The first angel blew his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood were thrown down on the earth. One-third of the earth was set on fire, one-third of the trees were burned, and all the green grass was burned.
Then the second angel blew his trumpet, and a great mountain of fire was thrown into the sea. One-third of the water in the sea became blood, one-third of all things living in the sea died, and one-third of all the ships on the sea were destroyed.
Then the third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch. It fell on one-third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star was Bitterness. It made one-third of the water bitter, and many people died from drinking the bitter water.
Then the fourth angel blew his trumpet, and one-third of the sun was struck, and one-third of the moon, and one-third of the stars, and they became dark. And one-third of the day was dark, and also one-third of the night.
Each of these passages describes devastating destruction. Revelation 8 even mentions objects falling from the sky that contaminate the planet, much like a nuclear explosion would.
In each of these passages I believe the context is clear that the destruction comes from the hand of God, not nuclear detonation. Even in Revelation 8, the ecological disasters are explicitly traced to God as the source of these judgments, not some madman. The seven seal judgments in Revelation 6 are opened and unleashed by Jesus, and the seventh seal judgment in Revelation 8:1 contains the seven trumpets. Therefore, it follows that the trumpets are also divine judgments. This point is further strengthened in that the trumpet judgments are very similar to the Egyptian plagues in the book of Exodus. They are even called plagues in Revelation 9:20. The Egyptian plagues were not natural occurrences or man-made; they were direct judgments from God.
Nuclear weapons may be used in the near future or during the end times. As weapons of mass destruction mushroom, it’s difficult to see how they can be kept out of the hands of unstable leaders or terrorists. However, I don’t believe the Bible says anything about nuclear weapons. When the Bible is silent, we’re wise not to go beyond what’s written.
Since the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Syria has remained an entrenched enemy of Israel. The two nations have faced off in three bloody wars: the War of Independence (1948), the Six-Day War (1967), and the Yom Kippur War (1973). The loss of the Golan Heights to Israel in 1973 was a major blow to the Syrians.
Since early 2011, and the outbreak of civil war, Syria has been a major international flash point. The brutality of Bashar al-Assad has been on full display for the world to see. More than four hundred thousand Syrians have died in the bloody civil war. Russia and Iran have propped up the Assad regime, sending troops and air power. For Iran, Syria is part of the strategy for a “Shiite full moon” across the region. For Russia, presence in Syria expands Russian influence, and many believe Russia is using the chaos to flood Europe with refugees, further stretching and weakening European financial resources and increasing the threat of terror in Europe.
About five million Syrian refugees have fled the country, and more than six million within the nation have been displaced. Most Syrian refugees have relocated in the Middle East, but more than half a million have come to the shores of European nations. With mounting deaths and displacement, the Syrian refugee crisis has been called “the worst human security disaster of the twenty-first century.”[3]
Added to all this misery, ISIS has focused much of its effort in Syria primarily because Dabiq, Syria, “is where the Prophet Mohammed is supposed to have predicted that the armies of Islam and ‘Rome’ would meet for the final battle that will precede the end of time and the triumph of true Islam.”[4]
Questions about Syria are closely related to Russia because the chaos in Syria has afforded Russia a unique opportunity to accomplish many of its goals and has brought Russia, Iran, and Turkey into closer alliance.
With all these factors converging in Syria, many prophecy teachers believe the world focus on Syria in the last few years points toward the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 in the near future. Isaiah 17:1-2 prophesies the destruction of Damascus, Syria’s capitaclass="underline" “Look, the city of Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins. The towns of Aroer will be deserted. Flocks will graze in the streets and lie down undisturbed, with no one to chase them away.”
Many who believe the fulfillment of this prophecy is imminent hold that Israel will take out Damascus, possibly by a nuclear attack, while others believe the destruction will be supernatural. Often only the first two verses of Isaiah 17 are quoted, yet if we continue reading the passage, we find it also predicts the destruction of northern Israel at the same time. In Isaiah’s day, Ephraim was the name for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Notice that at the same time Damascus is destroyed, Israel is too:
In light of the overall context of Isaiah 17, I believe the best interpretation sees the fulfillment of this passage in the eighth century BC, when both Damascus, the capital of Syria (732 BC), and Samaria, the capital of Israel (722 BC), were pounded by the Assyrians. In the Assyrian invasion of Syria and Israel, there’s a clear point in time when both Damascus and Samaria were destroyed, just as Isaiah 17 predicts.
The past fulfillment of Isaiah 17 finds further confirmation in Isaiah 17:12-14, which was fulfilled in 701 BC, when 185,000 Assyrians under the command of Sennacherib were destroyed in one night by God (see Isaiah 37:36-38).
As the fuse on the Middle East powder keg continues to burn, Syria, although not specifically singled out in Scripture, seems to be a key player in setting the stage. The chaos in Syria has created the vacuum for Russia and Iran to fill. Their presence in Syria on Israel’s northern border foreshadows the future invasion of Israel by these nations and their allies in Ezekiel 38.
Three times in the final chapter of the New Testament, Jesus promises to come back “soon” or “quickly” (see Revelation 22:7, 12, 20). As early as about thirty years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, people were beginning to question and even mock the truth of Christ’s return because it had not happened. The promise of his soon coming seemed to be fading away. They mistakenly believed that the delay of his coming equaled nonfulfillment. The apostle Peter challenged these first-century mockers and their erroneous thinking:
3
Max Abrahms, Denis Sullivan, and Charles Simpson, “Five Myths about Syrian Refugees,”
4
“ISIS Fast Facts,” CNN Library, April 17, 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/.