The Last Three
Trumpets
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“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)
The first four
trumpets will destroy notoriously
wicked places all over the world and
will cause twenty-five percent of the
world’s population to die. Since
the first four trumpets will be
utterly destructive, you might expect
the last three trumpets to be more of
the same. Actually, the last three
trumpets are quite different from the
first four. The first four trumpets
will awaken billions of people. They
will hear a powerful message and many
of them will thoughtfully consider a
gospel that is totally contrary to
what they presently believe. Since
Jesus is not willing that anyone
should perish, the last three
trumpets can be regarded as a second
attempt to move stubborn and
rebellious people toward the right
choice. The people of Earth will
literally see demons with unvarnished
clarity. Once this revelation occurs,
a few will “see the light”
and embrace the gospel of Jesus. When
God has done everything possible to
demonstrate right from wrong, there
is nothing more He can do to save
those who choose to do wrong.
The fifth trumpet
marks the physical appearing of
Lucifer. Lucifer is the dreaded
Antichrist. He is the embodiment of
evil. In an attempt to mimic
Christ’s return, he will arise
out of the Abyss to descend from the
sky with 200,000,000 evil angels.
(Revelation 9:3,16) He will appear as
a most impressive, glorious being of
light. (2 Corinthians 11:14) The
devil will claim to be Almighty God
and he will prove his assumed
identity by performing incredible
miracles at will. (Revelation
13:13,14) He will deceive billions of
people and his demons will subdue
anyone who stands in opposition to
his presumed authority with searing
pain. (Those who have already
received the seal of God will not be
harmed. (Revelation 9:4)
The sixth trumpet will
be a world war. Lucifer will initiate
this war. In the process, he will
kill a third of mankind in order to
take control of Earth and establish a
“theocracy.” The devil will
abolish the religions and governments
of the world and will establish ten
kings as “taskmasters.” The
devil will be ruthless and victorious
in his efforts to conquer the world.
For a short time, Lucifer will appear
to reign over the whole world as
“King of kings and Lord of
lords.”
The seventh trumpet
marks the end of God’s grace for
individuals and the beginning of the
seven bowls. The seven bowls will
last seventy days. The end of the
seventh bowl will destroy the world
and the surviving wicked. (The Second
Coming occurs at the end of the
seventh bowl.)
Before we examine the
last three trumpets in detail, you
need to be aware of several
developments that will transpire
between the fourth and fifth
trumpets. The time between the
beginning of persecution in the
fourth trumpet and the fifth trumpet
will be approximately 826 days (about
27.5 months). Although Babylon will
be studied in greater detail in a
later chapter titled “The Four
Beasts of Revelation,” you need
to understand a few things about
Babylon and its mission in order to
appreciate the significance of the
fifth trumpet.
What is Babylon?
Babylon is represented
in Revelation 13:1-8 as a
leopard-like monster that will rise
out of the sea. Babylon’s
represents man’s response to
God’s wrath. Babylon will be a
religious government with a simple
objective: Babylon will attempt to
appease God so that His wrath will
cease. The “sea” from which
Babylon will rise represents
“peoples, multitudes, nations
and languages.” (Revelation
17:15) In other words, Babylon will
arise from within the nations
of the world. After the first four
trumpets turn the world upside down,
the political leaders of the world
will humbly submit to the authority
of Babylon. The Bible predicts this
amazing turnover with these words:
“…And he [Babylon, the
leopard like beast] was given
[the gift of] authority over every
tribe, people, language and
nation.” (Revelation 13:7,
insertion and italics mine)
Babylon will be a
“monster-sized”
church-state government.
Babylon’s leaders will dictate
how the civil governments of the
world are to proceed in their efforts
to appease God so that His wrath will
cease. Today, it goes beyond
comprehension to say that a time is
coming when the world’s
political leaders will submit to the
dictates of a one-world religious
government, but the destruction
caused by the first four trumpets is
unimaginable, too. When the world
witnesses God’s devastating
wrath on notably wicked places and
smells the stench of 1.75 billion
dead people, almost everyone will
have a dramatic change in their
thinking about God. His authority and
our accountability to Him will become
the topic of greatest concern.
During the gloomy
darkness of the fourth trumpet, the
religious leaders of the world will
convene and conceive a well-intended,
but foolish plan to appease God. They
will unanimously agree that one
angry God is angry with all mankind
and that degenerate behavior has
provoked God’s wrath against all
nations. Therefore, religious leaders
will conclude that all nations
and all religions must unite as
one family to appease Him. “If
we do this,” they will say,
“our chances of offending God
further will be reduced. Perhaps He
will have mercy on the whole world
when He sees that all mankind is
anxious to please Him and sincerity
is global.”
Three Enabling Lies
Humbled by
overwhelming destruction and
desperate to appease God so that His
judgments will cease, the
world’s religious leaders will
form a religious government to
appease God’s wrath. The basis
for this government will be three
enabling lies. The first lie:
Everyone on Earth worships the same
God, even though He is called by
different names. This lie will be
convincing because of the rapid-fire
destruction of the first four
trumpets points to the handiwork of one
God. This lie will enable the
clergy of the world to temporarily
lay aside their theological
differences so that they can unite on
two principles that all religions
hold in common. The first principle
is that God’s wrath is aroused
by decadent and degenerate behavior.
While this principle is true,
religious leaders will conclude that
God would be pleased to have nations
enact laws forbidding degenerate
behavior. Many people will conclude
that this deduction is reasonable,
but this is the second lie. A God of
love is pleased when people choose
of their own free will to forsake
evil and obey His commands, but He
has no interest in forced righteousness.
The second principle that all
religions have in common is the
belief that Almighty God rules the
universe and He is entitled to
respect and worship. Babylon will
claim that God will be pleased to
have a government formed promoting
respect for Him and the worship of
the Almighty. Of course, this is the
third lie. Babylon does not speak for
God and even worse, Babylon’s
demands will stand in direct
opposition to God’s law.
One the political
leaders of the world consent, the
leaders of Babylon will move forward
to implement a dramatic plan to
appease God so that His judgments
will cease. Everyone will be required
to show respect for Almighty God.
Many “sin-less” laws will
be enacted and enforced. Babylon will
declare a specific day for worship
and require businesses to close on
that day. The irony is that
Babylon’s solution to appeasing
God is built on three enabling lies.
The leaders of Babylon will tell the
world that they are confident that
their plan to appease God is the
right thing to do and billions of
people will agree with their
religious leaders. However, the
144,000 will boldly tell the world
that Babylon is on the wrong track!
The 144,000 will confront
Babylon’s lies with Scripture
and honest hearted people will find
themselves trying to determine the
truth.
The fact that Babylon
will require all nations to set aside
a day for the worship of God will
quickly get the attention of the
world. In Moslem nations, laws
regarding the holiness of Friday will
be imposed. In countries where
Christianity is the primary religion,
laws regarding the holiness of Sunday
will be imposed. In Israel, laws
regarding the holiness of Saturday
will be imposed. This duplicity on
Babylon’s part will cause honest
hearted people to question how a
one-world government can appease the same
God with different laws in
different lands. The three lies that
enabled the formation of Babylon will
be undermined by Babylon’s own
behavior.
Babylon’s Seven
Heads
The leopard-like beast
has seven heads and ten horns. When
Babylon rises to power, the Bible
says that one of the seven heads
“has been healed.”
(Revelation 13:3) Notice that the
phrase, “had been healed,”
is stated in the past perfect tense.
This means that when the leopard-like
beast rises from the sea, the deadly
wound will be completely healed.
The seven heads
represent the seven religious systems
of Earth. The seven heads represent
Atheism, Heathenism, Judaism, Islam,
Eastern Mysticism, Catholicism, and
Protestantism. If one head is a
religious system, then the remaining
six have to be religious systems too,
because there are seven heads. Each
religious system is a blasphemous
organization – that is, each
religious system is defiant to the
will of God. This defiance is
described with the phrase, “and
on each head [was written] a
blasphemous name.” (Revelation
13:1, insertion mine) At this time,
this defiance is not discernable
within each religious system because
each religious system claims (and its
followers believe) that it teaches
the truth about the will of God.
Nevertheless, the
honest in heart will see, in due
time, that the claims of all seven
religious systems are blatantly
false. When the 144,000 begin
speaking the testimony of Jesus, the
religions of the world will fight
back with prejudice, lies, insults,
and persecution. The devil has used
these well-worn tools for thousands
of years to keep God’s truth
hidden from sight, but there is
nothing more powerful than a truth
whose time has come. The religious
systems of the world will be exposed.
They are blasphemous and it will not
take long for the honest in heart to
recognize the gross deception that
has kept them in darkness.
The Wounded Head
The head that
was wounded and “had been
healed” when Babylon rises to
power represents the Roman Catholic
Church. The authority of the Catholic
Church over the kings and nations of
Europe began with Emperor
Justinian’s decree in March,
A.D. 533 (but the decree remained
ineffective until A.D. 538). The
Church’s authority over the
kings of Europe lasted 1,260 years.
(Daniel 7:25, Revelation 12:6,14)
When this prophetic period ended, the
French Revolution (1789-1799) fatally
wounded the authority of the Church
when Pope Pius VI was dethroned and
put into prison (February 1798). One
hundred thirty-one years later, on
June 7, 1929, Italian dictator,
Benito Mussolini, on behalf of King
Victor Emmanuel III, granted the
Catholic Church the right to exist as
a sovereign state. This grant to the
Catholic Church is known as the
Lateran Accords or Treaty. This event
granted the pope sovereign ruler ship
over the State of Vatican City and
more importantly, the pope was free
to direct and lead the Catholic
Church without accountability to any
nation.
