An Alarm of War

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 14, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 11.

T<span style="display:none">.</span>HE visions of God given to the seer on Patmos swing from seal to trumpet, from opening revelations of God's wondrous love and sacrifice, to man's ingratitude and its results. More is yet to be told of the results of sin. All could not be told in the direct vision of the seals. A certain phase was covered, the consequences of turning from the Gospel of God. But while these consequences have fallen upon the peoples of nations, the nations themselves do not fall within the prophetic field of the seals. War, famine, destruction by wild beasts and death, follow transgression of God's law and the rejection of His means of grace. The very earth becomes convulsed in agony for her Master's coming.

In this vision it is not the breaking of the seal, the disclosure or unfoldment of a mystery; it is the loud peal of a trumpet calling the nations to war. The number seven denotes completeness, and includes all the wars of changing empire which have ravaged the earth during the Christian era. We may expect that the symbolism will be highly wrought, trumpets, thunders, lightnings, convulsions, marching hosts, fearful devastations. "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." This great lesson God has ever kept before the nations.

The Answer of the Text

1. After the silence in heaven, at the time of Christ's coming at the close of the seventh seal, what did John see?

And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets.

2. But before the great prophecy opens, what assurance is given?

And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand.

3. What was the culmination of this work of the intercessors?

And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

4. To what was John's mind again turned?

And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

5. What occurred when the first angel sounded?

And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

6. What followed the sounding of the second angel?

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; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, even they that had life; and the third part of the ships was destroyed.

7. When the third trumpet sounded, what was seen?

And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; 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.

8. What occurred when the fourth trumpet was blown?

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; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.

9. What kind of warning was then given?

And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, Wo, wo, wo, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are yet to sound.

Note and Comment

1. The seven angels.—The language indicates that these angels had been waiting for their work, serving in waiting; "for they also serve who only stand and wait." The Lord had called them to an important mission. Trumpets were given them, indicative of war.

2. Angel, . . . altar, . . . incense, . . . prayers.—God will not leave His people hopeless. Sorrow may come to them, calamity may be assured them; He will not permit the coming of war till the assurance is given that their prayers are heard and God has made them effectual. The angel of incense precedes the angel of strife. The altar of incense is in the holy place in the sanctuary, just before the veil which separates from the most holy place. At this altar the ancient priests offered the perpetual incense morning and evening; and at the time of this offering, the people stood without, praying. See Ex. 30:1-8; Luke 1:8-10. That incense represents the "grace of supplication," the favor of God, which makes the imperfect prayers of supplicating mortals acceptable with God, so that the prayers themselves, clothed and shaped and refined by the Spirit of God, are as sweet incense. Compare Rom. 8:26, 27 with Rev. 5:8. These prayers are remembered before God. They may not be answered to-day or to-morrow or this year; but they are recorded before Him, and they will be remembered and answered, even if necessary to overthrow nations in order to do it.

3. The fire of the altar.—Once again the angel visits the altar in his work of symbolism. This time he offers no incense; that work is over; mercy's door is closed; the last prayers have been offered; the last divine appeal to men has been made; the earth has filled up her cup of iniquity; the fire from the altar is cast from a censer to the earth, and there follows the culmination of the just wrath of God upon a world without excuse, this wrath represented by thunder, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake, to which the seven trumpets are the prolonged prelude. Compare with chapter 16:18. The Spirit of God is poured out in regenerating, re-creating power upon His children. The wicked are baptized with fire and perish.

4. To sound.—After God's assurance to His children that they should be remembered and their prayers heard, the angels with the trumpets go forth. They do not sound contemporaneously, tho in results they sometimes overlap. The trumpets indicate great events in the breaking up of the Roman Empire. Prepared themselves would indicate that these messengers of God entered upon His work with due deliberation, reverence, and care.

5. Hail, fire, etc.—Hail is indicative of the cold North and sweeping devastation; fire, of havoc and destruction; blood, the loss of life. All these were fitting symbols of the troubles which came upon Western Rome in a general way, the third part of the great former empire, the division made just previous to this by one of Rome's greatest emperors, Constantine. Bayley well remarks, "To enter minutely into the historical fulfilment of the first four trumpets would be very nearly to transcribe the pages of Gibbon." God uses the empires of earth. He used Babylon till every principle of truth and righteous rule was rejected, and then Medo-Persia came to the throne of the world. In the same way Grecia and Rome followed. In the midst of the latter came the manifestations of the Christ, the beginning of the

church of the Christian dispensation. The empire became more and more corrupt as men set themselves against the only religion which could purify. War and famine and plague followed. Extravagant luxury, vice, effeminateness, weakness, cruelty, grew apace, till the very church designed of God to be the salt of the earth, had lost her keeping power, and was drifting with the State to destruction.

In God's wisdom the mighty empire must be broken. Therefore from the North came the agencies of breaking it, the Goths and the Germans. Scarcely had the Emperor Theodosius died in 395 before the Gothic nation under Alaric was in arms. In 396 the tempest burst upon Thessaly, Greece, Epirus, the Peloponnesus. We are told that the land trembled in terror. "The travelers who visited Greece several years afterward could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths." This, however, was a prelude to his descent at the head of the Visigoths upon Rome a little later. It is said that he told an Italian hermit that "he felt a secret preternatural impulse which directed and even compelled his march to the gates of Rome." Three times he passed the Alps to the Italian plains, marking his course with ravage, conflagration, and blood, till the gates of Rome were opened before him, and "the Gothic fires blazed around the capital." In the meantime the Germans under Rhadagasius, perhaps a Slavonian chief, with a host of Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and Goths, had swept down from the Far North on Italy. A part of their vast horde were fearfully defeated at Florence by Stilicho; but another division turned westward and overran Gaul and Spain, and their path was marked, as was that of Alaric and his Goths, with destruction, conflagrations, pillage, and blood. Gibbon declares, "The scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature and the desolation of man."

Of this invasion of these combined Northern tribes, Gibbon says: "This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps. The barriers which had so long separated the savage and civilized nations were from that fatal moment leveled to the ground."

After the death of the brave and able Stilicho, Alaric again ravaged Italy; and the proud mistress of the world, which for more than six centuries had never submitted to a foreign foe, was humbled by the bold barbarians of the North. Yet the Gothic King was merciful compared with Charles V, for he remained in the city but six days. From Rome Alaric designed the conquest of Africa, but his death in 410 put an end to his ambition. He had wrought his work in the breaking of Rome. The next blow was to fall from a different quarter.

6. Second angel.—Following the second trumpet's sounding, a burning mountain was cast into the sea. "A burnt mountain" represents a destroyed kingdom, once a destroying mountain, or kingdom. Jer. 51:25. "A burning mountain" would fittingly symbolize a destroying kingdom, or power. This blow upon Rome comes from the sea side of the empire, the South, and is a symbol of the "terrible Genseric" with his Vandal hordes, who had established themselves in North Africa. Here, after conquering Roman Africa, he created a great naval power, and aspired to the control of the Mediterranean. He conquered Sicily and Sardinia, ravaged the coasts of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, and captured Rome; and his plunder of the imperial city lasted fourteen days. He was checked after this in his ravages for a time by Majorian; but after the death of that brave and prudent ruler his power arose till in 468 he destroyed, by treachery, fire, and fighting, an immense Roman fleet sent against him. That part of Rome to the south was effectually pillaged, devastated, and broken by Genseric the Vandal.

7. The third angel.—This highly symbolic language refers to another series of judgments which fell upon Rome from the East under Attila the Hun, "the scourge of God," in all probability a Turk. He was considered by many of his subjects supernatural. His career in the light of the prophecy opens long before that of Genseric closes. He began his reign by laying exorbitant tribute upon and exacting humiliating conditions of the Roman Empire of the East, in 433. The first attack on the Eastern Empire came in 441, ravaging as far as Constantinople. Keeping the empire in terror of his name, and suffering sometimes himself partial defeat for nearly a decade of years, in 452 he invaded Italy. City after city was obliterated. The combined cruelty of Alaric and Genseric was surpassed by that of "the scourge of God." He boasted, says Gibbon, that "the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trodden." He was cut off by apoplexy 453. He had made bitter the Roman Empire, symbolized by its rivers, from Italy eastward. Thousands had drunk of the waters of despoliation, famine, treachery, fear, and death. He did his work and died.

8. The fourth angel.—We need not take much space in our explanation. The sun of Western Rome was the emperor; and the moon and stars, the lesser lights, were the lesser officers. The incursions from barbarians from the North and the South and the East had utterly broken the corrupt, vicious, internally weakened fabric of the Roman government. Roman province after province had been lost. Its once invincible armies, if armies could be recruited, were everywhere defeated. Empty titles and ornate·form were all that remained. Twenty years after the death of Attila, the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, occupied the tottering throne. It has been well remarked that there is matter for reflection in the name. The first King of Rome was Romulus, the last Emperor was Romulus. The first Emperor was Augustus, the last was Augustus, nicknamed Augustulus, the little Augustus. Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, a barbarian remnant of the host of Attila, left on the frontier of Italy, interposed with his command that the name and office of the Roman emperor of the West should be abolished. The authorities bowed in submission to him. Odoacer governed Italy under the title of Patrician. Not long after the Roman Senate was dissolved, the consulship was abolished.

The third part so frequently mentioned, referring to the tripartite division of the empire made by Constantine, almost wholly referring to the Western division, was broken, humiliated, abolished. Sometimes one section was punished, sometimes another. But the first four trumpets broke the power and empire of imperial Rome forever, just as the opening of the first four seals revealed a train of fourfold influences which once introduced continued to the end.

We do not recall one instance in history of a nation becoming reformed or regenerated within and of itself. Some power from without must quicken it into life. That is what Christianity has often done when it wrought its work on the hearts of men apart from civil power; but connected with civil power the union has proved an unmitigated curse to both Church and State. Thus it was in the Roman Empire.

9. Wo, wo, wo.—Still greater, heavier calamities await. For angel the Revised Version has eagle, one of God's mighty agencies perhaps, the fourth living creature of Rev. 4:7, the mighty host which speak on the opening of the fourth seal. Rev. 6:7. Thus are we brought to the divided empire of Rome, the rulers and people of which have not yet learned the great lesson which God would teach. Still more chastisement is necessary.