Summary of 7 Seals and 6 Trumpets
It will be easier to understand the prophecy concerning the first Woe-Trumpet (actually, the fifth Trumpet altogether) if the symbols are considered separately.
A Star fallen from heaven = a shooting star, devastating the earth
The Bottomless Pit = literally, the Pit of the Abyss = the Deserts of Arabia "He maketh the deep to boil like a pot" (Job 41:31)Job 41:31XWaiting for response
The Key of the Pit = The power to open up
Smoke = divine anger and wrath "the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man" (Deuteronomy 29:20).Deuteronomy 29:20XWaiting for response
Locusts (Hebrew “Arbeh”) = The Arabians (Hebrew "Arbiy")
The Sun and the Air = The Imperial Government restored to Rome by Constantinople, and the Civil & Ecclesiastical Constitution which the Barbarians had left relatively untouched.
The symbols present a molten furnace bubbling up in the regions of the Arabian Deserts, as if ready to explode v.2.Revelation 9:2XWaiting for response A shooting star from heaven falls to the earth, devastating the earth by opening the boiling pit v.1.Revelation 9:1XWaiting for response The opening of the pit unleashes a cloud of locusts so dense that a great shadow is cast over the imperial government and its constitution v.3.Revelation 9:3XWaiting for response History demonstrates that Mahommet was the star, born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in AD570. Just before this, the Emperor Julian of Constantinople had evicted the Ostrogoths from Italy, the Visigoths from Spain and the Vandals from North Africa, recognising the Bishop of Rome as the Bishop of Christendom. In AD608, by decree of Emperor Phocas, the Bishop of Rome became "The Head of All the Churches".
In AD622 Mahommet began preaching the Unity of God in Mecca and, so great was the reaction, that he fled to Medina. His fleeing became known as the "Hegira", and forms the base date for the Muslim calendar. In Medina, Mahommet was hailed as "The Prophet of Allah" and was made 'Pontiff King'. The star was in heaven. In AD628 Mahommet took Mecca by force of arms, and declared, "At last the fire is kindled in THE FURNACE". The revolution was boiling up in the Deserts of Arabia. He pulled down idols and temples of Arabic gods in the name of the Prophet of the One God, declaring "The sword is THE KEY of heaven and hell". In AD629 Mahommet sent ambassadors to the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius inviting him to become Muslim, and to reject the Trinitarian Religion. One of the envoys was murdered and Mahommet declared war on "shaven head infidels", the trinitarian worshippers of images. The pit was unlocked. Thus, though Mahommet died in Medina in AD632, he had opened the pit and released the Islamic locust hordes ready to darken the sky of the Eastern Roman world. Abu Beker became "Successor of the Prophet, Caliph and Commander of the Faithful". Thus began the rule of the Caliphs over the Islamic locusts, described in Revelation as "A king over them.... the angel of the Abyss" (Revelation 9:11),Revelation 9:11XWaiting for response a rule which was to last for the next 300 years.
The First Woe-Trumpet
THE CONQUESTS OF THE ISLAMIC CAVALRY OVER THE EASTERN EMPIRE
The life of a locust is approximately 5 months. Thus for 5 months of years (i.e. 150 days, representing 150 years), the Caliphs ruled over the expanding empire from Damascus. In AD632 they swarmed forth determined to turn the trinitarian-catholic image worshippers to Islam, or slay them. In AD634 Damascus was overthrown with tremendous bloodshed - particularly of monks, priests and Virgin Mary worshippers. Within ten years Caliph Omar had reduced 36,000 cities or castles to obedience, destroyed 4,000 churches or temples, and erected 1,400 Mohammedan Mosques. Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was besieged twice, but the Muslims had only been given power to inflict hurt. The overthrow was decreed for a later day. Finally a temporary halt came due to civil war between the major families. The Abbasides replaced the Omniades as the Caliphs and the capital transferred to Baghdad AD762.
In AD782 the Mohammedan Caliphs began the next phase of their tormenting. The yellow turbanned, long-haired warriors drove their horses into the Eastern Roman world exacting torment upon those who refused to relinquish their Catholic idolatry. The destroying angels waged their warfare in the lands of the Hebrew and Greek speaking peoples who knew the caliphs as the destroyers (Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek). Having savaged them with their Saracen fire, flaming missiles resembling scorpions in flight, and being as deadly in their sting, the second 5-month locust life period ended in AD933 with the decline of the power of the Caliphs who were stripped of secular power, but recognised as "The Chief Pontiff of Islamism". "The first woe is passed away".
In Summary of the Four Angels
The object of loosing the four angels was to "kill" "the third of the men" – to destroy the Eastern Third of the Roman Empire. The preparation began with the migration of the Seljuk Turks from Southern Russia to the borders of the River Euphrates, where they were restrained until the appointed time. Their leader, Togrul Beg secured his Empire by marrying the Caliph of Baghdad's daughter, and then the bounds were loosed to unleash his Turks across the Euphrates. On 29th April, AD1062 the loosing of the four angels began and their work was not completed until the walls of Constantinople, the capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire and its Emperor, were breached exactly 391 years and 1 month later by the Ottomans, 29th May 1453. The 'impregnable' city was overthrown.
Once the Seljuk Turks had crossed the Euphrates to begin the process, the other three angels were prepared in their turn, ready to follow over the Euphrates to continue the gradual work of overthrowing the Eastern third of the Empire for its blasphemy against God, and for its persecution of the saints and of God's people of Israel. History records how each in its turn had to be restrained, by war or distraction, from crossing the Euphrates before its time, and how each in its turn had to be restrained from overthrowing the city before the period of loosing had run its course. How wonderfully the hand of God works!'
Over the period it is estimated that 200,000,000 horsemen had taken part in the armies of the four angels, as the Revelation required. In the final siege alone 258,000 Ottomans took part. The city of Constantinople was believed to be immune to attack. Constantine IX refused all invitations to surrender – like Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened by God in order to accomplish his destruction. The gates of the city were shut, and the city fortified. "The Celestial image of the Virgin Mary" was regularly paraded in the hope of saving them. Thus was exhibited that abomination on account of which the city and its Emperor were under sentence of death. The Ottomans manufactured a giant cannon to breach the double wall of Constantinople, capable of hurling a 6001b. (or 273kg) stone over a distance of 1 mile (or 1.6km). It had to be hauled on 30 wagons, pulled by 60 oxen, with 400 men to support the rolling weight. Over 100 supporting cannon were moved into position. The super cannon was placed on a raft and sailed out into the Bosphorus waterway. After 53 days, the wall was finally breached, and myriads of Ottoman Turks swarmed into the city. Constantine and the Eastern third were killed, three hundred and ninety one years and one month from the day in which the first of the four angels was loosed.
By wonderful design the 'Christian' power in the Eastern Empire began with a Constantine and ended with a Constantine (Constantine IX). The 1st and 2nd Woes, by which the apostate Christianity was punished by God, began with a Mohommet (the founder of Islam) and ended with a Mohommet (the Ottoman) as the inflicter of those judgments. Thus the divine comment upon the true standing of that Christianity which the Roman world embraced was delivered.
AD312 Constantine <————The Corrupters————> AD1453 Constantine
AD632 Mohommet <———— The Destroyers ————> AD1453 Mohommet
The arena now moves to the east of the river Euphrates. The prayers of the saints were again pleading for vengeance against the apostate East but, just as the four angels of the first four (wind) trumpets were restrained outside the boundaries of the Roman earth until the time was right, the inflicters of the sixth trumpet were restrained outside the boundaries of the Eastern Empire - marked by the river Euphrates. The sixth angel was instructed to sound forth the trumpet blast which would unleash "four angels" across the Euphrates upon the idol-worshippers of the Eastern Empire. History indicates these four angels to be the Turkish invaders who developed east of the great river. Led by four great captains, they ravaged the Empire and finally brought about the overthrow of its capital city - Constantinople, or Byzantium.
The Four Angels
"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" (v.15).Revelation 9:15XWaiting for response
The reader is requested to note the parentheses added to assist in applying the correct emphasis. It was the loosing that was to last for the defined period, not the preparation. The four angels, having already been prepared, were loosed for the period of just over 391 representative days.
391 days and an hour = 391 years and 1 month
The Scriptures provide a remarkable prophecy of the means by which the overthrow of Constantinople would be brought about. The cannon was becoming a notable weapon of war at the time. Being mobile it was like a horse. The power of the cannon was at both ends. The visible power was at the mouth of the barrel, whence the cannon ball appeared, and the hidden power to propel the cannon ball was in the tail end, or breach. Like a serpent coiling itself, and then using its tail to leap out and strike its deadly blow, so the cannon is anchored at its tail in order to provide the maximum power to propel the ball on its destructive strike. Like fire, smoke and brimstone, the explosion in the breach of the cannon was created by newly discovered gunpowder containing "these three" elements - charcoal, saltpetre (potassium nitrate) and sulphur. By "these three" was the third of the men killed, every gunpowder explosion in the breach launching death, the cannon roaring like a lion as it dispatched its missile to burst on its target like thunder and lightning.
Fire and Smoke and Brimstone
Despite this great catastrophe in the Eastern Empire, the Catholics of the Middle and Western thirds of the Empire refused to take warning, and continued in their blasphemous worship of images (icons) of the Virgin Mary and All Saints. Equally they continued their persecution of the saints of the Most High, and their perversion of the Gospel of Salvation.
The Rest of the Men
Though paganism was eclipsed (chapter 6), the 'Christianity' which replaced it was equally abhorrent to God. In chapters 7, 8, and 9, the saints continued to spue out the apostacy and were persecuted throughout the Empire. Their cries brought God's wrath upon the Western Roman Empire in the form of the barbarian invasions, and the overthrow of its capital Rome in AD480, and upon the Eastern Roman Empire in the form of the Islamic invasions, followed by the four Turkish destroying angels, resulting in the overthrow of its capital Byzantium (Constantinople) in AD1453.