The wrath of God is carefully measured out as demons are given power to torment but not kill unbelievers, giving them time to repent while Christ shields believers.
Wes
This is episode 11 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast entitled: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets, Satan and His Demons Devastate the Earth where we’ll discuss Revelation 9:1-21. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Okay, so the Book of Revelation gives us depictions of things that we cannot see with our physical eyes right now, under two great headings. One is the revelation of Jesus Christ, his infinite majesty and greatness in ways that we cannot see him any other way than in the Book of Revelation. And the second is the revelation of the future, where are we heading? And it’s going to be toward terrible judgements that are going to come on planet Earth. And it’s a series of three sevens that we’ve seen. First, the breaking open of the seven seals that was on the scroll that was handed to Jesus by the Father. And he breaks open the seven seals.
in Revelation 9, we see Satan unleashing demonic…direct, demonic assaults on the human race in ways that we can scarcely imagine
And then you have the seven trumpets. And we’re in the midst of that now in Revelation 8 and 9. And we saw in Revelation 8 the devastation of the first four trumpets, which is ecological. Terrible things happening on planet earth and also in the cosmos. All inanimate, but natural disasters and judgments that are coming. But now in Revelation 9, we see Satan unleashing demonic…direct, demonic assaults on the human race in ways that we can scarcely imagine, which stretches language almost to the breaking point. To the point we try to understand what it would be like to have the demons unleashed, so to speak. When we say unleashed, meaning their tethers have been greatly loosened. They’re still controlled in this chapter, we see God still sovereignly controlling, but the level of suffering described here is almost immeasurable. So, we’re going to walk through that today.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read Revelation 9:1-21.
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. 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. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 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. 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.
And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. 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, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lion’s teeth; 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. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abbadon, and in Greek, he is called Apollyon. The first woe has passed; behold two woes are still to come.
Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 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. The number of mounted troops was twice 10,000 times 10,000; I heard their number. 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 lion’s heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 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. 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.
Andy, what does John see after the fifth trumpet sounds and what does this represent in verse 1?
Andy
All right, so the fifth trumpet. Fifth angel sounds his trumpet, and he sees a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. And the star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. And when he opens the abyss, we’ve got this billowing smoke coming up out of the abyss. And we’re going to talk about all this, but I just want to make this statement here at the beginning the way I introduced this sermon when I preached it. It’s easy for us looking at all the suffering and grief and misery on earth to wonder why are things as bad as they are? And they are bad. We look at so many current events, natural disasters, wars, rumors or wars, we look at crimes, all of that. And then just diseases and sufferings, and things are very devastating. But the more you understand Satan and demons and their power and the type of relentless malevolence they have toward every single human being created in the image of God, they have no favorites, they hate us all.
You really have to begin to wonder why are things as good as they are on earth? Why is it the fact that the average day for the average person involves a lot of blessings? The average day for the average person involves sunrises and sunsets and crops that succeed and family life and spouses that love them, and kids that love them, and festivals and celebrations. I’m talking all around the world, all different kinds of religions, atheists, et cetera, experience what we call common grace blessings day after day. And Jesus says that we should love our enemies the way the Father loves his enemies, causing his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. These common grace blessings, however, could never be enjoyed at all if demons were just completely unleashed to do what they want to do to human beings, even to non-Christians.
So amazingly, I think the implication of Revelation 9, for me, is that God is majorly restraining demonic force on earth enabling all people to enjoy his blessings. And this shows the patience of God and the tolerance leading people to repent and to see his goodness. So, I think that’s a whole different way of looking at life, and we can see it through the darkness of this chapter 9, when the Lord allows Satan to unleash demonic misery in ways that has never been seen before on planet earth. So, let’s walk through the testimony of Jesus. He sees a star after the fifth angel sounds his trumpet. That triggers, okay, it’s time for that now. The star that had fallen from the sky to the earth is given a key. So, the star is a sentient being, almost certainly an angel. And we know this because in the Book of Job it likens stars to angels or angels to stars.
It says that God created or laid the foundation of the earth while all the morning stars sang for joy, and that’s clearly angels. And so, the ultimate fallen star is Satan. And Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Revelation 12 will depict the battle I think that happened before the earth began between the good angels and the elect angels so to speak. And the fallen angels, the demons, and Satan and his demons lost and were cast to the earth. Who again, in Isaiah 14:12, it says, concerning Lucifer, Satan, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn.” Or Jesus says openly in Luke’s gospel, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). So, I think all that points toward this being Satan. And it says later in this same chapter, “They had as king over them, the destroyer, Abaddon and Apollyon.” That’s Satan, there’s no doubt about it.
So, Satan is their king, and he is given a key. And so, the idea is that God gives him permission to unlock the abyss. Now, the abyss, we learn in other scriptures, in Luke 8:31, for example. The demoniac of the Gadarenes there, Legion of demons, so to speak, is terrified that Jesus is going to order them to go into the abyss. So, the abyss there, and also, I believe Tartarus, the pit, in 2 Peter 2:4 represents a place of punishment for demons. Particularly bad demons, so to speak, we can even use that language, that are chained or restrained and tortured even by God waiting for the final judgment. And so, they’re in this pit, they’re in like a, you can imagine, a maximum-security prison. And now what happens? Satan is given the key to unlock them.
Think about what that would be like. Think if you lived in a town with a maximum-security prison where some of the worst human beings on earth were incarcerated. And you found out suddenly that the prison doors had flown open, and the inmates were roaming the streets, where would you go? Where could you hide? You would get out of there as soon as you could. You wouldn’t even go for any of your possessions. You would get your family in your car, and you would drive as far as you could from that town. Well, this is all over the earth. And so, Satan unlocks the abyss, the pit, and billowing smoke comes up out of it. And I think as we keep reading, we find out they’re demons. And they’re unleashed to bring judgment on the earth.
Wes
So, after Satan unlocks this abyss with the key, we see this great cloud of smoke blocking the sunlight. How does it represent the effect of demonic evil in the world, especially at this point in the book of Revelation?
Andy
Yeah, again, we have to ask big picture, why is God allowing Satan to do this? And I think part of it is through Adam at the Garden of Eden and with the serpent we made an alliance with the devil and with the demons, not understanding what we’re getting into. And not understanding how wicked and evil they are. To some degree, this is God giving the human race over to our masters, the ones that we wanted to rule over us. And they are terrifying and they’re awful. So, the billowing smoke blocking the sun, just in general, God is light and in him there’s no darkness at all. Satan then is the prince of darkness. And so, when they billow out, they block the beauty and the warmth and the life-giving light that comes from the sun, metaphorically. And they might actually even physically block it as well. So, the idea here is it’s a time of darkness, a terrible time on planet Earth.
Wes
Now who are the locusts that we’re introduced to and how are they described in verse 3 here in chapter 9?
Andy
Well, they’re unusual locusts in that they seem to have no interest at all in green things, green growing things. So, our minds should go back to the Book of Joel, and Joel 2 talks about an invasion of locusts that I think are literal locusts. There is some question in the Book of Joel, whether locusts also represent an invading Gentile army that comes to destroy Israel for their sins, but whether it’s a physical army or it’s just simply locusts. In Joel 2, the locusts are grasshoppers that go where they want to go. You cannot stop them because there’s millions of them. And they crawl up the walls, and they go through the windows, and they go everywhere. And they are after every green growing thing, and they eat it until it’s gone. And that, within a short amount of time, will bring death to the humans, too, because we depend on green growing things to live.
And so that locust plague there in Joel 2 is kind of thought of here. It’s amazing, the Old Testament illusions and references in the Book of Revelation. It’s super saturated with Old Testament images, and this is a plague of locusts. But these are not normal locusts, so I think it’s a metaphor. Again, I think these are demons. And they are not going after the green grass, they’re told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but they only go after human beings. And they don’t go after everybody. They go after every non-Christian. They go after human beings who are not sealed by God. And that’s that image you have in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 of being sealed with the Holy Spirit.
So, this is very reminiscent of Ezekiel 9 in which an angel is told to go mark the inhabitants of Jerusalem who grieve over the paganism and the idolatry of the city of Jerusalem. They’re marked there. Those are the good ones. And then a second angel is told to go kill everyone that doesn’t have the mark. And so, you get the same image here. The demons are unleashed at people. And they’re going after people and they’re going to bring torment and torture on them. But they’re not allowed to touch those that are marked with a seal. Those would be Christians.
Wes
It’s amazing, in verses 4 and 5, when we get this kind of picture or description of the mission of this demonic horde, we also see these limitations. What do we learn from those limitations that are placed on the demons even as they’re given power to afflict people?
Andy
Yeah. All right. Well, I think I go in my mind back to Revelation 4 where John saw a doorway standing open in heaven. And he was told to, “Come up here.” And he goes through the doorway and the first thing he sees is a throne in heaven with someone seated on it. And that throne is the throne of Almighty God, which as I preached that, said, that is the central reality in the universe. God rules everything all the time. And so even the demons as they’re given freedom, far greater freedom, I would want to not say they’re unleashed. They’re never unleashed. They have a leash; they always have a leash. Even these demons are told to not kill the people, but to just bring torment. And to not touch the Christians who are sealed. Though they are in one sense we would say unleashed, they really are just given a far longer leash. They’re given more freedoms to go do things that they’d want to do. God never relinquishes his control ever. It’s his universe. He made it and he delights in it.
fundamental to our salvation is to delight in the restrictions and the boundaries and the limitations that God sets over us.
And by the way, that’s one of the most important lessons we can ever learn even in salvation, when Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29). And I think the yoke represents his kingly authority. Or again, he says, “If you love me, you will obey me” (John 14:15). So, what does that mean? So, to love you is to obey you, to obey you is to love you? Yes, that’s it. You have to understand who I am. I’m a king, and everything that I do is to reign and rule over my domains. And you’re part of that. Now, sin has been your rebellion against my kingly reign. And so fundamental to our salvation is to delight in the restrictions and the boundaries and the limitations that God sets over us. And to say, “You are the King. Whatever you say I will do.” And so even the demons who hate God’s kingly reign, they are leashed by the word of God.
Wes
At the end of verse 5, we’re told that the torment of this demonic horde was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. What does verse 6 teach us about the agony of humanity at that time, and what does this kind of suffering teach us about the wrath of God and the sinfulness of sin?
Andy
Right. So they are, as we mentioned, given power to bring torment to human beings, but not to kill them. So, what we need to do is see, first of all, the grace of God in this. He’s giving them time to repent. We’re going to see at the end of the chapter they don’t repent. They don’t use the time well, but God still is able to say, “Even during those terrible, terrible days, I still didn’t kill you, which would’ve been the end of it.” What does it show us about the wrath of God? It’s measured, it’s bounded and controlled. I also think this gives a foretaste of hell itself, because hell itself, we’re told, based on Isaiah 66 and also in Mark 8, “The worm does not die.” The worm does not die. The fire is not quenched. In other words, hell will always have a purpose because there’ll always be inhabitants, meaning they don’t get out and they don’t die.
And so, this is a foretaste of what hell itself will be like. It’s torment, but no ending to that torment. So, they’re longing to die here, but death will elude them. They’re unable to have an end. And people yearn for that. You think about wicked people like Hitler and his immediate inner circle all taking cyanide capsules. Or blowing their brains out when the Soviet Red Army was over their heads. In burning Berlin, May of 1945, they just want out. They want the suffering to end. And so, they think death will be an escape. And here, it would be an escape to this particular torment, but that’s not permitted. They are going to continue to hurt. The idea though, is in the midst of their pain, they should be repenting. In the midst of their pain, they should say, “What has brought me to this point?” And they should be crying out to God for deliverance.
Wes
Verses 7-10 then give us an extended description of the appearance of the demonic warriors. How does John describe the demonic warriors and what does this teach us?
Andy
Well, one thing we learned in prophetic and visionary genre and scripture, there’s a lot of representational language. And so, while I think it’s safe exegetically to try to stay as literal as possible, sometimes it’s just so clearly visionary that at this point we just have to say these represent, each of these descriptions, represent some aspect of this demonic hoard. First of all, locusts, they’re not actual locusts, but they’re ravenous. An army of ravenous destroyers is what they are. So that’s what locust means. But they look like horses prepared for battle. So, they’re warriors. And you would imagine if you’re your standard peasant foot soldier back in the Middle Ages. And you’re standing with a stick or maybe even a sword. And then an armed knight, a fully armed knight, with all of the shields and the armor and all that comes pounding at you at full gallop, you’re going to die. You’re going to get trampled. There’s nothing you can do.
And so, the idea is that there is an incredible militaristic power to these demons. They’re like horses prepared for battle. On their heads, they wore something like crowns. That represents their authority, their power. Crowns of gold, so there’s a sense of dark majesty to them. Their faces resembled human faces. So, I think of them as being intelligent. They’re not like mindless beasts, but they’re plotting, scheming and planning. It says they have hair like women’s hair. Don’t really know why that is. It’s just kind of long hair. It could be, however, that in the Song of Solomon, the bride’s hair is attractive, alluring, and beautiful. There’s an enticing aspect. And we know that Satan in 2 Corinthians masquerades as an angel of light. So, there might be a kind of an alluring attractiveness or a seductiveness to the demons.
And it says their teeth was like lion’s teeth. So, like it says in 1 Peter 5:8, “Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” So, it’s iron teeth, meaning their teeth aren’t going to break. They’re going to be ravenous. And they’re going to keep devouring flesh, and they have this disposition to destroy. They have breastplates like breastplates of iron. So similar to Leviathan, their armor cannot be penetrated. There’s nothing you can do to kill them. Any weapon you have will be useless against them. And it says the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. So, they’re moving rapidly and loudly, and it’s very terrifying. They had tails and stings like scorpions. And in their tails, they had the power to torment people for five months. Again, we’ve already talked about that.
Some people try to make this like, oh, it seems like a helicopter or something like that. But it’s hard for me to do that with this language. This language has been communicating to God’s people for 20 centuries. So, telling a 12th century Christian that this is a helicopter just doesn’t mean much. I don’t think it’s all that helpful. So, at any rate, I think all of this is symbolic representational language for how terrifying this demonic army is going to be.
Wes
We’ve been talking all along about certain limitations that are imposed. What’s the significance of the five months limitation to this agony?
Andy
Well, everything’s measured out. If those days had not been cut short, Jesus said, no one would have survived. So, there’s only so much anybody can take of this. And so, it’s limited, five months is a good long while though, you think about that, and it’s not quite half a year, but it’s a good long while. And it’s still limited. So, it’s again, this is God’s sovereignty, this is the limitation. So, they’re bounded or limited in what they can do and can’t do. They’re also bounded or limited by how long they’ll be permitted to do it. Keep in mind, if these are demons, they’re heading for themselves for the lake of fire. They know that their time is short, they themselves are criminals in God’s sight, and he’s going to be reigning them in at some point.
Wes
What does verse 11 teach us about Satan and why does God permit Satan such freedom to torment humanity?
Andy
All right, so they had as king over them, the angel of the abyss. So that’s how I know that that angel that fell in verse 1 is Satan, and he’s in charge of the abyss because he’s given the key. He wouldn’t be in charge of anything except that God gave him the key to unlock it. And his name in Hebrew and his name in Greek both mean the same thing, which is destroyer. So, I think about the first half of John 10:10, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.” Satan destroys things. God assembles things together in a beautiful order.
You think about the human body, and everything is fearfully and wonderfully made and put into good order. If you think about somebody dying by a sword thrust, all that’s happened is some of the cells of the body have been disarrayed, and the person dies. And so that’s what destruction does, it takes things that were in a beautiful, well-put together, wise order by God, and they’re disheveled now and put apart. That’s what Satan is, he’s a destroyer, he’s a killer. He’s a thief and a murderer. He is the destroyer.
And secondly, concerning the freedom that God gives to Satan to torment humanity, I think this is part of the judgment of God on a sinful human race that has allied with Satan. We joined Satan in his rebellion against God in the garden, as we’ll see very clearly in chapter 12, that ancient serpent is Satan. And we joined him. And so basically, God is allowing us to see what it’s like to be in Satan’s dark kingdom. He hates us and wants to kill us all. That’s why he gives him, I think, this measure of freedom.
Wes
Verse 12 says, “The first woe has passed. Behold two woes are still to come.” What does this verse teach about the suffering that follows the fifth trumpet?
Andy
Well, the feeling that you get here is it’s just getting worse and worse. So, the end of chapter 8, the angel is flying mid-heaven, or the eagle is flying mid-heaven and crying out, woe, woe, woe to the earth for the judgments that are about to come. And this is hearkening back to that statement. So, the word “woe,” I think, is a prophetic word of misery and judgment and sorrow about to come on human beings because of their sins. So, the first woe now is done, but it’s just going to get worse.
Wes
What happens when the sixth angel blows his trumpet? And what do we learn about God’s sovereignty here?
Andy
Okay, the sixth angel sounds his trumpet, “And I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. And it said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels, who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was 200 million.” I heard their number. And it goes on to describe them, and we’ll get to that.
This seems to me it could be just even more of a demonic army, or it could be a combination of demons inciting human warriors. So, the 200 million there is a human invasion or human army coming to bring destruction. And the mention of the great river Euphrates, anybody who reads Israel’s history knows that for the most part, the Gentile invasions, the mass invasions that came, came from the north, like Jeremiah saw a pot dipping over from the north. And these invasions poured down from the great river Euphrates down. So that would be the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks. They come from that direction, generally.
And so, I think this is best to see it as a human army incited by demonic powers. So, behind the ravenous beast-like destruction of this invading army like Daniel 7 is a demonic inciting. And so, I look on this as a human army coming to bring destruction, but it’s held back or restrained for the exact time when God wants it to happen. And I think that it begins with the angel that sounded the trumpet. He sounded the trumpet, and a voice came from the horns of the golden altar, and the altar represents the focal point of the prayers of the saints, and they’re crying out for vengeance and they’re crying up to the altar of God. And God answers from the altar. He answers from the golden alter that is before God.
So, this is retribution for the evil that was done. And it says release the four angels that are waiting at the great river. And so, the four angels, the four, we also see this in Zechariah with four horses that go in four directions. Also, you have the four beasts that come up out of the sea, one after the other in Daniel 7. So again, that points toward a human army going north, south, east, and west. So, the idea here is demons that are bound up. So, the angels that are bound are now released. Same thing with the abyss. They were locked up and then they are released. So, they’re set free to go bring terrible destruction. So, to sum up, when heaven says it’s time the demonic angels are released. And they bring with them a massive human army that wreaks destruction on the earth.
Wes
Talk a little more about the specificity of the timing or the preparation here. Verse 15 is striking to me. It says, “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.”
Andy
Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Everything’s numbered. All the days ordained for us were written in God’s book before one of them came to be. God is more meticulous and careful and counting and mathematical than we can possibly imagine. He’s also more artistic and creative than we can possibly imagine. He’s both, he’s not left-brained or right-brained. He is just both. He’s everything. So, the idea is there is a meticulous plan that has worked out, and the timing of that plan matters huge. And so, there’s an exact time when this massive army of 200 million is going to sweep over the earth. They’ve been kept back for that exact moment. And they’re killing, the killing they will do, has been exactly measured out as well.
Wes
We see that specificity continued on. So, it’s not just the timing, like you mentioned, it’s also the number of the troops. What’s the significance of the mounted troops being numbered, and how does John describe this demonic cavalry in their weaponry?
Andy
Yeah, I don’t know what the significance of 200 million is. It’s just a really big number, that’s a fifth of a billion. I mean, what do you do with that? I mean, there’s never been any army in all of human history that has invaded that’s that big. I think that the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was 3 million. And the Soviets came back with more back. So that’s about it. We’re talking about, let’s imagine the Soviets came back with 5 million. So, this is 40 times that size. I can’t even imagine.
Now, someone said at one point during the height of the Cold War that the Red Army of China was that big. I have a hard time believing that. That would be one fifth of the population of China when it was at a billion. So, I’m not thinking one fifth of all their people were in arms. So, this is a massive army that really, if it is human, could only be at the end of human population upswing. So, this is a very, very big army that’s coming down. But everything’s carefully measured. And they’re going to come to bring destruction.
Wes
How does John describe this demonic cavalry in their weaponry?
Andy
Well, it’s similar to the early description of the demons themselves. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this, breastplates fiery red, dark blue, yellow as sulfur. Those colors remind me of I think about hell. A sulfur is fire, this kind of thing, it’s just like hellish colors. And then the heads of the horses resembled lions similar to that. Out of their mouths come fire, smoke and sulfur. So again, it’s like they’re fire-breathing, evil warriors, this kind of thing. So, I think this is all symbolic language. They’re bringing destruction. They’re bringing a hellish level of destruction on earth. A third of mankind, as we’ve already said, was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouths. And it says the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. So again, all of this is symbolic language, I believe, representing terrible destruction and suffering that this mounted army is going to bring on the inhabitants of the earth.
Wes
And you alluded to these last two verses earlier, but what is the tragic effect of this horrific plague on unbelieving humanity? And what final thoughts do you have on Revelation chapter 9?
Andy
Right. It’s terrifying because the rest of mankind that were not killed, so that’s two thirds of the population. Still a lot of people still alive, but they see all this destruction and they’ve gone through that. First of all, we have to acknowledge that from the beginning of the seven seals now into the seven trumpets, these plagues have been cumulative. If you look at verse 20, the rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues. So which ones? Well, not just the one in chapter 9 here, but chapter 8, and then even before with the seven seals. All of these things are cumulative, and yet despite all of the misery and sorrow and suffering that’s coming, and that’s clearly predicted in the pages of scripture by then, we have it now, they’ll have it then. They’re seeing all of this, and they still don’t repent.
If God doesn’t grant you repentance, no amount of external inducements, good or bad, will bring you to repentance.
And the sin list is the same that you always see. It’s idolatries, it’s sexual immorality, it’s thefts, it’s murders. It’s all of these normal wicked things that people have done and that is going to keep doing them. And I think one of the things we learn is the intractable stubborn nature of sin – it doesn’t release, it doesn’t ever seem to end unless God directly grants repentance. And so that’s what I learned about this. If God doesn’t grant you repentance, no amount of external inducements, good or bad, will bring you to repentance. It doesn’t matter how much God blesses you, it doesn’t matter how much God brings curses on you. You will not repent if God doesn’t grant it.
And so, what it means is, everybody that’s in heaven that will be redeemed will be so because God granted them repentance and faith as an act of his sovereign grace. So, they didn’t repent of any of these sins. And instead, it also shows me there’ll be no converts in hell either. They’ll be in there suffering the wrath of God forever. They’ll never die, and they’ll never repent either. And so forever they will think that God is an unjust tyrant, and that they don’t deserve to be there.
Wes
Any final thoughts on this passage as a whole?
Andy
Yeah. Overall, Revelation 9, as I look at it, is terrifying. I think about the sufferings that are going to come on the earth, and I think what a terrible, terrible thing sin is. And our alliance with Satan, how evil, and how grateful I am to have been redeemed from Satan’s dark kingdom and moved over into the kingdom of light. And despite the fact that we as a human race have a lot of suffering yet to go through, I still believe, as we know at the end of the book, Revelation 21:22, we’re coming to a world where at last there’ll be no more of any of this. No more death, mourning, crying or pain.
Wes
This has been episode 11 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 12 entitled, The Angel and the Little Scroll, where we’ll discuss Revelation 10:1-11. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys Podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
This is episode 11 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast entitled: The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets, Satan and His Demons Devastate the Earth where we’ll discuss Revelation 9:1-21. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Okay, so the Book of Revelation gives us depictions of things that we cannot see with our physical eyes right now, under two great headings. One is the revelation of Jesus Christ, his infinite majesty and greatness in ways that we cannot see him any other way than in the Book of Revelation. And the second is the revelation of the future, where are we heading? And it’s going to be toward terrible judgements that are going to come on planet Earth. And it’s a series of three sevens that we’ve seen. First, the breaking open of the seven seals that was on the scroll that was handed to Jesus by the Father. And he breaks open the seven seals.
in Revelation 9, we see Satan unleashing demonic…direct, demonic assaults on the human race in ways that we can scarcely imagine
And then you have the seven trumpets. And we’re in the midst of that now in Revelation 8 and 9. And we saw in Revelation 8 the devastation of the first four trumpets, which is ecological. Terrible things happening on planet earth and also in the cosmos. All inanimate, but natural disasters and judgments that are coming. But now in Revelation 9, we see Satan unleashing demonic…direct, demonic assaults on the human race in ways that we can scarcely imagine, which stretches language almost to the breaking point. To the point we try to understand what it would be like to have the demons unleashed, so to speak. When we say unleashed, meaning their tethers have been greatly loosened. They’re still controlled in this chapter, we see God still sovereignly controlling, but the level of suffering described here is almost immeasurable. So, we’re going to walk through that today.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read Revelation 9:1-21.
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. 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. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 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. 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.
And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. 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, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lion’s teeth; 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. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abbadon, and in Greek, he is called Apollyon. The first woe has passed; behold two woes are still to come.
Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 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. The number of mounted troops was twice 10,000 times 10,000; I heard their number. 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 lion’s heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
By these three plagues, a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 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. 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.
Andy, what does John see after the fifth trumpet sounds and what does this represent in verse 1?
Andy
All right, so the fifth trumpet. Fifth angel sounds his trumpet, and he sees a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. And the star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. And when he opens the abyss, we’ve got this billowing smoke coming up out of the abyss. And we’re going to talk about all this, but I just want to make this statement here at the beginning the way I introduced this sermon when I preached it. It’s easy for us looking at all the suffering and grief and misery on earth to wonder why are things as bad as they are? And they are bad. We look at so many current events, natural disasters, wars, rumors or wars, we look at crimes, all of that. And then just diseases and sufferings, and things are very devastating. But the more you understand Satan and demons and their power and the type of relentless malevolence they have toward every single human being created in the image of God, they have no favorites, they hate us all.
You really have to begin to wonder why are things as good as they are on earth? Why is it the fact that the average day for the average person involves a lot of blessings? The average day for the average person involves sunrises and sunsets and crops that succeed and family life and spouses that love them, and kids that love them, and festivals and celebrations. I’m talking all around the world, all different kinds of religions, atheists, et cetera, experience what we call common grace blessings day after day. And Jesus says that we should love our enemies the way the Father loves his enemies, causing his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. These common grace blessings, however, could never be enjoyed at all if demons were just completely unleashed to do what they want to do to human beings, even to non-Christians.
So amazingly, I think the implication of Revelation 9, for me, is that God is majorly restraining demonic force on earth enabling all people to enjoy his blessings. And this shows the patience of God and the tolerance leading people to repent and to see his goodness. So, I think that’s a whole different way of looking at life, and we can see it through the darkness of this chapter 9, when the Lord allows Satan to unleash demonic misery in ways that has never been seen before on planet earth. So, let’s walk through the testimony of Jesus. He sees a star after the fifth angel sounds his trumpet. That triggers, okay, it’s time for that now. The star that had fallen from the sky to the earth is given a key. So, the star is a sentient being, almost certainly an angel. And we know this because in the Book of Job it likens stars to angels or angels to stars.
It says that God created or laid the foundation of the earth while all the morning stars sang for joy, and that’s clearly angels. And so, the ultimate fallen star is Satan. And Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Revelation 12 will depict the battle I think that happened before the earth began between the good angels and the elect angels so to speak. And the fallen angels, the demons, and Satan and his demons lost and were cast to the earth. Who again, in Isaiah 14:12, it says, concerning Lucifer, Satan, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn.” Or Jesus says openly in Luke’s gospel, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). So, I think all that points toward this being Satan. And it says later in this same chapter, “They had as king over them, the destroyer, Abaddon and Apollyon.” That’s Satan, there’s no doubt about it.
So, Satan is their king, and he is given a key. And so, the idea is that God gives him permission to unlock the abyss. Now, the abyss, we learn in other scriptures, in Luke 8:31, for example. The demoniac of the Gadarenes there, Legion of demons, so to speak, is terrified that Jesus is going to order them to go into the abyss. So, the abyss there, and also, I believe Tartarus, the pit, in 2 Peter 2:4 represents a place of punishment for demons. Particularly bad demons, so to speak, we can even use that language, that are chained or restrained and tortured even by God waiting for the final judgment. And so, they’re in this pit, they’re in like a, you can imagine, a maximum-security prison. And now what happens? Satan is given the key to unlock them.
Think about what that would be like. Think if you lived in a town with a maximum-security prison where some of the worst human beings on earth were incarcerated. And you found out suddenly that the prison doors had flown open, and the inmates were roaming the streets, where would you go? Where could you hide? You would get out of there as soon as you could. You wouldn’t even go for any of your possessions. You would get your family in your car, and you would drive as far as you could from that town. Well, this is all over the earth. And so, Satan unlocks the abyss, the pit, and billowing smoke comes up out of it. And I think as we keep reading, we find out they’re demons. And they’re unleashed to bring judgment on the earth.
Wes
So, after Satan unlocks this abyss with the key, we see this great cloud of smoke blocking the sunlight. How does it represent the effect of demonic evil in the world, especially at this point in the book of Revelation?
Andy
Yeah, again, we have to ask big picture, why is God allowing Satan to do this? And I think part of it is through Adam at the Garden of Eden and with the serpent we made an alliance with the devil and with the demons, not understanding what we’re getting into. And not understanding how wicked and evil they are. To some degree, this is God giving the human race over to our masters, the ones that we wanted to rule over us. And they are terrifying and they’re awful. So, the billowing smoke blocking the sun, just in general, God is light and in him there’s no darkness at all. Satan then is the prince of darkness. And so, when they billow out, they block the beauty and the warmth and the life-giving light that comes from the sun, metaphorically. And they might actually even physically block it as well. So, the idea here is it’s a time of darkness, a terrible time on planet Earth.
Wes
Now who are the locusts that we’re introduced to and how are they described in verse 3 here in chapter 9?
Andy
Well, they’re unusual locusts in that they seem to have no interest at all in green things, green growing things. So, our minds should go back to the Book of Joel, and Joel 2 talks about an invasion of locusts that I think are literal locusts. There is some question in the Book of Joel, whether locusts also represent an invading Gentile army that comes to destroy Israel for their sins, but whether it’s a physical army or it’s just simply locusts. In Joel 2, the locusts are grasshoppers that go where they want to go. You cannot stop them because there’s millions of them. And they crawl up the walls, and they go through the windows, and they go everywhere. And they are after every green growing thing, and they eat it until it’s gone. And that, within a short amount of time, will bring death to the humans, too, because we depend on green growing things to live.
And so that locust plague there in Joel 2 is kind of thought of here. It’s amazing, the Old Testament illusions and references in the Book of Revelation. It’s super saturated with Old Testament images, and this is a plague of locusts. But these are not normal locusts, so I think it’s a metaphor. Again, I think these are demons. And they are not going after the green grass, they’re told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but they only go after human beings. And they don’t go after everybody. They go after every non-Christian. They go after human beings who are not sealed by God. And that’s that image you have in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 of being sealed with the Holy Spirit.
So, this is very reminiscent of Ezekiel 9 in which an angel is told to go mark the inhabitants of Jerusalem who grieve over the paganism and the idolatry of the city of Jerusalem. They’re marked there. Those are the good ones. And then a second angel is told to go kill everyone that doesn’t have the mark. And so, you get the same image here. The demons are unleashed at people. And they’re going after people and they’re going to bring torment and torture on them. But they’re not allowed to touch those that are marked with a seal. Those would be Christians.
Wes
It’s amazing, in verses 4 and 5, when we get this kind of picture or description of the mission of this demonic horde, we also see these limitations. What do we learn from those limitations that are placed on the demons even as they’re given power to afflict people?
Andy
Yeah. All right. Well, I think I go in my mind back to Revelation 4 where John saw a doorway standing open in heaven. And he was told to, “Come up here.” And he goes through the doorway and the first thing he sees is a throne in heaven with someone seated on it. And that throne is the throne of Almighty God, which as I preached that, said, that is the central reality in the universe. God rules everything all the time. And so even the demons as they’re given freedom, far greater freedom, I would want to not say they’re unleashed. They’re never unleashed. They have a leash; they always have a leash. Even these demons are told to not kill the people, but to just bring torment. And to not touch the Christians who are sealed. Though they are in one sense we would say unleashed, they really are just given a far longer leash. They’re given more freedoms to go do things that they’d want to do. God never relinquishes his control ever. It’s his universe. He made it and he delights in it.
fundamental to our salvation is to delight in the restrictions and the boundaries and the limitations that God sets over us.
And by the way, that’s one of the most important lessons we can ever learn even in salvation, when Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29). And I think the yoke represents his kingly authority. Or again, he says, “If you love me, you will obey me” (John 14:15). So, what does that mean? So, to love you is to obey you, to obey you is to love you? Yes, that’s it. You have to understand who I am. I’m a king, and everything that I do is to reign and rule over my domains. And you’re part of that. Now, sin has been your rebellion against my kingly reign. And so fundamental to our salvation is to delight in the restrictions and the boundaries and the limitations that God sets over us. And to say, “You are the King. Whatever you say I will do.” And so even the demons who hate God’s kingly reign, they are leashed by the word of God.
Wes
At the end of verse 5, we’re told that the torment of this demonic horde was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. What does verse 6 teach us about the agony of humanity at that time, and what does this kind of suffering teach us about the wrath of God and the sinfulness of sin?
Andy
Right. So they are, as we mentioned, given power to bring torment to human beings, but not to kill them. So, what we need to do is see, first of all, the grace of God in this. He’s giving them time to repent. We’re going to see at the end of the chapter they don’t repent. They don’t use the time well, but God still is able to say, “Even during those terrible, terrible days, I still didn’t kill you, which would’ve been the end of it.” What does it show us about the wrath of God? It’s measured, it’s bounded and controlled. I also think this gives a foretaste of hell itself, because hell itself, we’re told, based on Isaiah 66 and also in Mark 8, “The worm does not die.” The worm does not die. The fire is not quenched. In other words, hell will always have a purpose because there’ll always be inhabitants, meaning they don’t get out and they don’t die.
And so, this is a foretaste of what hell itself will be like. It’s torment, but no ending to that torment. So, they’re longing to die here, but death will elude them. They’re unable to have an end. And people yearn for that. You think about wicked people like Hitler and his immediate inner circle all taking cyanide capsules. Or blowing their brains out when the Soviet Red Army was over their heads. In burning Berlin, May of 1945, they just want out. They want the suffering to end. And so, they think death will be an escape. And here, it would be an escape to this particular torment, but that’s not permitted. They are going to continue to hurt. The idea though, is in the midst of their pain, they should be repenting. In the midst of their pain, they should say, “What has brought me to this point?” And they should be crying out to God for deliverance.
Wes
Verses 7-10 then give us an extended description of the appearance of the demonic warriors. How does John describe the demonic warriors and what does this teach us?
Andy
Well, one thing we learned in prophetic and visionary genre and scripture, there’s a lot of representational language. And so, while I think it’s safe exegetically to try to stay as literal as possible, sometimes it’s just so clearly visionary that at this point we just have to say these represent, each of these descriptions, represent some aspect of this demonic hoard. First of all, locusts, they’re not actual locusts, but they’re ravenous. An army of ravenous destroyers is what they are. So that’s what locust means. But they look like horses prepared for battle. So, they’re warriors. And you would imagine if you’re your standard peasant foot soldier back in the Middle Ages. And you’re standing with a stick or maybe even a sword. And then an armed knight, a fully armed knight, with all of the shields and the armor and all that comes pounding at you at full gallop, you’re going to die. You’re going to get trampled. There’s nothing you can do.
And so, the idea is that there is an incredible militaristic power to these demons. They’re like horses prepared for battle. On their heads, they wore something like crowns. That represents their authority, their power. Crowns of gold, so there’s a sense of dark majesty to them. Their faces resembled human faces. So, I think of them as being intelligent. They’re not like mindless beasts, but they’re plotting, scheming and planning. It says they have hair like women’s hair. Don’t really know why that is. It’s just kind of long hair. It could be, however, that in the Song of Solomon, the bride’s hair is attractive, alluring, and beautiful. There’s an enticing aspect. And we know that Satan in 2 Corinthians masquerades as an angel of light. So, there might be a kind of an alluring attractiveness or a seductiveness to the demons.
And it says their teeth was like lion’s teeth. So, like it says in 1 Peter 5:8, “Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” So, it’s iron teeth, meaning their teeth aren’t going to break. They’re going to be ravenous. And they’re going to keep devouring flesh, and they have this disposition to destroy. They have breastplates like breastplates of iron. So similar to Leviathan, their armor cannot be penetrated. There’s nothing you can do to kill them. Any weapon you have will be useless against them. And it says the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. So, they’re moving rapidly and loudly, and it’s very terrifying. They had tails and stings like scorpions. And in their tails, they had the power to torment people for five months. Again, we’ve already talked about that.
Some people try to make this like, oh, it seems like a helicopter or something like that. But it’s hard for me to do that with this language. This language has been communicating to God’s people for 20 centuries. So, telling a 12th century Christian that this is a helicopter just doesn’t mean much. I don’t think it’s all that helpful. So, at any rate, I think all of this is symbolic representational language for how terrifying this demonic army is going to be.
Wes
We’ve been talking all along about certain limitations that are imposed. What’s the significance of the five months limitation to this agony?
Andy
Well, everything’s measured out. If those days had not been cut short, Jesus said, no one would have survived. So, there’s only so much anybody can take of this. And so, it’s limited, five months is a good long while though, you think about that, and it’s not quite half a year, but it’s a good long while. And it’s still limited. So, it’s again, this is God’s sovereignty, this is the limitation. So, they’re bounded or limited in what they can do and can’t do. They’re also bounded or limited by how long they’ll be permitted to do it. Keep in mind, if these are demons, they’re heading for themselves for the lake of fire. They know that their time is short, they themselves are criminals in God’s sight, and he’s going to be reigning them in at some point.
Wes
What does verse 11 teach us about Satan and why does God permit Satan such freedom to torment humanity?
Andy
All right, so they had as king over them, the angel of the abyss. So that’s how I know that that angel that fell in verse 1 is Satan, and he’s in charge of the abyss because he’s given the key. He wouldn’t be in charge of anything except that God gave him the key to unlock it. And his name in Hebrew and his name in Greek both mean the same thing, which is destroyer. So, I think about the first half of John 10:10, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.” Satan destroys things. God assembles things together in a beautiful order.
You think about the human body, and everything is fearfully and wonderfully made and put into good order. If you think about somebody dying by a sword thrust, all that’s happened is some of the cells of the body have been disarrayed, and the person dies. And so that’s what destruction does, it takes things that were in a beautiful, well-put together, wise order by God, and they’re disheveled now and put apart. That’s what Satan is, he’s a destroyer, he’s a killer. He’s a thief and a murderer. He is the destroyer.
And secondly, concerning the freedom that God gives to Satan to torment humanity, I think this is part of the judgment of God on a sinful human race that has allied with Satan. We joined Satan in his rebellion against God in the garden, as we’ll see very clearly in chapter 12, that ancient serpent is Satan. And we joined him. And so basically, God is allowing us to see what it’s like to be in Satan’s dark kingdom. He hates us and wants to kill us all. That’s why he gives him, I think, this measure of freedom.
Wes
Verse 12 says, “The first woe has passed. Behold two woes are still to come.” What does this verse teach about the suffering that follows the fifth trumpet?
Andy
Well, the feeling that you get here is it’s just getting worse and worse. So, the end of chapter 8, the angel is flying mid-heaven, or the eagle is flying mid-heaven and crying out, woe, woe, woe to the earth for the judgments that are about to come. And this is hearkening back to that statement. So, the word “woe,” I think, is a prophetic word of misery and judgment and sorrow about to come on human beings because of their sins. So, the first woe now is done, but it’s just going to get worse.
Wes
What happens when the sixth angel blows his trumpet? And what do we learn about God’s sovereignty here?
Andy
Okay, the sixth angel sounds his trumpet, “And I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. And it said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels, who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was 200 million.” I heard their number. And it goes on to describe them, and we’ll get to that.
This seems to me it could be just even more of a demonic army, or it could be a combination of demons inciting human warriors. So, the 200 million there is a human invasion or human army coming to bring destruction. And the mention of the great river Euphrates, anybody who reads Israel’s history knows that for the most part, the Gentile invasions, the mass invasions that came, came from the north, like Jeremiah saw a pot dipping over from the north. And these invasions poured down from the great river Euphrates down. So that would be the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks. They come from that direction, generally.
And so, I think this is best to see it as a human army incited by demonic powers. So, behind the ravenous beast-like destruction of this invading army like Daniel 7 is a demonic inciting. And so, I look on this as a human army coming to bring destruction, but it’s held back or restrained for the exact time when God wants it to happen. And I think that it begins with the angel that sounded the trumpet. He sounded the trumpet, and a voice came from the horns of the golden altar, and the altar represents the focal point of the prayers of the saints, and they’re crying out for vengeance and they’re crying up to the altar of God. And God answers from the altar. He answers from the golden alter that is before God.
So, this is retribution for the evil that was done. And it says release the four angels that are waiting at the great river. And so, the four angels, the four, we also see this in Zechariah with four horses that go in four directions. Also, you have the four beasts that come up out of the sea, one after the other in Daniel 7. So again, that points toward a human army going north, south, east, and west. So, the idea here is demons that are bound up. So, the angels that are bound are now released. Same thing with the abyss. They were locked up and then they are released. So, they’re set free to go bring terrible destruction. So, to sum up, when heaven says it’s time the demonic angels are released. And they bring with them a massive human army that wreaks destruction on the earth.
Wes
Talk a little more about the specificity of the timing or the preparation here. Verse 15 is striking to me. It says, “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.”
Andy
Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Everything’s numbered. All the days ordained for us were written in God’s book before one of them came to be. God is more meticulous and careful and counting and mathematical than we can possibly imagine. He’s also more artistic and creative than we can possibly imagine. He’s both, he’s not left-brained or right-brained. He is just both. He’s everything. So, the idea is there is a meticulous plan that has worked out, and the timing of that plan matters huge. And so, there’s an exact time when this massive army of 200 million is going to sweep over the earth. They’ve been kept back for that exact moment. And they’re killing, the killing they will do, has been exactly measured out as well.
Wes
We see that specificity continued on. So, it’s not just the timing, like you mentioned, it’s also the number of the troops. What’s the significance of the mounted troops being numbered, and how does John describe this demonic cavalry in their weaponry?
Andy
Yeah, I don’t know what the significance of 200 million is. It’s just a really big number, that’s a fifth of a billion. I mean, what do you do with that? I mean, there’s never been any army in all of human history that has invaded that’s that big. I think that the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was 3 million. And the Soviets came back with more back. So that’s about it. We’re talking about, let’s imagine the Soviets came back with 5 million. So, this is 40 times that size. I can’t even imagine.
Now, someone said at one point during the height of the Cold War that the Red Army of China was that big. I have a hard time believing that. That would be one fifth of the population of China when it was at a billion. So, I’m not thinking one fifth of all their people were in arms. So, this is a massive army that really, if it is human, could only be at the end of human population upswing. So, this is a very, very big army that’s coming down. But everything’s carefully measured. And they’re going to come to bring destruction.
Wes
How does John describe this demonic cavalry in their weaponry?
Andy
Well, it’s similar to the early description of the demons themselves. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this, breastplates fiery red, dark blue, yellow as sulfur. Those colors remind me of I think about hell. A sulfur is fire, this kind of thing, it’s just like hellish colors. And then the heads of the horses resembled lions similar to that. Out of their mouths come fire, smoke and sulfur. So again, it’s like they’re fire-breathing, evil warriors, this kind of thing. So, I think this is all symbolic language. They’re bringing destruction. They’re bringing a hellish level of destruction on earth. A third of mankind, as we’ve already said, was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouths. And it says the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. So again, all of this is symbolic language, I believe, representing terrible destruction and suffering that this mounted army is going to bring on the inhabitants of the earth.
Wes
And you alluded to these last two verses earlier, but what is the tragic effect of this horrific plague on unbelieving humanity? And what final thoughts do you have on Revelation chapter 9?
Andy
Right. It’s terrifying because the rest of mankind that were not killed, so that’s two thirds of the population. Still a lot of people still alive, but they see all this destruction and they’ve gone through that. First of all, we have to acknowledge that from the beginning of the seven seals now into the seven trumpets, these plagues have been cumulative. If you look at verse 20, the rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues. So which ones? Well, not just the one in chapter 9 here, but chapter 8, and then even before with the seven seals. All of these things are cumulative, and yet despite all of the misery and sorrow and suffering that’s coming, and that’s clearly predicted in the pages of scripture by then, we have it now, they’ll have it then. They’re seeing all of this, and they still don’t repent.
If God doesn’t grant you repentance, no amount of external inducements, good or bad, will bring you to repentance.
And the sin list is the same that you always see. It’s idolatries, it’s sexual immorality, it’s thefts, it’s murders. It’s all of these normal wicked things that people have done and that is going to keep doing them. And I think one of the things we learn is the intractable stubborn nature of sin – it doesn’t release, it doesn’t ever seem to end unless God directly grants repentance. And so that’s what I learned about this. If God doesn’t grant you repentance, no amount of external inducements, good or bad, will bring you to repentance. It doesn’t matter how much God blesses you, it doesn’t matter how much God brings curses on you. You will not repent if God doesn’t grant it.
And so, what it means is, everybody that’s in heaven that will be redeemed will be so because God granted them repentance and faith as an act of his sovereign grace. So, they didn’t repent of any of these sins. And instead, it also shows me there’ll be no converts in hell either. They’ll be in there suffering the wrath of God forever. They’ll never die, and they’ll never repent either. And so forever they will think that God is an unjust tyrant, and that they don’t deserve to be there.
Wes
Any final thoughts on this passage as a whole?
Andy
Yeah. Overall, Revelation 9, as I look at it, is terrifying. I think about the sufferings that are going to come on the earth, and I think what a terrible, terrible thing sin is. And our alliance with Satan, how evil, and how grateful I am to have been redeemed from Satan’s dark kingdom and moved over into the kingdom of light. And despite the fact that we as a human race have a lot of suffering yet to go through, I still believe, as we know at the end of the book, Revelation 21:22, we’re coming to a world where at last there’ll be no more of any of this. No more death, mourning, crying or pain.
Wes
This has been episode 11 in our Revelation Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 12 entitled, The Angel and the Little Scroll, where we’ll discuss Revelation 10:1-11. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys Podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
