Have you ever attempted to read the book of Revelation and found yourself wondering, are these things literally going to happen or are these word pictures? And has some of this occurred already in history or is it all still to come? Or are we in it right now?? We'll address these questions today.
We're currently looking at the cycle of trumpets which is the second judgement cycle out of 3. Today in chapter 9 we'll read about trumpet number 5. Which means I’m splitting up chapter 9 into two episodes. (In the last pod I misspoke and said we'd be looking at trumpets 5-7 in this here episode, but the 7th trumpet doesn't actually sound till mid-chapter-11, so we are just going to look at 5 today and 6 next episode, and go from there).
There are many different views on when believers get removed from the doomsday earth scene - a lot of people hold that belief that right here between the fourth and fifth trumpets, so between chap 8 and chap 9, believers are raptured or somehow taken out of here before trumpet 5 begins. Other well-known Bible scholars and teachers however, don't feel we can clearly see that in the text.
Furthermore, many people who study Revelation see parallels between these next super bad news trumpets and chapter 20 which describes a brief time when Satan is released to wreak havoc. It could be the case that this 5th trumpet in Rev 9 and the event in Rev 20 are two descriptions / iterations of the same event.
Revelation 9:1-12 NIV:
The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. 6 During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
Here it is in the Message Paraphrase:
The fifth Angel trumpeted. I saw a Star plummet from Heaven to earth. The Star was handed a key to the Well of the Abyss. He unlocked the Well of the Abyss—smoke poured out of the Well, billows and billows of smoke, sun and air in blackout from smoke pouring out of the Well.
3-6 Then out of the smoke crawled locusts with the venom of scorpions. They were given their orders: “Don’t hurt the grass, don’t hurt anything green, don’t hurt a single tree—only men and women, and then only those who lack the seal of God on their foreheads.” They were ordered to torture but not kill, torture them for five months, the pain like a scorpion sting. When this happens, people are going to prefer death to torture, look for ways to kill themselves. But they won’t find a way—death will have gone into hiding.
7-11 The locusts looked like horses ready for war. They had gold crowns, human faces, women’s hair, the teeth of lions, and iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was the sound of horse-drawn chariots charging into battle. Their tails were equipped with stings, like scorpion tails. With those tails they were ordered to torture the human race for five months. They had a king over them, the Angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek, Apollyon—“Destroyer.”
12 The first doom is past. Two dooms yet to come.
9:1 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
This star is actually an angel. Astral theology once again - which btw is different than ASTROtheology, a heresy that claims the Bible is simply just a retelling of ancient myths and mystery religions. When I say astral theology i'm definitely not talking about that - I'm talking about the understanding that the Biblical writers held, that God created the heavens in a specific way and they reveal truth about the Lord. There is a common overlay in Biblical texts of stars and spiritual beings. I'll link a video in the show notes if you'd like to hear Michael Heiser comment on Astral Theology.
https://youtu.be/YI2ssCKRl1c?si=xKdSQg6kaZfkbdYx
So who is this particular star/angel that falls and has a key to the abyss?
Everyone's on the same page that this is a spiritual being - the main questions are: is this a good one, or a fallen one? Is this the same fallen star/being as verse 11, named Abaddon? And there's a very similar vision in Rev 20:1 - is this the same being as that?
Reading on this the past couple weeks, I personally felt that David Aune, in his huge 1997 commentary on Revelation, made a compelling suggestion that the angel in Rev 9:1 and 9:11 are two different beings.
Michael Heiser agrees with this and feels that the angel here in verse 1 is a servant of the Lord, and is the same being that will be described in chap 20 which says "And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain." Conversely, the being in 9:11 is a bad guy. And once again, I tend to agree with Heiser.
So while we don't know for sure this holy angel's name, we can see that the angel seems to be serving God directly, and that he/it? possess the key to the shaft of the abyss.
If you must speculate on which holy angel this is, one candidate could be Uriel - the archangel who, in the extra-Biblical book First Enoch, is charged with leadership over Tartarus (which could very likely be the Abyss, where the watchers are held).
What is the shaft of the abyss? or the "well" as Eugene Peterson calls it? It's the access point to the bottomless pit which is a spiritual place full of demons and/or fallen angels. Here in chapter 9 the angelic figure uses the key to unleash horribleness onto the earth; later in chapter 20 the (potentially) same being uses the key to lock satan inside the abyss for a thousand years. Kind of a fun job :)
Opinions vary; Beale thinks this being is a fallen angel, bc it literally says he had fallen down, and elsewhere in scripture that pretty much means an evil fallen angel. So... it's debated. Remember back to last chapter (8) where a great star FELL named Wormwood and made the drinking water poison? That entity and this entity are "falling" at the command of God. So it's possible they are angels that serve God and their job is to usher judgement and consequence. But God has command over every being so, just because a being does what He says at some point in time isn't proof in itself of which kind of angel it is, necessarily.
We see a three-tiered cosmology in this verse - the being leaves heaven, lands on earth, then descends to the underworld.
2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
Once again we see smoke carrying spiritual significance; this time though - it's the bad kind of smoke.
The abyss can be understood as, and is a partial synonym for, Hades (the location, not the being). Many people describe it as the deepest lowest part of Hades, and it's a popularly held belief that hades is for humans (at least partly) and the abyss within it is the horrible holding cell of the fallen angels and demons.
Remember Rev 1:18? Jesus says "I hold the keys of death and hades." So here in chapter 9 it kinda seems like Jesus might have handed this type of key to one of his servants to do this task.
3 And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
Throwback to the 8th plague in Egypt. And also the locust plague in the bk of Joel which likely also modeled after the 8th plague of Egypt.
Here are some excerpts from Joel chapters 1 and 2: "a mighty army without number, it has the teeth of a lion... they have the appearance of horses, they gallop along like calvary..."
Some Bible historians think a literal locust disaster did break out in the middle east in OT times, and other Bible historians think Joel was more likely just talking about the Assyrian and then Babylonian takeovers of the Jewish people.
And that all leads to the question: is this Rev locust attack literally going to happen, or is it a word picture for some sort of spiritual or physical army?? Most people deduce that this is a future spiritual attack of fallen angels and/or demons aimed at those who don't follow Jesus. Some scholars feel that since they're coming from the abyss, these are the watchers (the fallen angels who were supposed to watch over mankind but instead reproduced with humans and created the ancient nephilim on the earth. The abyss / bottomless pit was/is their jail).
That's not to say they couldn't be physical beasts, it certainly seems that these fallen angels have shown up as physical beings before in history. But also - this time they may not be physical.
4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
Weird cause locusts usually harm the grass of the earth - these locusts hit different.
What we're seeing here is John's vision of a supernatural army of evil being released. Michael Heiser says this about it: "The prison is emptied in the abyss for a short time. Ultimately this is going to lead to a showdown. It IS judgement. God uses them to judge the unbeliever on the earth. And it's also going to lead them to the big showdown in Rev 20, which is going to be their ultimate doom."
This demonic locusty army can see who has the seal of God and who doesn't. Maybe that's because something is literally on our physical foreheads at this pt, but maybe it's the fact that these fallen angels can tell who houses the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity Who dwells within believers and who is described throughout scripture as our seal, and our mark.
And as someone who's been involved in deliverance ministry and who has the gift of discerning of spirits, I can definitely tell you that evil spirits do indeed know who has Jesus in their heart and who doesn't. Oh yes.
9:5 They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes.
Someone might ask, has this occurred already in history? or is it still to come?
In 1973 Christian author (and dispensationalist premillennialist) Hal Lyndsay claimed these locusts could be apache helicopters, mapping different parts of John's description of them onto parts of the helicopter.
If you'd like to read a short article on the beliefs of dispensationalist premillennialists, the link will be in the show notes. https://www.gotquestions.org/dispensational-premillennialism.html
People with the preterist view (which means past view) are going to tell you these events (or at least most of them) happened shortly after John predicted them.
People with the historicist view are going to say the trumpet judgements in chapters 8-10 represent the invasions of the Roman Empire by the Vandals, Huns, Saracens, and Turks.
People with the idealist view on Revelation are going to tell you the events described here aren't necessarily tied to any one event but that the spiritual struggle depicted is ongoing.
And people with the futurist view are going to say these events haven't happened yet.
6 During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
John's sounding a lot like an OT prophet here.
7-10 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
There's a description in Job 39 that compares a horse to a locust, so this association was a thing.
Jeremiah 51 talks about locusts as a metaphor for armies, specifically armies that destroy Babylon.
11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
Scholars point out that this character here could be satan himself, if you will; there are some indicators in the Dead Sea Scrolls that that could be the case. But plenty of Bible teachers pose that no, this is someone else besides Satan.
Abaddon is a Hebrew word that means place pf destruction, and then the Greek word Apollyon is basically proper noun - The Destroyer. Remember how Hades is a place also probably an entity? Similar thing going here.
Regular bugs don't usually get described as having a demonic lord over them, so this verse further evidence that this is a demon army not just a bug swarm.
All these horrible beings do have to surrender to God. They want to torment everyone, starting now, and always, but they're not allowed.
So isn't mean of God to let them torment anyone ever? I have three responses to propose - one, God does sometimes deal really strongly with people who oppose Him. There's a lot of love, patience, care, nurturing, and invitation first, but there is also punishment and judgement - we don't fully get it but it's a necessary attribute of God's. Two, we've got to remember that the book of Rev is about judgement on evil and wicked people, like people in the oppressive empire that was martyring Christians as it was written, etc. When you've had severe crimes done against you and your community, it is helpful to know God is going to punish that injustice. And 3), if you had an enemy that wanted to harm you, would it be more kind and merciful to let you see the reality of that for 5 months and then give you more time to come into the protection of God for eternity? Or would you rather live life on earth without understanding the desire of the enemy, that wants to drag you into that level of pain in your entire afterlife.
Story: I had a stalker. It was painful, stressful, creepy, traumatizing to discover him following me and experiencing him almost getting me into a van one night, and then having to move out and couch hop and figure it out. But you know what would have been way worse? God not showing me that reality, and me having no idea, until it was too late. Seeing the truth when evil is out to get you is a kindness. The revelation from God of how evil the kingdom of darkness actually is, so you can renounce it... is His mercy.
12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
Here we see a clear distinction between the first four trumpets and the fifth through seventh trumpets in that John is uniquely calling the fifth through seventh trumpets WOES. Bolstering the assertion of many Bible scholars that these last three trumpets we're looking at are weightier than the former four. Depending who you ask, they could be considered weightier spiritually, or weightier in their level of suffering in the physical world, or both.
So that was the 5th trumpet.