What are the trumpets - the sixth trumpet

Note: I'm going on vacation. I'll be back in three weeks. But first,

You have wearied the LORD with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" or "Where is the God of justice?" -- Malachi 2:17

We've already seen the sixth challenge. It was the mindset at the heart of Babel (see: What does Babylon mean). It's the way of thinking that says:

The sixth challenge -- "The world is enough. We don't any of that God nonsense. We have everything we need right here."

But we don't. We have a finite amount of resources which, in the next few years, are going to be taxed to their limits -- and well beyond. Here in America, no one under the age of seventy remembers rationing. We've grown up believing that food grows inside of plastic containers and sprouts daily on store shelves. Even if we can't afford to pay for it, no worries; Uncle Sam will give us some green stamp thingies and he'll pay for them on our behalf... forever.

Hidden beneath this mindset is a reality that most Americans refuse to even contemplate: we are running out. Running out of oil, minerals, topsoil... oh, and running out of water.


The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. -- Revelation 9:13-16

We've already seen World Wars I and II. This trumpet is the last in the trilogy. The world is going to war again, and this time, we are given a trigger event. In Matthew 24, Jesus refers to these signs as "vultures" gathering over a dead body. This is the last warning sign. The last vulture. And right at this moment it's about eighty percent complete. Look at the passage. This is what happens before the sixth trumpet.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. -- Revelation 16:12-14

If you watched any of the news footage of Vice President Biden's trip to Iraq, you likely saw pictures of a hotel barely visible through a sandstorm. That storm cancelled much of his itinerary, and storms like that are becoming the norm in that part of the world. You see, they used to irrigate their fields with water from the Euphrates River, but the river is currently running about one fifth of its normal level. Too low for irrigation. So the fields have dried out and the wind is carrying away the topsoil as dust particles.

There are a couple of reasons for this. For one thing, changing weather patterns have reduced rainfall in the region. But an even larger factor is the politics between Iraq, which has the lower Euphrates, and the countries along the upper Euphrates, Turkey and Syria. Turkey and Syria have been damming up the river (four for Turkey, two for Syria) to satisfy their increasing demands for water, and by the time the mighty Euphrates gets to Iraq it's now little more than a mud-puddle. Iraq has held meetings with it's northern neighbors on this issue and both sides agree that the talks have been constructive (which is fancy way of saying that Turkey and Syria won't budge and Iraq is getting truly pissed off). When the Iraqi portion of the River goes completely dry -- and that may be very soon since the river's flow rate has dropped fifty percent in the last year alone -- the last of the vultures will be up in the air, that light at the end of the tunnel will start making an audible "choo choo" sound, and you and I will have days, weeks, who knows, maybe years, until our lives as we once knew them are gone forever. And make no mistake, forever -- on this world at least -- will be a very short time.

Now, a few comments about the army of two hundred million.

The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. -- Revelation 9:17-19

There is not now, nor will there ever be, an army of two hundred million, trained, competent soldiers. Not on this earth. Not ever. Whatever nonsense you've been told about China's ability to field an army that size is just that -- nonsense. The Chinese army, the PLA, has about three million members. For them to scale that number up seventy fold would take a miracle on the order of God's feeding of the Hebrews with manna. There would be no way to feed them, no where to put them, and no where near enough equipment to make them look anything like what we think of as an army.

But that statement brings me to my final point. What we think of as an army is very different than the way armies looked for most of recorded history. Up until recently wars were largely fought by militias, or irregulars -- basically men with weapons who had little to nothing in the way of organization and formal training. They were rabbles. And that's what this is going to be. This is going to be a two hundred million person mob. This won't be a military operation. This will be a migration; because the only reason that two hundred million people go anywhere is that they are running from something.

The answer to the sixth challenge -- reality does not bend itself to your wishes. There is only so much stuff in the material world and if you have the attitude that all of it belongs to you, and everyone else has the same attitude, cataclysmic warfare will be the natural result.

Next, after I get back from vacation, we will look at the final challenge and the final trumpet -- Gabriel's horn.

What are the trumpets - the fifth trumpet

Okay, I've put this off long enough. The fifth trumpet drives me haywire. It's everything I always hated about end times prophecies -- a riddle wrapped in an enigma surrounded by a mystery... yadda yadda. But here it is, and we have to answer the riddle before we can look at the challenge.

The riddle is this:

What acts like a locust, has the body posture of a war horse, has a face like a human, hair like a woman, something like a gold crown on its head, an iron breastplate over its heart, makes a lot of noise, and finally (pant pant) has a sting that only harms all the people who don't serve God?

John gives us two clues, but first let's work our way through the soupy 1st century Jewish imagery.

1) acts like a locust -- locusts are an agricultural pest. They eat crops. For the people of this time a locust infestation could mean famine and death. Saying that something 'acts like a locust' means that it devours something valuable, like material goods. It could even mean that it devours something that is not material, like one's dignity or legacy.

2) body posture of a war horse -- horses were viewed as proud, powerful creatures. When they sense danger (like being brought up for a battle) they stamp their feet and snort. This is a picture of something that looks strong, and wants to give off the appearance of looking strong.

3) a face like a human -- this one hardly qualifies as imagery at all. It can only mean that what we are talking about is a human, or that it impersonates a human.

4) hair like a woman -- hair was a symbol of femininity. Makeup existed, but it was expensive and very crude by modern standards. The average woman had little access to makeup back then, but if she cared about her appearance she could certainly spend a little time on her hair. All she needed was a brush and some oil. Also, hair has another meaning in the Bible. It can also refer to authority. This is how Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 11:11-15. So "hair like a woman" could signify that this creature values feminine attributes; that it places them as an ideal over male attributes.

5) something like a crown of gold on its head -- either it has authority like a king, or it just likes to think that it does.

6) an iron breastplate over it's heart -- remember Paul's 'breastplate of righteousness' (Ephesians 6:14)? Paul is saying that righteousness (ie: wanting to do the right thing) acts as a protective piece of armor over the heart. The breastplate is heavy handed imagery that signifies a covering for the heart. A person who had a piece of iron over their heart -- in the metaphorical sense -- would be a person who lacked kindness, compassion, and could not be aroused to either one of those things.

7) makes a lot of noise -- busy, industrious, boisterous, frightful... any number of things.

8) A sting that only harms the all people who don't serve God -- ....we better look at the two clues at this point.


Our first clue is a rehashing of the story of Satan's fall. The word Lucifer means morning star, or light bringer, and at the beginning of Chapter 9 John tells us that he sees a star falling into the abyss. In verse eleven we are told that these creatures have the angel of the abyss as Lord over them. This clue certainly points us in a demonic direction, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we are describing demons -- not exclusively, anyway.

The second clue is that during the time of these creatures we are told that "men will seek death". In the first entry of why doesn't my life make sense, I made this observation:

2) Suicide is a leading cause of death among the young people of today. But go back a hundred years and it's barely even mentioned. Go back two hundred and it's miraculously rare. Any time before Shakespeare's Hamlet and its non-existent in written literature.The whole existential breakdown bit is a fairly recent phenomenon. Sure, suicides took place to avoid capture at the hands of an enemy, or to avoid an even worse death from something like starvation, but that's not what I'm talking about. The fact is, when it comes to the kind of malaise that surrounds today's youth, the "There's no point to any of this $%&! anyway," mindset, it's a product of the modern age.It doesn't exist in earlier times. It's like the thought just never occurred to them.

John tells us that when these creatures emerge, the thought will occur to people. People will want to die because something is tormenting them; something he could only describe by using the most bizarre collage of imagery.

Let me criticize two of the more popular interpretations of this passage for a moment. First, we are not talking about attack helicopters or any other implement of war. Those things don't have "hair like a woman" and they don't only harm non-believers (as mentioned in the last post they are killing believers right now in some parts of the world). Second of all, we are not talking about demonic beings in the way that something like the Left Behind series portrays them. Demons are incorporeal. They do not literally appear as insects... with horse bodies.

But the Greek word that we translate as 'spirit' can mean a number of things. It can mean angels, demons, ghosts -- or it can refer to an attitude or mindset. We still use the word this way when we say something like, "he has a spirit of fear," or simply, "She has spirit." Now I certainly think that the locust creatures are demonically influenced, but they are not demons themselves. They are people. More to the point: they are us.

Who acts like a swarm of locusts? Who spends their time strutting and preening and acting tougher than they really are? What culture cast a negative pall on any sort of masculine characteristics (give you a hint, it's the same one that sells girls jeans to boys)? What culture puts the equivalent of crown on a child's head and tells them that there is no authority above them (another hint, ask a teacher was his/her students are like these days)? Who has the equivalent of a metal plate over their hearts? Who makes noise, but accomplishes little?

Tell me, if you went back in time a hundred years or so, how many people do you think would fit the classification of bipolar, or ADD, or any of the other psychological traumas that we try so hard to medicate out of existence? A hundred years ago children worked in factories in this country, but they didn't go on school-shooting rampages, and they didn't have mass suicide pacts. We have changed. We have become a different creature from what we were a few generations ago.

The answer to the riddle is this: the locust is modern man. And I mean 'modern' in the sense of 'modish', or 'fashionable'. It's a person who conforms to the current no authority, no boundaries, no responsibility culture. It's also the demonic influence which inspired an entire generation to sell their souls for sex without commitment, for the illusion of respect without any of the traits which would reasonably command it, for the flimsy lie that mental health can be found in a pill.... I could go on forever.

And now our job is easy.

The fifth challenge -- we will be fine. All we need is to understand ourselves better. Things like psychology and sociology will bring about a new renaissance of thought and living.


The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon -- Revelation 9:1-11

The answer to the challenge -- It's not your understanding that is the problem. It's your desires; until you can control them, you can't understand yourself. And you will never control your desires apart from God.

Next, there's a war coming. And it's coming soon.

What are the trumpets - the fourth trumpet

The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as a result of their deeds. -- Micah 7:13


The fourth trumpet is another easy one. I'll enjoy it while I can since the fifth one is an absolute nightmare.

The fourth challenge -- we don't need God to bring us to some kind of metaphysical paradise. We can make our own heaven right here on earth.

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. -- Revelation 8:12

I've already said that the central 'plotline' of Revelation is God's vindication against all challengers. But the book also has a number of subplots. The three main ones are: 1) the persecution of believers, 2) warfare between the nations, and 3) the destruction of the natural world.

It's the third one that we Christians tend to forget when we talk about the end times. I don't think this is coincidence. We can be a very predictable lot. One of the things we almost always do is to defend a particular position simply because it is under attack, never mind if new information comes along to show us that our position needs to be modified; if it's being bludgeoned, we have to defend if. It's our Christian duty. Period. The whole 'young earth' thing is a prime example. Forty something percent of believers still hold to 4000 BC creation point. Of course it's not actually 4000 BC, it's 4004 BC.... on October 23.... at 10:00 at night.... I kid you not. I'd wager that not one in ten actually know where that belief came from, or that it's based on a set of assumptions that have long since been shown to be unbiblical. Doesn't matter. It's under attack from the heathens. Dig in and return fire.

Now, environmental issues were long the rallying cry of the Paganists. Long before hippies, long before granola, our ancestors squared off against the European Celts in a war of ideologies. When it came to something like medicine, for example (this is a tad before anything I would dare call an actual 'environmental issue'), the Christians held to the Greek philosophy of bodily 'humours' and healing whereas the Celtic influence went more for natural cures. Self-respecting Christians didn't bandage their wounds with moist herbs, people who did that were likely to get the saddled with the 'witch' label. This ideological sparring set the stage for tree-hugging to be closely associated with neo-paganism. We can produce an add campaign with an American Indian crying over a field of litter, but we can't show a priest crying in his habit. The priest is the guy that threw the Styrofoam cup on the grass in the first place.

For anyone in Christian America that stumbles across this, please hear me out. Global warming is real. Science, the real science that makes observations and doesn't have a corporate sponsor is telling you the truth: airborne pollutants are changing our natural world. And not for the better -- and a book written 2,000 years ago told us this was going to happen.

At this point, if you need a refresher course on why we are dumping so much pollution into our environment and doing nothing about it, and why this is just going to continue, refer to what does Babylon mean.

The answer to the fourth challenge -- no, we won't make the earth a heaven. We'll make it a hell. It's just what we do.

Next, the fifth trumpet, and locusts with nice hair.

What are the trumpets - the third trumpet

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. -- Psalms 20:7

There are two issues connected to the third trumpet that I want to address. Fortunately, the challenge part of the equation requires little explanation.

The third challenge -- Technology will save us.

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. -- Revelation 8:10-11

On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. The blast was so powerful it sent the two million pound cement reactor lid flying up into the sky. A witness from a nearby town said that it looked like a falling star when it fell back. The radioactivity released from the blast went up into the atmosphere and came back to the earth in rainfall, collecting in lakes and streams. The death estimates from cancers brought on by the radiation goes as high as one million.

It took a comedy of errors -- the likes of which would have made Homer Simpson proud -- to cause the disaster. Equipment wasn't checked, safety systems were turned off, and somewhere, someone probably tried to stop up a crack with bubble gum. Since then, the nuclear industry has never been able to shake the stereotype of fallout and mutant, two-headed fish.

And that's the first issue. Like I said. Simple and direct.

The answer to the third challenge -- technology acts as a lever. It allows you to do more work with less effort. But it will never be a path to salvation. In the hands of the careless and the wicked it simply allows them to reek more havoc than they could have otherwise.

Now, for the second issue.

The name Chernobyl doesn't exactly mean 'wormwood'. For that matter the Greek word in Revelation doesn't exactly mean it either. Chernobyl comes from a word (chornobyl) that means wormwood and the Biblical word can be used more broadly to refer to the species of plants that includes wormwood. In some circles there is a lively debate whether or not the event fulfills the prophecy. Very few of these circles could be drawn over a map of the United States.

And that's the problem. I had never even heard of the Chernobyl/wormwood connection until coming across it in a European history book written by a British author (Norman Davies' Europe). As fascinated as we Americans are with end times, we seem to be absolutely convinced that the events described will somehow revolve around our country. Chernobyl was, I think, ignored in the American Christian community for no other reason than it was in a foreign language (Slavonic) square in the middle of a foreign country (Ukraine, then a part of the Soviet Union).

Never mind the fact that many -- and very likely the majority -- of modern day Christians are already experiencing tribulation, and have been for decades, in places like Africa, the Middle East, and China. Somehow we still package every prophetic event in the book of Revelation into a seven year span and tell ourselves that we are going to be miraculously evacuated (raptured) before any of the icky bad stuff happens here. We'll look at the rapture when we get to it, but for now let me just say this: I think a great many of the peculiar American breed of Christians who have absolutely no problem offering up their lip-service prayers to a God who allows foreigners to suffer, will be the same people who have absolutely no intention of worshipping a God who would allow that same suffering to happen to them.

Do you think that America will be last bastion of true faith in the world to come? I bet you're wrong.

Next, the fourth trumpet, hair spray, and an Indian with a tear running down his cheek.

What are the trumpets - the second trumpet

So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: "O King Darius, live forever! The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions' den. Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed." So King Darius put the decree in writing. -- Daniel 6: 6-9

Did the Persian king truly believe that he could answer the prayers of his people? Maybe. It was certainly popular at this time for kings to claim God-like power. Now, it may seem primitive for someone to claim divinity, but as we will see, some ideas never really go away, they just get airbrushed and reissued; the name may be new, but the idea is very, very old.

I'll explain this with an example shortly, for now just let me present the second challenge.

The second challenge -- Sure, we have our problems now, but who says we won't grow out of them? Why can't mankind grow, or evolve, into something greater, something that has no need for God or any sort of divine intervention?

In 1918, while temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack, a young Austrian soldier named Adolf Hitler said he had an epiphany. Heavily influenced by social Darwinists like Friedrich Nietzsche, he realized his true purpose -- he was going to avenge Germany for its defeat at the hands of the allies (he believed that it was Jews and Marxists that had betrayed the country and caused its defeat), and bring about a new world order. Germany, or more precisely, a group of imagined Germanic ancestors called Arians were meant to fulfill the destiny of the Ubermensch (the superman). They were as far above other races and men were above apes and they deserved to rule the world because of this natural superiority.

World War II was more of a truly global affair than the first world war. Whereas the heaviest fighting in World War I was confined to the European continent, World War II had two distinct theaters of combat; one in and around Europe, one in and around the Pacific Ocean. It was fought on land, in the air, and very much on the water. Germany tried to cut off supplies to the allies by attacking shipping vessels. In the East, America's battle with the Japanese was largely a navel battle. All the while, both sides were attempting to develop the world's first working atomic weapon. The United Stated won the race, and in 1945, after dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ended the war.

Now, lets look at the second trumpet.

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. -- Revelations 8: 8-9

Sounds like a meteor, right? It's not. It can't be. Although a meteor would quite literally satisfy the phrase 'thrown into the sea', it would violate God's promise to never again destroy the world by flood. You see, when a meteor strikes the earth it is moving at a rather brisk thirty miles a second or so. Computer simulations predict that a mountain sized ocean impact would not only create the mother of all tidal waves, it would actually throw enough water into the atmosphere to keep it raining all over the world.... for weeks. But there is another thing that looks, 'something like a huge mountain, all ablaze,' and you've probably seen video of it a dozen times.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US conducted a number of nuclear tests in the waters near the island of Bikini Atoll. The iconic picture associated with these tests is the Castle Bravo explosion, the detonation of the world's first hydrogen bomb -- a plume of fire and radioactive debris that looks very much like an oddly shaped mountain, pointing nose-down into the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

And what drove mankind to create an arsenal of these weapons so large that it could destroy all life on earth a dozen times over? Fear, suspicion, manipulation, all the things we discussed in the last post? Certainly. But to this list we now add another and it's the same thing that can make a man believe that he can answer prayers, the same thing that made a humble Austrian foot-soldier think it was justifiable to gas over six million of his fellow human beings:

The answer to the second challenge -- you can't become God, but you can almost create the illusion of becoming more divine. You do this by pretending the people around you are less than human. As they shrink, you 'grow'. And in doing this you completely surrender your humanity, but not because you're becoming more. In reality it's because you're becoming less.

Up next is Wormwood.

What are the trumpets - the first trumpet

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." -- Genesis 3:2-5

Philosophers throughout recorded history have weighed in on something we commonly call,
'the problem of morality.' It goes like this: for something to be morally good, something must be morally better, all the way up the chain until you arrive at some sort of moral best that serves as the basis for knowing good from bad, right from wrong. The trick has been to try and find a way around this since, if true, you are left in the uncomfortable position of admitting that the moral ideal -- that moral 'best' we just mentioned (ie: God), is always right, and anytime you disagree with him you are quite simply wrong. Examples of this are rife throughout the Bible. This brings us to the first challenge.

The first challenge -- why do we need God to determine right and wrong? Why can't we, as humans, just agree on our own definition of moral good and bad, and once we've agreed, why would our moral code be any less 'ideal' than any other?


The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. -- Revelations 8:7

When we last left our intrepid ancestors, they were having trouble understanding each other, breaking off into smaller tribes, and trekking to the far reaches of the planet to get away from each other(see: What does Babylon mean). About a century ago they got back together. You see, through the industrial revolution and the invention of something called the internal combustion engine the world suddenly became a much smaller place. Trips that used to take months could now be made by ocean liners in a matter of days. Mankind became a global community of sorts, and for the first time we were able to answer the question: what would have happened if the pre-Sumerian culture at Babel had remained intact?

If you've seen the movie, Saving Private Ryan, you may think that you've seen a realistic depiction of just how horrifying war can truly be. But World War II was almost gentlemanly compared to the fighting in World War I.

Explaining how the first world war got started is like explaining a bar room brawl. "Well, you see, we were playing pool and Tommy spilled his drink on some guy at the next table. The guy shoves Tommy into some other guy who falls on another guy, and this guy doesn't really know what's going on, he just punched the guy that ran into him and all of the sudden everybody in the bar starts swinging." Why did the fight happen? It happened because everyone was already prepped by the attitude that it might happen. Then, all it took was a spark. Fear and suspicion did the rest.

In 1914, the "global community" was a collection of colonial empires and their colonies. It was a great mass of haves and have nots, some possessing vast resources and fearing the loss of those resources. Others seeing that the new industrial age required tremendous inputs of resources and looking for a way to add to their own resource base. Like the bar in the last paragraph, it was a world on edge. All it needed was the right spark and when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, the first drink was spilled. Fear and suspicion did the rest.

The war itself was, more than anything else, a three year long artillery barrage conducted by the grand weapons of that era -- enormous cannons that left craters so large you could drop a house into them. But the cannons weren't the only horror; the combatants used everything they could invent to try and kill each other: they launched clouds of poisonous "mustard" gas that made the skin blister and peel away, they fired fragmentation bullets from sniper rifles that created festering wounds inflicting long, slow deaths. The war's hot spot, it's "Western Front" endured so much of this falling artillery (hail and fire mixed with blood), that it became a landscape dominated by a single topographical feature -- mud (all the green grass was burned up). The mud in places like Verdun and The Somme ran in rivers into trenches were the men were hiding from the exploding artillery shells all around. Those trenches, filled with mud and the bodies of the dead, became toxic open graves, havens of vermin and disease. The soldiers lived in the trenches for weeks at a time before "going over the top", charging an enemy trench line, and getting gunned down in numbers that stagger the imagination.

A generation of European men were obliterated in the span of three years. And I'm not simply referring to the number of those killed, I mean that the survivors bore psychological scars that I'm not sure I can even imagine. This was the fruit of mankind's glorious reunion, the first act of the global community.

The answer to the first challenge -- you can't agree on your own definition of good and evil because there is no true agreement apart from God. There is only power, manipulation, control, and rebellion.

I'll explain why as we go.

Next, the second trumpet and a mountain of fire over the Pacific Ocean.

What are the trumpets - introduction

"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize that I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." -- John 19:10-12

Why did Pilate try to save Jesus? Did he have a change of heart? Why would Jesus telling him that he had no real power of his own spark some sort of attempt at goodwill?

The answer is that Pilate didn't care whether Jesus lived or died. It was a challenge. When Pilate told Jesus that he was in control Jesus told him that he had deluded himself. The truth was that he had no real power of his own. God is in control. He didn't become governor over the region because of his own ability or machinations. It happened because an unseen God caused it to happen. At that moment Pilate was no more than a helpless pawn. God's will was to be manifest, and nothing could stop it.

Pilate was a materialist. He didn't believe in a God who intervenes in the affairs of men. His life was predicated on the assumption that he had to manipulate and control the people around him. He had used that belief to justify actions that made his conscience uncomfortable. When he tried to free Jesus he wasn't concerned with saving him, he was trying to prove him wrong. 'I told you I was in control'. Except he wasn't. His worldview was shown false in the death and resurrection of the man who stood before him.

The scriptures are a written account and description of the relationship between God and man. This appears as either an explanation (given through everything from narrative stories to laws to poetry to songs), or through a discussion of man's various objections to his covenanted obligations to God.

The trumpets in Revelation 8-12 are presented as events and periods of time that demonstrate the failure of these objections, just as John 19: 10-12 presented the death and resurrection as a failure to the worldview of Pontius Pilate. For each 'trumpet', John sees an array of images that represent an iconic event or set of social conditions.

The trumpets themselves represent a warning. Trumpets of this area had little value as musical instruments. Mostly, they could only blare out a single note, much like a car horn. They were most commonly used as signalling devices. For a city, they warned of approaching danger. A watchman seeing a hostile group would sound the trumpet, thus warning the city's inhabitants to close the gates and prepare for battle. The seven trumpets symbolize approaching danger. The first trumpet sounds and we are told, "danger is coming." The second sounds as if to say, "It's getting closer," and so on until the sixth trumpet. The sixth trumpet is a warning not that doom is approaching, but rather that it has arrived. It would be as if watchman sounded a trumpet call which warned, "the walls are breached, they are inside the city!" The final trumpet call is a different breed of animal, and we will address it when we get there.

Next, the first trumpet call, the first objection to God's covenant, and the first world war.

Why doesn't my life make sense - part 4

Acculturation -- cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact2 : the process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society from infancy.

Romans 12:2 -- Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

By the time the typical American turns thirty they have watched somewhere in the neighborhood of four and a half years of television. That's four and a half years straight, no sleep -- eyes held open with toothpicks. And most of that time was spent viewing stories told from the modern method of storytelling (intro, rising action, climax, falling action). Now, in our lives we experience more events each day than we could ever hope to remember. Our minds store away a small percentage of the more 'significant' details. The trick is you and your mental faculties have to decide what is, and what is not, significant. This means understanding your life as a story, because that's what a story is; it's a way describing certain events in order to accomplish a specific goal (entertain, explain a moral, etc.). This is why you don't usually watch the main characters go to bathroom or put on their makeup. You only see the scenes where they do something important to the telling of the story.

If you are like most Americans you likely determine 'significance' based on the modern mode of storytelling. You may even imagine your life as a kind of movie or television series. The problem is that in those movies the world revolves around the main character. Everything is constructed around bringing the main character to the climactic finish. The real world is nothing like this.

In the real world, God is the ultimate main character. He's the director, the producer, and the main character role was so difficult that he actually had to act it out himself (Jesus). This is His movie. Not yours and not mine. If you are trying to understand the events in your life in such a way that they lead to a climax centered around you then yes, your life will go through long periods where nothing seems to make sense.

The only truly climactic moment that our world will ever experience is written out in the book of Revelation. It is the moment of God's vindication. It is the moment when He is proved right and all challenges to Him and His glory fail for the final time. Now read carefully, because this is important. Revelation is not a history. It is not a chronological account of things that haven't happened yet. It's the climax of a story. It has no interest in telling you specific times and dates. Its primary interest is in presenting the main character's triumph over evil.

In the next series we will examine the seven trumpets. And we will see, in vague terms, when the world as we know it is going to end. At the same time we will see the challenges that our God overcomes, because that's what the trumpets are.