Revelation 9:1-12

Last time, we looked at the first four terrible trumpet judgements of the Day of the Lord when He pours out His wrath on an unrepentant planet that hates Him and all who love and follow Him. We talked about how all judgment is for corrective purposes in an attempt to get the sinner to turn to Christ for mercy and grace. It is hard to imagine that here, but it isn’t any less true. As the trumpets sound, yet another attack is unleashed on the planet that has been turned over to Satan for destruction, it would seem. However, the men and women of Earth will not yield in their stubborn sinfulness. It is as if God is calling them to turn, and like Pharoah, they will not, so the Lord turns up the volume of the judgment to try to get their attention again. Each successive trumpet unleashes a more serious woe and kind of suffering. First, the plants are attacked, and a third are removed. Then shipping lanes are attacked, all the waters rushing around as a result of the impact of a mountain slamming into one of the oceans, and a third of the life in the sea and on the ships die as a result. Then, a kind of star breaks up and poisons a third of the drinking water. Then something blocks out the sun, moon, and stars for a third of the time they are supposed to be visible, taking any semblance of day or night into obscurity. And still, no one will turn at this, and an eagle flies in mid-heaven lamenting the woes being visited on the earth, as it flies, it cries out, Woe, woe, woe! And then it basically says, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” (Apologies to BTO.)

This time, the key to the bottomless pit seems to be given to some description of an angelic being, and he opens the pit and literally unleashes all hell onto the earth. Beloved, this is no joke. As bad as it is on earth at this moment in time, it is about to get worse.

I broke the text down as follows:

KV: Hell – The God-Controlled Release

5: And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.

1-3: The Bottomless Pit Is Opened

4-6: Hell comes to Earth as a Foreshadowing

7-12: The Locust Demons of the Pit

Even though the demons being released are for causing suffering to the unsaved, God is still in ultimate control over these forces that are ultimately hostile to Him. He defines what they can do, even though their king would have them destroy the people who are helpless before them, these beasts are not permitted their destruction of these people. In fact, they are limited in power and with a time limit. Let’s get into this right away; there is a lot here.

KV: Hell – The God-Controlled Release

5: And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.

As usual, the sovereignty of God is on display in the language of Scripture itself. I don’t want to get too far in front of myself, but verse 1 says that the key to the bottomless pit [φρέατος τῆς ἀβύσσου, phreatos tēs abussou] was given to the “star” [ἀστέρα] that fell to Earth. Doesn’t this make you ask, “Who gave it to him?” It does for me. Well, the one with the keys to hell and death is already known to us: our Lord Jesus Christ. It says at the beginning of this book, “…and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” (Rev. 1:18) Our Lord gave him the keys, so to speak. Even after all this time, the Devil is still God’s Devil. Neither he nor his servants can do anything without the permission of God, and that is something we will see throughout the text tonight.

In fact, our key verse this evening talks about how these special creatures were limited. They were not permitted to cause death; they were only able to torture. To me, it is like God is giving mankind a small taste of hell so they can see what they are in for if they do not turn away from their wickedness and toward the one who is able to save them if they will only ask. Many will. Most will not, and by this time, there should be a gearing up for a mark of loyalty to be worn on the forehead or right hand if it has not arrived already. We will say more on this topic when we get to that section of the text. Let’s get into it and see what the Lord has to say about this.

1-3: The Bottomless Pit Is Opened

I cannot overstate the terrible thing that is happening here. This is actual Hell, the geographic (spatial dimensional?) location. Some place this at CERN these days, like Josh Peck, and can explain the quantum physics involved (I understand the theory but am not good with the math). Whether they are right or wrong, there is a location in the universe and all of its dimensions that this is located, and this scripture tells us that it is on the earth. It is the unwanted and unwilling home of all the demons (who I think are the spirits of the Nephilim from Genesis 6) and devils (the fallen angels that followed Lucifer and paid for it) that God has confined for punishment. When it is opened, it has DIRE consequences for men and women anywhere on earth unless they have the seal of the living God on their forehead. Let’s take a look at it. There is a lot here, so I will try to give an overview and touch on the important details.

1: Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.

The first thing to notice here is that this happens only after the fifth angel sounds the trumpet he was given. As a reminder, these are the “presence” angels whose job until now is to stand continually in the presence of Almighty God and do what He tells them. We have previously spoken about how Gabriel may be one of their number, and we even made a traditional connection between Gabriel and trumpets in general. This angel, in my opinion, is not Gabriel, but hey, that’s just conjecture. My point here is that it is God who has authorized and caused this as a judgment for all of the rebellious sin by humans who will not turn toward God.
Another star has fallen to earth, and this is past tense, so that star is already here, but there is something about this star. The Greek word ἀστέρα [astera] is used, but I think it is used metaphorically as a symbol of its position as a light in the heavens. You see, the next phrase says in English, “…and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.” As far as I know, the giant flaming gas balls we call stars are not gendered. This individual is, and HE is MALE. Who is this?
The point that he has already fallen and is already here should not be missed. There is only one who in Scripture is identified by the Lord Jesus with that title. Jesus said it in Luke 10:18, “And He said to them, ‘I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.'” This is his first fall; there is another coming, and we will read more about that in this book when we get there. He fell from living in heaven and benefitting from it. Next time, he will lose complete access for himself and all of his minions. That is the name of this great “light from the heavens.”
And the key to the bottomless pit was given to him. Wait…he is given the key? Who has the key to give him in the first place? Rev. 1:17b-18 tells us, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” The Lord God, Yahweh Yeshuah Himself, gives him the key. If you are a follower of Jesus and know He is God the Son, you know this is a part of a greater plan because He has already told you of it, even if you don’t understand all of it. But yes, that key to the door of Hell itself was given to him by God, probably from hand to hand. That spells trouble for all on Earth.

2: He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.

And that’s why it is trouble to the Earth of that day. This individual, Satan himself, is going to open the pit and unleash Hell on Earth, and he does it right here. How else can you take the phrase, “He opened the bottomless pit…”?
As if to emphasize to the already mortally stricken earth that this is very bad, smoke comes up out of the pit when the door is opened. Smoke like from a great furnace, it says. That’s thick, black, smelly smoke that will possibly incapacitate you if you breathe it long enough. I used to be a volunteer firefighter. I’ve been in burning buildings. I even knew the building, and I still got a bit lost because I literally could not see my hand in front of my face. At the firefighting school in Thunder Bay, they actually made us check as a part of exposing us to the experience so we would know what to expect. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d already been in more than one. It wasn’t the point anyway. We had to wear Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus because the smoke itself could render us incapable of anything in just a moment. That only gives about 20 minutes of air, and that goes really fast, but I digress.
This rising smoke further obscures the sun and darkens the air, which I take to mean makes it harder to see. If you’ve ever been in proximity to a forest fire, you get this. The smoke limits visibility. The closer you get to the fire, the more your visibility is limited. Remember, a third of the sun, moon, and stars have already been obscured, I think, by something orbital or super-orbital to the Earth. This will not help things on the ground at all. And it gets worse, because to use the old title of a Ray Bradbury novel, something wicked this way comes.

3: Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

Out of the smoke come terrible creatures that the Scriptures here call “locusts.” Locusts are essentially starving grasshoppers on steroids! The problem is that this is apocryphal language, I suspect. These creatures are only like locusts in that they swarm. The next thought unit describes them in some detail, and we are going to look at that in detail. The rest of this verse tells us that power [ἐξουσία, exousia] is given to them. The Greek word used here usually indicates authority in the sense of permission, or in the sense of freedom to act, which are related concepts. It further defines this exousia as the same as a scorpion of the earth. That doesn’t bode well for the people of the planet at that time. Scorpions are one of the most feared predatory arachnids on the planet. Most scorpions are not a serious threat to humans, but there are 25 or so species that have venom that is toxic and powerful enough to kill humans if medical assistance isn’t readily available, hence the fear factor. However, we are about to see these are NOT scorpions. These are something else, something worse, which have special authority and permission. More on that later.

These demonic beings are what I believe to be the Nephilim from Genesis 6. With respect to some of my Bible College instructors, I do not hold the Line of Seth theory. The sons of Seth did not “hook up” with the “hoochie mamas” from the line of Cain to create this hybrid race of giants. I will quote Peter: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.” Peter does not mention Cain or Seth. He mentions the “angels when they sinned.” Angels are also, as it turns out, capable of making moral choices. What sin did they commit? Jude tells us: “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day…” (Jude v.6). Did not keep their domain is a phrase that means they broke a barrier to perform the action. In this case, that action is described in Genesis 6:1-2, which says, “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.” The barrier is familiar to biologists (of which I am one) as the species barrier. Angels had the know-how to alter themselves in such a way as to make offspring with human females. They would have been really good looking to the women and have this seductive air that these demons in tonight’s text display. The women would have wanted to have families with them. Why would the fathers allow this? I suspect it was because their future sons-in-law would have traded their knowledge of how things happen or are done to bring wealth to the fathers of the girls. Then, when children began to be born, the children became the old “men of renown.” Maybe Heracles was such a one. It makes some sense, at least to me. At a certain point, these hybrids would have flooded the human gene pool and corrupted the race from anyone being human anymore. Because of this, God drowned the entire race except for eight people who this had not happened to yet, those being Noah, his three sons, and all their wives.

The other example Peter uses is Sodom and Gomorrah. There, men were obsessed with homosexual pleasure. They went after the angels that were staying with Lot because they thought it would be really hot to be with an angel, or at least that’s what the text says. Although they had a different point, if homosexual sex became the norm, the race would fail because no children result from male-on-ale action, regardless of what the morons on healthcare will tell you. Again, remember I am by education a biologist. I know how this stuff works! To be born, children require a mother and a father. Two dads will not do the job, nor will two moms in humans. You need one of each to fulfil the command of God to be fruitful and multiply if that is God’s plan for you. So God hit them with a meteorite and made it rain sulphur pellets. Some of these have been discovered in the mud around the location of where Sodom was, and they can still be lit on fire, and they still burn! I saw a video of this in a documentary on Tubi, I think. The angels survived and rescued Lot and his two daughters. There is a corresponding reference in Jude for this as well, and it is Jude v.7, in case you want to fact-check me.

The point here is that these angels sinned by breaking the regulation that God Himself put in place to try to mess up the seed of the woman who would ultimately be born and bruise the head of the serpent, metaphorically Satan (or maybe physically) in Genesis 3. Peter ends this with a call to live your life by walking with Christ in holiness, because the opposite of that is indulging your flesh in corrupt desire and despising proper authority. If you will not turn to Christ and walk in a way that is pleasing to Him, you are proving you are one of those who will not turn to Him. Don’t be in that crowd. Turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Moving on.

4-6: Hell comes to Earth as a Foreshadowing

I said earlier that God always warns humanity away from sin. In the world at present, God warns about the consequences of continuing in sinful behaviour and has provided the means to escape slavery to sin in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself became human for the single purpose of atoning for the sins of any who will turn to Him. Then He sends those of us who have turned away from our sin and to Him out into the world to spread that message and help people turn from their sin. I should say that it doesn’t always end well for us either. It certainly didn’t for Paul, or Peter, or Polycarp, or any of the early martyrs, who for the most part, died cruelly at the hands of Roman and/or Jewish persecutors. So here is the Lord, who still loves mankind and wants them to turn, reaching this increment. It is like He is saying, “Fine. You won’t fear me and listen about how you will end in hell if you won’t turn to me? Then you can experience a taste of hell for a little while.” As we go through the text, you’ll see what I am saying.

4: They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

First, we can say this shows that these are not normal locusts. Locusts would strip every green thing away, and there are still two-thirds of that left. In doing so, they would end all life on earth by killing and eating oxygen-producing plants. Instead, they are told they can only harm humans. In fact, they can only harm humans that are not marked by the living God with His seal. Only believers will get that seal, beloved, even if it cannot be seen. And these creatures WILL know and be able to see. These are not normal locusts. It is their job to only cause harm to unbelievers. Here is a question. Don’t answer out loud, but who will suffer in hell for eternity? Hold your answers.

5: And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.

They are not permitted to kill anyone! They can only make them suffer! It’s like that old song Bob Dylan wrote for the 1979 album Slow Train Comin’. In the song “Precious Angel,” the lyrics say, “Can they imagine the darkness that will fall from on high // When men will beg God to kill them and they won’t be able to die?” I think he had this passage of Scripture in mind at the time. Here is another question. What can’t people in Hell do? Well, they cannot die. There will be a moratorium on suicide, as Dr. John MacArthur has said. It doesn’t mean people will not try; it means they won’t succeed, and that might make things a whole lot worse.
This will be limited to five months. Real suffering in Hell will never end. (I know, that’s what makes it so serious. It also should give the believer great Joy because their destiny is not in Hell.) It is like the Lord, in His mercy, is giving them a taste of the coming eternal suffering if they will not turn. Will it work? I think that those who are supposed to will turn away. Notice there is no mention yet of a loyalty mark. That is coming later, so let us not go there yet. This is on people who do not have God’s loyalty mark, unbelievers.
It is like when a scorpion stings a man. I looked up what that can do to a person, and it seems that pain, swelling, bleeding, and abnormal sensations (also painful) are a result, and the pain is instantaneous and extreme. People have been known to go mad from the pain that such a sting causes. It may drive them to try to end themselves. I suppose it is a good thing there is that moratorium on suicides by the Divine.
You may also notice that these creatures cannot exceed their divinely set limits. They may be demons, but ultimately, they will do the Lord’s will and not their King’s, which we will speak more of momentarily.

6: And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.

Shades of Bob Dylan’s Precious Angel. Can you imagine the kind of pain that will cause a person to try to make the pain stop at any cost? I don’t have to. There have been occasions when I have felt that kind of pain. I’m not saying anyone should, but I can remember a time I begged my wife to end me. Thankfully, she loved me and did not. That end of pain is an illusion, anyway. And at this time, they will seek death. I think this means they will try to die by their own hand. They will long for it so that the pain will stop. But they will not die in the attempt. I cannot imagine that this will end well either. First, it will cause even more pain and suffering to the individual. Second, what happens at the end of the five months? Will their solution become a more permanent one? It does not say, and thankfully, we will not have to find out.

Do you see what I’m saying? God is giving people a taste of what suffering in Hell will be like in His mercy and to cause those to turn who will turn to Him for the solution to their pain and not the Antichrist, who at some point will claim to be the provider of the solutions to all your problems. It’s a lie, but because he is the father of lies, this is no real surprise. What we do know is that at that time, suffering will be beyond anything we humans will have ever experienced. Thank God it has an end to it. Turn from that to Christ, who has the real solutions, not some self-help garbage that won’t work long-term. Let’s move on.

7-12: The Locust Demons of the Pit

This section gets into a more detailed description of the pit locusts themselves. I consider them to be demonic beings, but interpretations may vary on this. I heard one fellow claim this was an AD 95 description of a helicopter fleet. I doubt this, but it’s a theory out there, so I mention it. Let’s see what we can see and take conclusions from what we know the text says before drawing any conclusions.

7: The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.

When I was about seven years old and reading this for the first time for myself, I pictured grasshoppers that turned into horses. Now, I suggest that this is an AD 95 way of saying that they could align in an orderly manner into ranks and rows and make maneuvers in that formation. They may all have the same markings and coloration as well. Here is where we can know that these are NOT actual locusts. They all have crowns. The Greek here is the word στέφανοι [stephanoi]; this is what the victor in the games would wear. All of these beasts were some kind of warrior, all of them had won in battle at some point.
Their faces were like the faces of men. I don’t know if that means that each locust demon had a nose and eyes and eyebrows, like that. I think it was meant to show that these are intelligent creatures, perhaps more intelligent than humans (although that isn’t a very high bar at the moment).

8: They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions.

Hair like the hair of women indicates that they may have a beauty about them, perhaps an attractiveness, or maybe a better term is seductiveness about them. They might be attractive to people. However, their teeth are like the teeth of lions. This indicates a viciousness to them, a predatory nature that seems animal in nature and will give no quarter.

9: They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle.

Breastplates of iron suggest that these are invulnerable soldiers to men. In the day this was written, the best weapons and armour were made with iron. Common weapons couldn’t even pierce them or even scratch them. And then, it talks about the sound of their wings. (This is probably why some interpreter somewhere in the 20th century likened them to a helicopter.). They made sounds like the sound of chariots. Galloping horses pulling a chariot would be filled with the sound of horses pounding their hooves and the wheels of the chariot on the sand. The Chariot was a platform for mobile ranged weapons, but that isn’t important. What is important is that these horses rushed to battle. Not only was there no fear, but almost an eagerness to fight against the Lord and against His Anointed.

10: They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.

This is the demonic power of these demons that we described previously.

11: They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.

THIS is the place where we find out that these are not ordinary locusts for sure. Proverbs 30:27 says, “The locusts have no king, Yet all of them go out in ranks…” These locusts have a king, and he is even identified here. He is the “angel” of the abyss. He is even given a name: Abbadon in Hebrew, which means destruction. His name in Greek is Apollyon, which means “the destroyer.” This fallen angel is the king of the locusts here. Is this Lucifer himself? I think so, but if you don’t, that’s okay, it isn’t precisely clear.
Whoever this is, the denizens of these depths follow his commands. It will be his joy to set them upon humanity for any damage that can be done to them because he hates humanity. Why? I suspect it is because we are to eventually be given rule over the angels, and that would displace him from the position that he wanted – that is, until he decided he wanted to be god above the real God. If this is who I think it is, everything he does is calculated to bring about an end to humanity, an end to God, and an end to all authority but his own.

12: The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.

There is a built-in time limit to this woe because it exposes living humans to about as much suffering as humans can take, at least in my opinion. Because sinners will not turn from their sinful ways, God will show them what it means to suffer in hell for five months. The problem is that this does not end the woes; there are still two to come, and according to this theory that I have of incremental increases to cause man to turn to God and be saved from all this, they will be even worse.

People who are alive at the time described in our text this evening have no idea of what is coming, and most do not want to know about this. That is a real tragedy because it is possible to avoid the whole nasty set of events that is coming on the sinful people of Earth right now. What you need to deal with is your sin.

To deal with your sin, you must first recognize that you are a slave to your own sin, or some would say sin nature. I tend to use those terms interchangeably. If you don’t believe that, pick a behaviour that you enjoy that is sinful and see if you want to stop it. I don’t think you will want to because you enjoy it at some level, even if you know it is killing you. What you have to understand is that you are already dead in spirit, and your sentence for your crimes of sin in the face of a holy and righteous God has already been passed. But if you will trust that Christ died the death that you should have died when He died on that Roman cross in your place, and if you will believe that after that, God raised Him from the dead (the proof that He paid for your sins), then you shall be saved, and that’s what it means to repent and believe. Do that, and you can escape all of this coming wrath of God and of the Lamb.

That’s what I saw in the text this time. Next time, we will look at the sixth trumpet judgement, or 9:13-21.