blood does. The scope is the Mediterranean land, the region that still has green growth after the earlier famine, the same provision that drew Gog and his allies at mid-tribulation.
The second messenger sounds, and something like a great burning mountain, comparable to a meteor, is thrown into the sea. A third of that sea becomes blood-quality, a third of the living creatures die, and a third of the ships are destroyed, for ships cannot float on blood. The sea is the Mediterranean, not every sea of the world. In Exodus 7:20 Moses struck the river and the waters became blood-quality; the fish died, the river stank, and the Egyptians dug beside the river to drink filtered water.
The third messenger sounds, and a great star burning like a torch falls on a third of the rivers and springs. Its name is Wormwood. A third of the waters become bitter to the point of poison, and many die because thirst drives them to drink. The impact is on the waters around Palestine within the Roman sphere, not on every river of the earth.
The fourth messenger strikes a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of the day and of the night do not shine. This is distinct from the mid-tribulation darkening, when the sun is like sackcloth and the moon like blood. Here a third of the light is diminished because the messenger strikes the sun; the sun is not running out of fuel. The earth speeds up, and a day is about sixteen hours until the end of the Great Tribulation, so that those on the earth can survive as the sun intensifies toward supernova. The fourth bowl begins that supernova, and the trumpets and the bowls run together. The stated days remain solar days. God does not require them to be twenty-four hours. The count of three and a half years is not altered.
When Israel sees the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel standing in the holy place, those in Judea flee to the mountains. They do not return for goods. Matthew 24:14–22 records the gospel of the kingdom preached to the nations, then the end. That gospel is the kingdom gospel proclaimed by the 144,000, the same kingdom message presented when Christ came, not the gospel of grace. Great tribulation follows, such as has not been since the beginning of the world. In Revelation 12:14 the woman, Israel, is given the two wings of a great eagle and nourished in the wilderness for a time, times, and half a time from the face of the serpent. Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; for the elect’s sake they are shortened. The elect is Israel. The Church is already complete and is not on the earth. Matthew 24 concerns Israel in the tribulation, not the present age. The shortening is the length of each day, not the number of days. Israel remains in the wilderness for three and a half years.
An angel—not an eagle—flies through the midst of heaven and cries three woes on the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining trumpet blasts. The word for inhabitants marks earth-dwellers, unbelievers settled and at ease on the earth. Each woe matches a remaining trumpet. Those trumpets still focus on the Gentiles and the Mediterranean, yet they also reach Israel in the wilderness and begin to purge unbelievers from the nation. Some plagues of Egypt touched Israel and some did not. Frogs and lice covered the land, including Israel. The flies were kept from Goshen. Satan’s servants could mimic the frogs for a time and then could not mimic the later plagues.
The fifth messenger sounds about six months before the end of the Great Tribulation. John sees a star already fallen from heaven. To him is given the key of the well of the abyss. The fallen star is Satan. The place is the pit of the abyss, Tartarus, where many demons are bound. Second Peter 2:4 speaks of angels who sinned and were cast into Tartarus in chains of gloom, reserved for judgment. Before the flood, fallen angels sought to corrupt the seed of the woman. From that came the Nephilim and, after the flood, the Rephaim, giant men who will not be resurrected. Sheol still holds the unsaved in its lowest part; paradise has been moved to the edge of the third heaven. Tartarus is not Gehenna or the lake of fire. Isaiah 14:12–15 places Lucifer, who once had his throne on the earth, in the lowest depths of the pit. When Christ returns, Satan is bound there for a thousand years.
Satan opens the well. Smoke rises as from a great furnace and darkens the sun and the air. Out of the smoke come beings with the quality of locusts, swarming, and they receive authority like scorpions to inflict intense pain. They are not literal locusts or scorpions. They may not harm grass, green growth, or trees, and they may touch only men who do not have the seal of God on the forehead. The 144,000 are sealed to service and cannot be harmed. This seal is wider than that service seal. It marks all who belong to God and is a seal of protection, as in Ezekiel 9, where a mark on the forehead spared those who sighed over Jerusalem’s abominations while the rest were slain. Those sealed do not bear the mark of the beast. The demons may harm those who do. Their king is Abaddon, Satan. He releases them to help him, and they are permitted only to harm his own people. His house is divided, and a house divided against itself cannot stand. The unpersuaded belong to the ruler of the authority of the air. These demons do not ordinarily torment unbelievers, because those people are his. Here they are permitted to torment them for five months and are not given authority to kill. In those days men seek death and do not find it. They strongly desire to die, and death flees from them. Harm may be severe, yet death is not permitted.
