Mar,28, 2026 Sabbath-School Review

 Derek West

Source material: Seven Trumpet Luminescence, Book, 5.2, 2019

Week by week we venture deeper into the Seven Trumpets. This week, we finished up the Fourth Trumpet and began the fifth.  From this point, it gets even more intricate; so, we limited our span between pages 131 to 144 inclusive.  The Fourth Trumpet promises three woes to come with the opening of the Fifth Trumpet that was to  follow.  Woes are warnings which express the dangers for all who fail to advance in the light of Adventism.  And more than that, those Christians who advocate racial supremacy likewise must anticipate the consequences of the Lord’s woe.   Outside of the Bible Book of Revelation, the Book of Romans, handed to us by the apostle Paul, gives an accompanying framework about those warnings.  He said, “ (Israel) The branches were broken off, that (you gentiles) might be grafted in. ²⁰ Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: ²¹ For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.” —Rom 11: 19-21.

This high-minded aspect of the gentile church is reaffirmed by the corroborative Bible story of ancient Balak, and it was integrated into the pages of our study.  You may recall that Balak sought to hire the Spirit of Prophecy of his day as it was manifested through the Lord’s servant with a similar name, Balaam.  The totality of that Bible allegory and prophecy is that the Christian world desires the total humiliation of Israel, the fatherless, the sons of America’s former slaves, and they seek the participation of all within their Christian rank to collaborate with them in their oppressive endeavors.  Adventism, the highest arm of the Protestant Christian Church, has been instructed that the 144,000 will derive from the sons of America’s former slaves suggesting, as the Lord told ancient Balaam, do not curse this people, for they are blessed.

The Fifth Trumpet begins by showing the time of the gentiles and alludes to the dimensions that are now to be unfolded in this hour.  Among the many symbolisms, it begins by showing the star that fell from heaven who was given the keys to the bottomless pit.  Afterwards, smoke ascended out of the pit; the sun was darkened, and hordes of locusts were therefrom released —what symbolic and linguistically creative artistry.  The Star, as first disclosed in the Third Trumpet, represents Christ.  You may recall that He therein fell upon the fountains of water, or Israel, and those waters became bitter.  That Star falls again from heaven.  This next involvement of Christ brought to us the Christian —not the Hebrew— dispensation.   Thereby, it represents Calvary’s sacrifice whereby Jesus —not Christ— was crucified and resurrected.  This freed the gentiles in great hordes.  Ergo, they, as the symbolic locusts found opportunity to escape from the bottomless pit by the key that was given to Christ, the Star.  That key represents the Testimony of Jesus.  A corroborative expression from Paul’s work can be shared: 

“¹² Now if the fall of (Israel) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?… ¹⁵ For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” —Rom 11: 12, 15 

Christ clandestinely rested on Jesus, and through that transaction, He delivered to humanity the key to salvation, the TOJ, which is the substance of the riches of the gentiles.  Such envelopes the fruition of the Wormwood symbolism of the Third Trumpet: Jesus was the world’s remedy for the bitter waters that the OT Church was made to imbibe.  He sweetened the Gospel for the gentile dispensation.  This was the first of the three woes that we were promised. 

It is also remarkable that the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary and then His resurrection caused a special phenomenon symbolized by the revelation as stated:

“ ​¹ And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. ² And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. ³ And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.” —Rev 9: 1-3

The symbolism of the smoke arising out of the pit and the sun and the air becoming darkened by reason (reason: mark this as a key and meaningful expression) of the smoke of the pit, is profound.  It purveys, by symbolism, the immature misunderstanding of the Bible by the Church.  Their grasp on at least two key Bible doctrines were saturated in their darkened minds and made very obscure.  One such citation that is worthy to show this point is the fact that Christians, by immature logic —such is the meaning, “by reason”— presumed that the Law and the OT Covenant as well as Israel were all aspects of salvation that were voided; hence, the sun became darkened.  For another citation, their immature logic precluded their mastery of the concept of the breath of life at creation—breath is air— failing in appreciation, they presumed that, at death, a spirit within a man ascends to God, thereby making them to be eternal.  Thus the air became darkened.  Adventists teach differently: They prove that death is the ultimate expulsion of their breath suggesting that life, and therefore the breath of life, can only continue and be recovered by resurrection.  But, for the totality of the gentile church, with only minimal exceptions, they continue in their non-biblical reasoning.  Being on a path of educational growth, their immature logic, their reason was, by these things and other themes darkened. 

Next week we will delve even more deeply into the Fifth Trumpet.

Derek