Chapter Nine THEME:  The fifth and sixth trumpets

These woes mark the deepest darkness and the most painful intensity of the Great Tribulation period. They are generally associated with the last three and one‑half years of the Seventieth Week of Daniel, which is the Great Tribulation period. These will be the blackest days in human history.

The language used in this section is admittedly the most difficult of interpretation, but this does not preclude our policy of following the literal line.  If another interpretation is proper, John will furnish us the key.

FIFTH TRUMPET ‑‑ FALLEN STAR AND PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS (9:1‑12)

Here in verse 1 we have a description of the scene as the fifth angel sounds a trumpet and a star falls from heaven.

Notice the proper meaning of "the bottomless pit" is the long shaft (or pit or well) of the abyss.

"I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth." We have already seen two stars, and we said that they were literal stars or meteors, that fall to the earth.  But here we have a different kind of star because it is called "him" and acts with intelligence. We are talking now about an unusual person. This star is different, therefore, from the stars mentioned at the sounding of the fourth trumpet. This star not only acts with intelligence, but he is given a key which he uses ‑‑ no inanimate star could do this.

I believe that this star is Satan. Some have identified this star as Antichrist; if this is so, it lends support to the view that Antichrist is Satan incarnate, but I do not accept that. My point is that Antichrist is exactly that: he is everything Christ is not, and he is motivated by Satan.  See 9:11 and Satan was put out of heaven and cast to the earth (see Rev. 12:7‑9). If we have established the fact that the "star" is Satan being cast out of heaven, then what does he do? He goes down and takes the key to the abyss, which apparently means that God is permitting him to do so. A key denotes authority and power, and this is given to him of God; it is the permissive will of God.

"The long shaft of the abyss" means the long shaft leading to the abyss. The abyss is the bottomless pit which will be seen in chapter 20, verse 3.  The Lord speaks here of His descent into the "heart of the earth."  He went to the abyss, which apparently is hades or sheol. When the Lord Jesus told about the deaths of the rich man and Lazarus (see Luke 16:19‑31), He made it quite obvious that hades is in two compartments. The rich man died and went to the place of torment. The poor man died and went into Abraham's bosom, or paradise as our Lord called it. The Lord went down there in His death to announce to the saved His victory and that He would be leading them into the presence of God. That is, I believe, what Paul meant when he said that the Lord Jesus ". . . led captivity captive . . ." (Eph. 4:8). He went to the abyss to announce that His redemption had been wrought and preached to the souls who died in the flood of Noah.

It behooves us not to be dogmatic where the Scriptures are silent, but there is the thought that a shaft leads from the surface of the earth to the heart of the earth.

The Lord now holds the key to the abyss (see Rev. 1:18). Peter tells us the demons are imprisoned there.

(2 Pet. 2:4). In Luke 8:30‑31 we read: "And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep (abyss)."

The abyss is a very literal place. The idea that heaven and hell are mythological is not the teaching of the Word of God. The teaching of the Word of God is that heaven is as literal as the place where you live today and that hell is equally as real as the place where you now live.

During the last part of the Great Tribulation, the key to the abyss is given to Satan, and he is given a freedom that he never has had before. Out of the shaft, like a great erupting volcano, will come smoke to cover the entire earth.

John uses symbolic language which describes creatures so frightful that this is the only way he could speak of them.

These are locusts, but they are of a very unusual character. As Govett remarks (The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, pp. 185‑186), they are "no common locusts," and he gives the following reasons:

(1) for they eat no vegetable productions;

(2) the locusts of the earth have no king (Prov. 30:27); these have;

(3) in the plague of Egypt the inspired recorder had said, "Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such" (Exod. 10:14);

(4) yet they are literal creatures resembling the literal animals named: the lion, the horse, the scorpion, the man.

9:5  This is a plague of locusts which is as literal as the plague of locusts in Egypt. Joel prophesied of a coming plague of locusts (see Joel 1).   The difference between the locusts here and the locusts in Joel is the character of the locusts and the object of their destruction. They sting as scorpions, and their objects are evil men.  The scorpion=s sting is in his tail and is very painful.

Rev. 9:6   AMen during this period try to commit suicide and are unable to do it ‑ this reveals something of the awfulness of that day. Satan wants them here because there is a battle between light and darkness that is being waged. There are others who think that maybe it is God who will not let these men die because sinful man must face the consequences of his rebellion ‑‑ there is no escape. It is not a laughing matter to reject Jesus Christ; it is not a simple thing to ignore Him. People say there are so many important things in this life ‑‑ and I am willing to grant that many things take second, third, and fourth place ‑‑ but the most important thing is your decision concerning Jesus Christ.@  McGee

Rev. 9:7‑10   This is a frightful and unnatural description. A little closer examination, however, will reveal a striking similarity to the locusts of Palestine, which I think we need to note. Dr. Vincent makes this comment in his book on Revelation: AThe likeness of a locust to a horse, especially to a horse equipped with armor, is so striking that the insect is named in German Heupferd hay‑horse, and in Italian cavaletta little horse.

 The faces of locusts resemble the faces of men, and the antennae of the locust are compared to a girl's hair. Joel compares the teeth of the locust with those of a lion (see Joel 1:6). Many have commented on the weird sound that the locust makes. In his Word Studies in the New Testament, Dr. Vincent quotes Olivier, a French writer:

 AIt is difficult to express the effect produced on us by the sight of the whole atmosphere filled on all sides and to a great height by an innumerable quantity of these insects, whose flight was slow and uniform, and whose noise resembled that of rain.@

Rev. 9:11   These locusts are further differentiated from ordinary locusts in that they have a king over them. Proverbs 30:27 says of natural locusts that they have no king. The king or leader of these locusts is probably one of the fallen angels, and he is permitted to lead an invasion of earth for the first time. This is something that is going to be frightening. His name in Hebrew means "destruction," and in Greek it means "the destroyer." This confirms what Daniel told us, that the demon world of the fallen angels is divided into gradations. I think there are generals, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, etc. In Ephesians we find that the angels of God are divided in the same way.

Rev. 9:12     The first woe introduced to us the last half of the Great Tribulation period, and it had a duration of five months. Apparently, the last two woes will cover the remainder of that period. The warning here indicates that worse things are to follow, and the next trumpet reveals that this was not just an idle warning.

SIXTH TRUMPET ‑‑ ANGELS LOOSED AT RIVER EUPHRATES (9:13‑21)

Rev. 9:13‑14     When the sixth angel blew the trumpet, a command came from the horns of the golden altar.  The sixth angel not only blows the trumpet but is also given a command to loose the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. This angel receives in turn his orders from a voice that was there at the horns of the golden altar. It is the voice of Christ. He has now ripped off the seventh seal which led into the trumpets and which will lead into the seven personalities and the seven bowls of wrath.

The angels who are bound are evidently evil. Why would they be bound if they were not evil? Releasing them turns loose a flood tide of destruction on the earth. They were bound away from the others, I believe, because of the enormity of their acts.

Why were they bound at this particular location at the Euphrates River? The Garden of Eden was somewhere in this location. The sin of man began here. The first murder was committed here. The first war was fought here. Here was where the Flood began and spread over the earth. Here is where the Tower of Babel was erected. To this area were brought the Israelites of the Babylonian captivity. Babylon was the fountainhead of idolatry. And here is the final surge of sin on the earth during the Great Tribulation period. 

The Euphrates actually marks the division between East and West. It was Kipling who said that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. That is true to a certain extent. Perhaps there has been a restraining influence in the past which has kept the hordes of the East from spilling over into the West, but it is going to be broken down. It was Napoleon who made the statement: "China is a sleeping giant, and God pity the generation that wakes her up." Well, we woke her up, and she is very much alive today. China represents one‑fourth of the world's population. If you take the peoples of the East, of the Orient, beyond the Euphrates River, you have most of the population of the world. Suppose they start moving? My friend, they are going to move someday. 

Zechariah locates Babylon as the last stand of false religion (see Zech. 5). This is where Satan's last stand will take place. 

Rev. 9:15‑16  "That they might kill the third of men." At the blowing of the sixth trumpet, one‑third of the population of mankind will be removed. We have already seen a fourth removed, and now a third is removed. Over one‑half of the population of the earth will be destroyed in the Great Tribulation period. No wonder that the Lord Jesus said, "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved . . ." (Matt. 24:22). 

The size of the army is stupendous. It is numbered at 200 million.    Are these 200 million human beings?    

Possibly, but also may be an invasion by the demon world, which is a further result of Satan's opening the door of the shaft of the bottomless pit. The following description of these horsemen further confirms this fact.