Revelation 9 | White Raiment

Revelation 9:1 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.

The fifth angel sounding is a good Angel.

The Star (or the Messenger) that is a described here is none other than Muhammed himself. Muhammed was given the (key) or the authority of the (bottomless pit) the Arabian Desert.

Verse 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.

The term smoke represents the anger of God. The smoke or anger that came from the bottomless pit or the Arabian desert was the anger of the Arab Saraceans against the apostate Christians and those involved in paganism.

Verse 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.

The Locusts native land is the Arabian Desert. God likens the Arab Saraceans as to the Locusts for they come from the same land area. The Locusts or Arabs were given power from God to hurt those who were in apostasy and worshipping false gods.

Judges chapter 6 documents the Children of the East (Ishmaelites and Midianites) as grasshoppers or Locusts.

Judges 6:1-6 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

6:2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: [and] because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which [are] in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.

6:3 And [so] it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; 6:4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.

6:5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers (Locusts) for multitude; [for] both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

The Children of the East are the Ishmaelites and the midianites and they were invoked to punish God’s people whenever they had went into apostasy.

Revelation 9 verse 4. And it was commanded from them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

These Locusts symbolic of the Arabs were not to hurt the green things of the earth but they were to hurt only those men who had not the seal of God in their foreheads. They were to hurt those who worshipped false gods, bowed to idols, worshipped on Sunday, drank alcohol, who eat pork, and who worship the god of force (Daniel 11). They were to hurt the Roman Catholics and the other divisions of it.

The Christians that they were to leave alone did not believe in idol worship and they did worship the One True God of Heaven. They did not eat pork or drink alcohol. They lived a much better lifestyle than others and they kept the Seventh day Sabbath, which was a sign that Allah was the creator of the heavens and the earth.

Please note what the honored Qur’an says about the false Christians and the true people of the book.

Sura 9:29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Sura 3:113 Not all of them are alike: of the People of the Book are a portion that stand (for the right); they rehearse the signs of Allah all night long and then prostrate themselves in adoration.

Sura 3:114 They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong; and they (hasten in emulation) in (all) good works; they are in the ranks of the righteous.

After the death of Mohammed, he was succeeded in the command by Abubekr in A.D. 632. Abubekr had established his authority and government and dispatched a letter to the Arabian tribes, from which was the following extract:

ABUBEKR

"'When you fight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women and children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit- trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your word. And as you go, you will find some religious persons who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God that way; let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries. And you will find another sort of people that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; be sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter till they either turn Mohammedans or pay tribute.

Verse 5. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

The Arabs warred into the Roman territory, and it’s assaults on Constantinople were an unceasing torment throughout the empire; and yet they were not able effectually to subdue it, Their charge was to torment, and then to hurt, but not to politically kill, or utterly destroy it. The marvel was that they did not completely destroy it

Verse 6. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Verse 7. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

These horses find their native home in a Arabia. & preserved though the centuries by the Arabian Bedouins These horses were educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, They ate and slept with the bedouin family& Because of their up bringing they were very gentle and had a great attachment to their owners. The barbed Arabs, swift as locusts and armed like scorpions, ready to dart away in a moment, were ever prepared unto battle.

And on their heads were as it were crowns like gold. The Arabs were anciently distinguished by the miters they wore. And their faces were as the faces of men.

Verse 8. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.”

The Arabs, unlike other men, had their hair long and! uncut.

Verse 9. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

The cuirass (or breastplate) was in use among the Arabs in the days of Mohammed. In the battle of Ohud (the second which Mohammed fought) with the Koreish of Mecca (A.D. 624), seven hundred of them were armed with cuirasses.

The Arabs military force was chiefly formed of cavalry and archers. With a touch of the hand, the Arab horses darted away with the swiftness of the wind. The sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. Their conquests were marvelous both in rapidity and extent, and their attack was instantaneous and deadly.

Verse 10. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

The tails, which had stings in them, were the Arab archers shooting their arrows from the rear of the cavalry. They shot over the heads of the frontlines, which fought with spears and swords.

Verse 11. 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 King represented here is Othman. From the death of Mohammed until near the close of the thirteenth century, the Mohammedans were divided into various factions under several leaders, with no general civil government. Near the close of the thirteenth century, Othman founded a government which has since been known as the Ottoman Empire, or government, which grew until it extended over all the principal Mohammedan tribes, consolidating them into one grand monarchy.

His name. In Hebrew, Abaddon, the destroyer; in Greek, "Apollyon," one that exterminates, or destroys. But when did Othman make his first assault on the Greek empire? - According to Gibbon, Decline and Fall, etc., Othman first entered the territory of Nicomedia on the 27th day of July, 1299.

And their power was to hurt men five months. Thus far their commission extended, to torment by constant war, but not to politically to kill them. Five months, thirty days to a month, give us one hundred and fifty days; and these days, being symbolic, signify one hundred and fifty years. Commencing July 27, 1299, the one hundred and fifty years reach to July, 27 1449.

During that whole period the Turks engaged in an almost perpetual warfare with the Greek empire, but yet without totally conquering it. They seized upon and held several of the Greek provinces, but still Greek independence was maintained in Constantinople. But in 1449, the termination of the one hundred and fifty years, a change came, the history of which will be found under the succeeding trumpet. The 6thtrumpet second woe.

Verse 12. One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.The First prophetic war is ended and there is two great wars to follow.

Verses 13 -15. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God. Saying to the sixth angel, which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 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.

This command is coming from God himself who gives it to Jesus which gives it to the Holy Angel who gives it to Islam. This command is coming from God and not the devil. The Devil was cast out to earth well before the earth was created and his true intentions were made known at the cross. Islam is God’s Army to execute His judgements. We need to know the workings of God so that we are not fighting Him and His will.

Note, that this command comes from the 4 horns of the golden altar which is in the holy place, this proves that this propchecy had to take place before 1844 and cannot be a future event. The Ancient of Days and Jesus the Son of Man both moved from the holy to most holy place in 1844.

The first woe was to continue from the rise of Mohammedanism until the end of the five months. Then the first woe was to end, and the second to begin. And when the sixth angel sounded, it was commanded to take off the restraints that had been imposed on these nations, by which they were restricted to the work of tormenting men, and their commission was enlarged now so as to permit them to slay the third part of men. This command came from none other than Allah himself.

The Four Angels - These were the four principal sultans or Caliphs which the Ottoman empire was composed, located in the country watered by the great river Euphrates. These sultans were situated at Aleppo, Iconium, Damascus, and Bagdad. Previously they had been restrained; but Allah gave the command and they were now loosed. The four angels were loosed for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, a to slay the third part of men. This period, during which Ottoman supremacy was to exist, amounts to three hundred ninety-one years and fifteen days. Thus: A prophetic year is three hundred and sixty prophetic days, or three hundred and sixty literal years; a prophetic month, thirty prophetic days, is thirty literal years; one prophetic day is one literal year; and an hour, or the twenty-fourth part of a prophetic day, would be a twenty-fourth part of a literal year, or fifteen days; the whole amounting to three hundred and ninety- one years and fifteen days.

But although the four angels were thus loosed by the voluntary submission of the Greeks, yet another doom awaited the seat of empire. Amurath, the sultan to whom the submission of Constantine XIII was made, and by whose permission he reigned in Constantinople, soon after died, and was succeeded in the empire, in 1451, by Mohammed II, who set his heart on securing Constantinople as the seat of his empire.

He accordingly made preparations for besieging and taking the city. The siege commenced on the 6th of April, 1453, and ended in the capture of the city, and the death of the last of the Constantines, on the 16th day of May following. And the eastern city of the Caesars became the seat of the Ottoman empire.

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

Innumerable hordes of horses, and them that sat on them! Gibbon thus describes the first invasion of the Roman territories by the Turks: The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles, from Taurus to Erzeroum; and had taken the blood of 130,000.

Verse 17. And Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

The first part of this description may have reference to the appearance of these horsemen. Fire, representing a color, stands for red, as red as fire being a frequent term of expression; jacinth, or hyacinth, for blue; and brimstone, for yellow. And these colors greatly predominated in the dress of the Turkish warriors; the heads of the horses were in appearance as the heads of lions to denote their strength, courage, and fierceness; while the last part of the verse undoubtedly has reference to the use of gunpowder and firearms for purposes of war, which were then but recently introduced.

As the Turks discharged their firearms on horseback, it would appear to the distant beholder that the fire, smoke and brimstone issued out of the horses mouths.
It was to 'the fire and the smoke and the sulphur, to the artillery and firearms of Mahomet, that the killing of the third part of men brought the capture of Constantinople, and the destruction of the Greek empire, Eleven hundred years and more had now elapsed since her foundation by Constantine.

This next quote states how Allah used the Turks to protect the true people of the Book.

When a crisis arose in the affairs of the Reformation, and the kings obedient to the Roman See had united their swords to strike, and with blow so decisive that they should not need to strike a second time, the Turk, obeying One Whom he knew not, would straightway present himself on the eastern limits of Europe, and in so menacing an attitude, that the swords unsheathed against the poor Protestants had to be turned in another quarter. The Turk was the lightning-‐rod that drew off the tempest. Thus did Christ cover His little flock with the shield of the Moslem. J.A. Wylie The History of Protestantism Volume I, Book IX, Chapter I, page 473

In preparation for it, he gives the history of the recent invention of gunpowder, that mixture of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal; tells of its earlier use by the Sultan Amurath, and also, as before said, of Mahomet's foundry of larger cannon at Adrianople; then, in the progress of the seige itself, describes how the volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of the musketry and cannon, how the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls, fourteen batteries thundering at once on the most accessible places; how the fortifications which had stood for ages against hostile violence were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire: how the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins: and how the Turks at length rising through the breaches, Constantinople was subdued, her empire subverted, and her religion trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. For what is it but a comment on the words of our prophecy? 'By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur, which issued out of their mouths.

Verse 18. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

Verse 19. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

These verses express the deadly effect of the new mode of warfare introduced. It was by means of these agents, - gunpowder, muskets, and the cannon, that Constantinople was finally overcome, and given into the hands of the Turks.

The supremacy of the Mohammendans over the Greeks was to continue for three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days. Commencing when the one hundred and fifty years ended, July 27, 1449, the period would end Aug. 11, 1840. Judging from the manner of the commencement of the Ottoman supremacy, that it was by a voluntary acknowledgment on the part of the Greek emperor that he reigned only by permission of the Turkish sultan, we should conclude that the fall or departure of the Ottoman independence would also be brought about in the same way. At the end of August 11th, 1840, the sultan would voluntarily surrender his independence into the hands of the Christian powers, just as he had, three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days before, received it from the hands of the Christian emperor, Constantine XIII.

When Did the Mohammedan independence in Constantinople depart?

For several years previous to 1840, the sultan had been embroiled in war with Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt. In 1838 the trouble between the sultan and his Egyptian vassal was for the time being restrained by the influence of the foreign ambassadors. In 1839 however, hostilities were again commenced, and were prosecuted until, in a general battle between the armies of the sultan and Mehemet, the sultan's army was entirely cut up and destroyed, and his fleet taken by Mehemet and carried into Egypt.

So completely had the sultan's fleet been reduced, that, when the war again commenced in August, he had only two first-rates and three frigates as the sad remains of the once powerful Turkish fleet. This fleet Mehemet positively refused to give up and return to the sultan, and declared that if the powers attempted to take it from him, he would burn it. In this posture affairs stood, when, in 1840, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia interposed, and determined on a settlement of the difficulty; for it was evident that, if let alone, Mehemet would soon become master of the sultan's throne.

The sultan accepted this intervention of the great powers, and thus made a voluntary surrender of the question into their hands. A conference of these powers was held in London, the Sheik Effendi Bey Likgis being present as Ottoman plenipotentiary. An agreement was drawn up to be presented to the pasha of Egypt, whereby the sultan was to offer him the hereditary government of Egypt, and all that part of Syria extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberias, together with the province of Acre, for life; he on his part to evacuate all other parts of the sultan's dominions then occupied by him, and to return the Ottoman fleet.

In case he refused this offer from the sultan, the four powers were to take the matter into their own hands, and use such other means to bring him to terms as they should see fit. The sultan dispatched Rifat Bey on a government steamer to Alexandria, to communicate the ultimatum to the pasha. It was put into his hands on August 11th 1840. This day the period of three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days, allotted to the continuance of the Ottoman power, ended; and where was the sultan's independence? - GONE! Who had the supremacy of the Ottoman empire in their hands? - The four great powers; and that empire has existed ever since only by the sufferance of these Christian powers. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled to the very year.

Verse 20. And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Verse 21. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

“It is you,” said the adherents of the old creed addressing the Lutherans, “who have brought this scourge upon us. It is you who have unloosed these angels of evil; they come to chastise you for your heresy. You have cast off the yoke of the Pope, and now you must bear the yoke of the Turk.” “Not so,” said Luther, “it is God who has unloosed this army whose king is Abaddon the destroyer. They have been sent to punish us for our sins, our ingratitude for the Gospel, our blasphemies, and above all, our shedding of the blood of the righteous.” James A. Wylie History of Protestantism, Volume I, Book IX, Chapter XVIII, page 566-567

These wars were to break the Roman Catholics of their killings of the protestant faith. Who believed in the One True God, did not bow to idols, did not eat pork or drink alcohol. The Roman Catholics still continued the worship of devils (demons) through false doctrines. They also continued to pray to the mother of Jesus, Mary. And worship idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear.

The hordes of Saracens and Turks were let loose as a scourge and a punishment upon apostate Christendom. God also used these wars to protect the true people of the Book, or the Bible.

7th Trumpet - 3rd Woe