A few days ago I wrote about the sounding of the first two trumpets of the Seven Trumpets judgment in Revelation. The first trumpet was hail and fire mingled with blood that burnt up a third of the trees and all the green grass. The second trumpet was "as it were a mountain burning with fire" that caused a third of the sea to turn to blood, a third of the life in the sea to die, and a third of the ships to be destroyed. How would hail and fire be mingled with blood? My best guess is that this is possibly what it looked like, not what it is. I don't think this violates the infallibility of Scripture because this is a vision. Vision use symbols and figurative speech.
The third trumpet is a great star falling from heaven onto the earth called Wormwood that poisons one third of the fresh water. The word used for star can be translated as anything shining in the sky, like planets, comets, meteors, or actual stars.
The fourth trumpet is the smiting of one third of the sun, the moon and the stars. Smiting? They become darkened and only give two thirds of their light.
Like the Seven Seals, the Seven Trumpets judgments are broken into two parts, four trumpets are judgments of nature, then the last three are judgments of mankind.
At the sounding of the fifth trumpet, a star falls from heaven to the earth and to him is given the key of the bottomless pit.
At this point it seems to me that I have never read or heard so many creative ideas about any subject in the Bible as I've read about what happens when the fifth trumpet sounds.
The star is an angel, who has fallen from heaven. Would this then be a demon? It could be. He is probably something like a holy angel that is an "avenging angel." "Fallen from heaven" seems to mean just that he descended from heaven to earth, not a reference to his spiritual condition. He is given the key to the bottomless pit. Also, in Revelation 20:1-3 "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit..." This is probably the same angel and this is a holy angel. The actual translation of "the bottomless pit" would be "the abyss." The abyss is a prison for demons. It seems there are levels of crimes committed by demons, some misdemeanors and some felonies. The felon demons are put in the abyss.
When the angel unlocks the abyss, John says that smoke pours out, and out of the smoke come locusts. That sounds possible until he describes the locusts. They are not to hurt the trees or grass but only the people who don't have the seal of God on their forehead. Locusts don't bite people, they eat greenery. They have a bite like a scorpion and they sting people. In addition, they don't look like locusts. They looked like horses, they had crowns like gold, faces like man, hair like women, breastplates like breastplates of iron, teeth like lions, and the sound of their wings was like chariots with many horses running to battle, and tails like scorpions. These don't act like locusts, and they don't look like locusts.
I don't think we're to understand these are literal locusts. I think there are aspects of a plague of locusts that apply to the scene being described. I think there are many more demons than most people realize, probably as many as people on earth, and maybe more. John sees them as locusts because it describes the vast numbers of demons pouring out of the abyss, multitudes. And also because of their destructiveness. As far as their looks, normally you or I can't see demons. The description of what they look like is probably describing their spiritual characteristics. Do they actually bite? Well, I'm sure a lot of bad things that happen already can be laid at the door of demons, a lot more than we realize. They could bite. Or this could also be figurative. They cause either physical or psychological pain of a severe level. We already have demons on earth, and probably a surprisingly large number of them. Add to that the ones who have been locked up, most likely to protect us from them. Now the gloves are off. Massive numbers of the worst demons are let loose on earth. Twice we are told that they will be unleashed on us for 5 months.
I've read that it was commonly felt in the 19th century that the locusts were the Muslims. Some still believe this. One writer thought that Martin Luther was the fallen angel who opened the abyss. The Protestants were the locusts. Many thought that the locusts were descriptions of modern weapons of war. And there has been a lot of speculation about the king of the locusts. Is it Satan? A holy angel? A high ranking demon? The Pope? And again, having a king is not what locusts do. And the king is named Destroyer in Hebrew and Greek. This is all telling of greatly increased demonic activity during the Tribulation.
One woe is past, and behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
to be continued
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