Rev 9-13-16- Part 2- The Sixth Trumpet

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Rev 9-13-16- Part 2- The Sixth Trumpet

[Study Aired Aug 25, 2024]

We said we would continue our next study by answering the question, What is the spiritual significance of “the great river Euphrates”?

What is “the great river Euphrates?”

The Euphrates is the river that fed and nourished Babylon. It was upon the waters of the Euphrates that the wealth of all the provinces of Babylon flowed and came into “that great city”. Babylon and the walls of Babylon actually spanned the entire width of the Euphrates River and it was to Babylon that God’s people were carried away as captives:

Psa 137:1  By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Psa 137:2  We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Psa 137:3  For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us [required of us] mirth, [saying], Sing us [one] of the songs of Zion.
Psa 137:4  How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?

Here is one of the “woes” placed upon God’s people by the prophet Jeremiah. In this ‘woe’ we see that God uses the Euphrates and Babylon to “mar” the girdle which should be used to cover our nakedness. The result is to make us “profitable for nothing”. We see that those who “sit on David’s throne” are caused by God to “stumble on dark mountains” and go into “gross darkness” and are carried away captive, and it is all the work of the Lord.

Jer 13:1  Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
Jer 13:2  So I got a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put [it] on my loins.
Jer 13:3  And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,
Jer 13:4  Take the girdle that thou hast got, which [is] upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
Jer 13:5  So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
Jer 13:6  And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.
Jer 13:7  Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
Jer 13:8  Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Jer 13:9  Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
Jer 13:10  This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
Jer 13:11  For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.
Jer 13:12  Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word; Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?
Jer 13:13  Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
Jer 13:14  And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.
Jer 13:15  Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken.
Jer 13:16  Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, [and] make [it] gross darkness. [Smoke of the ‘abussos’ filled with locusts which dim the sun and the air, Rev 9:2-3]
Jer 13:17  But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for [your] pride [iniquity, Eze 33:13]; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD’S flock is carried away captive.
Jer 13:18  Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, [even] the crown of your glory.
Jer 13:19  The cities of the south shall be shut up, and none shall open [them]: Judah shall be carried away captive all of it, it shall be wholly carried away captive.
Jer 13:20  Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where [is] the flock [that] was given thee, thy beautiful flock?
Jer 13:21  What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them [to be] captains, [and] as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?
Jer 13:22  And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, [and] thy heels made bare.
Jer 13:23  Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Jer 13:24  Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.
Jer 13:25  This [is] thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.
Jer 13:26  Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.
Jer 13:27  I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, [and] thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when [shall it] once [be]?

Here God is telling His people that ‘He will cause’ the righteousness of His people to become “marred” then, “after many days”, He will cause them to abuse His wine and be drunk. He will then “dash father against son… will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but [will] destroy them…” He then causes darkness… makes it gross darkness… [and then He says] woe unto thee, O Jerusalem…” To which Isaiah adds:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

As God’s people, we “lose our first love” and become the great harlot of the book of Revelation, who is revealed to be “the faithful city… the city wherein our Lord was crucified,” to which we all bear witness as we ‘look behind us’ to see all these details of the revelation of Jesus Christ, within us.

Rev 1:10  I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Rev 2:4  Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.[Isa 1:21]

We see “the Lord’s day” behind us. That is when we realize that we were “the great city… where our Lord was crucified.” These truths have no “ring of truth” to them until we have already lived and “kept the things which are written therein.”

Rom 4:25  Who was delivered for [Greek, dia, through] our offences, and was raised again for [dia, through] our justification.

Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

What does all of this have to do with the four angels being loosed from their bonds in the Euphrates River? It shows us that God’s own people who “believe on Christ” are the very people who are now Babylon itself, the great city wherein our Lord was crucified, and the very same people who want the christ of Christ, crucified to this very day (Joh 8:30-59).

Joh 8:30  As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those [many] Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:33  They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Joh 8:34  Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Joh 8:35  And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
Joh 8:36  If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Joh 8:37  I know that ye [“many Jews which believed on Him”] are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Joh 8:38  I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39  They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40  But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41  Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42  Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44  Ye [“many Jew which believed on Him”] are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

As we “look behind us”, we see clearly “that great city” was each of us only yesterday, and this is what is being revealed in this trumpet woe to the inhabiters of the earth. This is what is seen by those who “keep the things which are written therein” (Rev 1:3). We have been the waters of Babylon, nourishing and sustaining her every desire with our doctrines and our substance.

What is “an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year”?

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.

Christ tells us “there are twelve hours in a day.”

Joh 11:9  Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.

Of course, Christ is talking about walking in Him. He is “the light of this world”.

Joh 8:12  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Joh 9:5  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

What does that make you and me if we follow in His footsteps?

Mat 5:14  Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

So for all who “walk in the day”, there are “twelve hours in the day”. But there are also twelve months in the year in which to “slay the third part of men”. What is this “year for to slay a third part of men” in the lives of God’s elect? Here is the only year in scripture that is given any special consideration.

Isa 61:2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

This ‘year’ was the topic of the very first sermon of Christ’s ministry. It was given in His own home town of Nazareth immediately after His temptation in the wilderness.

Luk 4:16  And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was [Notice that it does not say “according to the 4th commandment], he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Luk 4:17  And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luk 4:20  And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Luk 4:21  And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

The “acceptable year of the Lord” is the year in which the whole of the gospel [four angels] comes to “heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” But Christ made it clear that before these four angels would be released from the River Euphrates within us, we must first come to see ourselves as being in Babylon, being the sick who need a physician, and the blind who need “recovering of sight.”

Mat 9:12  But when Jesus heard that he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
Mat 9:13  But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

If we see ourselves as “whole”, then the words of this trumpet are not for us, and we do not need a physician. So it is with our sight. If, while we believe lies, we think we see, then we are yet blind and our sin remains:

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And [some] of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Until we see that we live by every word, that all things are ours, that we keep the things written therein, we are totally unaware of what God is doing. The “hour, day and month and year” of scripture are one and all parts of the process which comprises “the year of the Lord” spoken of by Isaiah and Christ in which ‘judgment is now on the house of God’:

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment [“The year of the Lord and the day of vengeance”] must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Isa 61:2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

Proclaiming the year of the Lord is to proclaim the destruction of the kingdom of our old man just as Israel and Judah were destroyed before they were made to “acknowledge [their] wickedness”:

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.

Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

What does “to slay the third part of men” mean?

We have already covered the spiritual significance of the number three when we did our studies on the various ‘thirds’ which are mentioned in chapter eight of this prophecy. Three in scripture signifies the process of being judged. If this trumpet is one third, then there must be two other thirds.

Rev 8:7  The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
Rev 8:8  And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
Rev 8:9  And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

We are not counting thirds, but we are being told that the process of judgment is taking place within us. The third part of the trees was burnt up, the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died, and now the third part of men are to be slain by the fire, smoke and brimstone which issue out of the mouths of the horses that come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit. Each seal adds to the previous seal, but it is all the revelation of Jesus Christ. Each trumpet of the seventh seal adds to the knowledge that was revealed in the previous trumpet, but it is all “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” the revelation of Jesus Christ who is persecuted by each of us when we are in Babylon. When all the thirds are realized in our life, we will begin to be “crucified with Christ”, and we will be “dying daily” with our Lord as we ‘fill up in our bodies what is behind’ of His afflictions, and we too, will be “perfected the third day.”

Luk 13:32  And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of [the] Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Rev 9:18  By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

When will we be given eyes that see that all of these thirds of dying are nothing less than the progression of the revelation of Jesus Christ within us as we “keep the things that are written therein,” and “keep the saying of the prophecy of this book” (Rev 1:3 and Rev 22:7).

Summary

We have seen the scriptures which tell us the meaning of 1) the four horns of the golden altar, 2) four angels which are 3) bound in the river Euphrates, 4) which angels are commissioned to be loosed, 5) which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, 6) for to slay the third part of men.

1) The voice from the four horns of the golden altar, we saw signify both the whole and the strength of the words of the gospel of the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2) The four angels are the symbol of the whole of the gospel which has for so long been

3) bound in the river Euphrates, signifies the great river of deathly lies, which nourish and support Babylon and which are the subject of the two million horses and their riders in next week’s study.

4) The loosing of these four angels signify the release into our hearts and minds of the truths which necessitate that Babylon, with all of her smoke and horses and scorpions and lions and all of her lies begins to be judged within us.

5) It is the birth of this day of judgment within us that is the hour, day and month which make up the acceptable year of the Lord, also called the day of the Lord, within us.

Isa 49:8  Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;

Isa 61:2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

Luk 4:19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

2Co 6:2  (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now [is] the accepted time; behold, now [is] the day of salvation.)

6) “For to slay a third part of men” is the symbol of the three part process of the judgment of the old man and his kingdom, with all the armies and principalities with which he rules within us.

Next week, Lord willing, we will discover why the armies of the darkness of the smoke of the bottomless pit are said to number two hundred million and why their breast plates are “of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone.”

Rev 9:16  And the number of the army of the horsemen [were] two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

Rev 9:17  And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses [were] as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

Rev 9:18  By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

 

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