[20] (back) Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2, William Shakespeare.
[21] (back) The chapter is named “Closed Circles” because cartoonist Bill Watterson named Calvin’s teacher Miss Wormwood after the demon Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters, whom author C.S. Lewis named after the star Wormwood in Revelation 8:10-11. Now that Mary Ludford has named the asteroid Wormwood, the circle is complete.
[22] (back) Dietrick E. Thomsen, “Extremely magnetic degenerate dwarf - white dwarf stars,” Science News, 19 April 1986, available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v129/ai_4211084/.
[23] (back) See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole.
[24] (back) A sonic boom generated above thirty-seven miles reflects upward off of the denser atmosphere below, thereby preventing any sound from reaching ground level.
[25] (back) Revelation 8:7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. [The first of ‘the trumpet judgments’ consists of this single verse and offers one of the most concise and exact descriptions of any of the last days judgments. And yet, it is this same brevity and specificity that makes it so difficult to explain. Hail from the skies is common. Fire might be explained as nothing more than lightning. But what is the explanation for the blood? And how is it that one third of the Earth and one third of the trees are burned up, and yet all the green grass is burned? Equally mysterious, why is only the green grass burned; why is the brown (i.e., dormant or dead) grass not burned as well? As described in this chapter, each and all of these events could be caused by the passage of an asteroid over the Western Hemisphere.]
[26] (back) Revelation 8:7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
[27] (back) Revelation 8:7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
Acts 2:19. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
Joel 2:30. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
[28] (back) Revelation 8:7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
[29] (back) Revelation 8:8-9. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
With this description of a “huge mountain, all ablaze” being “thrown into the sea,” the likelihood that the Apostle John is describing the effects of the Earth’s encounter with a series of asteroids becomes much stronger. Together with John’s description of the third and fourth trumpet judgments (Rev. 8:10-12), this hypothesis becomes nearly inescapable. Still, the specifics of how the second trumpet judgment will occur and how this could result in each of the effects described leaves much to be considered. An asteroid (or a “huge mountain all ablaze”) striking the ocean would doubtless create unimaginable tsunami that would destroy a large number of ships. It’s likely that the death of one third of the sea life (as prophesied) is the result of their habitat turning to blood. But how would a flaming mountain thrown into the sea result in the sea turning to blood?
Just as perplexing is the question of why the results are not even more catastrophic. The collision of an asteroid large enough to create tsunami capable of destroying one third of the world’s ships would be so powerful that we would expect tremendous amounts of material to be thrown into and suspended in the atmosphere, thus blocking the sun and killing far more than sea life. By now everyone has read descriptions of the asteroid that many scientists say impacted off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Chicxulub, Mexico, 65 million years ago. That collision is credited with the extinction of the dinosaurs by blocking the sun’s heat and light and throwing the planet into a winter that lasted for many years. Whether or not we accept that theory, the point is that we can see from those descriptions the scale of the devastation that can result from an asteroid strike on the Earth. Why does John’s “huge mountain all ablaze” not have a similar effect?
The first part of the answer is probably found in the size of the asteroid. The asteroid that struck the Yucatan is estimated to have been about six miles in diameter. How big is John’s “huge mountain?” Huge, is of course, relative. The best we can do is to make an educated guess, based on what we know about the mountains with which John was likely familiar. Israel’s highest mountain, Mt. Meron, is .75 miles above the surrounding terrain. Lebanon’s Qurnat as-Sawda is 1.92 miles in height. Mount Olympus in Greece is 1.81 miles. Of course, there is much more to a mountain’s overall size than its height. But if we assume the minimum size mountain that John would have considered to be “huge” to be similar to Olympus, we at least have the foundation for our estimate of how big the “huge mountain” John saw was (and will be).
But how can such an object as John described impact the Earth without being even more catastrophic? The answer seems to be that it must strike in the deepest part of the ocean, which is why I have the second asteroid strike south of Japan where the ocean depth is approximately 3.6 miles. As I state in this chapter, if the asteroid struck dry ground or in shallower water, the debris would be sent flying into the atmosphere and would create a dark blanket of dust over the entire planet. Within weeks, such a blanket would eliminate nearly all life on Earth. By impacting one of the deepest parts of the ocean, in water more than three and a half miles deep, only a small percentage of the debris would be ejected above the ocean’s surface. Of that, the vast majority would consist of large pieces of iron and massive tektites, which would fall back to Earth. Only a very minute amount of material would be small enough to be kept aloft.
But while the water’s resistance would stop most of the smaller fragments from reaching beyond the surface and thus spare the atmosphere from filling with dust, the sea itself would be filled with trillions of tons of material small enough to be suspended in ocean currents and would be carried across the ocean by the giant waves that radiate out from the impact. As I describe, if the asteroid is made of iron, as most asteroids are, then the iron particles would quickly turn to rust and fill the sea with red iron oxide. The murky waters would block out the sun’s light, preventing photosynthesis by the phytoplankton, the delicate sea plants that serve as the bottom link in the food chain and also provide the oxygen needed to maintain sea life. As the phytoplankton died, so too would the sea animals that depend upon it for food, followed quickly by each higher level of the food chain. And soon, the oxygen level of the ocean would drop and nearly all sea life in the Pacific would perish.
[30] (back) Revelation 8:8-9. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
[31] (back) Chile, 1960, measured at magnitude 9.5. The earthquake resulting from the Chicxulub impact has been estimated at 12.5.
[32] (back) Revelation 8:8-9. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
[33] (back) Luke 21:25. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity a
t the roaring and tossing of the sea.
[34] (back) Revelation 8:8-9. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
[35] (back) Revelation 8:8-9. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
[36] (back) Revelation 8:10-11a. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood.
[37] (back) Kevin R. Henke, Arsenic: Environmental Chemistry, Health Threats and Waste Treatment, 74-76. See also The Merck Index, ninth edition (Rahway, N.J.: Merck & Co., Inc., 1976), p. 107, item 820.
[38] (back) Revelation 8:10-11. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
With the third trumpet’s “great star,” again we see what appears to be an extraterrestrial object falling to Earth. As with the first two trumpets, we find a curious combination of results from which a number of questions arise:
1. What is the object John describes as a “great star”?
2. How are the effects of the great star dispersed over one-third of the Earth’s rivers and springs?
3. What is it about the great star that will cause the waters to be poisoned?
4. How is it that the water can be poisoned, but the soil and air remain unaffected?
5. Why is the fresh water poisoned, but not the sea water?
These questions must all be considered simultaneously rather then sequentially. We cannot answer any single question without considering the answer to each of the other four. This makes it a bit difficult, but the conclusions are far more revealing, because as we narrow the plausible scenarios, we are left with a very few (I can think of only one) which conform to the events which John describes.
Whereas the second asteroid “was thrown into the sea,” the results of the third trumpet’s “great star” are curiously dispersed across the planet, poisoning a third of the rivers and springs of water. This much at least seems easy. Somehow before the great star impacts our planet, it is pulverized into tiny particles that are spread across the Earth’s surface.
There are four extraterrestrial candidates for John’s vision. These are:
1. a huge cloud of space dust,
2. a chunk thrown off from the collision of two white dwarf stars,
3. a comet, and
4. an asteroid.
While a huge cloud of naturally occurring space dust is a natural candidate for spreading its effects over the surface of the Earth, we can rule this out, as John would not have described a dust cloud as “a great star.” Whatever we are dealing with must be a relatively solid object prior to being spread across the Earth in order to fit John’s description.
We can eliminate the second candidate as well. By its very nature, a piece of white dwarf star is bound together by such immense gravity that it wouldn’t break apart when it encountered the Earth. Rather, it would pass effortlessly through our planet, probably killing everything and tearing much of our home world from its orbit.
A comet would seem to be an ideal candidate. Because of its brittle composition of interstellar dust, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and other gases, a comet could (depending on its angle of descent) easily shatter in the atmosphere before reaching the Earth’s surface. On June 30, 1908, in the skies above the Stony Tunguska River basin in Siberia, a comet exploded at an altitude of about seven miles as it met with the Earth’s thick atmosphere. Though it never reached the Earth’s surface, the force of the explosion was equal to a twelve megaton bomb, leveling 800 square miles of mature forest. People 45 miles away were knocked down and seared by the heat; the glare was seen for hundreds of miles; and the sound was reported as far away as 600 miles. The first problem, then, with John’s “great star” being a comet, is that for it to be large enough to spread its particles over one-third of the rivers and springs, the comet would have to be so large that it would destroy hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Earth’s surface. But John mentions no such occurrence associated with the third trumpet or any other trumpet judgment. Secondly, even if the explosion took place far enough out to sea so as not to cause tremendous destruction on land, there is nothing in a comet’s composition which would poison the fresh water while leaving the air, soil and sea water relatively unaffected.
This leaves only an asteroid, but there are two problems with the asteroid scenario as well. First, an asteroid is not likely to break apart on its own; and John describes no impact of the great star. Second, what is there in an asteroid’s composition that would poison the fresh water, yet leave the air, soil, and sea water relatively unaffected?
As we consider the meaning of this prophecy we must also recognize the age in which we live. Any object large enough to be spread across one-third of the Earth’s fresh waters in enough concentration to poison those waters, would (we would hope) be spotted by modern telescopes many millions of miles from the Earth. Should such an object be sighted heading for a collision with the Earth, modern military science has the capability to at least attempt to destroy or avert the object, using atomic warheads launched to intercept it in space. Such an interception would have to occur far out in space in order to divert as many of the large pieces of remaining debris as possible away from the Earth. But there is a second reason that makes early destruction imperative. No matter how successful the interception, some of the debris from the nuclear explosion will reach the Earth, and initially that debris will be highly radioactive.
As occurs with fallout from a nuclear explosion, the radioactivity of the debris would drop fairly quickly. The exact time required for the particles to become safe depends upon the composition of the comet or asteroid, but any less than two weeks from the time of the explosion could be very dangerous.
Of course, one possibility is that the waters are poisoned by the radioactive material. The problem with this theory is that the lethal dose of radiation for most humans is about 400 RADS exposure within one week. Based on normal consumption of water by humans, this scenario would require that the debris be so highly radioactive that exposure to the radioactive dust in the air and on the ground would pose a much greater danger than drinking the contaminated water. But again John says nothing about poisoning of the air or soil.
The scenario I have provided in the chapters entitled “Wormwood” and “God Amok” provides a possible explanation for each of these questions.
[39] (back) Revelation 8:12. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. [The darkening of the skies described in the fourth trumpet judgment is the cumulative effect of smoke from the vast forest fires caused by the first asteroid, plus the dramatically increased volcanic activity resulting from the second asteroid cracking the Earth’s mantle.]
[40] (back) Revelation 8:13. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!” [Based on the placement of Revelation 9:12 and 11:14, which announce the completion of a woe and the coming of the next, it will be seen that the three woes are the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets.]
[41] (back) Revelation 11:5. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must
die.
[42] (back) This is similar to a warning given through Jeremiah and serves to introduce the fifth trumpet judgment.
Jeremiah 17:5-6. This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the LORD. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.”
[43] (back) Revelation 9:1-6. [Quoted in text.]
[44] (back) Revelation 9:1-3. The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
It will surprise some that I do not conclude that the “star” John identifies in the fifth trumpet is a fourth asteroid. Despite the temptation to continue the pattern from the first three trumpet judgments, the hypothesis of a fourth asteroid simply does not fit with the description given by John. The star of Revelation 9:1-2 is clearly a personage, specifically in 9:2, John calls the star “he.” John’s further description (Revelation 9:11, below) makes it clear that this “star” is an angelic being whose name is Abaddon or Apollyon. The identity of this personage will be revealed and explained in Acts of God, Chapter 17.
Revelation 9:11. They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
[45] (back) Revelation 9:4. They [the locusts] were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
A small but extremely significant feature of the locust attack will mark a key change in how the world views the events of the Tribulation period. Until this point, the events of all the judgments of Revelation (wars, plagues, famines, asteroids, fires, tsunami, volcanoes) could be explained away by stubborn, sinful man as being man-made or natural, though certainly unusual. The locusts, however, are given free reign to attack “only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Some have argued that this refers to all believers during the Tribulation, but I am inclined to believe the reference is to the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and Revelation 14 who have the seal of God on their foreheads (Rev. 7:2-3). Whichever is true, it is at this point in the Tribulation that even the most skeptical non-Christian will have to recognize that these events have a spiritual component. For how else could they explain why only those with the mark of God are not attacked by the locusts? And with this recognition, persecution of those who follow Jesus will begin in earnest.
Birth of an Age Page 25