Revelation 9:1-2, “Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. When he opened it, smoke poured out as though from a huge furnace, and the sunlight and air were darkened by the smoke.”
This star fallen from the earth to the sky is not identifiable in any of the commentaries that I read. Some have said it is Satan on the basis of Isaiah 14:12 and others have said it was Uriel and archangel on the basis of 1st Enoch 19:1;20:2 we are told that Uriel is the archangel of the abyss, but more than likely it was not a celestial matter, but an angelic being (Job 38:7). The reason why it cannot be a reference to Satan is because Satan will not be thrown down to earth until Chapter 12 of Revelation, only then will he have no access to God’s immediate presence where he goes to accuse the brethren as he did with Job in Job 1. So it has to be the fifth trumpet angel the same angel who in 20:1 of Revelation comes down out of heaven with the key to the Abyss.
Abusos (bottomless) appears seven times in Revelation always in reference to the abode of incarcerated demons (9:2,11;11:7;17:8). Satan himself will be held their during the Millennial reign of Christ chained and locked up with the other demonic prisoners (20:1,3) God is soveringly chosen to place demons in the pit for the purpose of punishment. This is why those demons who wished to cry out to Christ in Luke 8:31were in fear of the evils spirits lest they be sent to the pit. So we see here the purpose of this. Our deepest and worse nightmares will be revealed on this day when the darkness will come up from the pit. We don’t have much information as to what the pit might look like other than the creatures that come from this pit as we will examine here briefly before we close. Smoke in Revelation may refer to holy thing (8:4;15:8), but is most often associated with judgment (9:17-18;14:11;18:9,18;19:3; Genesis 19:28;Isa 34:10;Joel 2:30; Nah 2:13).
Revelation 9:3-6, “Then locusts came from the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power to sting like scorpions. They were told not to hurt the grass or plants or trees but to attack all the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were told not to kill them but to torture them for five months with agony like the pain of scorpion stings. In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee away!”
And our greatest fears now become a reality. With the unleashing of this spirit being comes one of the great horrors in the entire Bible, not to mention one of the hardest pieces to even comment on. Here we see the mission of the locusts to not hurt those with the seal of God which goes back to Revelation 7:2. The destructive power of locusts is mentioned throughout the Bible (Deut 28:38; 2nd Chron 7:13; Psalm 105:35; Joel 2:25; Nah 3:15). There are of course similarities between what happened in Egypt with the stubbornness of Pharaoh and the stubbornness of the people here above and today who refuse to repent get down upon bended knee and accept Christ. The mission of the locusts in Egypt was to expose Pharaoh’s great pride and that is the purpose that Lamb of God the Messiah is now using here to show the world that He alone is the only One who is the God in heaven. This description of their mission is much more in depth than Joel 1:1-7 and 2:2:1-5 gives us.
A great description of what locusts are is given by Raymond Dillard, in his commentary on Joel gives the following information about locust plagues:
“In our generation areas having the potential for a locust outbreak are monitored by international agencies using satellite reconnaissance and other technology; incipient swarms are met by aircraft and trucks carrying powerful pesticides. However, if the locusts are not destroyed or contained shortly after the hatch, once the swarm has formed, control efforts are minimally effective even today. For example, in 1988 the civil war in Chad prevented international cooperation in attacking the hatch, and a destructive swarm spread throughout North Africa devastating some of the poorest nations and threatening Europe as well. It is difficult for modern Western people to appreciate the dire threat represented by a locust plague in earlier periods. Such outbreaks had serious consequences for the health and mortality of an affected population and for a region’s economy. Scarcity of food resulting from the swarm’s attack would bring the population to subsistence intake or less, would make the spread of disease among a weakened populace easier, would eliminate any trade from surplus food products, and would stimulate high inflation in the costs of food products. Disease outbreaks are further aggravated when swarms die; the putrefaction of the millions of locust bodies breeds typhus and other diseases that spread to humans and animals (see the description in Augustine’s City of God 3.31). Baron (Desert Locust, pp. 3-7) catalogues many locust outbreaks known to have been accompanied by outbreaks of pestilence.
It was only in 1921 that the mystery of the locust was solved. Prior to this date researchers wondered what became of the locust during the years in which there were no outbreaks. In 1921 B. P. Uvarov demonstrated that the swarming locust was none other than an ordinary species of grasshopper. However, when moisture and temperature conditions favored a large hatch, the crowding, unceasing contact, and jostling of the nymphs begin to stimulate changes in coloration, physiology, metabolism, and behavior, so that the grasshopper nymphs make the transition from solitary behavior to the swarming gregarious and migratory phases of the dreaded plague. Plagues continue as long as climatic conditions favor the large hatches. Once entering their gregarious phase, swarms, of locusts can migrate great distances and have even been observed twelve hundred miles at sea. The swarms can reach great sizes: a swarm across the Red Sea in 1889 was estimated to cover two thousand square miles. A swarm is estimated to contain up to 120 million insects per mile Baro Desert Locust, (Raymond Dillard, The Minor Prophets, “Joel,” p. 255-56).”
Torment describes punishment through in Revelation (11:10;14:10-11, 18::7, 10:14;20:10) This five month period is best seen as the last hurray for those who wish to either repent or not. God will soveringly harden people’s hearts after this period and they will be permanently hardened in their unbelief (9:2-21;15:9,11). Men and woman will seek death but they will not find it meaning they will have all hope of anything in this life. All there material possessions and strength will be shown for what it is truly nothing. As Solomon the great King of Israel said in Ecclesiastes 3 there is a time for everything and with God there is no differential between the time we use and the time we abuse. God gives us time to do what He purposes for us to preach His Word and bring healing and unity to His Body through loving one another as He purposed. Yet the reality is that many of us harbor these feelings of hate and bitterness and bring destruction upon us and not peace.
Revelation 9:7-10, “The locusts looked like horses armed for battle. They had gold crowns on their heads, and they had human faces. Their hair was long like the hair of a woman, and their teeth were like the teeth of a lion. They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle. They had tails that stung like scorpions, with power to torture people. This power was given to them for five months.”
John here switches from talking about the mission of these demon locusts from the pit of the Abyss now to what they locusts look like. The are described as locusts because they bring massive, devastating rapid judgment from God (Exodus 10:4-5, 12-14; Deut 28:38; 1 Kings 8:37; 2nd Chron 7:13; Psalm 78:46; 105:34; Joel 2:1; Amos 7:1) but the reality is that the features that are used here give away their true nature.
That they appeared like horses armed for battle shows that they were very powerful and eager to destroy, which brings images of Joel which describes a locust plague in similar terms. The crowns they were wearing were called stephanoi, the victors’s crowns, indicating that they demon host will be invincible, unstoppable and all-conquering. There will be no weapon to harm them and no cure to make them go away for they have a mission from the Almighty God the Lamb who sits upon the throne to put mankind in such a situation that they will be forced to make a decision either for accepting Christ and not accepting Christ. And the reality is that while mankind may not like to be forced into any situation in the name of tolerance and indecision the reality is that mankind will have to choose whom they will ultimately serve, themselves or the Creator, the passions of the flesh or the passions of God? Which one’s are you serving today? Are you serving your own passions and desires or God’s will?
The locusts are described as having the faces of men indicating that they were intelligent rational beings not actual insects. With the description of their hair being like the hair of woman emphasizes their deceitfulness and cunning for the glory of a woman is her hair which she may decorate to become more alluring. They will have teeth of lions (Joel 1:6) to rip apart their victims from limb to skinny limb. Armor made of iron describes that they were designed to protect the vital organs and preserve the life of the solider here symbolizing the demon horde’s invulnerability; they will be impossible then to resist or destroy, which John alludes to further by describing their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle.
They had tails that stung like scorpions, with power to torture people. This power was given to them for five months which describes not only the length of this horrible ordeal but the power that their stings will have. They stung like scorpions stresses the desire of them the full scale demonic nature of the attack. The maniacs of Gadara were so tormented by demons that they were insane, living in tombs (Matthew 8:28). All about Galilee Jesus encountered tormented demoniacs (Matthew 4:23-24). A centurion’s servant was tormented with paralysis (Matthew 8:6). A demon-possessed boy kept throwing himself into the fires and water in acts of self-destruction (Mark 9:20). These are but a few of the physical and emotional torments that a demon can inflict. That not only the power but the length of the torment is described stresses not only God’s sovereign ability to protect His people but that He can also end the assault and send the demons back to where they came from and also further into the lake of fire (20:1-3;10).
Revelation 9:11, “Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon--the Destroyer.”
This angel is neither Uriel nor the other angel which we examined in vs.1.Abaddon in the Hebrew refers to destruction (Job 31:12) or the place of destruction (Proverbs 15:11; 27:20; Job 28:22; Psalm 88:11). Some would wish to identify this demon as Satan but Satan’s domain is still in the heavenlies until the close of Revelation 12 and until Satan is cast into the abyss itself in 20:1-3. This demon leader is best seen as a high ranking demon in Satan’s hierarchy. Apollyon comes from the Greek verb apollumi which means I destroy. These terms identify the leader of the demonic forces of the abyss death squad.
Revelation 9:12, “The first terror is past, but look, two more terrors are coming!”
Two more Woe’s are coming still the sixth and the seventh trumpet judgments. God has still not finished pouring out His wrath. If you haven’t come into a relationship with Christ, confessed your sin and your salvation which is only by grace through faith then I urge you today for there is no greater time than now to turn from your wickedness and come into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe upon the name of the Lord and call out to Him. That more is coming after this gives some semblance of a break but the reality is that for those who wish to not repent there is no time left other than the time that is giving. So choose today whether you wish to suffer in the pit of the Abyss or in the glories of heaven, because either way it’s your decision to make.
God bless,
Pastor David
