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.