Having concluded our look at the Sixth seal and how it portrays conditions consistent to the rise of the Beast “THAT WAS” we now continued on with our investigation to see what THE SIXTH TRUMPET has to say on these matters.
Keep in mind the object of the trumpets is not the same as that of the seals. The seals showed us how historical events of the period affected the church, (viz. the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, the emergence of Protestantism and etc.) while the trumpets show us how present truth (that is those truths then due) affected surrounding society.
Revelation Chapter 9
VERSE 13 “Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God…”
“The sixth angel was Martin Luther. The “I” is John who represents the Church in the flesh. The voice is a message.
The golden altar is of course the Incense Altar which was located in the “Holy” compartment of the Tabernacle and represents the `little flock,’ the consecrated Church in the present sacrificing condition. The voice (the message) could only be heard by those (the John class) who are in the “Holy” condition of the Tabernacle, the spirit begotten condition.
“Four” may or may not be spurious. The golden altar DID, of course, have four horns. Four, representing universality, would show the complete power of the altar. Horns represent power. The golden altar represents the sacrificing of The Christ during the Gospel Age. Therefore, the message seems to be:
Luther delivered his message, and the Church heard (as a result) a message regarding the power of individual sacrificing with Christ.
This is EXACTLY what Luther’s JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH doctrine accomplished. Christians were no longer subject to the Roman Catholic priesthood and its fraudulent sacrifice of the Mass. They now stood before God as individually consecrated members of Christ’s body, sacrificing individually in Christ as part of the Great Sin-Offering. This message is closely tied to Rev 3:7 where the door is now open and no one can shut it. The saints and history itself is, by this message, released or loosed from the Papacy. The saints were now, in Luther’s words, “A Priesthood of Believers.”
VERSE 14 “…Saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound (in) the great river Euphrates.”
“The four angels here are, no doubt, the same angels which we met in the sixth seal (Rev 7:1-3). It will be of value to review their symbolism. Whether or not four ACTUAL angels are involved behind the scenes is not very material. Four, as we recall, is a symbol of universality.
The Rev 7:1 four were standing at the four corners of the earth — all parts of the established order of things. They were instructed by Jesus (Rev 7:2, 3) NOT to let things go to the point of anarchy (four winds). These four angels are probably those PARTS OF SOCIETY WHICH WILL ULTIMATELY GO TOO FAR thus causing total breakdown.
They are probably the, (1) Social, (2) Political, (3) Financial, (4) and Religious elements of society.
“Here in Rev 9:14, Luther (the sixth angel or messenger) is told that his work would release these angels because they were, up until his time BOUND IN THE EUPHRATES. The Euphrates is symbolic of the support of the people given to Babylon (The “waters” flowing into Babylon). In Luther’s day, of course, ALL support of the people had been to the Roman Catholic Church — the only Babylon at the time.
Because the Roman Catholic Church had complete control over the elements of society, social, judicial, as well as religious, those elements (the four angels) could not function outside of the approval of the Papacy. There could be no social changes, nor financial theories explored, no political freedoms, and no religious questioning. The four angels were, indeed, BOUND in the Euphrates. The people who supported Rome were fearful of giving support to anything not sanctioned by Rome.”
We continue with Verse 15 in our next post.
