Revelation Chapter 8
One Third of the Trees Burned Up
So how do we apply what we have learned to the symbols of the first trumpet?
We find that one of the results of the truth being cast into the earth, or being misused to gain power over others resulted in the burning up of a third of the trees. As we explained before the four angels had been commanded not to harm the trees so we know this is something that should not have been done!
Trees in the Bible seem to represent some kind of organization such as either the household of faith, or a government, for example: the fig tree for the nation of Israel. Trees can also be used to represent Gentile governments. If we remember the parable of the mustard seed we find there a big ecclesiastical church and state tree that grew so large that all the birds of heaven were able to nest in it (Matt 13:31-32, Luke 13:19). That is a parable description of the false church-state system that existed during the 1260 years of the dark ages.
The trees that are struck in the first trumpet would in symbol represent earthly governments or the religious organizations of the time. The religious organization that God was most concerned about in the early church was the true church but even the pagan organizations began to be attacked and converted to Christianity at the time of the early church. That would not have been so bad if it would have been a true conversion, but because of the wrong idea that they needed to convert everyone, the early church misused the truth by threatening judgment upon the heathen if they didn’t convert. Later when they became the official religion of the empire the conversion process became much more forceful and because of that a lot of heathen doctrine was brought into the church.
That one third of the trees WAS STUCK, shows that the process of corrupting the true church began in the time of the early church. While the great falling away was not complete at that time, there is no doubt that it began while the Apostles were still on the scene. They were able to slow down the corruption while they were still alive, but they could not eliminate the human failing that was the beginning of the downfall. The final result after a large number of years was the changing of the true church into the 666 of the false church.
So what we are seeing in the symbol of burning of the trees is not what fully occurred in the first trumpet, but what began there. The final result of the misuse of the Nicolaitans attitude that existed in the early church led to the great falling away later on. We see that the Nicolaitans were the problem because our Lord was complaining about them even in the first church. The wrong attitude of trying to lord it over others grew so bad, that the Lord complained about it again in the third church. So as we can see this was something that started out small and got worse as time went on.
In other words, the trees being burnt up did not happen immediately, but the processes which lead to the church state system began there. That is the same thing with the next three trumpets in that they show the start of the process of a particular part of the great falling away, but the complete downfall was not finished until the fourth church where all of the worst elements came together. So when we see that a third of the trees were burnt up in the first church, we see that as something that started to consume them there but which did not finish them completely until about the fourth church.
That the trees are being burned up points to the corruption of the True Church, because in the Joel account we see the same thing in that it’s the trees that are damaged and God talks as if this is the nation of Israel that is being destroyed. Since Israel and the things that happened to them are a type of the church we would expect to see the same thing happen to the true church.
“For a nation has invaded my land, mighty and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has made my vine a waste and my fig tree splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast {them} away; their branches have become white.” (Joel 1: 6, 7 NUA)
“O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.” (Joel 1:19 NUA)
In Joel God says that ALL the trees are burned up and in Revelation it says only 1/3. We think that this is the same thing but from two different viewpoints, in that even the 1/3 destroyed actually represents all the trees because this is a symbolic application. That one third of the trees were burned up leaves .666 or two thirds shows that they all became an earthly Satanists system. We don’t think this occurred immediately, but we see that the process started there and the root or beginnings of the problem grew into the false church system by the time of the third and fourth church. The flames of fire started out small in the early church but in the end they consumed everything.
What we see here is similar to what we saw when we considered the symbol of trees in Chapter 7. Depending on the situation trees can represent either ecclesiastical or earthly powers (institutions, governments). For that and historical reasons we could see the word trees used here in the plural sense, in that both the true church as well as the civil power of Rome began to be taken over in the first church, but again only in small beginnings. This is just like the mustard seed that is the smallest of the seeds but which grew into the biggest of trees. The ecclesiastical tree or the true church is what God is concerned about in this trumpet.
We will finish up with our next post.
