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I. ALL THESE TRUMPETS TELL OF WAR. The first six are proclamations of war, and the symbols that follow on their sounding set forth varied aspects of war. The last proclaims war ended and victory won.

II. BUT WHAT WAR? There can be little doubt that, as in all prophetical writings, facts within the immediate or near horizon of the writer form the basis of his predictions, and furnish the groundwork of the great moral and spiritual truths, and of the future historic facts to which, by way of resemblance, they direct our thought. Therefore:

1. The wars of the period in which the writer lived and wrote must be looked to - "the things which are and which are about to happen" (Revelation 1:19) - for the primary explanation of the vivid, mysterious, and manifestly applicable symbols which the visions connected with these seven trumpets present to us. Let Josephus be consulted, and in his pages will be found more than enough to furnish material for all the awful images which we find here. The dread drama of the Jewish war was in full action. The massacres and desolation, the poisoning of the very springs of life, the torture, the inroads of locust-like hordes of Arab, Idumaean, and other armies, - all the appalling horrors which St. John speaks of, were all there; his imagery was ready to hand, and, as an intense Jew, the calamities that befell his people could not but have roused in him deepest sympathy, and made his words burn, and his thoughts glow, as they do in this wonderful book. That he was far removed from the immediate scene of these events would make no difference. And besides the Jewish war, there were the civil wars which were distracting the Roman empire: rebellions and revolts; this general and the other determined to mount the imperial throne, let the cost in bloodshed and the risk be what it might; - such were the surroundings of St. John's life, and to them we primarily look for the explanation of what he says. But we cannot doubt, either, that:

2. The wars which led to the fall of the empire find their foreshadowing here. The historic expositors affirm that these alone are what St. John meant, and that the successive invasions under Alaric, Genseric, Attila, and Odoacer, and, after them, of the Saracens and Turks, are what is here portrayed. They ask of those who doubt their interpretation, "Now, if it had been intended to predict these events, could they have been more clearly and accurately described?" Certainly the correspondences are close, and the examination of them is so interesting that more sober conclusions are apt to be abandoned. But remembering the purpose of this book, the comforting and strengthening of the persecuted Church of his own day; and the method of all prophetical writings, to lay hold on present and near facts; - we cannot think that, however much foreshadowed these then distant facts might have been, they were in the mind of the apostle when he wrote. For not to these wars only do these symbols apply, but to:

3. All war. If a deterrent from war be needed, as it often is, then the study of these vast canvases on which the Divine artist has painted successive pictures of the horrors of war cannot but be advantageous. The first shows the devastation it causes; the trees and the growing grass and corn destroyed by the wild war storm which is likened to hail and fire mingled with blood. The second, the destruction of commerce. A great mountain, symbol of some vast earthly power - burning, set on fire with rage and lust of conquest - is cast into the sea, the highway of commerce. The waves are dyed red with blood, the fish die, the ships perish. The third, the overthrow of cities and civilization generally. On the banks of rivers the chief cities of the world have for the most part been placed. The historic interpreters point out how as Genseric, with his Vandals, made the shores of the Mediterranean his chief battleground, so, as this third picture represents, Attila fell - swiftly like a stone, burning like a torch, with fury - upon the riverside cities and populations which lay at the bases of the mountains, the springs of the great rivers, and made their life bitter to them. Yes, it was so; and it is what all war does and has done. Cities and civilization suffer irreparably, must do so. The fourth, political overthrow. The sun, moon, and stars - symbols of government, of kings and the chief rulers of men - these cease to rule and fall from their high places when the fortune of war goes against them. It was so amongst Jews and Romans alike. The fifth - a more dreadful picture than any and more completely drawn (Revelation 9.) - tells of the intolerable tortures which war - child of hell and the pit and the devil that it is - inflicts upon the miserable people amid and upon whom it is waged. They are not exterminated but tortured, as if with the stings of scorpions. They would fain die, but may not; they live on and suffer. The invading armies, like locusts for number, power, and destructiveness, waste and ruin and oppress them day by day. What a picture of war is here! And the sixth, - this tells of the destruction of human life and the deterioration of human character which war causes. One third part of the human race perishes, and the rest, instead of repenting themselves of their sins, become hardened. Whatever special war it was that St. John had in his mind when, with such seeming particularity of place and time and circumstance, he wrote concerning this sixth trumpet blast, it is certain that the effects told of are the common accompaniments of war. If the career of the Turks and their conquests be, as is asserted, the wars here meant, and which extended from A.D. for nearly four hundred years, and which, according to the year-day theory, is just the period which the one year and month and day and hour spoken of would signify, then the resemblance is doubtless striking, even to the identification of the "brimstone, fire, and smoke" with the gunpowder which was first used in the siege of Constantinople. But there is no need to limit the reference of the vision to those circumstances, as it will apply to many similar ones. But all these visions are descriptions of war - those "wars and rumours of war" which our Saviour foretold should be ere the end come; and the comfort for God's troubled people is in that which the seventh trumpet declares, that through and by, amid and in spite of them, the kingdoms of this world fall to Christ. There is comfort in this - just that comfort which the Church in the apostolic age and many times since has sorely needed. Were it not for this final declaration, how wearyingly, how despairingly, should we look on all the turmoil and disasters which have resulted from the ever-recurring wars which men have waged! We could see no reason or end in them. But when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet the outcome of all is seen, and the result recompenses for all that has gone before. But yet more should we see in these visions the setting forth of:

4. God's war with the ungodly. This is what we most of all should learn from them.

(1) And they show how, in order to subdue "the unruly wills of sinful men," God is wont, when milder means fail, to send judgments of a very awful kind. Every one of these visions sets forth such judgment of God.

(2) And when one will not suffice, another is sent. The dread procession of them seems never done passing by.

(3) And they become more and more terrible. There is a manifest enlargement in the scope and severity of these successive judgments. The ominous cry of the eagle which is heard after the first four trumpets have sounded declares this as does the consideration of the judgments themselves. Such is God's way: who can deny that it is so?

(4) But in wrath he remembers mercy. The judgments are not universal, nor exterminating. The reiterated mention of the "one third part" as being the sufferers, not the whole, shows wherefore and with what hope in regard to men's repentance they were sent.

(5) But, alas! they seem to fail in their purpose. After so many and so terrible visitations men did not repent; they seemed only, like Amon, to sin "more and more." But it should seem as if, when God's judgments, as in the case of the plagues of Egypt, no longer merely fell on what was outside their life, no longer merely tormented them, but now smote that life itself, as did the judgment of the sixth trumpet, the last of these dread visitations, then some kind of repentance was produced. But we cannot certainly say.

(6) Victory, however, is the outcome of all. How could it be otherwise? Can man forever defy the Almighty? Blessed be God, he cannot, and sooner or later rebel man will have to lay down his weapons and own Christ Lord of all.

CONCLUSION. But wherefore will man wage this war at all? God desires it not, but has sent the message and the ministry of reconciliation. We, then, as "ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." - S.C.

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KJV: And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

WEB: The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.