******* Continuing our prophecy study-- Please
GO back and READ the study from the beginning to gain full understanding of
where we are if you haven't been following this study daily. Thank you
:) We are on lesson number 81. God bless you! ******
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.
Again
- Taking a lot of information from the book Daniel and Revelation by Uriah
Smith--
*******
The
Second Trumpet--
'The
Roman Empire, after Constantine the Great, was divided into three parts. Hence
the frequent remark, "a third part of men," is an allusion to the
third part of the empire which was under the scourge.
This division of the Roman kingdom was made at
the death of Constantine, among his three sons, Constantius, Constantine II,
and Constans. ' (D&R by U. Smith)
Updated note-DEATH
Constantine maintained his role as a military commander,
fighting the Alemani in 328 CE with the assistance of his son Constantius
II, defeating the Goths in 332 CE by
starving them into submission, and lastly, capturing lost territories from the
Dacians (territories that were later lost after his death). His last wish was
to conquer neighbouring Persia after
their king Shapur II had invaded Armenia. However, it was not to be. In 337 CE
Constantine fell ill and died. He had ruled for thirty-one years. He was buried
at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, leaving his
empire in the hands of his three sons -
Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans with Constantius II eventually defeating his brothers and ruling the entire empire by
himself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR DONALD L. WASSON
Donald
has taught Ancient, Medieval and U.S. History at Lincoln College (Normal,
Illinois)and has always been and will always be a student of history, ever
since learning about Alexander the Great. He is eager to pass knowledge on to
his students.
From
<http://www.ancient.eu/Constantine_I/>
Web Info - Constantius II (Latin:
Flavius Julius Constantius Augustus;[1][2] August 7, 317 – November 3, 361),
was Roman Emperor from 337 to 361. The second son of Constantine I and Fausta,
he ascended to the throne with his brothers Constantine II and Constans upon
their father's death
Web Info- Constantine II (Latin:
Flavius Claudius Constantinus Augustus)[1] (316 – 340), was Roman Emperor from
337 to 340. Co-emperor alongside his brothers, his short reign saw the
beginnings of conflict emerge between the sons of Constantine the Great, and
his attempt to exert his perceived rights of primogeniture ended up causing his
death in a failed invasion of Italy in 340.
Web Info- Constans (Latin: Flavius
Julius Constans Augustus)[1] (c.323[1][2]–350), was Roman Emperor from 337 to
350. He defeated his brother Constantine II in 340, but anger in the army over
his personal life and preference for his barbarian bodyguards saw the general
Magnentius rebel, resulting in Constans’ assassination in 350.
'Constantius
possessed the East, and fixed his residence at Constantinople, the metropolis
of the empire. Constantine II held Britain, Gaul, and Spain. Constans held
Illyricum, Africa, and Italy.
The
sounding of the second trumpet evidently relates to the invasion and conquest
of Africa, and afterward of Italy, by Gaiseric (Genseric), king of the Vandals.
His conquests were for the most part naval, and his triumphs were "as it
were a great mountain burning with fire, cast into the sea."
What
figure would better, or even so well, illustrate the collision of navies, and
the general havoc of war on the maritime coasts? In explaining this trumpet, we
are to look for some events which will have a particular bearing on the
commercial world. The symbol used naturally leads us to look for agitation and
commotion. Nothing but a fierce maritime warfare would fulfill the prediction.
If the
sounding of the first four trumpets relates to four remarkable events which
contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the first trumpet refers
to the ravages of the Goths under Alaric, in this we naturally look for the
next succeeding act of invasion which shook the Roman power and conduced to its
fall.
The
next great invasion was that of Genseric, at the head of the Vandals. His
career reached its height between the years A.D. 428-468. This great Vandal
chief had his headquarters in Africa. But as Gibbon states, "The discovery
and conquest of the black nations [in Africa], that might dwell beneath the
torrid zone, could not tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his
eyes towards the sea; he resolved to create a naval power, and his bold
resolution was executed with steady and active perseverance." [5] From the
port of Carthage he repeatedly made piratical sallies, preyed on the Roman
commerce, and waged war with that empire. To cope with this sea monarch, the
Roman emperor, Majorian, made extensive naval preparations.
(The
history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, Volume 4 By Edward Gibbon,
Guizot (François, M.))
"The
woods of the Apennines were felled; the arsenals and manufacturers of Ravenna
and Misenum were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal
contributions to the public service; and the imperial navy of three hundred
large galleys, with an adequate proportion of transports and smaller vessels,
was collected in the secure and capacious harbor of Carthagena in Spain. . . .
But Genseric was saved from impending and inevitable ruin by the treachery of
some powerful subjects, envious, or apprehensive, of their master's success.
Guided by their secret intelligence, he surprised the unguarded fleet in the
Bay of Carthagena: many of the ships were sunk, or taken, or burnt; and the
preparations of three years were destroyed in a single day. . . .
"The
kingdom of Italy, a name to which the Western Empire was gradually reduced, was
afflicted, under the reign of Ricimer, by the incessant depredations of the
Vandal pirates. In the spring of each year, they equipped a formidable navy in
the port of Carthage; and Genseric himself, though in a very advanced age,
still commanded in person the most important expeditions. . . .
"The
Vandals repeatedly visited the coasts of Spain, Liguria, Tuscany, Campania,
Lucania, Bruttium, Apulia, Calabria, Venetia, Dalmatia, Epirus, Greece, and
Sicily. . . .
"The
celerity of their motions enabled them, almost at the same time, to threaten
and to attack the most distant objects, which attracted their desires; and as
they always embarked a sufficient number of horses, they had no sooner landed,
than they swept the dismayed country with a body of light calvary." [6]
A last
and desperate attempt to dispossess Genseric of the sovereignty of the seas,
was made in the year 468 by Leo I, the emperor of the East. Gibbon bears
witness to this as follows:
"The
whole expense of the African campaign, by whatsoever means it was defrayed,
amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds of gold, about
five million and two hundred thousand pounds sterling. . . . The fleet that
sailed from Constantinople to Carthage consisted of eleven hundred and thirteen
ships, and the number of soldiers and mariners exceeded one hundred thousand
men. . . . The army of Heraclius and the fleet of Marcellinus either joined or
seconded the imperial lieutenant. . . . The wind became favorable to the design
of Genseric. He manned his largest ships of war with the bravest of the Moors
and Vandals, and they towed after them many large barks filled with combustible
materials. In the obscurity of the night, these destructive vessels were
impelled against the unguarded and unsuspecting fleet of the Romans, who were
awakened by the sense of their instant danger. Their close and crowded order
assisted the progress of the fire, which was communicated with rapid and irresistible
violence; and the noise of the wind, the crackling of the flames, the dissonant
cries of the soldiers and mariners, who could neither command nor obey,
increased the horror of the nocturnal tumult. Whilst they labored to extricate
themselves from the fire ships, and to save at least a part of the navy, the
galleys of Genseric assaulted them with temperate and disciplined valor; and
many of the Romans who escaped the fury of the flames, were destroyed or taken
by the victorious Vandals. . . . After the failure of this great expedition,
Genseric again became the tyrant of the sea; the coasts of Italy, Greece, and
Asia were again exposed to his revenge and avarice; Tripoli and Sardinia
returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number of his provinces; and
before he died, in the fullness of years and of glory, he beheld the final
extinction of the empire of the West." [7]
Concerning
the important part which this bold corsair acted in the downfall of Rome,
Gibbon uses this significant language: "Genseric, a name which, in the
destruction of the Roman Empire, has deserved an equal rank with the names of
Alaric and Attila." [8]
Edward
Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
[6]
Ibid., 481-486.
[7]
Ibid., 495-498.
[8]
Ibid., chap. 33, p. 370.
*******
Revelation
Rev 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a
great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third
part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
Rev 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:
and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the
waters, because they were made bitter.
Taken
from the book Daniel and Revelation by Uriah Smith-
*******
The
Third Trumpet.--In the interpretation and application of this passage, we are
brought to the third important event which resulted in the subversion of the
Roman Empire. In revealing the historical fulfillment of this third trumpet, we
shall be indebted to the notes of Albert Barnes for a few extracts. in
explaining this scripture, it is necessary, as this commentator says,
"that there would be some chieftain or warrior who might be compared with
a blazing meteor; whose course would be singularly brilliant; who would appear
suddenly like a blazing star, and then disappear like a star whose light was
quenched in the waters. That the desolating course of that meteor would be
mainly on those portions of the world that abounded with springs of water and
running streams. That an effect would be produced as if those streams and
fountains were made bitter; that is, that many persons would perish, and that
wide desolations would be caused in the vicinity of those rivers and streams,
as if a bitter and baleful star should fall into the waters, and death should
spread over the lands adjacent to them, and watered by them." [9]
It is
here premised that this trumpet has allusion to the desolating wars and furious
invasions of Attila, king of the Huns, against the Roman power. Speaking of
this warrior, particularly of his personal appearance, Barnes says:
"In
the manner of his appearance, he strongly resembled a brilliant meteor in the
sky. He came from the East gathering his Huns, and poured them down, as we
shall see, with the rapidity of a flashing meteor, suddenly on the empire. He
regarded himself also as devoted to Mars, the god of war, and was accustomed to
array himself in a peculiarly brilliant manner, so that his appearance, in the
language of his flatterers, was such as to dazzle the eyes of beholders."
[10]
In
speaking of the locality of the events predicted by this trumpet, Barnes has
this note:
"It
is said particularly that the effect would be on 'the rivers' and on 'the
fountains of waters.' If this has a literal application, or if, as was supposed
in the case of the second trumpet, the language used was such as had reference
to the portion of the empire that would be particularly affected by the hostile
invasion, then we may suppose that this refers to those portions of the empire
that abounded in rivers and streams, and more particularly those in which the
rivers and streams had their origin--for the effect was permanently in the
'fountains of waters.' As a matter of fact, the principal operations of Attila
were in the regions of the Alps, and on the portions of the empire whence the
rivers flow down into Italy. The invasion of Attila is described by Gibbon in
this general language: 'The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five
hundred miles from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was at once invaded, and
occupied, and desolated by the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the
field.' " [11]
The
Name of the Star Is Called Wormwood.--The word "wormwood" denotes
bitter consequences. "These words--which are more intimately connected
with the preceding verse, as even the punctuation in our version
denotes--recall us for a moment to the character of Attila, to the misery of
which he was the author or the instrument, and to the terror that was inspired
by his name.
"
'Total extirpation and erasure,' are terms which best denote the calamities he
inflicted. . . .
"It
was the boast of Attila that the grass never grew on the spot which his horse
had trod. 'The scourge of God' was a name that he appropriated to himself, and
inserted among his royal titles. He was 'the scourge of his enemies, and the
terror of the world.' The Western emperor with the senate and people of Rome,
humbly and fearfully deprecated the wrath of Attila. And the concluding
paragraph of the chapters which record his history, is entitled, 'Symptoms of
the Decay and Ruin of the Roman Government.' The name of the star is called
wormwood." [12]
[9]
Albert Barnes, Notes on Revelation, p. 239, comment on Revelation 8: 11.
[10]
Ibid.
[11]
Ibid., p. 240.
[12]
Alexander Keith, Signs of the Times, Vol. I, p. 267-269.
*******
Rev 8:12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third
part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part
of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not
for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
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!
Taken
from the book Daniel and Revelation by Uriah Smith--
The
Fourth Trumpet.--We understand that this trumpet symbolizes the career of
Odoacer, the first barbarian ruler of Italy, who was so intimately connected
with the downfall of Western Rome. The symbols sun, moon, and stars--for they
are undoubtedly here used as symbols--evidently denote the great luminaries of
the Roman government, its emperors, senators, and consuls. The last emperor of
Western Rome was Romulus, who in derision was called Augustulus, or the
"diminutive Augustus." Western Rome fell in A.D. 476. Still, however,
though the Roman sun was extinguished, its subordinate luminaries shone faintly
while the senate and consuls continued. But after many civil reverses and
changes of political fortune, at length the whole form of the ancient
government was subverted, and Rome itself was reduced from being the empress of
the world to a poor dukedom tributary to the Exarch of Ravenna.
The
extinction of the Western Empire is recorded by Gibbon as follows:
"The
unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace: he
signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in their last act
of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the spirit of freedom, and the
forms of the constitution. An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree,
to the emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo, who had lately been
restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly
'disclaim the necessity, or even the wish of continuing any longer the imperial
succession in Italy; since in their opinion the majesty of a sole monarch is
sufficient to pervade and to protect, at the same time, both the East and the
West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that the
seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople; and
they basely renounce the right of choosing their master, the only vestige that
yet remained of the authority which had given laws to the world.' " [13]
Keith
comments on the downfall of Rome:
"The
power and glory of Rome as bearing rule over any nation, became extinct. The
name alone remained to the queen of nations. Every token of royalty disappeared
from the imperial city. She who had ruled over the nations sat in the dust,
like a second Babylon, and there was no throne where the Caesars had reigned.
The last act of obedience to a Roman prince which that once august assembly
performed, was the acceptance of the resignation of the last emperor of the
West, and the abolition of the imperial succession in Italy. The sun of Rome
was smitten. . . .
"A
new conqueror of Italy, Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, speedily arose, who
unscrupulously assumed the purple, and reigned by the right of conquest. 'The
royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths (March 5, A.D. 493), with the
tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East.' The imperial
Roman power, of which either Rome or Constantinople had been jointly or singly
the seat, whether in the West or the East, was no longer recognized in Italy,
and the 'thirdpart of the sun' was smitten till it emitted no longer the
faintest rays. The power of the Caesars was unknown in Italy; and a Gothic king
reigned over Rome.
"But
though the third part of the sun was smitten, and the Roman imperial power was
at an end in the city of the Caesars, yet the moon and the stars still shone,
or glimmered, for a little longer in the Western hemisphere [empire], even in
the midst of Gothic darkness. The consulship and the senate ["the moon and
the stars"] were not abolished by Theodoric. 'A Gothic historian applauds
the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all temporal power and
greatness;'--as the moon reigns by night, after the setting of the sun. And
instead of abolishing that office, Theodoric himself 'congratulates those
annual favorites of fortune, who, without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of
the throne.'
"But,
in their prophetic order, the consulship and the senate of Rome met their fate,
though they fell not by the hands of Vandals or of Goths. The next revolution
in Italy was its subjection to Belisarius, the general of Justinian, emperor of
the East. He did not spare what barbarians had hallowed. 'The Roman Consulship
Extinguished by Justinian, A.D. 541,' is the title of the last paragraph of the
fortieth chapter of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of Rome. 'The
succession of the consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian,
whose despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a title
which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom.' 'The third part of the
sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the
stars.' In the political firmament of the ancient world, while under the reign
of imperial Rome, the emperorship, the consulate, and the senate shone like the
sun, the moon, and the stars. The history of their decline and fall is brought
down till the two former were 'extinguished,' in reference to Rome and Italy,
which so long had ranked as the first of cities and countries; and finally, as
the fourth trumpet closes, we see the 'extinction of that illustrious
assembly,' the Roman senate. The city that had ruled the world, as if in
mockery of human greatness, was conquered by the eunuch Narses, the successor
of Belisarius. He defeated the Goths (A.D. 522 [*]), achieved 'the conquest of
Rome,' and the fate of the senate was sealed." [14]
E. B.
Elliott speaks of the fulfillment of this part of the prophecy in the
extinction of the Western Empire, as follows:
"Thus
was the final catastrophe preparing, by which the Western emperors and empire
were to become extinct. The glory of Rome had long departed; its provinces one
after another been rent from it; the territory still attached to it become like
a desert; and its maritime possessions and its fleets and commerce been
annihilated. Little remained to it but the vain titles and insignia of
sovereignty. And now the time was come when these too should be withdrawn. Some
twenty years or more from the death of Attila, and much less from that of
Genseric (who, ere his death, had indeed visited and ravaged the eternal city
in one of his maritime marauding expeditions, and thus yet more prepared the
coming consummation), about this time, I say, Odoacer, chief of the Heruli--a
barbarian remnant of the host of Attila, left on the Alpine frontiers of
Italy--interposed with his command that the name and the office of Roman
Emperor of the West, should be abolished. The authorities bowed in submission
to him. The last phantom of an emperor--one whose name, Romulus Augustus, was
singularly calculated to bring in contrast before the reflective mind the past
glories of Rome and its present degradation--abdicated; and the senate sent
away the imperial insignia to Constantinople, professing to the emperor of the
East that one emperor was sufficient for the whole of the empire. Thus of the
Roman imperial sun, that third which appertained to the Western Empire was
eclipsed, and shown no more. I say that third of its orb which appertained to
the Western empire; for the Apocalyptic fraction is literally accurate. In the
last arrangement between the two courts, the whole of the Illyrian third had
been made over to the Eastern division. Thus in the West 'the extinction of the
empire' had taken place; the night had fallen.
"Notwithstanding
this, however, it must be borne in mind that the authority of the Roman name
had not yet entirely ceased. The senate of Rome continued to assemble as usual.
The consuls were appointed yearly, one by the Eastern emperor, one by Italy and
Rome. Odoacer himself governed Italy under a title (that of patrician)
conferred on him by the Eastern emperor. And as regarded the more distant
Western provinces, or at least considerable districts in them, the tie which
had united them to the Roman Empire was not altogether severed. There was still
a certain, though often faint, recognition of the supreme imperial authority.
The moon and the stars might seem still to shine on the West with a dim
reflected light. In the course of the events, however, which rapidly followed
one on the other in the next half century, these, too, were extinguished.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, on destroying the Heruli and their kingdom at Rome and
Ravenna, ruled in Italy from A.D. 493 to 526 as an independent sovereign; and
on Belisarius's and Narses's conquest of Italy from the Ostrogoths (a conquest
preceded by wars and desolations in which Italy, and above all its seven-hilled
city, were for a time almost made desert), the Roman senate was dissolved, the
consulship abrogated. Moreover, as regards the barbaric princes of the Western
provinces, their independence of the Roman imperial power became now more
distinctly averred and understood. After above a century and [a] half of
calamities unexampled almost, as Dr. Robertson most truly represents is, in the
history of nations, the statement of Jerome--a statement couched under the very
Apocalyptic figure of the text, but prematurely pronounced on the first taking
of Rome by Alaric,--might be considered as at length accomplished: 'Clarissimum
terrarum lumen extinctum est.' 'The world's glorious sun has been
extinguished;' or as the modern power has expressed it, still under the same
Apocalyptic imagery--
'She
saw her glories star by star expire.' till not even one star remained, to
glimmer on the vacant and dark night." [15]
The
fearful ravages of these barbarian hordes who under their bold but cruel and
desperate leaders devastated Rome, are vividly portrayed in the following
spirited lines:
"And
then a deluge of wrath it came,
And
the nations shook with dread;
And it
swept the earth, till its fields were flame,
And
piled with the mingled dead.
Kings
were rolled in the wasteful flood,
With
the low and crouching slave,
And
together lay, in a shroud of blood,
The
coward and the brave."
Fearful
as were the calamities brought upon the empire by the first incursions of these
barbarians, they were light as compared with the calamities which were to
follow. They were but as the preliminary drops of a shower before the torrent
which was soon to fall upon the Roman world. The three remaining trumpets are
overshadowed with a cloud of woe, as set forth in the following verses.
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!
This
angel is not one of the series of the seven trumpet angels, but simply another
heavenly messenger, who announces that the three remaining trumpets are woe
trumpets, because of the more terrible events to take place under their
sounding. Thus the next, or fifth trumpet, is the first woe; the sixth trumpet,
the second woe; and the seventh, the last one in this series of seven trumpets,
is the third woe.
[13]
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, chap. 36, p.
512.
[14]
Alexander Keith, Signs of the Times, Vol. I, p. 280-283.
[15]
Edward B. Elliott, Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. I, pp. 354-356.
[*]
Edward Gibbon, in History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume
IV, chapter 43, pages 273, 274, places the defeat and death of Teias, the last
king of the Goths, in A.D. 533. This is the date usually accepted by
historians, and is the one used by the author of this book. (See pages 127,
128.)--Editors.
*******
History.
Does
it all fit? Only time will tell. Greater minds than mine have studied all this
and put it together. I'm willing to entertain the idea that it fits and will
continue to do so as I keep my mind open to be guided by the Lord to all truth.
May
God continue to bless us as we seek to understand His word, putting things
together as history unfolds.
In His
most amazing LOVE. Through the Holy Spirit may we be guided always! Please Lord
let us see, let us know all we need to know, let Your love shine through to us
in all things. We need Your wisdom, Your righteousness, Your love all by the
grace of our Lord and Savior!
Amen.
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