God has carefully designed the first
four trumpets to tear down and rip up
this world. His patience with
man’s degenerate behavior is
limited. God destroyed the whole
world in Noah’s day. God
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in
Abraham’s day and God twice
destroyed Jerusalem. The first four
trumpets will demolish all of
man’s precious infrastructures.
God intends to get the full and
undivided attention of Jews,
Catholics, Protestants, Hindus,
atheists, Muslims, and Pagans by
releasing His wrath – although
mixed with mercy.
The seven trumpets are the seven
"first" plagues and the
seven bowls are the seven
"last" plagues. Half of the
world’s population will perish
during the seven trumpets
(adding Revelation 6:8 with Revelation 9:15) and it is
during this overwhelming despair and
drama that mankind will come together
in humility to appease God. God will
soon confront the false religious
systems of the world with His truth.
He will ensure that everyone hears
and intelligently considers His
everlasting gospel. God’s
servants, the 144,000, empowered by
the Holy Spirit, will proclaim four
distinct messages: (a) worship Jesus
the Creator on His holy day, (b)
Babylon’s attempt to appease God
is blasphemous, (c) do not worship
Lucifer (masquerading among men as
Almighty God) or receive his mark,
and (d) separate yourself from false
religion or you will receive the
seven last plagues.
Two
Reasons for Keeping the Seven
Trumpets in the Past
SDAs vigorously defend their belief
that the seven trumpets are in the
past. They do so for several reasons,
but these appear to be the most
important two:
Ellen
G. White, the church’s
prophet, endorsed a
historical setting for the
seven trumpets in her
book, The Great
Controversy. This means
that SDAs cannot change their
position on the seven
trumpets without
contradicting their prophet.
(To date, the church has not
taken a formal position on
any topic that is in open
conflict with her
statements.)
The
fifth trumpet has a time
period of five months
embedded in it. SDAs believe
that a day always equals
a year in Bible prophecy and
this rule of interpretation
forces the five months
in Revelation 9:5,10 to
equal 150 years (5 x 30 =
150). Adventists reason that
a future fulfillment of the
fifth trumpet would put the
Second Coming more than 150
years away and this, they
say, is not possible!
Because
the world did not end in 1844, we
have the advantage of reviewing the
Millerite movement to see what went
wrong. Miller’s conclusion about
1844 created a fatal problem which no
one could foresee. The Millerites
ended up reasoning backwards. They
let their prophetic conclusion
obscure prophetic details. The
Millerites (unwittingly) abused the
Bible by forcing it to say things it
did not say. It is very important
that we observe this flaw because it
is a perpetual problem for everyone
who studies the Bible. The Millerite
movement was built on a false
assumption and the movement
eventually imploded because they
forced the Bible to defend their
conclusions rather than allowing the
Bible to speak for itself. At
maximum volume, the Bible speaks so
softly that one must really strain to
hear what it has to say. God’s
Word is easily drowned out by
personal bias, tradition, heritage,
and external authority.
In 1838, Dr. Josiah Litch, a
scholarly Methodist minister from
Massachusetts, published a
forty-eight page booklet supporting
Miller’s prophetic position.
Litch had been studying the
prophecies for some time when he
became aware of the Millerite
movement. Litch became involved in
the movement and he produced a
discovery that brought thousands into
the Millerite movement in 1840.
Looking back through the corridor of
history for a fulfillment for each of
the seven trumpets, Litch came up
with an explanation for the fifth and
sixth trumpets that was better and
more concise than anything heard
previously. Litch’s exposition
on Revelation 9 fit within the
paradigm of 1844 like a hand fits
within a glove. Basically, Dr. Litch
discovered a time capsule. He
translated the five months in Revelation 9:5 to mean
150 years (using a day for a year)
and the time period called an
hour, day, month and year in Revelation 9:15 he
translated as 391 years and 15 days.
In other words, Dr. Litch calculated
that the fifth and sixth trumpets
spanned a total of 541 years and 15
days.
Dr. Litch concluded that the fifth
trumpet marked the rise of
Othman, a Moslem commander who
founded the Ottoman Empire. Litch
also concluded that the five months
mentioned in Revelation 9:5 began
on July 27, 1299 when Othman began to
assault (torment) the Greeks, and the
150 years (using a day for a year) of
torment ended when Constantine was
crowned at Sparta in 1449. (This
Constantine is not to be confused
with the Constantine who ruled over
Rome during the fourth century A.D.)
Shortly after Constantine was
crowned, Constantinople fell to the
Moslems and according to Litch, the
Ottoman Empire ruled over the Greeks
for 391 years and 15 days. Litch
concluded in 1838 that the Ottoman
Empire would fall two years later,
specifically on August 11, 1840.
Litch’s prophetic position was
hot news! It was widely published
throughout New England and everyone
waited anxiously to see what would
happen. "At the very time
specified," Ellen White
would later write, "Turkey,
through her ambassadors, accepted the
protection of the allied powers of
Europe, and thus placed herself under
the control of Christian
nations." (White, The Great
Controversy, pp. 334-335,
[underlining mine]) The
Millerites were overjoyed. Their
prophetic interpretation was on
track. The Ottoman Empire had fallen
and their joy overflowed as hundreds
of new converts swelled the Millerite
movement. Seeing was believing. The
end of the world was less than four
years away!
Ellen G. Harmon-White came from a
family of Millerites. (In fact, the
Harmon family was removed from the
Methodist Church in 1843 because they
embraced the date-setting heresies of
William Miller.) Throughout her life,
Ellen White believed the seven
trumpets were historical in nature,
and today, many church leaders
consider any deviation from the
prophet’s "pen of
inspiration" an abomination. In
other words, SDAs generally believe
that God spoke through Ellen White
and her words have as much weight and
authority as Scripture.
Moreover, SDAs are committed to a
historical position on prophecy
because they believe the historical
approach uniquely identifies the true
Antichrist (which they believe is the
pope), and the mark of the beast is
Sunday observance.
Even though some SDA scholars have
recognized that Litch’s August
11, 1840 date is meaningless (for
example, C. Mervyn Maxwell suggests
the sixth trumpet could have ended in
1844), SDAs are limited to a
historical position on the sixth
trumpet because (a) no one within the
church can openly promote the idea
that Ellen White is factually wrong
without offending the leaders of the
church and (b) the SDA Church
believes that a futurist approach to
prophecy undermines its understanding
of the identity of the Antichrist and
the mark of the beast (Sunday
observance).
Over the years, I have asked SDA
pastors about the church’s view
on the seven trumpets. Usually, they
diminish the importance of the seven
trumpets with one of two arguments.
First, some say the trumpets are in
the past and they are not essential
to our salvation, and that is the end
of the discussion. The second
argument is a bit more involved. Some
leading SDA pastors and members
believe that a dual fulfillment of
the seven trumpets is possible. Dual
fulfillment means that a historical
fulfillment and a future fulfillment
are both possible. To prove their
point, advocates of this view will
usually offer this statement written
by Ellen White in 1890 saying:
"Solemn events before us are yet
to transpire. Trumpet after trumpet
is to be sounded; vial after vial
poured out one after another upon the
inhabitants of the earth."
(Ellen G. White, Selected
Messages, Volume III, p. 426)
Dual
Fulfillments of Prophecy Is a
Disastrous Concept
Using Ellen White’s writings to
support dual fulfillment is baffling
because it creates more problems than
it solves. Actually, the dual
fulfillment argument is an apologetic
device. It allows staunch church
members to hold on to the traditional
views of Ellen White while permitting
"progressive members" to
embrace a totally different view of
prophecy endorsed by Ellen White. The
end result is that Ellen White is not
put in an errant position.
Ironically, the Catholic Church did
the same thing at the turn of the
sixteenth century by offering both
the preterist and futurist views of
prophecy – simultaneously! But,
the dual fulfillment argument is a
disaster in the making.
Dual fulfillment really means two
different interpre-tations for a
given prophecy. In other words, the
third trumpet can be one thing at one
time in Earth’s history and
something else at another time in
Earth’s history! This nonsense
reduces the "more sure word of
prophecy" to a nose of wax which
expositors can distort to suit their
needs. God’s Word is true and
there is one truth. The intended
meaning of Bible prophecy does not
change with time and a fulfillment
only occurs when the specifications
are full-filled. Taking the dual
fulfillment device to its logical
conclusion, we have to ask,
"Will the 1,260 years of the
Dark Ages be repeated a second time?
If not, how would you prove it? Will
the seventh trumpet (the close of
salvation) occur a second time? If
not, how would you prove it? Will the
mark of the beast occur a second
time? Will the seven last plagues
happen twice? If not, how do you
prove it? What mechanism determines
which prophecies in Daniel and
Revelation occur twice and which ones
do not?"
Because Ellen White’s
endorsement on the sixth trumpet is
problematic, please consider these
four statements:
If
Ellen White believed the
seven trumpets were in the
future, why didn’t she
correct her errant position
which was published in the
1907 and 1911 editions
of The Great
Controversy? The
Great Controversy was
first published in 1888.
Later, it was expanded and
revised in 1907 and again in
1911. Ellen White died in
1915. If Ellen White believed
the seven trumpets of
Revelation were future events
in 1890 when she wrote the
statement in Selected
MessagesVolume
III, she had
twenty-five years and two
published editions to correct
her mistake.
If
Ellen White believed the
seven trumpets were future in
1890, why didn’t she say
something specifically about
them and their horrific
consequences? For someone who
wrote more than 250,000
handwritten pages during her
lifetime, there is total
silence in her writings on
the seven trumpets as future
events. On the other hand,
when she did address the
seven trumpets, she placed
them in the past. An
impartial jury would have to
look at this evidence and
conclude that her silence on
the seven trumpets as future
events indicates that she did
not believe they were future
events.
A
computer search of her
writings indicates that Ellen
White mentioned the word
"trumpets" at least
ninety-four times in her
writings. In each case, she
either associated the word
with the seven trumpets or
she used the word to identify
a warning instrument, such
as: "Blow the
trumpet in Zion; sound the
alarm on my holy hill. Let
all who live in the land
tremble, for the day of the
Lord is coming. It is close
at hand." (Joel 2:1) In
other words, Ellen White did
not write one word about the
seven trumpets being future.
One would hope that academic
honesty would cause SDAs to
keep her 1890 Selected
Messages quote
within the context of her
historical understanding, but
this has not been the case.
Many people continue to take
her 1890 statement out of its
context to make it appear
that she endorsed a future
sounding of Revelation’s
seven trumpets. This is
inexcusable.
Finally,
some SDAs say that her
statement on the sixth
trumpet in The Great
Controversy should
not be treated as though she
is presenting her thoughts,
but instead she is presenting
Dr. Litch’s view on the
sixth trumpet. This argument
is a smokescreen to protect
her infallibility. If Ellen
White knew that Litch was in
error, she would have said
so. Litch’s error
occurred in 1840 and he
recanted his error shortly
after 1844.
Josiah
Litch published a book in 1873
titled A Complete Harmony of
Daniel and the Apocalypse (Philidelphia:
Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger,
1873) in which he stated the first
four trumpets will be literal events
that will occur in the future! Dr.
Litch believed the first three
trumpets will come as judgments from
God and they will consist of fiery
meteors and two asteroid impacts!
(Pages 152-160)
Ellen White lived seventy-five years
after 1840 and she did not say one
word about Litch’s 1840 error in
all of her writings. If, after the
passage of sixty years, she still
presented Litch’s position
in The Great Controversy,
why would she leave the reader with
the idea that Litch’s position
was perfectly valid if she knew it
was false? After hearing these four
arguments repeatedly, I conclude that
many SDAs are simply uninformed or
unwilling to admit that their prophet
has made a serious error.
The SDA Position on the Seven
Trumpets is Invalid
There are several reasons why the
historical position on the seven
trumpets that the SDA Church defends
is not valid or defensible. The
following facts are simple. These
remarks may be frustrating to SDAs,
but please prayerfully consider them.
Ellen White wrote: "In the year
1840 another remarkable
fulfillment of prophecy excited
widespread interest. . . . At
the very time specified [in Revelation 9:15], Turkey,
through her ambassadors, accepted the
protection of the allied powers of
Europe, and thus placed herself under
the control of Christian
nations. The event exactly
fulfilled the prediction." (
White, The Great Controversy,
pp. 334-335, underlining mine)
1. The Ottoman Empire Did Not Fall in
1840
The war waged against the Sultan of
Turkey in 1840 actually ended in 1841
without significant changes in
territory. From 1783 to 1914, the
boundaries of the Ottoman Empire were
increasingly reduced through a series
of defeats. In fact, during World War
I, Turkey allied with Germany and
lost even more territory. Today,
historians widely agree that the
Ottoman Empire ended during World War
I. In 1923, the Grand National
Assembly of Turkey proclaimed Turkey
to be a republic and Turkey remains a
sovereign nation to this day. History
does not validate that the Ottoman
Empire fell on August 11, 1840 and it
is no surprise that history does not
give August 11, 1840 any significance
in Turkish history.
2. Faulty Understanding of the Greek
Language
Dr. Litch identified the August 11,
1840 date for the fall of the Ottoman
Empire through a faulty translation
of Scripture. The KJV says: "And
the four angels were loosed, which
were prepared for an hour, and a day,
and a month, and a year, for to slay
the third part of men." (Revelation 9:15) Dr. Litch
applied the day/year principle to
this verse and derived 391 years and
15 days out of the hour, day, month,
and year mentioned. However, the
translation should actually read:
"And the four angels who had
been kept ready for this very hour
and day and month and year were
released to kill a third of
mankind." Greek scholars around
the world (who have no prophetic
position to defend) widely agree that
the syntax of Revelation 9:15 points
to a specific point in time. The
phrase should not be regarded as
the sum of
chronological units of time. (See the
NIV, NEB, NEV, RSV, and ASV.) In
other words, the sixth trumpet says
nothing about a span of time lasting
391 years and 15 days.
