Posted by Elana Janson on September 16, 2004 at 14:49:11:
Three angels
[Readers should look up the verses that are quoted in Revelation to see where they are placed in the total construction of Revelation. It is quite remarkable how Revelation ultimately brings its meaning together by the placement of words in certain chapters and sections of Revelation. When Revelation was written on a scroll, it was read by unrolling the scroll. When the reader had completed it, it was “rolled together” (Rev 6:14). In 2004 the repetition of words and their placement in Revelation, ‘roll the scroll together’ in a most remarkable way. This is revealed through a closer look at “three angels” in Revelation.]
There are very definite reasons why Revelation groups “three angels” that sound the final trumpets with the words “woe woe woe” in Rev 8:13. “And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound”.
Firstly, however, we have to take all the words of this verse into account, for every word contributes to reveal meaning.
Flying through the midst of heaven
The above verse (Rev 18:3) introduces the reader to the sounding of the last three trumpets. It also confirms time and meaning in the year 2004. How do we know this? In the post “Bird flu in the East”, the phenomena of hundreds of thousands of fowls destroyed by man and large numbers of birds falling dead to the earth at the beginning of 2004 was seen as having bearing on the end time. This happening was linked to Rev 19:17 “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God.” Note the repetition of the words “flying through the midst of heaven” and “fly in the midst of heaven” in the verses Rev 8:13 and 19:17. This repetition indicates the same time, that is, the time 2004.
Woe woe woe
The angel says “woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth”. The positions of the words “inhabiters of the earth” in other sections of Revelation give insight as to why the angel says “woe, woe, woe” specifically to the inhabiters of the earth. The repetition of words in Revelation is like a cross-reference.
The inhabiters of the earth
Rev 12:12 “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil has come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
A most important revelation in Rev 12:12 is that the time of “woe to the inhabiters of the earth and the sea” is also the time that the devil is released on earth and sea for a “short time”.
Them that dwell on earth
The meaning of “inhabiters of the earth” is similar to the words “them that dwell on earth”. In the opening of the fifth seal Rev 6:9-11 the words “them that dwell on earth is used with “little season”.
Rev 6:10 “How long, O Lord holy and true, does thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on earth. Rev 6:11 “that they should rest a little season”. In a previous post on this Forum I explained why I regard the time 2002 and beyond as the time of the opening of the fifth seal. It seems that Revelation is confirming through the repetition of words, as explained above, that the time of the sounding of the last three trumpets is in the time of the opening of the fifth seal, that is the “little season”. Through the repetition of the words “woe to the inhabiters of the earth” in Rev 12:12, Revelation confirms that the sounding of the last three trumpets is in the “short time”
The devil is released in the short time.
In Rev 12:12 Revelation says “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows he has but a short time.”
Rev 3:10 “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I shall also keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”. Through the use of the words “them that dwell upon the earth”, Revelation reveals that the time 2002 and beyond is a time of temptation. We know this in 2004 because Revelation has revealed all the various ways that satan has tried to mislead the world are coming together at the present time. Note that those that keep the word will be kept from the hour of temptation. Therefore, till the very end, God will protect those that keep his word. He will preserve those churches that do not allow false teachings to be practiced in their congregations and communities. Later we shall see that there are other sections that confirm that the righteous shall be spared much of the wrath of the devil in the “short time”.
The sounding of the fifth trumpet
The opening of the section of the sounding of the fifth trumpet also confirms the time of the “short time”. Rev 9:1-2 “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.”
The word “star” relates to the time August 2003 when the planet Mars was at its nearest point to the earth. Readers must take note that even though the devil is cast to earth in the short season, Almighty God has provided the opening of the book Revelation to show that Almighty God is in control, and has been in control of all that has happened to the nations and will happen to the nations. The image of the “star” is the end point of the time measure of “three days and a half”, but it is also the time of temptation. Revelation reveals that from August 2003 the influence of satan will finally be revealed to mankind (“I saw a star fall from heaven to earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit”).
In this verse the word “bottomless pit” is used twice. This indicates that in two time measures the earth is “darkened”. The words “and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit” means that in those times the message of Jesus Christ was undermined by the influence of satan. In order to know more about these time measure we have to go to the verses in Revelation where the word “bottomless pit “ is repeated.
Rev 20:1 “And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.” The “great chain” is a chain of time measures measured back from 2003. Seven years are measured from 2003 to 1996, one hundred years are measured back from 1996 to 1896 and three periods of 287 years are measured back from 1896. That brings us to the time 1035, that year was about one thousand years after the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. During these times the earth was “darkening”.
Rev 20:3 “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a short season.” This verse measures time back from 1035. That is the time of the thousand years from the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ to the year 1035. This was the time of the rise of the Christian Church in Europe and the time of the unity between the Christian Church and the Christian State. “After that” refers to the time after the darkening of the earth. After 2003 he is “loosed a short season”.
Five months
For those who have not read, “How near Armageddon”, or studied this website a short summary of time measures in Revelation. The words, “month”, “day” and “hour” in Revelation indicate a time measure in history as well as the time of a month, a day or an hour. It all depends where these words are placed in Revelation. In the section on the sounding of the fifth trumpet the time measure of “five months” appears twice. A ”month” is a time measure of six years in the last 144 years from 1860 to 2004. Therefore “five months” that is mentioned twice in the section of the sounding of the fifth trumpet, is two periods of thirty years, that is, sixty years. I place this time from 1900 to 1960.
With the knowledge that the opening of the six seal (Rev 6:12-14) relates to “five months” at the end of 2003, we now know that the word “month” in Rev 9:15 “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”, also relates to five months (the time of a month as we know it) in the year 2003. With this knowledge we can also now know that what is said in the sounding of the fifth trumpet, also relates to the ‘five months’ at the end of 2003. This is confirmed by the closing verse of the sounding of the fifth trumpet, Rev 9:11 “And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue, Apollyon. These words mean ”destroyer”. Revelation is confirming in another way that in the time of the “short time” or “little season” the nations will be ruled (“king”) by an ideology that developed over almost the entire second millennium that ultimately “darkened the sun and the air” and is the destroyer of the Christian faith.
The meaning of the locusts in the sounding of the fifth trumpet (Rev 9:3-11) is found in Joel 1:3-4 “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm has left, the locust has eaten, and that which the locust has left the cankerworm has eaten.” Revelation wishes to convey in the sounding of the fifth trumpet that the accumulative effect, over generations, of man’s deception by the beasts of Revelation would lead to almost the total destruction of Christian leadership. In the time up to 1035 that leadership sought that Christianity encompassed whole nations in the rise of Christendom.
In the time of the symbolic ‘darkening’ of the earth and particularly from 1900 to 1960, (the two periods of “five months” mentioned above), the nations were with every generation selecting a leadership of the nations that would ultimately be a destroyer of the Christian faith. We know from Rev 9:4 that the force of evil would not hurt Christians who conveyed the gospel to their children and following generations. Through the twentieth century the true believers were protected and by the time the fifth trumpet is sounded, the seal would have been placed on the foreheads of those that shall overcome the deception of satan. “And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which do not have the seal of God in their foreheads.”
It seems that the first “woe” is linked to this section, because there is a hypocrisy linked to the ruling of the nations in the twentieth century. Leadership and law promoting an equalization of world faiths, would for a time bring peace, but ultimately freedom would undermine the Christian faith, and the “great city”, that is the entire earth, will be made aware.
Woe woe woe
The words “woe, woe, woe” relate to the words of Jesus Christ. In Matthew, chapter 23, Jesus Christ uses the word “woe” in connection with hypocrisies and deception of the scribes and Pharisees of his time. It seems from what we have learned above that this is also the central idea in the coupling of the word “woe” to the sounding of the last trumpets. In the time of the ‘darkening’ of the earth, those that dwell on earth were being deceived.
To be continued