Revelation 9:1-21--The Seven Trumpets (Part 2)

Revelation 9
English Standard Version
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9 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. 2 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. 3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 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. 5 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. 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

7 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, 8 their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 9 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. 10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. 11 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.

12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.

13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 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. 16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. 17 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. 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 19 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.

20 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, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

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If you have ever wondered when the time will come that the door to the proverbial Ark will close and those on the outside will be condemned to judgment?  I think we see that in today's passage (even though God will continue to send messengers to the whole world, He knows His message will no longer be received at this point, and that's not just me saying that--God says that through the apostle John towards the end of today's passage).

We have been warned after the first four trumpets that there are three terrible judgments that are called Woes that are still coming.  A final call for repentance was given from an eagle that seemingly took the message over the entire earth.  Judgment is coming and it is certain.  Then there is the silence is broken by the blast of the Fifth Trumpet.  The Abyss or Bottomless Bit is opened and a cloud of demonic creatures compared to s swarm of locusts is unleashed upon the earth with the power to torture all men who did not have the seal of God on their forehead (this tells us there are still Christians on the Earth and that the Rapture has not happened yet).  The demons are given the sting of scorpions, and they are not to touch any of the green vegetation that is left (so they are not like locusts that come in and cause a famine).  The pain and suffering will be so bad that those who are being tortured will desire to die but will not be able--not even by their own hand because death will flee from them.  This is part of the punishment--everyone who has made it to this point has heard the gospel and refused it.  We'll see a shift in the messaging of the messengers God sends from this point forward, especially the final angelic messenger that "takes the gospel to the whole world" but it is a message of "good news" that final judgment is coming upon all the wicked who remain.

I would have been fine with that much being said, but John felt it necessary at the leading of the Spirit to try to describe these demonic creatures.  We are told they had bodies like horses prepared for battle, and on their heads were crowns on gold.  They have the face of a man but long hair like that of a woman.  Their teeth were like those of a lion (made for devouring flesh) and they had breastplates of iron.  They made a lot of noise with their wings so that it sounded like the noise of many chariots rushing into battle, and we already spoke of their tails that were like those of scorpions so that they were allowed to sting men and torture them for five months.  This is not a quick plague.  They have a king over them whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew or Apollyon in Greek (both names mean "destruction").  There is much speculation as to the identity of demons that have been imprisoned until this time in the Abyss.  I believe it's fair to say that these were the demons that Jude was speaking of in Jude 6-7, "6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."  So, somehow, some way that I don't pretend to understand, these demons engaged in sexual sin of some kind on par with the sexual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah--sin that qualifies as "did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling."  People speculate that this is a reference to Genesis 6:1-4 which says,

"6 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown."

This passage brings up all kinds of questions that I really don't want to get into, but since I brought the passage up, I will try to answer a few of them to the beset of my ability.  My best guess is that the demons possessed men and raped beautiful women that they lusted after.  I say this was rape because of the way that the sin of the demons was compared to that of Sodom and Gomorrah and we see homosexual rape gangs there in the book of Genesis where the men are trying to attack the angelic visitors who are in the appearance of regular men, just  few chapters after this one.  This is enough at the point of Genesis 6 for God to decide that He needed to destroy all land-dwelling flesh and He gave a countdown of 120 years (the meaning of Genesis 6:3, as we certainly see men and women who lived more than 120 years after the Flood--though not many of them).  One other cross-reference before I move on, and that is 2 Peter 2:4-10 which makes the point that I have been making that God is able to save the righteous and punish the wicked simultaneously and that no one should think of themselves as beyond the reach of God and His judgment (and these evil angels are used as an example are the wicked people of Noah's day with the flood and the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah when Lot was rescued in the story that I was referring to earlier).

2 Peter 2:4-10
English Standard Version
4  For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Peter is making the point that the false prophets of his day were also wicked men who followed after lusts and ungodly passions and they too (apart from the saving work of the gospel) were destined for eternal punishment.  We should not desire to be like the people who are destined for destruction--they are not role models for us to follow.  Even if it appears they are getting away with great wickedness for a time and having a lot of fun doing it, their time of judgment is sure to come.

Let's return now to our text for today as we see more about this time of great judgment that has been set aside for the wicked who remain who are in a category similar to that of these most wicked people that we've seen described in these other passages.

The period of the five-month plague caused by the Fifth Trumpet comes to an end and mankind breaths a sigh of relief thinking they have endured the worst that God has, maybe even mocking Him in defiance.  Then, there is the sounds of another trumpet--the Sixth Trumpet and the start of the Second Woe.

A voice comes forth from the four horns of the Golden Altar of Incense in heaven (horns are a sign of strength and they were the place where the blood was applied to the altar to make atonement for the people as the priest mediated and asked for atonement for the sins of the people on a daily basis).  There apparently has been another group of angels--the four angels bound in the River Euphrates.  They too had been prepared for this very moment in time.  Unlike the last group of demons that were told not to kill anyone, these four are released to kill a third of the men on the earth.  We are told that the number of troops (probably demons) that they were allowed to muster to go to war against mankind was 2x10^4 x 10^4 or 2 x 10^8 which is 200, 000, 000 or 200 million.  That's a huge army.  They all rode on horses and wore breastplates that were the color of fire and sapphire and sulfur.  The heads of their horses were like the heads of lions and fire and smoke and sulfur came from their mouths.  This is no regular army of men and no regular cavalry.

This Trumpet included three plagues that killed a third of mankind--the fire, and smoke and sulfur coming from their mouths.  The power of the horses is in their mouths and their tails, for their tails were like the heads of serpents and they would use them to wound.

Now comes the verses that I've been alluding to for much of this article.  " 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."  This is a sad commentary.  It sounds as if Jesus is saying through John that 100% of the remaining people that lived on the Earth are bound for the Lake of Fire.  However, I have to believe there this needs to be balanced with the fact that we know that there are those who belong to Jesus and His Kingdom who are on the earth when He returns.  So, I read this as there will be no more unsaved people from this point forward who will make a decision to follow Jesus, not because He doesn't want them to be saved, but because they will have absolutely no desire to be saved.  They would rather spend eternity in the Lake of Fire than bend their knees to Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  They love their sin far more than they love the one who died to save them from their sins.