The Revelation Explained eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 446 pages of information about The Revelation Explained.

The Revelation Explained eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 446 pages of information about The Revelation Explained.
on the other.  Their teeth as the teeth of lions show their ferocity of character.  Their breastplates of iron indicate their invincibility or else their insensibility to injuries inflicted upon them.  The sound of their wings like horses and chariots running to battle denotes the multitude and rapidity of their conquests.  Their tails like scorpions, containing stings with which to “hurt men”—­operating in the religious world—­symbolize their position as propagators of a false faith.  Thus they are set forth in their two-fold character—­as invincible warriors and as the zealous professors of a delusion, whose sting was like that of a scorpion when he strikes a man.

“And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.”  The following fact of history will explain this:  “The Saracens had their Caliphs, the successors of Mohammed, who united in themselves the supreme civil, military and ecclesiastical powers.  They were the high-priests of their religion, the commanders of their armies, and the emperors of the nation.”  This king over them signifies a succession of rulers, and they are well described as “the angel of the bottomless pit,” for that is the very place where the delusion is said to have originated.  Mahomet, as a fallen star, opened the pit and let out the smoke, and his successors, who grasped his power and authority, are fitly characterized as angels from the same place, bearing the name Abaddon or Apollyon, which terms both signify Destroyer.

Is not this a wonderful combination of symbols which can be carried out with surprising accuracy?  What human ingenuity could have ever contrived such a marvelous series of events, and described them under such appropriate symbols?  Finally, let me ask, Where in the whole compass of universal history can be found another series of events so perfectly meeting every requirement of the symbols?  In this we must acknowledge the hand of God.

    12.  One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more
    hereafter.

This announcement, that one woe is past, meaning that the period of one hundred and fifty years during which the Saracens were to continue their conquests has ended, serves an important purpose in enabling us to fix the chronology of the events described.  It proves that they succeed each other.

    13.  And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the
    four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

    14.  Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the
    four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

    15.  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.

    16.  And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred
    thousand thousand:  and I heard the number of them.

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The Revelation Explained from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.