Wednesday Bible Study: The trumpets, continued...

 

I stopped for an "explanation week" last week because there is a reason the angel warned the earth about what was coming next- well, actually, two reasons.  First, even in judgment, God has left avenues of mercy available for these people- most of which are doing this:

Rev 6:16  calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 

Rev 6:17  for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" 

But another of those avenues is about to close, as the judgments shift from "ones that might possibly have a natural (i.e. non-supernatural) explanation" to "ones that can't possibly be happening".  Let's look at the first of those...

Rev 9:1  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. 

Rev 9:2  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. 

Rev 9:3  Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 

Rev 9:4  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. 

Rev 9:5  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. 

Rev 9:6  And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. 

Piecing this out, the first thing you need to see is that v1 doesn't say,  'like a star', or 'a falling star', but very specifically, "a star fallen".  If you know your Bible (or have access to John McArthur's teaching), you know what- rather who- this means.  For those who don't...

Isa 14:12  Oh shining star, son of the morning, how you have fallen from the heavens! You weakening the nations, you are cut down to the ground. 

Isa 14:13  For you have said In your heart, I will go up to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit in the mount of meeting, in the sides of the north. 

Isa 14:14  I will rise over the heights of the clouds; I will be compared to the Most High. 

Isa 14:15  Yet you shall go down to Sheol, to the sides of the Pit.  (LITV)

Lucifer Morningstar- Satan- already fallen to earth, is given the key to the bottomless pit.  What be this, you ask?

Jud 1:6  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-- 

Angels that did not keep their place- the same "sons of God" who polluted the earth in Genesis 6 and had their bodies destroyed in the Flood.  But they aren't quite angels anymore- they were locusts- or locust-formed demons- or demon possessed locusts.  Only these weren't here to eat plants, as the locusts of old- but only sting them, make them wish they were dead- how like the trial Satan inflicted on Job!  So what are they?  I don't know.  When I first read the description that follows- 

Rev 9:7  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, 

Rev 9:8  their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 

Rev 9:9  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. 

Rev 9:10  They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. 

I said to myself, years ago- "They sound like attack helicopters!"  Later on, I kind of wondered if this wasn't a drone attack.  But here's how you know I was wrong-

 "They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them..."

Five months is the lifespan of a locust.  These are locusts possessed by the children of the Genesis 6 angels.  And there is yet another layer to this...

Rev 9:11  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. 

In both languages, this means destroyer or destruction.  If these are indeed what became of the watchers and their children, then he had another name once- Azazel:

And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening 5 in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may 6,7 not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the 8 Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted 9 through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.'

- 1 Enoch chapter 10

Just food for thought- we need to be careful with extrabiblical sources, even those quoted by the Apostles in later days.  But here's a thought:  These angels had to take on flesh bodies to have intercourse with the daughters of men as it says in Genesis 6.  Those bodies were destroyed in the Flood; but Pastor Jack Hibbs (among others) teaches that their spirits survived as demons, without bodies of their own- they had to possess someone to act.  Let's flash back to something that happened between Jesus and the group of demons named Legion:

Luk 8:30  Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Legion," for many demons had entered him. 

Luk 8:31  And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 

Luk 8:32  Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 

Luk 8:33  Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. 

So, the abyss- the bottomless pit- they feared.   They had to go somewhere from the man- they went to the pigs.  And the pigs rid themselves of them by drowning in the WATER.  The same water that destroyed their bodies so long ago.  Jesus gives another confirmation of this in another passage, sort of..

Mat 12:43  When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. 

Dry places- why would a demon go to dry places?- because it fears water.  Thus, it would seem that what comes from the Bottomless pit are Watchers and their kin, needing insect bodies to sustain themselves, with a limit set on their demoniac power- just, again, as God set a limit on Satan's power over Job- and when the insect bodies, transformed by the demons, reach their natural end, they die, the demons presumably return to the bottomless pit, and that threat ends.  And we hear:

Rev 9:12  The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.