Thursday, December 10 –
We continue our reading thru
the book of Revelation, and are at the half-way point. Today’s reading is from Revelation 9:1 –
20. Please read the passage first and
then come back that we might walk through it together.
Four trumpets have sounded, and even though the chapter division stopped us,
the trumpets continue. The first four
were catastrophic to the earth and the people affected by the various eco
disasters. The end of the fourth was met
by a series of fore-warnings – “woe, woe, woe” – signifying that the three to
follow were going to be worse. The fifth
and sixth trumpets are now sounded.
“And the fifth angel blew his
trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key
to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless
pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the
sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from
the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power
of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the
earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the
seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for
five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a
scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death
and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them” (9:1-6).
Among all the phenomenal
imagery, the fifth trumpet signals judgment on those who are not sealed by
God. He begins with a horrific scene of a star
falling, which is not a star, but a “He”. He is given a key to open a
furnace-like shaft from a bottomless pit, where the smoke arising from it
turns to locusts, who had the power of scorpions to inflict pain, is more than
we can imagine. The imagery comes from
the Old Testament – first from the nation’s history in Exodus 10:13-15, and
then from the prophet who predicted judgment – Joel 2:1-11. What is interesting is the normal thing a
locust would do is to ravage vegetation, but instead they were unleashed to
torment those who have defied God.
Normally a band of locusts would stay around a few days and then move on
to find more vegetation, but these stay for five months. It would be safe to say – we will be sure
later – that the star is Satan (Isaiah 14:12-17, Luke 10:18), and what he lets
loose upon the earth is a hoard of demons.
The “bottomless pit” is from the Greek word, “abyssos”, i.e.,
abyss – the Greek word for the underworld.
This is quite possibly the demons who were locked up until judgment came
(look at Luke 8:30-31 and 2 Peter 2:4).
The work of these demonic “locusts” will lead people to long for death,
even though it will not occur.
John now begins to describe
them – “In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on
their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human
faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’
teeth; they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of
their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into
battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to
hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over
them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in
Greek he is called Apollyon. The first woe has passed; behold, two woes
are still to come” (9:7-12).
Did you notice how frequently
John used the word “like” to describe them?
They work “crowns like gold, faces like human faces, hair like women’s
hair, teeth like lions' teeth, breastplates of iron, and they flew like locusts
fly, but the noise was like chariots in battle.
I cannot get an image in my head to think about how hideous they must
have looked. John uses words that he
understands, and we understand, but they aren’t exact. The army is brutal, all-consuming, warriors –
supernatural beings that are demonic in character, and under the domain of
their leader, or king, whose name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek
is “Apollyon”. Since it is Satan
who opens the abyss to begin with, it is He who is the Captain of the host of
demons.
Perhaps a reminder is
needed. Jesus once sent his disciples
out on a short-term mission trip (Luke 10).
“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on
ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about
to go… Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of
wolves. When the disciples (followers of Jesus since there were
seventy-two) returned, they declared success because of the authority he had
given them. “The seventy-two returned
with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions,
and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to
you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (10:17-20).
The reminder I would urge us to
know that Spiritual enemies are real, and while we may (hopefully) never
encounter a demon, we must realize that they are at work doing what they do
best – oppose God’s work and seek to destroy God’s people’s faith through lies
and deception. Have I ever seen one?
No! Have I ever seen the way they work
in someone’s life? Yes! The Bible talks about them as a real enemy of
the Gospel, and so they work on our faith by either emphasizing our failures or
by excusing our sin. Peter writes in his
letter a sober warning – “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the
devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter
5:8).
In a rather ominous way, John
adds – “The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come” (9:12).
The fifth trumpet was just the beginning, and now the sixth trumpet is sounded
–
“Then the sixth angel blew his
trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before
God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels
who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had
been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to
kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice ten
thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw
the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the
color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were
like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and
smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses
is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads,
and by means of them they wound. The rest of mankind, who were not killed
by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up
worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood,
which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or
their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts” (9:13-21).
While the vision is – again –
frightening and horrific, the point that John makes is that even in these kinds
of judgments, people defy God and will not repent of their sin. The four angels that are released come from
the area of the Euphrates, which would be in modern Iraq. When they are released, again, forces of hell
are let loose. This is warfare on a
scale mankind has never seen. We don’t know the identity of the four angels,
but they have angelic-like power, only it is an evil power. The plagues they release kill a third of
mankind…that’s almost three billion people in today’s populations. In the seal judgments, one-quarter of the
earth is decimated, and now one-third of those left, so about half of the
world is destroyed by this army. These
four angels have an army of two hundred million, and again, John uses the now-familiar “like” to describe what he sees.
Modern-day speculation has thought of the descriptions as tanks,
helicopters, and other items of warfare.
The problem is that this speculation assumes all of this will occur in
our lifetime. While we know it is the future, we don’t know how far into the future.
It is hard to wrap our brains around all of
the destruction during the end of times.
Yet, we look at our world and everywhere we turn we see the potential for
massive destruction that would await a new World War. Without speculating who could be involved, we
don’t have to speculate that John saw this from the vantage point of heaven,
and clearly, it is the evil that is unleashed by the Devil and his angels that
serves as the means for how this will occur.
Why do we not see that evil? We
have been anesthetized to evil all around us, and the world we live in has
pushed God away from day to day living.
John sees a world where people
worship demons, bow down to idols, commit murder, thefts, and various kinds of
sexual immorality. He adds “sorcery”,
but the Greek word is “pharmakia”, from which we get our word
pharmacy. Sorcery is using
drugs. Drugs have a history going back before
Rome and were often used to create highs in religious ceremonies. The commandments of God were given to remind
us of what a world would look like if people cared deeply about God as
Lord. But God is letting the world
choose, and in the end – without God – they choose lawlessness, and the
Anti-Christ that Paul spoke of is ready to lead the evil to its fullest extent
yet.
What do we do? We read the scriptures to learn, to grow, and
to pray. Prayer for our nation, for our
leaders, for our educational establishments and teachers, for media, for the
entertainment industry, for our neighbors and friends. We deal with our own idols and check the
passions of the world, wealth, sexual desire, and power. We remember we are “overcomers” who have
been washed white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).
Peace
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