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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 8

Section 6 

The Symbols Explained


 
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Though the wind blow towards divers points, and is styled the east wind, the north wind, and so-forth, it is still but one and the same wind, air, or spirit in motion. So with "the four winds" of ch. vii. 1, they were the one wind, which, when blown against Italy, Spain, Gaul, and the Roman Africa, "the four corners of the earth" to be tempest-tossed, sounded forth destroying blasts, and swept with withering desolation all green and living things. These hurricanes of destruction are figuratively styled "trumpets;" and as "the wind" was to sweep over the four sections of the western Roman third of the fourth beast territory, each blasting current became a distinct trumpet.

The sounding of trumpets was a divinely appointed Mosaic institution. It was a holy convocation, styled "a memorial of blowing of trumpets," and was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 24). It introduced one of the most important months of the Hebrew calendar -- the month on the tenth of which was the Day of Covering of Sins; on the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles; and on every fiftieth tenth, the Jubilee, when sins, were not only covered, but every man returned to his possession and family (Lev. xxv. 8-17).

The trumpets used were of silver, two fabricated from a whole piece. They were blown by the sons of Aaron "for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camp." If they blew with only one, then the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses; but when they blew an alarm with both trumpets, it was for war against the enemy that oppressed them; and with the assurance that they should be remembered by Yahweh their Elohim, and be saved from their enemies (Numb. x. 1-10).

When an alarm was blown it portended great evil. This appears from Jer. iv. 5, which says: "Blow the trumpet in the land: cry, Gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not, for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant."

And again, in Joel ii. 1. "Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of Yahweh cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it ... A fire devoureth before them, and behind him a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war ... the earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and Yahweh shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth His word: for the Day of Yahweh is very terrible, and who can abide it?"

Such is the illustration furnished by the Spirit of what he means by sounding trumpets of alarm against the guilty. The sounding of a plurality of trumpets was indicative of war. This is the indication of nearly all the trumpets of the apocalypse; not of every trumpet, but of all the Seven trumpets certainly. If they blew with only one, "then the princes, and heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses." None of the seven trumpets indicate a gathering of the saints, or princes and chiefs of the thousands of Israel, to the prophet like unto Moses. They portend evil to the Apostasy -- the throwing down of the walls of Babylon, when the last blast of the seventh shall have sounded against her from the breath of the kings and priests of Yahweh. But before this portentous blast is sounded by them, a trumpet is blown of a different import -- one that "gathers them together as the elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other" (Matt. xxiv. 31). This is the TRUMPET OF THE JUBILEE, which will bring all the approved into the possession of the inheritance; and is symbolized, by none of the seven, but by "an angel flying in mid-heaven having aion-glad tidings to preach." These moshkai kesheth, or sounders of the truth, of Isaiah lxvi. 19, and messengers of Matt. xxiv. 31, go forth "with a trumpet and a great voice," which declares the glory of Yahweh among the nations. It has no sound of alarm in it, like the sounding of the seven. When the saints, in their graves, and we who may remain, hear this great voice, we shall all gather ourselves together to the Moses-like prophet -- to Jesus "both Lord and Christ." This gathering accomplished, and the affairs to be transacted in the presence of the Lord with regard to his household disposed of -- then, what remains to be executed in connection with the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet will be proceeded with; and the Lamb, with those "who follow him whithersoever he goeth," will "execute the judgment written" against Daniel and John’s beasts, till nothing remains of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the world.

In the prophets, this judicial execution by Jesus and His Brethren, the Elohim of Israel, is styled "The NAME OF YAHWEH coming from far, burning with his anger ... his lips full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: his breath as an overflowing stream .... to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity" (Isa. xxx. 27). And Yahweh shall be seen over the sons of Zion, whom he shall raise up against the sons of Greece; "and ADONAI YAHWEH shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of the south" (Zech. ix. 14). This trumpet thus divinely blown, is the winding up of the seventh apocalyptic trumpet. All the preceding events of the seven are operative to the development of this crisis in which is "filled up the wrath of Deity."

The sounding by Adonai Yahweh of this closing blast of the seven is the great apocalyptic day of sacrifice -- the slaying of the beasts, before the sins of the nations are covered over, and they become "blessed with faithful Abraham," and "in Abraham and his seed." He executes the Second and Third angel-missions, reaps the harvest, and treads the winepress. All this pertains to "the war of the great day of Almighty Power." It prostrates Babylon, breaks in pieces the powers of the nations, and establishes the power of the kingdom in all the earth.

The final purpose, then, of the seven trumpets is to abolish the Laodicean Apostasy, which enthroned itself in the reign of Constantine the First, and of which he was the new-born defender of its faith. This is the grand and glorious consummation prepared for the Catholic and Protestant hierarchies of what the world styles "Christendom." They will then have answered their purpose in the providence of heaven of a spiritual police in aid of the civil government of the nations. There will be no more any use for them; because the nations being enlightened and blessed, will no longer require deceivers and impostors to rule them by terror and imposition. "All nations shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; for thy judgments are made manifest" (Apoc. xv. 4). Clerical hierarchies then will be no more; and the truth will cease to be evil spoken of because of their impiety and folly.

But these deceivers of "the whole earth that goes wondering after the beast" (xiii. 3), were not to be permitted the enjoyment of times of bliss during the centuries of their inhabitation of the high and fat places of the world. They were image makers, relic and demon worshippers, murderers of the servants of the Deity, bewitchers of the people with their sorceries, or theological conceits, corrupters of silly women, and thieves. This is the apocalyptic indictment against them (ix. 20,21; xi. 7; xiii. 6,7,15; xvi. 6,7; xvii. 3,6; xviii. 20,23,24). Was it to be supposed that the Deity would permit these titled and wealthy blasphemers of His name, and tabernacle; these idolatrous "spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies;" to enjoy all the sweets of life and receive none of the plagues stored up as His artillery for the day of evil? Such a winking at their iniquity was no part of His wisdom revealed to John. The trumpets were so arranged in their sounding as to give the clergy "wormwood" and "blood to drink;" and to be "tormented" to the gnawing of their tongues for pain and sores (viii. 11; xvi. 6; ix. 4,5; xvi. 10,11).

This judicial operation, however, was not to affect all parts and orders of the clerical dominion at one and the same epoch. When the preparation for beginning to sound the trumpet was complete in the Gothic occupation of the Illyrian Third of their domain, the Catholic Empire was permanently divided into TWO LIMBS, as represented by the thighs and legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image; the EASTERN CATHOLIC LIMB being Greek, with Constantinople for its imperial and ecclesiastical centre; while the WESTERN CATHOLIC LIMB was Latin, with Rome for its Mother City. This western section consisted of Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy and the Roman Africa. This was the first Constantine’s imperiality when he divided the Fourth Beast dominion with his rivals Licinius, who possessed the Illyrian Praefecture; and Maximin, who possessed that composed of the Asiatic provinces and Egypt.

The judgments of the trumpets were ordered with reference to this threefold division of the Catholic World. The first four trumpets were to be blown against the WESTERN THIRD, that its inhabitants of all orders and degrees (except the sealed ones who were cherished) might be plagued until their power was broken, and their sovereignty blotted out for a season.

When these judicial calamities had settled down into the generation of a new and rising order of things, judgment was preparing for an ascent from "the Pit of the Abyss" against the EASTERN THIRD of the catholic domain. It was the mission of the fifth and sixth trumpets primarily to torment, and then to kill the political life of the men, who wielded authority and power over the subjects of this imperial praefecture; and secondarily, of the sixth, to inflict "wars" upon the unrepentant spirituals of the Western Third, until the seventh should begin to sound (xi. 14).

The first four trumpets, then, made the Western Praefecture the seat of war -- the third part of the Roman Orb, consisting, as we have said, of Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy and the province of Africa, an area upon which, were caused to bud forth by the judgments that befel, the TEN POWERS seen by Daniel and John as "Ten Horns" upon the Eighth Head of the Fourth Beast.

It may be remarked here, that we do not learn from Daniel that the Fourth Beast had more heads than one. His was a vision of said beast in its constitutional manifestation co-evally with its being slain, and its body politic given to the burning flame, at a time when judgment is also given to the saints for its especial destruction. I speak not now of what he saw concerning the Little Episcopal Horn Power; but of the head. All the horns were seen standing upon the head of the beast. The history of the past is demonstrative that the Eleven Horns did not stand on either of the first seven; though, when the uninstructed in these mysteries undertake to give sketches of the beast, they scatter the ten horns over all the seven heads. The Horns only began to bud forth in the times of the Seventh Head, and therefore cannot be placed upon any of the previously developed six. This seventh was to continue only "a short space." The beast and horns have continued many ages since the seventh head fell; unless therefore we view the horns as standing upon the Eighth Head, we have before us a symbolical monstrosity of a beast with ten horns and no head for them to stand upon. It is to John’s writing we are indebted for knowledge about the heads. From him we learn that the beast of Daniel has Eight Heads; and that it is with the eighth that the ten horns are allied for "one hour" in a period of conflict with the lamb and those that are with him (xvii. 11-14).

The trumpets were not only destructive of much that existed, but formative rudimentally of future political manifestations. The first four destroyed the Latin Catholic Imperial state unity of the western third; abolished the sovereignty of Rome; and formed the ten rudimental powers, which are destined for world-wide operations in the last hour of their existence. In the first four trumpets we have to do with things rudimental; but in the seventh and last, with the great and marvellous manifestations of the future, which could by no means have been developed without the preliminary judgments we proceed now in their apocalyptic order to expound.
 
 

 

 


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