(tm)The second trumpet
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And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. (Revelation 8:8,9)
As we have stated previously, the emphasis (in the judgments of the trumpets) on "the third part," refers to the fact that these judgments are a pruning and not a wrathful destruction. There is no mention of a third part in the pouring out of the bowls of wrath, for the bowls of wrath are not redemptive. The trumpets prepare the way of the Lord, while the bowls of wrath fall with destructive vengeance on the rebellious of mankind.
Mountains, in the Scriptures, represent governments, places of power and rulership.
For the Day of the Lord of Hosts will be: ". . . upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up" (Isaiah 2:14).
As the King approaches the earth He begins to judge the places of power, beginning with the "great mountain" of self-will in those who are closest to him. The Lord Jesus sends the fires of tribulation upon us. It is only through suffering that the self-will in us is destroyed. It is at the Altar of Incense that we bow in death before the Lord and say, "Not my will but Yours be done."
The "blood," and the death of the creatures in the sea, speaks of the death of our fleshly nature. When our self-will dies, much of our life dies with it. We do not realize how much of our life and work is proceeding from our self-love and self-centeredness until the Lord strikes at the rule of self that is within us. Then many of our activities are revealed as coming from our own soul rather than from the Spirit of the Lord, and we cease practicing them.
One of the central issues of the Christian redemption is the death of the old man, of the adamic nature. The blood of the covenant that is sprinkled upon us does not bring us into the Kingdom of God until we assign our first personality to the cross with Christ.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Romans 6:6)
The whole problem of antichrist has to do with the preservation and exaltation of the self-life of human beings. Jesus saves us from Satan, Antichrist, and the False Prophet of religious seduction by counting our first personality as being crucified with Himself and our new born-again personality as having been raised with Himself to the right hand of God.
The original sin was not of the lusts of the flesh. The original sin had to do, rather, with discontent with one’s appointed station and the desire to be like God.
Satan proclaimed:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isaiah 14:14)
Satan has injected mankind with the desire to be like God.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)
God always has desired that man be in union with Himself, that he be part of Himself, that he be the dwelling place of God.
Instead, man, at Satan’s prompting, chose to be a God himself. Man desires to be like God, not to be part of God. This is the difference between Antichrist and Christ.
God cursed Satan by giving him an insatiable desire for "dust," that is, for the flesh of man (Genesis 3:14). From that day forward there has dwelled in the flesh of man the foul, perverted, fiery lusts of Satan and his demons.
Through Christ mankind has been forgiven. Also, the Holy Spirit of God has entered the believers. The Spirit of God wars against the lusts of Satan. Every son of God who follows the Spirit of God puts to death, through the Spirit, the lusts of Satan that dwell in his flesh (Romans 8:13,14).
The original sin, that of desiring to be like God instead of a part of God, remains in the personality of man—even in the personality of the believer who has been forgiven and filled with the Spirit of God.
Today the Spirit-filled believers are at a fork in the road. One branch goes toward the death of the cross where the believer chooses to die, to "lose his head" (Revelation 20:4). The other branch goes toward self-realization. The former leads to glory and very great joy. The latter leads to darkness and barrenness.
The Lord Jesus has a most wonderful experience in store for the believer who chooses to die to his own life. That experience is the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles. It is to be filled with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Those who choose to die to their adamic personality, thus to become part of God, will be protected completely from the deceptions of Antichrist. They will be the house of God forever.
Those who move forward on the other branch are heading toward destruction. Whenever we choose to save our life rather than to lose our life in the Lord we provide an entrance for Satan into our life. We become part of the synagogue of Satan even though we profess to be a follower of the Lord Jesus. Satan entered Peter and attempted to persuade the Lord Jesus to save His life by not going to Jerusalem. Satan entered Judas because Judas was unwilling to lose his life for the Lord. Judas, as was true of all believers who are living in their soul rather than in the Spirit of God, was seeking to use Jesus to accomplish his own objectives. The end of trying to use Jesus to accomplish our own objectives is destruction.
Either we are choosing to be like Christ or we are choosing to become part of Christ. Either we are attempting to gain power, success, prosperity for ourselves or we are choosing to die in the Lord, to decrease continually in order that He may increase. Either we are seeking to persuade Christ to serve us or we are seeking to lay down our own life so Christ may be exalted in us.
The protection God has provided for the enormous deception of the last days is the "Tabernacles" experience, that is, the filling of the believer with the Presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are kept from the deception of man making Himself God by becoming a branch that is abiding in the Vine, in the one true Christ.
The philosophies that have been developing over the past several hundred years are bent toward man making himself a God, man ruling himself, man attaining what man desires. Men have become lovers of themselves. "The rights of man" have been made the highest good, the top priority. This is of Antichrist. It precisely is what Satan is hoping for, for then he can corrupt man’s worship of himself into the worship of Satan.
Communism, humanism and democracy are man-centered philosophies. None is of the Kingdom of God. Both humanism and democracy claim to work for the good of people. But they work only for the immediate physical comfort of people. Because they do not point people toward union with the Lord they actually lead people to harm and eventual destruction.
Throughout history people have revolted against the harsh rule and excesses of totalitarian governments. Eventually they will revolt against Communism because the Communist states rule with harshness and oppression.
The philosophies of the "free world" which exalt the rights and desires of the individual are actually more compatible with the present move of Antichrist than is the philosophy of communism. Communism, at least in a pure form, would stress sacrificing the desires of the individual for the betterment of the state.
We are not promoting Communism. We are merely attempting to challenge the reader to be alert to the insidious danger of a religion or a form of government that seeks to make each individual his own God.
It can be seen today that both Communism and the Muslim religion stress morality. The gross displays of immorality are in the democratic nations which have been influenced by perverted Christian thinking. By perverted Christian thinking we are referring to the stress on belief and forgiveness ("grace") rather than on righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. The emphasis is on how merciful Jesus is and how much He loves us rather than on obedience to what He commands.
The union of perverted Christian thinking with the philosophies of democracy and humanism have produced an anti-Christian climate that may be more destructive of spiritual growth than is true of the oppressive regime of Communism.
It is time now for the true saints to ask the Lord Jesus to remove from them all these man-centered philosophies and religions for they are of the Antichrist. Those who succumb to them will grow increasingly self-centered until they are of the body of Antichrist. They will suffer the torment of fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.
The mountain of self-exaltation must be burned with Divine fire. The spirit of self-will, of self-aggrandizement, must die completely. Not one trace of it is to be found in the Kingdom of God. The total destruction of self-will cannot be accomplished in a moment. The judgments of God during the closing days of the Church Age are not sufficient to cause the extinction of self-will, for we find the same spirit of rebellion rising at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age (Revelation 20:9).
Man’s self-love and self-will cannot be tolerated in the Kingdom of God. Self-seeking is the opposite of all that is pure, all that is holy, all that is of Paradise, all that is of the Kingdom. Only those who are willing to become as little children, to be purged of the mountain of selfish ambition, can enter the Kingdom of God.
The "third part of the ships" refers to commerce. The love of money is the root of all evil. No man can serve God and money. These are two different gods.
The backbone of the antichrist world system is money. Nearly everything is measured in terms of money. Nearly everything depends on money. Human security, pleasure and achievement are based on money. The more money one is able to hoard the more successful one’s life has been.
In the Kingdom of God there is no hoarding of money, no attempting to gain security, pleasure or achievement apart from the daily word and will of Christ directed toward us, no seeking of an advantage over others. As the Lord draws near to His servants in preparation for His return to earth the love of money must be purged from us. Otherwise it is impossible for us to enter the Kingdom of God. The wealthy of this world find it extremely difficult to enter the Kingdom of God.
The Scriptures teach us that the love of money is a great evil. We have the example of Balaam, of Gehazi, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira. The Lord Jesus warned us that no man can serve God and money. A man’s life consists not in the abundance of things he possesses. Take no thought for tomorrow. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. The Scriptures are clear on the subject of the love of money.
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (I Timothy 6:5)
We are to withdraw ourselves from every individual who teaches that gain is godliness, that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing and favor.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (I Timothy 6:9,10)
As we have said, the blowing of the seven trumpets announces the coming of the King. As soon as King Jesus enters through the gates of Jerusalem, through the gates of the heart of the believer, He comes into the temple of the living God. He then looks about Him on every side. He sees the tables of the moneychangers. The jealousy of God comes upon Him and He makes a whip and drives out of the house of God the abomination of the love of riches. He makes His Father’s house a house of prayer.
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