Chapter Twenty-One-Jehovah's Plagues on Christendom

Like a Burning Mountain

"And the second angel blew his trumpet.  And something like a great mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea. And a third of the sea became blood; and a third of the creatures that are in the sea which have souls died, and third of the boats were wrecked." (Revelation 8:8, 9 )  What does  this frightful scene picture?

We may best understand it against the background of the convention of Jehovah's people held in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., on August 18-26, 1923. The featured  Saturday afternoon talk by the Watchtower Society's president was on the topic "Sheep and Goats."  The "sheep" were clearly identified as those righteously disposed persons who would inherit the earthly realm of God's Kingdom.  A resolution that followed drew attention  to the hypocrisy of "apostate clergymen and the principal of their flocks,'  who are worldly men of strong financial and political influence."  It called on the multitude of the peace and order loving ones in the denominational churches . . . to withdraw themselves from the unrighteous ecclesiastical systems designated  be the Lord as 'Babylon' " and to ready themselves "to receive the blessings of God's Kingdom.

Doubtless, this resolution came as a result of the sounding of the second trumpet.  Those who would in due course respond to that message would separate from the goatlike group that Isaiah described in these words: "But the wicked are like the sea that is being tossed, when it is unable to calm down, the waters of which keep tossing up seaweed and mire." (Isaiah 57:20; 17:12, 13) Thus, "the sea" well pictures restless, unsettled, and rebellious humanity that churns up unrest and revolution.   (Compare Revelation 13:1)  The time will come when that "sea" will be no more.  (Revelation 21:1)  Meantime, with the blast of the second trumpet, Jehovah pronounces judgment against a third of it-the unruly part that is in the realm of Christendom herself.

A great mountainlike mass burning with fire is hurled into the "sea." In the Bible, mountains very often symbolize governments.  For example, God's Kingdom  is portrayed as a mountain.  (Daniel 2:35, 44)  Ruinous Babylon became a "burnt-out mountain." (Jeremiah 51:25)  But the mountainous mass that John sees is still burning. Its being hurled into the sea  well represents how, during and after the first world war, the question of government became a burning  issue among mankind, especially  in the lands of Christendom, in Italy, Mussolini introduced Fascism.  Germany embraced Hitler's Nazism, while other countries  tried different forms of socialism. A  radical change occurred in Russia, where the Bolshevik state, with the result that religious leaders of Christendom lost power and influence in what was formerly one of their strongholds. 

Next time: Chapter Twenty-One - Jehovah's Plagues on Christendom - Conclusion of Like a Burning Mountain

From the book of Revelation