Chapter 9 may be one of the hardest chapters to understand or know exactly what's going on, and if there is a chapter where the symbolism runs rampant, this one is it. However, unlike others, I tend to believe this chapter is mostly literal. Its just the history of the world hasn't seen some of the things mentioned in here yet. God is saving it for the right time and will expose mankind to them at that time. This chapter starts off by telling us about a fallen angel.
Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. Rev 9:1 |
Since we learned in chapter 1 that Jesus had seven stars in his hand, of which represented seven angels, it’s easy to figure out that this star is referring to an angel and not a real star. The difference in this star compared to the others is that this star is listed as "fallen." Which means it has already fallen when it was shown to John, indicating that it fell from heaven to earth at some point in time in the past, hence the term "fallen" and not falling.
This angel has the key to the bottomless pit, where find it contains many harmful things to mankind.
All of these describe very literal events. This is why I place no symbolic message to them. Notice the bottomless pit is also called the "pit of the abyss." Demons are afraid of the abyss.
And they begged Him that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. Luke 8:31 |
You can see why they did not want to go there, if such creatures, smoke, and such live in the abyss, I expect it would be hard on demons as well. It's too bad we can't send demons to the abyss when they give us a hard time nowadays. Or can we? One never knows, it might be worth the try.
Let's stop here for a minute. Notice in verse 6 where it says that death will not be found on earth for a period of five months. This will be interesting to see, and I think many of us will be here when this happens. With that, this five month period may be tied to what the apostle Paul spoke of about two resurrections that will take place: one from the grave, and the other for those who are alive.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 Thes 4:16-17 |
The common teaching about what Paul said is that both of the resurrections, those who are dead and those who are alive, will take place at the same time or on the same day with one happening right after the other. But that may not be so, there was no specific referral to time when Paul wrote about them, only that there were two events.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel." What happens after the shout is the resurrection of believers. Keep in mind, Jesus did not tell us there were going to be several different resurrection stages, and if he did none of them were specifically pointed out. Therefore, we have to figure this out on our own.
While what happens after the shout is important, what happens before it is equally important because we find here in chapter 9 some of the things Jesus talked about.
But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, (as stated in Rev 9:2) and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Mat 24:29-31 |
The powers in heaven are not the powers where God reigns. These are the powers of our heaven that will be shaken. These powers use what we call gravity and rotation factors as our planets glide around the sun and across the universe. These powers will be shaken and the time line Jesus gave us coincides with the book of Revelation.
Notice that Jesus said the sun and moon would be darkened before he sends his angel out to gather the elect. That means the resurrections Paul spoke of have not happened when the abyss is opened. Which brings us to the five month period where mankind will seek death.
Paul stated: "Then we which are alive and remain," will be caught up to the clouds to be with the ones who came up out of their graves. The thing to notice is that many believers will be alive when these plagues begin, and most likely still here during the five month period, or part of. This will then support what Paul said: "we which are alive and remain." The dead will rise first, probably just before the five month period.
People who see the graves opened up will seek death, perhaps thinking they will join those who have just been taken. But, like it says, no one will find death for five months. It's assumable death will follow after this time period because it will bring on a different stage in this prophecy as shown in other chapters. However, if death will resume, then this is the point where those who are "alive and remain" should be taken up to meet with the others in the clouds.
Verses 9:7 - 9:10, go into a description of the locusts that will come out of the bottomless pit and attack mankind during this five month period. Their description is often labeled as symbolic, but I think it's more literal than symbolic and they will look just like they have been described. Notice that they have the power to hurt man, but not the power to kill him.
Like it says, they are in the bottomless pit right now and so mankind may have never seen locusts on earth like this before. Moving on, we find they have a king over them all by themselves. No doubt then, they must serve that king.
And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. Rev 9:11 |
This king, or angel, is over the bottomless pit and was then given a key so that he could release the creatures that it rules over when the time comes. Obviously, even though this angel has fallen, God still has command over him, and so it waits.
The bible never tells us where the bottomless pit is, however, since the angel is fallen to earth, we can determine that the bottomless pit is probably close to earth or more likely inside it.
How you get a bottomless pit is not by having a pit so deep that there is no end, but rather you get a bottomless pit by having a sphere. A sphere is a perfectly round shape like a ball, hence there is no top, no bottom, no side and no corners. An angel or an entity could search for eternity inside a sphere and never know exactly where it is or if it is upside down, thus the term no end, or “bottomless,” especially if the door is hidden and sealed.
Of course, a donut shaped pit would do the same thing, having sides but no bottom or top. But, either way, I doubt it is a pit that goes on forever as one would first assume when reading about it.
The angel also doesn’t appear to be inside the bottomless pit either. It's no mystery that many angels fell from heaven when Satan did. Where they ended up is anyone's guess, but it appears this one ended up as a king guarding the bottomless pit.
Jesus said times would be hard during this stage for everyone, including the young ones.
But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! Mat 24:19 |
After this five month period is done, the tribulation for believers will be over. However, if you recall from chapter 7, the 144,000 are still here on earth.
They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Rev 9:4 |
Saying, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed: Rev 7:3-4 |
The first woe is over now and it coincided with the sounding of the fifth trumpet just as it was told in the last chapter.
The first Woe is past: behold, there come yet two Woes hereafter. Rev 9:12 |
Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are yet to sound. Rev 8:13 |
There's a lot of confusing verbiage between reading where the first woe is over and when the second woe is over in chapter 11, and even more concerning the third woe that never states when it is over. The woe's occur when the trumpets sound as you will see, but John explains a lot before the trumpets sound leaving a person forgetting the connection between the woe's and the trumpets, which can make understanding Revelation difficult.
Here's what I'm talking about. In the Book of Revelation we can find the end of two of the three woe's, but not the third one.
The first Woe is past: behold, there come yet two Woes hereafter. Rev 9:12 |
The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Rev 11:14 |
The key here is what John said about the third woe, "Behold, the third woe is coming quickly." Meaning that, that woe came very quickly to earth and before the other two. Unlike the other two woes that are “past,” the third woe will not pass because it is active now and was when John was taken up to heaven. The third woe is the falling of Satan and his reign on earth. It will not end, or pass, until the Day of Judgment. Therefore, when John wrote about the other two he could say that they have passed because they will end before the second coming of Jesus. Satan on the other hand will seek to reign again after the millennium.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. Rev 12:12 |
And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Rev 20:7-8 |
Since God planned Revelation to be a mystery to most of the people who read it, it is apparent the end of the third woe was left out perhaps to keep it a mystery. All the woe's mentioned in the Book of Revelation after this point are done in two's and not three. Woe, woe, and not woe, woe, woe. Perhaps because the third woe is ever present.
Next the sixth angel sounds and that also starts the second woe.
Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." And the four angels were loosed, that had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, that they should kill the third part of men. Rev 9:13-15 |
After the five month period, 1/3 of the population will die, meaning that death will once again take place. A horn is an extension of a source, and since the horn mentioned here is before the throne of God, it means this voice and command comes directly from God. The four angels are released and go out to kill 1/3 of the earth's population. This event is different than the 25% of the population killed up to that point by the rider of the fourth horse back in chapter 6.
And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come. And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him. And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth. Rev 6:7-8 |
The next verse seems to pop up out of nowhere. There is no mention of any horsemen anywhere, and yet we find them mentioned right after the four angels.
Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. In some bibles it is written as: (And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand: I heard the number of them.) Rev 9:15 |
John goes on to describe them as the riders, but this seems to be a symbolic vision and not one that will be a physical one. In other words, he didn't see into the future and see horses and riders making up an army.
This army will probably be invisible to mankind, but I wouldn't rule it out. After all, who could describe such an animal if they can't see them? Even though there are two hundred million riders, their plagues are brought by only three things.
By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed-by
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And so the four angels release an army against mankind in the sum of around 200 million until one third of mankind is dead. It's interesting, but for some reason mankind will still not repent.
But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. Rev 9:20-21 |
One thing to notice about all of this is the time that has been appointed for it to take place. This time is where Jesus said he didn’t know as to when it was going to be, and so John wasn't given it either, but he was shown there is a specific time.
So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. Rev 9:15 |
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. Mat 24:36 |
Even an event like the killing of one third of mankind has been given a specific time to take place just like the second coming.
Keep in mind, the second coming begins with the call for the dead to rise first, which should open a lot of graves here on earth. And, since everyone who is left during this event are still alive, it means the second coming has begun, the silence is broken, but Jesus won't show up on earth just yet.
Now for a little fun math. If the population of earth is seven billion now, and Jesus promises to take half when he returns, "one will taken and the other left," that leaves 3.5 billion people if Jesus was to return now.
Then if these plagues kill 1/3 of mankind it leaves 2.33 billion people to go up against Jesus when he returns, or 1/3 of the currant population of 7 billion. The population of the earth will be considerably lower than it is now when Jesus returns.