Krakatoa 1883
The biggest blast in history was the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa (pictured above) on 27th August 1883 which was heard nearly 5000 kilometres away in Perth, Australia and the resulting waves reached four continents including Africa.1 The volcano, a caldera,2 which is a volcano that collapses in on itself, left a hole more than 300 metres deep and spewed red hot debris covering an area larger than France. David Keys,3 a writer on history and archaeology also theorises in his book4 that Krakatoa was the very volcano that exploded around 535 A.D. helping to lead to the demise of the Roman Empire and entry into the so-called Dark Ages. This explosion was so great that it led to the sun going dark for many years with rain the colour of blood falling to the earth. Winter gripped the earth for years followed by drought and famine. Because the sun’s light was blocked this led to climate change leading to plague, famine and death.
First trumpet
The Bible details the first four trumpet judgments which will plague the earth for months and possibly years.5 It is also called ‘the judgment of the thirds’ as it only affects one third of the earth. In these related four judgments, we see that a star called Wormwood falls to the earth causing untold damage, death, and destruction to the earth. These four judgments are causative meaning that they are related to the one catastrophic event of an asteroid (star) falling to the earth. As the asteroid approaches the earth on its final approach, the first trumpet judgment in Rev. 8:7 details how it will begin to break up in the atmosphere possibly months before the main bulk hits with fireballs and bits of the hot asteroid. This begins the process of fires burning one third of the earth’s trees and grass and whatever is in its path.Second trumpet
The second trumpet judgment then explains that a part of the main body something like a mountain will hit the sea. This sounds entirely logical as most of the earth is covered by ocean and the chances are that such a catastrophe would indeed hit the ocean. This results in one third of the ships being destroyed and one third of the sea creatures dying. Imagine a huge mountain such as Mt. Everest hitting the sea. It would cause huge tsunamis in every direction possibly rebounding time and again across the earth’s oceans. In the 1883 Krakatoa explosion, over 36,000 people died resulting from the eruptions and related tsunamis. This would be like a meteor or a huge chunk off of the main body of the asteroid. Asteroids and meteors only differ in respect of their size however essentially they are the same thing.Third trumpet
Then in the third trumpet judgment the main “star” or asteroid hits. Even though the mountain is big the star or asteroid that hits will be even larger as asteroids by definition are larger than meteors. This will be a terrifying and awesome sight to the people of the earth and it will cause great destruction to the earth’s springs, rivers, and water sources. In fact, many people will be poisoned by their drinking water from the bitterness. I remember in 2002, Cathi and I were working as missionaries in Hoskins, PNG when Mt. Pago erupted nearby only 9 miles away. There were numerous minor tremors the day before it erupted signaling that an eruption was imminent. When the volcano blew just about all of the national residents had to be evacuated due to the volcanic ash falling on their plants and local streams and water supply. Fortunately, at the mission centre where we were living at the time, we were able to pump up pure underground water into our tanks. But we had to cover up our rainwater tanks to stop the poisonous water from collecting into the tanks. The famous Krakatoa eruptions also injected an unusually large amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas high into the stratosphere, which was subsequently transported by high-level winds all over the planet. This led to a global increase in sulfuric acid (H2SO4) concentration in high-level cirrus clouds. The resulting increase in cloud reflectivity reflected more incoming light from the sun than usual and cooled the entire planet until the sulfur fell to the ground as acid precipitation. Perhaps this is the bitter water talked about in Rev. 8:11.
Fourth trumpet
So you can see how each trumpet judgment is related and is essentially all part of the same catastrophic event causing climate chaos. The final and fourth trumpet judgment is a result of the collision months after.6 We know from the Krakatoa volcanic eruptions that the ash erupted into the stratosphere resulting in dark winters for months and possibly even years. It says in the Bible that of the sun, moon, and stars were struck meaning they turned dark. It seems like the most plausible explanation is that one third of the earth’s surface turns dark due to the resulting debris and ash spread across the globe. This would affect the earth’s food supply as there would be a great reduction in the harvest of grains. Crops need water and the sun. This would perhaps explain the 3rd seal ‘black horse’ judgment where we see famine and extreme inflation.7 If you examine my end time’s timeline it will help you to visualise the proximity of the two judgments. It is not a total disaster however because the main objective of these ‘one third’ judgments are to bring the people of the earth to repentance.8 Does it work? Not really according to these verses. Interestingly Rev. 9:21 ESV says, amongst other things, that they did not repent of their ‘sorceries’ which is the Greek word pharmakon. This is where we get the modern word pharmacy as in the phrase “big pharma”. Perhaps the meaning in our modern-day context is that the people were not convinced that they were being conned or deceived by the large pharmaceutical companies of the day. Makes you sit up and take notice considering what we are going through at the moment with the worldwide pandemic.
Conclusion
In conclusion, my opinion is that we need to expect a large catastrophic climate event in the form of a large asteroid in the next ten years or so. My studies indicate that it will occur sometime in the first half of the tribulation period. We may or may not know of its coming. NASA is on the lookout for all NEO (near-earth objects) and doesn’t foresee anything in the next 100 years although only about 40% of those asteroids have been discovered. After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. But that impact assessment changed as astronomers tracked Apophis and its orbit became better determined.9 But perhaps God will cause it to be unseen until it actually occurs. One thing we do know though is that it is going to happen sometime soon. The other takeaway is that the first four trumpet judgments are not symbolic or unrelated to each other.5 They are an existential threat and are a logical progression.
But you might ask what can we do with all this information? This information is given to us for a reason. These ‘one third’ judgments are bad enough and as a church, I believe we will see these catastrophic climate events because they will be occurring concurrently with the ministry of the Two Witnesses in the first 1260 days. They will urge us, I am sure, to escape to the wilderness at the appropriate time to southern Jordan before the real full-on trumpet judgments (5th, 6th, and 7th) occur. They are known as ‘Woe, woe and woe’ or translated as ‘disaster, disaster, and disaster’.10
- Behrendt E., Readers Digest, January 2022, “When Krakatoa blew up.” [↩]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera [↩]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Keys [↩]
- Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, 2000 [↩]
- Rev. 8:6-12 [↩] [↩]
- Rev. 8:12 [↩]
- Rev. 6:5-6 [↩]
- Rev. 9:20-21 [↩]
- https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasa-analysis-earth-is-safe-from-asteroid-apophis-for-100-plus-years/ [↩]
- Rev. 8:13 [↩]
