The Scourge of Islam in Africa, Europe, Canada and America by Kevin Swanson (Interview with Dr. Peter Hammond of Frontline Fellowship)

"These symbolic locusts have also the property of scorpions, a poisonous reptile, resembling in some degree a lizard combined with a lobster, armed with a sting in the end of its tail. Wicked and impenitent men are compared to scorpions. (Ezek. ii. 6.) But these locusts are under restraint. They are permitted to hurt only "those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." The time of their continuance is "five months," of thirty days each, making 150 years, -- "a day for a year." (Ezek. iv. 6.). In the year 606, Mahomet began his imposture by retiring to the cave of Hera. In 612 he appeared publicly as the apostle of his new religion at the head of his deluded followers. Between 612 and 762 (150 years - ed.), he and the warlike chiefs who succeeded him, overran with terrible destruction, Syria, Persia, India, Egypt and Spain. Although the Saracenic empire continued for a longer time, yet from this time it lost the disorderly Locust character and became a more settled commonwealth. In the year 762, the city of Bagdad was built by one of the caliphs, who called it "the city of peace." This put a stop to the devastations of the locusts, when the empire began to decline. It was foretold, however, that during the time of successful war by these cruel invaders, they would inflict such miseries upon their wretched victims, that they would earnestly but vainly desire death to put an end to their exquisite torments. It is farther said that these locusts resembled horses, as indeed they do, especially in their heads. The Arabians excelled in horsemanship, and their chief force lay in cavalry. The "crowns upon their heads" may refer to the turbans worn by the Arabians as part of their national costume; or to the kingdoms which they subdued. Flowing hair is also characteristic of these people. Their "teeth" like those of lions indicated their strength and fury to destroy. "Breast-plates of iron," -- defensive armour, indicates self-protection by the most effectual public measures. The sound of their wings may denote the fury of their assaults, and the rapidity of their conquests. But the deadly stings in their tails were their most fatal instruments of torture, symbolizing the poison of their abominable and ruinous religion. 

 

Their king is "Abaddon or Apollyon," the destroyer: for so is his name by interpretation, both in Hebrew and Greek. He is from the "bottomless pit," -- from hell, the vicegerent of the devil. Mahomet in person, and in the person of his official successors, will alone answer to this duplicate symbol. This is, without a rational shadow of ground for controversy, the Great Eastern Antichrist, sufficiently distinguished from the Western. The western combination against real Christianity never attained to power by successful conquest of the nations; but on the contrary by chicanery, insidious policy, flattery of princes and priestcraft."

 

- David Steele, Notes on the Apocalypse (13 free MP3s), pp. 115-116, on the Puritan Hard Drive

 

(Revelation 9 - ed.) Vs. 13-19. -- At the sounding of the sixth trumpet, a "voice comes from the four horns of the golden altar," the immediate presence of the Almighty. This indicates punishment to be inflicted upon men for corrupting the gospel, similar to the judgment of fire from the "golden censer," (ch. viii. 5.). The effects of the first woe may be supposed to reach from the early part of the seventh century to the latter part of the thirteenth, -- the period of Arabian locusts. During the latter part of this time, the Turks were held in check by the Crusaders, who strove to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels. The "four angels" are the four Turkish Sultanies. The river Euphrates is to be taken in this place literally, as designating the geographical locality of these combined powers, which were the instruments employed by the enthroned Mediator, to demolish the remaining part of the Roman empire, -- "the third part of men." The time occupied in this barbarous work of slaughter is "an hour, a day, a month and a year," about equal to 391 years; or from the year 1281 to 1672. The Western empire had been overthrown by the first four trumpets, the Eastern nearly ruined under the fifth; and under the sixth it was finally subverted. The numbers which the Turks brought into the field are here said to be "two hundred thousand thousand," -- a definite for an indefinite number as usual, a vast army. And historians tell us that they were, in fact, from four to seven hundred thousand, and a large proportion of them cavalry.

 

From the year 1672, one of their own historians dates the "Decay of the Othman empire!" Since that date, the Turkish power is well known to have been straitened by the Russian empire. 

 

These eastern warriors and their horses are described by their military costume and their arms. Fire is red, jacinth blue, and brimstone yellow, -- the chosen colors of the Ottoman warriors, their military uniform. The heads of their horses "as the heads of lions," denote strength, fierceness and cruelty. "Fire, smoke and brimstone issuing out of their mouths," may be supposed to indicate the employment of gunpowder, first invented about that time, as an element of destruction. The commander at the siege of Constantinople is said to have employed cannon, some of which were of such caliber as to send stones of three hundred pounds weight! Thus their power was in their "mouth:" but like the locusts, "they had in their tails power to do hurt," -- the deadly poison of the Koran. The Turks left behind them wherever they went, as the Saracens had done before, the poisonous and ruinous religion of Mahomet, more durable and injurious to men than all their bloody conquests. By this abominable system of delusion, the remains of the Greek church in the Eastern division of the Roman empire, were almost extirpated; Christianity was nearly extinguished in that part of the world where the gospel had shone brightly, and there Mahometanism continues till the present day. Such has been the desolating effect of the sixth, -- the second woe trumpet. Thus the Judge of all the earth punishes impenitent communities.

 

- David Steele, Notes on the Apocalypse (free online book), pp. 117-118, on the Puritan Hard Drive

 

So, in the wake of the false-prophecies of Mohammad himself, came the fearful spread of the apostate religion of Mohammad-an-ism -- alias Islam. After he foresaw how the smoking bottomless pit had been opened, John prophesied further: "Out of the smoke, locusts came upon the Earth. And to them was given power -- like the scorpions of the Earth have power." Indeed, that power, comments the

Calvinistic Geneva Bible, represents "false and deceitful doctrine which is pleasant to the flesh."

 

Predicted John of those locust-scorpions: "Now it was commanded them that

they should not hurt the grass of the Earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree -- but only those who do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads." This certainly seems to mean that, in spite of the great destruction which they wrought both to men and to property, they were not able spiritually to hurt true Christians who trusted in the Lord Jesus and who had been baptized (alias sealed with the seal of the living God). Cf. Revelation 7:2-4 & 9:4 with Matthew 28:19.

 

Continues John: "The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared to battle;

and on their heads were, as it were, crowns of gold.... They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings!"

 

Locusts often come up from the Arabian deserts. Mohammad unleashed his Arab "locusts" to scourge the Mediterranean World and to darken a large area of nominally-Christian civilization. For Mohammad's "locusts" -- similar to those in Joel's vision -- "were like horses prepared to battle." Compare Jihad, alias the 'holy warfare' of Muslims.

 

Those horse-like "locusts" went forth unto conquest; in regal attire; with savage

appearance; and armed to the teeth. Predicted John: "On their heads were, as it were, crowns of gold; but their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. And they had breastplates like iron breastplates. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots of many horses running unto battle." Jihad!

 

For, as from A.D. 622, Mohammad's Arabian armies of Muslim horsemen swept

not only northward and eastward -- but also westward across Christian North Africa

and then on into Western Europe. Thus they terrorized the previously-

'christianized' Armenia, Cyprus, Crete, Syria, Persia, Kazakstan, Babylonia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Numidia, Mauretania, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Corsica, and France -- until the great Charles Martel the 'Hammer' finally stopped them in A.D. 732 at the Battle of Tours in Northern France.

 

Writes... Dr. Alexander Keith: "There is practically no part of the entire Book [of Revelation] which is interpreted so uniformly as the exposition of the fifth and sixth seals.... It is applied to the Saracens and the Turks." Indeed, Professor Davis (in his Short History of the Near East) adds: "The cloud of the Saracenic invasion from the Arabian deserts rolled northward!" Cf. Revelation 9:7b-9.

 

Dr. Albert Barnes -- nineteenth-century Pastor of Philadelphia's famous First Presbyterian Church and author of what is often called "America's Leading Commentary" -- comments: "With surprising unanimity, commentators have agreed in regarding this as referring to the empire of the Saracens, or to the rise and progress of the religion and the empire set up by Mohammed.... Mohammedan tradition speaks of locusts having dropped into the hands of Mohammed.... Nothing would better represent... the Saracenic hordes that came out of Arabia and that spread over the East, over Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Spain -- and that threatened to spread over Europe." ...

 

The Calvinistic Dordt Dutch Bible of 1637 rightly says that at Revelation 9:1-11, many here understand "Mohammad with his followers who around the year 620 cobbled together his ungodly doctrine... and was brought forth to appear from the bottomless pit. Thereafter, it was propagated throughout a large part of the World by his Arabs and Saracens, who looked like armed locusts." ...

 

Clearly, these 'locust-scorpion' objects -- are no mere insects! For ordinary

locusts have no king and wear no crown, whereas these extraordinary 'locusts' have a leader. For "they have a king over them, who is the [fallen] angel of the bottomless pit -- whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue has his name Apollyon" (alias 'Destroyer'). Again, this "king" strongly suggests not only Mohammad -- the alleged messenger or rasool of Allah (alias the unipersonal Deity of Islam). But to many Christian Theologians, it also suggests that the real influence behind Mohammad and Islam -- is Satan himself. ...

 

Declares the Word of God: "The sixth angel sounded. And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is in front of God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet: 'Loosen the four angels which are bound to the great River Euphrates!' Then the four angels were unleashed -- which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, to slay the third part of men."

Explains Luther: "In chapters 9 and 10 [of the Book of Revelation], the real misery begins. For these earlier bodily and spiritual tribulations are almost a jest, compared with the plagues that are to come. The first woe, the fifth angel, is Arius... who plagued the Church so terribly everywhere.... The second woe is the sixth angel, the shameful Mohammed, with his companions the Saracens, who inflicted a great plague on the Church -- with their doctrines and with the sword." ...

 

Now it was God in Christ Himself Who unleashed this Turkish scourge from the Euphrates against the West. For the Voice from the four horns of the golden altar, comments the Geneva Bible, is "the Voice of Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father.... The four angels which are bound in the great River Euphrates" signify "the enemies of the East Country who would afflict the Church of God -- as did the Arabians, Saracens, Turks, and Tartars."

 

Also the Dordt Dutch Bible comments: "By these 'four angels' all expositors mostly understand the sect of the Mohammedans. They consist especially of four nations who subjugate all the others -- namely the Arabs, Saracens, Tartars, and

Turks.

 

- Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, Islam in the Bible (free PDF), pp. 22-23, 25, 26, 27, 28, and on the Puritan Hard Drive.

 

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"After several centuries -- just as the Bible had warned -- the Early Christian
Church had departed from Holy Scripture. Subsequently, it lapsed into idolatry.
However, God would not allow His purposes to save the World to get thwarted. So, as long-term correctives, God sent against the sins of His wayward Christian People two terrible scourges -- Islam, and the Papacy."

- Dr. Francis N. Lee, Islam in the Bible, p. 4, emphases added.

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