THE STRONG DELUSION—PART 4
THE THREE WOES
The Continuing
Synopsis of the Revelation as a Historical Prophecy
5-28-2019
A Continued Unmasking of the
Revelation Misunderstanding – The Third Layer
The
misunderstanding that the Revelation written by John is actually a blueprint of
the events that will occur during the tribulation period. Fomented by the Scofield Study Bible the
understanding by the Church Fathers was changed to a literal interpretation of
real events that will occur during a future seven year tribulation period.
The
Revelation was originally understood as a prophetic history of the Church age,
from the beginning of the teachings of Jesus to the Millennial Kingdom of God.
The
Protestant Reformation, beginning with Luther, did not regain the early Church
fathers knowledge of the purpose of the Revelation because it had long ago
vanished.
At
what point the Revelation was viewed as a literal chronology of tribulation
period events is unknown to a certain point.
It occurred after Darby’s dispensational theory was employed within
Scofield’s note filled study Bible, but the exact timeline of a literal
Revelation, the misinterpretation of the 70 weeks, and the misunderstanding of
the state of Israel as a fulfillment of all Bible prophecy is not certain.
The following
snippets of Revelation commentary were extracted from the series of
commentaries written by Dr. Stephen Jones.
Interlude to the Three Woes
(Trumpets 5-7)
With
the final disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Rev. 8: 13
provides us with an interlude, as if to draw a distinction between the first
four trumpets and the final three, which he calls “woes.”
Rev 8:13 And I looked, and I
heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to
those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of
the three angels who are about to sound!
The
implication is that the judgments of God might have ceased at this point, if
the Church had repented of its sin.
During
this interlude from 476 to 606 A.D., the prophetic events inscribed
symbolically in the book of Revelation begin to shift from West to East, that
is, from Rome to Constantinople. The first four trumpets brought judgment upon
the West; the final three trumpets (called “Woes”) bring judgment upon the
remaining Eastern Empire.
The Star Falling from Heaven
After
the first four angels sounded their trumpets, Rev. 8: 13 says,
13 And I looked, and I heard
an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe, to
those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of
the three angels who are about to sound!”
The
first four trumpets were designed to bring about the fall of Rome and the
Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. The final three trumpets were blown to judge
Constantinople until its fall in 1453. These are called woes, because these
judgments are directed as much at the church as at the Roman Empire.
In
380 Roman Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the
empire, and in 395 paganism was outlawed completely. Later, in 534 A.D.,
Emperor Justinian completed this process by adopting church law as the law of
the empire, in fulfillment of the prophecy in Dan. 7: 25. The state—
represented by the emperor— inadvertently became the mere enforcer of church
law and therefore became the servant of the church. After all, the church had
created the laws for the empire to enforce.
For
this reason, the final three trumpets, or “woes,” directed divine judgment upon
both church and state. Rev. 9: 1 says,
1 And the fifth angel
sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the
key of the bottomless pit was given to him. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit;
and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the
sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. 3 And out of the smoke
came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions
of the earth have power.
Here
we read plainly that the fifth angel was assigned by God to open the bottomless
pit, or the abyss. The earthly
manifestation of the three woes has mostly to do with the rise of Islam. Since
that time, Islam has been the whip in God’s hand to judge the church— and the
empire with it. The problem is that too many in the church thought that Islam
was a movement which they were called to fight and destroy, not seeing that
they could not succeed in fighting what God had ordained, apart from
repentance.
The
rise of the little horn after 476 A.D. came to full bloom in 606 when Pope
Boniface III claimed exclusive right to the title, “Universal Bishop.” This he
did just a few years after his predecessor (Pope Gregory) had stated strongly
that this was a “blasphemous antichristian assumption.”
In
making such a statement, Pope Gregory identified the Papacy itself as the
little horn of Daniel. Dan. 7: 8, 20 says that this little horn spoke “great
boasts.” But Rev. 13: 5 paraphrases this and interprets it as “arrogant words
and blasphemies.”
Those
who teach the futurist view of Revelation think that the little horn is the
antichrist, who will rule a revived Roman Empire. They are largely correct, but
they are wrong in placing this into the future. They simply do not know
history, and so do not realize how this has already come to pass. 1 John 2: 18
says there are “many antichrists,” of course, so by no means was the “Universal
Bishop” of Rome the only antichrist.
Mohammed
actually began to get his revelations just after 606 A.D. when Pope Boniface
III claimed the title of “Universal Bishop.” Mohammed then began to preach his
message in 612.
The
Smoke and the Locusts
Rev.
9: 1 says,
1 And the fifth angel
sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the
key of the bottomless pit was given to him [the fifth angel].
Rev.
9: 1 speaks of a “falling star,” which is not to be taken literally as a star
or meteor or planet. It says that God gave the key of the bottomless pit to the
fifth angel. He used the key to open the abyss, and let loose what is pictured
as smoke and locusts. Meteors falling from the sky do not release locusts or
spiritual entities from the abyss. The “star” was Mohammed himself. He was said
to fall from heaven to earth in order to show us that he was raised up by God
Himself.
Rev.
9: 2, 3 says, 2 And he opened the
bottomless pit; and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace;
and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. 3 And out of the
smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the
scorpions of the earth have power.
Locusts
come out of the ground, and so they are a very appropriate symbol of an
earthly, or carnal religion.
Rev.
9: 2 speaks of “smoke” coming out of the pit, by which “the sun and the air
were darkened.” Islam was to bring darkness, rather than the light of true
revelation. Even the air was to be darkened. Rev. 9: 3 says that the locusts
were not the cause of this darkness, but rather that the darkness brought forth
the locusts.
The
dark revelation that Mohammed brought did not bring the true light of Christ to
the earth. The Koran did not produce any sons of God, but only spiritual
locusts. Locusts periodically devastated the land when they swarmed and ate
everything in sight. They were considered to be a plague on account of the
devastation left in their wake.
Prophetic
locusts are described in the first two chapters of Joel as the army God raised
up in “the day of the Lord” (Joel 2: 1, 11).
Locusts
come out of the ground, and so they are a very appropriate symbol of an
earthly, or carnal religion. Rev. 9: 2 speaks of “smoke” coming out of the pit,
by which “the sun and the air were darkened.” Islam was to bring darkness,
rather than the light of true revelation. Even the air was to be darkened. Rev.
9: 3 says that the locusts were not the cause of this darkness, but rather that
the darkness brought forth the locusts.
Rev.
9: 4 says something quite strange:
4 And they were told that
they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree,
but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
These
locusts are not literal, for they are commanded not to hurt the grass or any
green thing. Literal locusts devour everything that is green, for that is
natural to locusts. Locusts cannot be denied food without quickly dying. But if
these represent the adherents of Islam, then it all makes sense.
Islam’s
sacred color is green, and for this reason many flags from Islamic countries
are green or contain green. Koran Law forbids harming trees and all green
things. Hence, these “locusts” are not leaf-eating insects, and yet they leave
devastation in their wake.
Muslim policy was to conquer and convert people to
Islam, and if they did not convert, they had to pay a special tax. In those
days only non-compliance brought death. Thus,
Rev. 9: 5 was fulfilled, for the new invaders were not allowed to kill
Christians and Jews but only to impose a tax upon them.
The First Woe (612-762
A.D.)
We must first recognize that Islam was a carnal
religious empire even as the Christian religion had become by this time. When
God raised up this new religion to bring judgment upon the church, it was by
the principle of an “eye for eye,” where the judgment fits the crime.
The Saracen Horsemen
The Saracens were a specific tribe, distinct from the
Arabs. They were among the early converts to Islam, and so later western
writers called all Arab Muslims by the term “Saracens.” The Saracens themselves
were noted for their horsemanship.
The “locusts” in Revelation 9 were the Muslim armies
in general, but more specifically, in Rev. 9: 7-10 John saw the Saracen
horsemen and gave us a physical description of them as they rode into battle:
7 And the appearance
of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads, as it
were, crowns [turbans] like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. 8
And they had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth
of lions. 9 And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound
of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to
battle.
This is an accurate description of the Saracens. The
Saracens wore colored turbans, or “crowns.” Those in Rev. 9: 7 are said to be
yellow to show that they were not made of leaves, but of cloth. In other words,
their “crowns” were turbans. They had the faces of men, but hair like that of
women. They were men who wore their hair long. This describes the Saracens who
were known for their long hair and full beards.
Their “teeth of lions” were not literally lions’ fangs
but a description of their fierceness and valor in battle. They wore iron armor
and had iron breastplates which made a great clatter as they charged their
horses into battle. Hence, John says in verse 9 that
“they had
breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like
the sound of chariots.”
Revelation 9: 5 says, 5 And they were not permitted to
kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the
torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.
Revelation 9: 5 says,
5 And they were not
permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was
like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.
This
time period was said to be “five months.” A prophetic month is thirty “days”
(i.e., years), so five months (30 x 5) is a period of 150 years. This time
forms the first stage of political Islam, ending when the Abbasid Caliphate
moved its capital from Damascus to the newly-built city of Baghdad in 762. This date is important because it marks the
climax of the rise of Islam precisely 150 years after Mohammed first began
preaching.
In 760, just as the first phase of Islam was coming to
a close, a Tartar tribe founded a Turkish Empire in Armenia, which proved to be
the seed of the next phase of prophetic fulfillment in Rev. 9: 12-21.
Roman civilization had largely been destroyed by the
invasions from the north. Literacy and education in general had been reduced
and restricted to a privileged few who could afford it. Such was the result of
divine judgment upon Christian Rome for its sin and its refusal to repent.
Proud Roman civilization had sunk into the dark abyss.
Apollyon and Abaddon
Revelation 9: 11 says,
11 They have as king
over them the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the
Greek he has the name Apollyon.
The Hebrew word, Abaddon, is translated “destruction”
whenever it is used in the Old Testament. John says that its Greek equivalent
is Apollyon. Abaddon is associated with sheol (the grave, or “hell”) in Prov.
15: 11 and with death in Job 28: 22. This is meant to associate this “king”
with the abyss, or bottomless pit, mentioned in Rev. 9: 1.
Apollyon, or Abaddon, is the name of the spiritual
entity (principality) that rules the Muslim world in general. This is not an
angel of God, but an evil entity. His name identifies his character and his
“calling,” as well as the nature of Islam that he inspired. Apollyon means
“destroyer,” but the word is the active particle of apollume, which means to
perish or to lose.
The Second Woe
(1063-1453 A.D.)
Rev. 9: 12-14 says,
12 The first woe is
past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. 13 And the sixth
angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar
which is before God, 14 one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release
the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
The second woe began with the Seljuk Turks, then
extended through the Ottoman Turks, and finally concluded with the fall of
Constantinople in 1453.
It begins in verse 14 with the release of the “four
angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” These are not men, but
angels, who are released to judge the Church through the Seljuk Turks and their
successors.
During this time in history, “the great schism”
between Eastern and Western Christianity split the Church. This occurred in
1054, just a year before Tughril Beg conquered Baghdad in 1055.
In 977 a Turkish slave, Subuktigin, established a
kingdom which spread over what is now Afghanistan. His successor expanded his
kingdom into Iran and northern India.
However, in 1037 they were in turn defeated by another
Turkish tribe, the Seljuks, under Tughril Beg. When he died in 1063, his
nephew, Alp Arslan, succeeded him and began expanding his kingdom westward into
Armenia, taking territory from both the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and from
Constantinople, or “New Rome,” as it was called.
The rise of the Turkish Empire, however, was
interrupted for a time by the Mongolian Empire, which began in 1206 when
Genghis Khan was crowned as its leader. For the next century, the Mongols
spread west into Eastern Europe and the Mideast. Their capture of Baghdad
destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and prepared the way for the later rise of the
Turkish Ottoman Empire.
The Mongol Invasion
By 1150 gunpowder had been discovered in China and was
used in battle to frighten evil spirits and horses with the noise of the
explosions. They never used it effectively, but in the 13th century the
Mongols, led by the grandson of Genghis Khan, swept west across Asia and
conquered Baghdad on February 10, 1258.
The Mongol invasion of the Mideast brought the
knowledge of gunpowder and the printing press.
When the Mongols retreated, the Osmani (or “Ottoman”)
Turks came to power. Baghdad had been broken, and many of its educated class
had fled to relative safety to Armenia, strengthening the Ottomans. It was not
long before they learned to use gunpowder in a new weapon called the cannon.
Their first great use of gunpowder came in the siege of Constantinople, where
their cannons breached the walls of the city on May 29, 1453.
The 391-year Time Frame
of the Second Woe
Revelation 9: 15, 16 reads,
15 And the four angels
who had prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so
that they might kill a third of mankind. 16 And the number of the armies of the
horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.
Verse 15 gives us the time frame during which these
four angels were to capture Constantinople. It is 391 years. A prophetic “year”
is 360 days, or in this case, 360 years. A prophetic “month” is 30 days, or in
this case, 30 years. A prophetic “day” is one year. An hour is 15 days, if we
use the 24-hour model, or 30 days, if we use a 12-hour model. Adding these
together, the time frame for the second woe is no more than a month beyond 391
years.
The time begins in 1063 A.D. with the crowning of Alp
Arslan, and it ends in 1453 with the capture and fall of Constantinople.
Neither the four angels nor the two hundred million in
their army are literal people. These are all pictured as coming from the river
Euphrates, and all of them had been “bound” up to that time. It is an event
occurring in the spirit that pictures spiritual beings, unclean spirits, who
are empowered by God to judge the Eastern Roman Empire, using physical armies
as proxies.
The Fall of
Constantinople
In Rev. 9: 17-19 John describes the cannons they used
to break down the walls of the city.
17 And this is how I
saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had
breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads
of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire
and smoke and brimstone. 18 A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues,
by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their
mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails;
for their tails are like serpents and have heads; and with them they do harm.
The old cannons used in the siege were shaped to have
the heads of lions, out of which belched fire and brimstone every time the
cannons were fired.
More information
concerning Rev 9 and the cannons with the shape of a lion can be found at the
following link:
The Eastern Orthodox Church lost its main power base
in 1453. Although the technical head of the Orthodox Church is still the
Patriarch of what is now Istanbul, the real seat of power moved first to Kosovo
and later to Moscow.
With the fall of Constantinople, many Greek-speaking
doctors of the Church fled into Europe, bringing with them Greek manuscripts of
the New Testament. At the same time, the printing press had been discovered,
and in 1452 the Gutenberg Bible was first printed.
Various events have
been inserted into the Revelation story before exposing the 7th
trumpet and the 3rd Woe. Thus
the 3rd Woe will be examined in another post.
