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The Tribulation: The Blast of the Trumpets
Part 5
By Robert
We pick up from Part 4 at the start of the next wave of judgment: the Trumpet Judgments:
The First Trumpet Sounds:
"Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up." ( Revelation 8:6-7, NIV)
This hail is reminiscent of the hail God sent upon Egypt in Exodus chapter 9, but the difference is that instead of lightning flashing with it, this hail has fire and blood. Blood has always been symbolic of life; when it was spilled, it meant something or someone has died. Fire has always been seen as a purifier; God used it to cleanse, such as when he sent down fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. We then see that a third of the earth, including it's vegetation, is destroyed in this judgment.
Trees and grass in nature have several purposes: wheat is considered a variety of grass, as are many other staples like rice. Trees produce fruit, lumber, spices, and they produce oxygen by utilizing carbon dioxide (co2). What many do not realize is that trees and grass also hold soil in place with their roots, preventing it from blowing or washing away via erosion. During the Great Depression, the "Dustbowl" in the Midwest US was caused by a drought that killed a lot of the crops and grass that held soil in place; when windstorms came, the soil was blown away with it, removing a great deal of the farmland's ability to grow crops as well as polluting the air and making it unbreathable.
What scripture here is talking about is the abrupt removal of 1/3 of the earth's vegetation, thus reducing air quality, food availability and everything else associated with it by 1/3.
The Second Trumpet sounds:
"The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed." (Revelation 8:8-9, NIV)
Here, we see that something LIKE a mountain has been cast into the sea. The Greek word hós, which means "as, like as, even as," denotes a similarity to something, and not that it is EXACTLY like it. All ablaze is what it says: completely on fire, flaming, burning all over. This would be perfect to describe a meteor that was careening through the sky on its' final descent to the earth, as to John such a thing would look very much like a flaming mountain. Upon landing in the sea, the sea turns to blood, and kills a third of the life in it, and a third of the ships in it.
Chemically, seawater is not too dissimilar from blood. All of the basic chemical components of human plasma, minus the platelets, red and white corpuscles, antibodies and nutrients carried by the plasma. In fact, human plasma minus these elements appears as a pale yellowish color; it is only when the hemoglobin meets the outside air during bleeding that blood takes on it's characteristic crimson hue. So, something about this "mountain" changes the composition of the water to match that of blood.
In any event, the water, now blood, becomes poisonous to life in the 1/3 of the waters that are stricken, and that life dies. It also results in 1/3 of the ships being destroyed; seeing that is is not just any ships caught in that area but 1/3 total is implied, I take this to mean 1/3 total of all ships in the world. This means cargo, luxury liners, oil tankers, military vessels, small sailing boats, fishing vessels, etc. The loss of fishing, shipping, military and whatever others would hurt many nations, as well as a great loss of LIFE in those catastrophes. It would make a certain area of the planet impassable, and traditional trading routes would be null; new ones would have to be charted. just how it would destroy ships is unclear, but what it does make clear is that this would cripple the planet even further.
The Third Trumpet sounds:
"The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water- the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter." (Revelation 8:10-11, NIV)
The next trumpet brings yet another celestial body, and this one has a name: "Wormwood". Now, to be frank, I am merely going to suggest a possibility, as this one has been up to some conjecture and my answer is probably no better than anyone else's. But my impression from scripture on this is that it could describe a comet, which in the dark of the sky seems to blaze. Comets are made of ice, and have a dark coating of carbon on them; what you see is the comet's "tail" as it vaporizes from the body in space. A possibility is that this comet heads towards earth, and begins to break apart on entry into the atmosphere. That would allow parts of it to fall into several rivers and other bodies of water. Lakes often feed rivers, and empty into the oceans; additionally, evaporation and condensation in the clouds allows water to rain back down upon the planet, and seeps into the ground to collect in underground springs and aquifers.
My point in all of this is that there are mechanics in place that would allow a "star" like wormwood to get into 1/3 of the freshwater supply of the planet, and contaminate it. In Greek, "Wormwood" is apsinthos, which is described as "a type of bitterness". This is probably an allusion to the plant known as wormwood ( Artemisia absinthium), from which our modern drink Absinthe is made. The plant is know for it's bitter taste, and the fact that the "star" makes the waters "bitter" to drink is not lost on this fact. What I am thinking this "bitterness" is may be a poisoning of the water by a chemical contained in the comet's inner fragments or it's outer coating.
But as I have said: this is just a supposition I came up with. What we do know for sure is that it will kill many people because of the contamination, and it will affect 1/3 of the planet's fresh waters.
The Fourth Trumpet sounds:
"The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night." (Revelation 8:12, NIV)
With this judgment, we see that 1/3 of daylight, moonlight ans starlight are removed. While the lord could certainly extinguish with ease 1/3 of the Sun and stars, the moon doesn't give light; it just merely reflects it. 1/3 of the sun's output reduced would take care of the moon as well though. But with the impact of a comet that fragmented into pieces on impact, it's just as likely that debris from it's entry has contaminated the atmosphere. Additionally, since 1/3 of the grass and tress burned up, a great deal of dust is now free from 1/3 of the planet to blow into the sky. keep in mind also that in an earlier judgment, The sky was already darkened considerably by potential ash from volcanoes. So, with that in mind, the planet is getting darker by the minute, and LOT less inviting to live on.
This reduction of light has physical and psychological effects on the planet: crops stunted because of poor sunlight; trees and other plants begin to wither and fade; weather patters begin to change as the winds, solar driven, are deprived of even more of the source of energy that moves them, and people begin to suffer across the planet the effects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), due to the reduction of UV light. Days take on a gloomy pallor; becoming almost dusk during storms. Nighttime becomes pitch black, and curfews would most likely have to be in place for the safety of people. This would also mean "nightlife" in cities like New York and whatnot might be curtailed; in smaller cities without lots of light and small towns, completely dead.
But the worst has not even begun to appear.
"As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!" (Revelation 8:13, NIV)
Translated as "angel" in the KJV, an eagle ( Greek aetou) cries out to the planet that the next blasts of the trumpet are coming, and that what they can expect is NOT going to be pleasant. In Numbers chapter 22, Balaam's donkey spoke with a man's voice, so for an eagle to be able to speak is not so far fetched.
But what he says bears importance.
The strongest word for trouble in scripture is "woe". When you hear that word spoken by the Lord, it means major trouble is on the way. And the eagle says it THREE times.
In Part 6, we'll read about the three "woes" and finish out the trumpets.
Stay tuned; this is going to get a LOT more interesting as we go...
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Robert
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