THE SEVENTH TRUMPET

George Offerman

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,”The Kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of the covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightening, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail”    Rev 11: 15, 19

The seventh trumpet ushers in a turning point of Revelation and instills finality to man’s choice of whether to worship the beast or Christ.  Of all the trumpets, the seventh trumpet is the most brutal, in that it does not destroy the environment as a judgment, but marks the end to the age of sin on earth.  For the saved, it will be one of the most awesome and privileged states, and for the condemned, it will be the most horrible day of existence any being can live through.

If one takes the time to notice, the story of Revelation has a great deal of interplay between scenes in heaven and on earth.  For the most part, what goes on in heaven is invisible to mankind, but the seventh trumpet temporarily ‘lifts the veil’ between the worlds of the seen and unseen, and for the first time, all alive will see heaven with God and his angels, while simultaneously seeing the Anti Christ in his ‘glory’ and all will come to understand quite readily who is who, and who is really in control.  But the centerpiece of the seventh trumpet is the appearance of the Ark of the Covenant, which will demonstrate once and for all, God’s holiness and constancy, that his word and laws are eternal and unchanging.

It will also be at that time that those who are alive will know for sure which master they will serve for all of eternity.  The lifting of the heavenly veil will also accomplish the lifting of the temporal veil in that the great deceptor cannot make the claim he is who he is, and all of mankind will see for the first (and last) time in human history, the ultimate and simultaneous view of perfect love and perfect hate in one arena.  It will bring about one of the most sobering moments of time in cosmic history and the amount of anguish for the majority who has taken the mark will be indescribable, and there will be no doubt about the outcome of this war from here on out.

Up until this time, Jesus has served the role of Priest, Prophet and King.  It is important to grasp that from the time of Jesus death and resurrection until the seventh trumpet, Jesus has been an intercessory for man and through the ultimate blood sacrifice, able to forgive sins.  With the calling forth of His kingship, Jesus role of Priest and Prophet has come to an end, and His intercession for the forgiveness of sins is now complete.  With all of mankind having chosen their fate, Jesus is now anointed as King of kings, and Lord of lords, and will have total dominion over the heavens and the earth.

Due to the ending of the heavenly intervention by now King Jesus, those who are sealed with the mark of the Living God will experience a transformation not known since the time of Adam and Eve; they will enter a sinless state without experiencing death.  The evil and corrupt nature will be changed and those who have persevered throughout the trumpets and persecution will now have a time of rest.  However, they will still be present upon the earth and will have a front row seat in the final chapter of the cosmic battle between good and evil.

Those condemned will have the utmost contempt for their false god and for themselves.  There cannot be words or events that one can relate to, to even begin to understand the profound and complete loss of eternal life, and the anger directed at Satan will be unfathomable.  Satan’s mask is now off, and the condemned no longer have a choice in their actions.  For their own survival, they must now follow the beast as they will be painfully aware that there will never be salvation for them, and there is no chance they can ever be forgiven for their sins.  The stage is now set for the beginning of the second series of seven events.

The final note on the seventh trumpet should be the severity of the signs sent by God.  As each milestone is reached, the signs in the heavens, as well as the accompanying thunder, lightening and earthquakes increase in magnitudes.  Along with these three, is also heavy hail, which will be very representational of the final plagues soon to come.  With all being able to see into the heavenly realms, these signs will not be misinterpreted at all, and Satan will not be able to ‘spin’ this as he has with his concocted lies and con jobs.  The seventh trumpet leaves no doubt about who is in charge, and who the fraud really is.  And it also leaves no doubt for the living where they will be spending eternity. 

BYE BYE, BABYLON

George Offerman

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me ”Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who is seated upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with the vine of whose fornication to dwellers on earth have become drunk,  And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous names, and had seven heads and ten horns.  The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of earths’ s abomination.  And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus”.   Rev. 17:1-6

“And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot: they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled.  And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth”.  Rev 17:15-18.

(For the sake of brevity, I skipped verses 7-14, but they give a clear interpretation of this beast, and leave no doubt about whom it is and what the makeup of this vision entails).

The above verses clarify for John, the distinctions between the two beasts that appear in the visions.  The beast quoted above is very distinct from the beast in chapter 13, in that it is a unified beast that is scarlet in color and none of the heads have a mortal wound.  The seven headed ten horned beast rising from the water is the man made Babylon, lead by the devil, which is represented as the seven headed ten horned beast that ultimately kills the whore who has been riding on its back up until now.  If one notices, the whore is dressed in purple, which in scripture is the representation of religion and religious authority, and the scarlet color is representative of power, as well as the blood of the saints and martyrs.

This whore is responsible for the man made chaos up until this point, and was given its authority by the beast it is now riding.  The beast hates the whore, and the force behind the first Babylon, with its seven heads, represented by seven religious systems and ten horns, represented by civil powers and authority, were the ‘glove’ that fit over the real beast which was the ‘invisible hand’ behind the power.  However, now that the beast has total control over the world, there is no longer a need for the seven religious systems, and the hour of judgment for them has now come.

By now, the majority of those who have God’s seal and most likely all of the 144,000 have been martyred, and for the first time since the beginning of the trumpets, Satan has full control over the earthly kingdoms.  Since the majority of Christians that believe the devil is real, also know the devil has no tolerance for ANYONE getting ANYTHING that he believes is his.  So, as the religious leaders, who up to this time believed this false Christ was on their side, will now find out to their utter despair that they are to be eliminated immediately.  Since Satan now presents himself as king of kings and lord of lords (representing both religious and political systems) he will not tolerate any competition or split loyalties among his followers.  It is only now that these leaders, on the brink of their own destruction, realize they were deceived, and despair overcomes them.

The imagery used in scripture pertaining to the end of this human Babylon is ominous, but in some senses, well earned.  It is also clear that God has put it in their ‘hearts’ to obliterate these people who instigated so much human suffering, and deceived multitudes into eventually taking the mark of the beast.  Now they will be subject to the same humiliating end that they subjected the 144,000 and those sealed by the living God.  The difference in this is there will be NO ONE to come to their aid or assistance; hence their end will be ‘naked and desolate’.  Those that slay these ‘religious leaders’ will do it with great zeal and without mercy.  Those who benefitted from this false group will mourn and weep over lost opportunities.

At this point in the story it would appear that all of mankind has chosen their fate and it is near time for the seventh trumpet that will ultimately ‘seal the deal’.  However, Babylon will continue on in form, but now lead by the 8^th king, the Anti Christ who will seat himself on the throne with great pomp and circumstance and there will be absolutely no human power that will stop him.  The Anti Christ will install his 10 king puppets and they will have their one hour of time ruling what is left of the once great Babylon.  It will be a great time of dread for all alive and great fear will rule the hearts of men on that day. 

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE MARK OF THE BEAST

George Offerman

This topic is too important to cover it so briefly, and it is also the most misunderstood topic of all of Revelation.  There is so much information out in the public sphere about the mark, that one’s head can spin from reading a small amount of it.  However, the mark is so important, that it transcends Christianity, and nearly everyone in the world is aware of it, and are leery of the futile attempts by the money powers to instill some sort of system in which to control the ‘cattle’.

In a way, it is very humorous to give the incompetent, inbred idiots known as the money powers so much credit that they can actually instill a system of markings that would condemn one to eternal death.  The mark is a cosmic event, and as such, requires the presence of a supernatural being, such as the devil, to enforce it.  Too many people are aware of this, and the money powers, being of human origin, could not enforce this if even one percent of the population resisted this.  If we end up getting chipped, most likely it will end up being covertly done, by vaccines, chips embedded in products, clothing, cars, cell phones, etc.

This is not to say that one should take this information and become indifferent about it.  We are to resist this, because it is morally wrong to hand over our free will to other men, and not trust in God.  Those that can justify doing this, will have a much more weakened position when the real mark appears, and the mark represents instant judgment that is irrevocable.  Of course Satan is going to trivialize this, because no one would take it if they knew the true consequences.  Unfortunately, this supernatural being will act ‘lamb like’ until he gets what he wants.  Once he has an army of people with his mark, and knows God will not, and really, cannot intervene any more, Satan will become out of control and kill even those with the mark if and when they no longer serve his needs.

Two famous stories in scripture make the points.  This first is Eve taking the apple after being tempted by the serpent.  Gen 3:1-4:1 covers the story, and for brevity, I will paraphrase.  God instructed Adam and Eve to FREELY eat of all the fruit except from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The serpent tempted Eve, by glorifying the knowledge of being like a god, being able to determine right from wrong for themselves, and placing doubts about what God actually said.  Eve reflects this in leaving out the word “freely” when discussing what God actually said.  The serpent assured Eve “surely, you will not die” Eve believed him over God.  This first poison is: Doubt about God and his Word.

The second story is Jacob stealing Esau’s birthright by essentially bribing him with Stew. Gen 25:24-34.  Esau basically was so focused on the current situation, that he offered his future to satisfy a basic need in the moment.  Many commentators focus rightfully so on Jacob’s trickery, but not much is said pertaining to Esau’s blatant disregard for what is rightfully his.  A moment of weakness virtually changed not only his destiny, but that of the following generations of Esau’s line.  The eternal, or the permanence was not considered, but current circumstances ruled.  The second poison: present circumstances dictating decisions without considering eternal ramifications.

Both of these stories reflect the state of man during the time of the mark.  Like Eve, there will be seduction of a better life, and doubts will be sown about the word of God presented by the 144,000, and like Esau, many will sell out their ‘birthright’ or place in heaven for a very temporary stay of execution.  In both stories, the consequences were terribly minimized, and this is the devils way of getting one to do things they would not normally do, if they had full information.  During the tribulation though, there will be plenty of witnesses to the truth, and there will be the opportunity to hear and understand the ‘permanence’ of this decision.  God will FREELY grant eternal life for anyone not taking the mark, no matter what their past was and what they have done up to this point.  The devil’s message will be that most of Babylon will need to take his mark because they earned it.  Will people have the faith to walk in this matter?

Again, for prophesy to be accurate, it must fulfill all of the requirements of the prophesy.  The hope is that if nothing else is obtained from these writings that one would challenge those out there who are making claims the mark is either here or on its way outside of the trumpets and all of the other clear requirements written in Revelation.  As I have written before, the topic of the mark is the most discussed and controversial amongst many of the expositors, and my challenge to them is to explain the trumpets and timeframe of Revelation, to see if they can place these events.  To be quite truthful, the conversations normally end heated, and the people challenged have called me names, amongst other things, and basically brushed off or minimized this point.  This is a rather sad commentary, as they are actually advocating sensationalism over purity of the word, and in effect, end up scaring people with ideas that do not come true.

The mark can only occur when the man of lawlessness has been exposed, who is claiming to be God, and calling fire from the heavens at will. At least half of the population has to be killed off, there will be a massive one world religiously lead government, a death decree for refusal of the mark that is immediately enforced, the appearance and active ministry of the 144,000 and 2 witnesses, supernatural events, both good and evil, and literally angels in the heavens warning against taking the mark, or suffering eternal consequences for doing this?  Have we seen ANY of this yet?  How can anyone claim the mark is imminent, with any credibility, when NONE of the conditions of the prophesy are being met?

If you are exposed to people claiming to have ‘inside information’ on the mark, challenge them on this.  Challenge them based on scripture passages, challenge them to explain the trumpets, to reveal the identity of the man of lawlessness, the one world government and all of the other points listed above.  Most importantly, ask them about prophesy, and if God fulfills what he writes in totality, or if bits and pieces of prophesy can be left out. And finally, hold them accountable for their words.  Too many people make claims that God ‘informed’ them of future events, and when the don’t occur, the same people in effect minimize this ‘error’ but continue propagating the idea they are prophets, and many write books for money, and/or run ministries that can collect large amounts of money.  God gave this information FREELY, and free is the way it should remain.