Locusts From the Bottomless Pit - Revelation 9

Revelation 9 and the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets

So what is this screen all about? Why is there a grasshopper and a helicopter on the screen? Some of you know what this is about. Others probably think that's a little odd, but I'll explain in a moment, okay?

Let's turn to Revelation chapter nine. This chapter covers the fifth trumpet judgment and also the sixth trumpet judgment. So verses one through 12, this is titled locusts from the bottomless pit. So that explains the grasshopper or the locust on the screen.

And then verses 13 through 21 is titled the angels from the Euphrates and that's the Euphrates river. So if you remember how chapter eight ended last week, an angel flew in the midst of heaven and declared that there were three woes coming.

So these are the trumpet judgments that have started in chapter eight. This is the wrath of God being poured out upon planet earth and things are just getting worse and worse. So these are the three woes.

The angel said, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is back in chapter eight. Whoa, whoa, whoa to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet and of the three angels who are about to sound.

So the first angel sounds and you get the locusts from the bottomless pit and then the next angel blows his trumpet and these angels are released from the river Euphrates and they kill a large percent of the earth's population.

So the tribulation is well, we're well into the tribulation. And again, this is the wrath of God being poured out right here. So let's read Revelation chapter nine. We'll start out with verses one through 10 because as far as these locusts, some people believe that the locusts, what John is seeing, he's describing them as locusts but they're really Apache helicopters.

Who's heard this?

Who knows?

Yeah, okay, all right. And yeah, I'll get into that later on. Cobra helicopters, right? Okay, Revelation nine, one through 12. Then the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth.

Tim was given the key of the bottomless pit and he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.

Then out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. And 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.

And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. And by the way, five months is about the life cycle of a locust. It says their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.

In those days, men will seek death and will not find it and will desire to die and death will flee from them. And the shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold and their faces were like the faces of men.

And they had hair like women's hair and their teeth were like lion's teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron. And the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle.

And they had tails like scorpions and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

One woe is passed, behold, two more woes are coming after these things. Okay, so what we see in this passage, it says a star falls from heaven. And this star is not like the stars we've seen up until this point, because the stars that we saw last chapter were probably like meteors.

We thought maybe one was a meteor, another was a comet, you know, heavenly bodies coming. This star is clearly not that. This star is what? It's an angel. And because it's an angel that falls from heaven, many believe this could be Satan himself, or at least a high-ranking demon, if you wanna put it that way.

And what this fallen angel does, and angels are referred to as stars, especially in the Old Testament. If you do a study, you'll notice that. But what this fallen angel does is he opens up the bottomless pit, and that's also sometimes referred to as the abyss.

So if you'd bear with me for a moment as I try to describe the underworld, in the New Testament, the teaching that we see in the New Testament, before Jesus died, when someone died, they would go to the underworld, and they would go to either paradise, or they would go to Hades.

So everyone who died before the cross went to paradise or Hades. Okay, in the Old Testament, the word for this is what? The Hebrew word for the underworld? Yeah, sheol. That's, in the King James Version, either translated hell or the grave, depending on the context.

In the New Testament, it's not the word sheol, it's the word Hades. That's the Greek word. And we learn from Jesus in Luke chapter 16 that there are two compartments of the underworld. So it's all called Hades, but one compartment is a place of blessing.

So paradise, or sometimes referred to as Abraham's bosom. The other side is, well, it could be called hell or torment. So in the underworld, you have two places, two compartments. So everyone who died went to sheol or Hades, but there is a place of blessing and a place of cursing.

Marcus.

Is it the bad part also called Gehenna?

Gehenna is probably, that's a term that Jesus uses. The Greek term Gehenna, most scholars agree, refers to kind of the final lake of fire. Okay, so imagine, and if you know the parable or the story that Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus, okay, you have paradise, you have torment, and in between is what?

Yeah, a great gulf fixed. Another word for a great gulf is a chasm. So we think that gulf in between is the bottomless pit or the abyss. Okay, now, when Jesus died, this is based on Ephesians 4, 8 and 9.

When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive. Not to get into all of that, but basically we believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he descended into the lower parts of the earth and Jesus opened up the saved compartment of Hades.

Jesus opened up paradise and took all the believers there to heaven. And now paradise is located in the third heaven, that's 2 Corinthians 12, 12. Now, the reason I bring that up, Jesus opened up one compartment.

Now it looks like this angel, a badden or a polyon, it looks like he opens up, maybe not the other compartment, but he opens up like the abyss. So just as Jesus emptied out paradise and brought the saints to heaven, he's emptying out the bottomless pit and all these demons are coming up out of the underworld and they're coming to earth.

That seems to be what's happening here. And that's why the three woes are so terrible. Up until this point, you've had world war and famine and disease and all this stuff, which is really bad. But this is just horrific.

I mean, can you imagine the world being filled with demonic like creatures that are tormenting people for five months and they can't even die?

It's so bad.

Well, it really is unimaginable.

Nightmares.

Yeah, it is the stuff of nightmares. And I think you could say that hell is literally being unleashed upon the earth. Okay, any questions on that? Now, who are these locusts, which I interpret this, they're demons, I believe.

They look like locusts, I guess. There's some question about this, right? The whole question of how literally do you take this? We'll get into that. But whatever these things are, they're tormenting people.

Who are they tormenting? Well, let's start out. Who are they not tormenting? Who can they not touch? Okay, so remember the 144 ,000 who are sealed. Okay, they cannot touch them. You know, I tend to believe that all the people that the 144 ,000 are converting, so all believers that have been one to Christ during the tribulation, they're not touching them either.

Okay, so really the only people they are tormenting are the people on earth. And you say, well, this is so horrible, I can't imagine. Yeah, but the people on earth at this time that are being tormented, essentially, they're basically Satan worshipers.

I mean, the world has gotten so bad at this point that the people of the earth are literally, they're gonna be worshiping the Antichrist and they're gonna be worshiping the one who gives him his power, who is the dragon, Satan.

And I always say that, because somebody, when you think about how horrible this is, somebody is gonna start thinking, well, is this really just? These judgments upon the earth, is this really fair? Well, these are people who hate God.

They rejoice when Christians are killed, they throw a party. I mean, these people are deserving. I mean, it says in the Bible that they are doing, well, Revelation 19, two, a great multitude in heaven cries out and says, for true and righteous are God's judgment.

So if you don't feel that way now, you will.

Marcus.

Yeah, a couple of words now that I view in a different light are, one is just, you know, God is just. Shall not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?

Right.

Another one that I look at more carefully now is this word fair, because that seems to be everyone's excuse and everyone's thing, or the feeling that fairness is something that's right. I just, I think of it this way.

I don't think it was fair that God had to send his son and I don't think it was fair that he had to bear all our sins. That does not seem fair to me.

Yeah.

So let's just face it, fairness has not existed.

Sure.

Erin.

It just occurred to me, it's almost like Satan is switching his tactics at this point, because prior to that, he's attacking those who are faithful to God, you know, trying to undermine and, you know, the unjust, the unloving, they're the ones that seem to be making all the money and they're doing really well.

And it's like, they're being rewarded for following Satan all that time. And then once the woes have come, it's like, and he's opened the abyss. It's like, okay, and now you see who I really am.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the idea that Satan cares about the people that he's deceiving, he doesn't care. And he'll take just as much pleasure in their torment as anything else. So Satan is not, you know, he doesn't support his own people, right?

Like he knows his fate and he wants everyone to join him, basically. Now, Marcus quoted a passage. This is Genesis 18, 25, where Abraham makes a rhetorical, well, he asked a rhetorical question, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right?

So when you read through the book of Revelation, yeah, a lot of this, I mean, it is terrible, what's happening, but you don't have to worry that God is, there's nothing unjust happening here. God is going to do what is right.

We can trust God. And if somebody wants to be spared, all a person has to do is cry out to God. And it says in the book of Joel, about the end times when the sun is turned dark and the moon to blood, all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

So if somebody wants to be spared, then just cry out to God and God will save anyone who wants to be saved. But the problem is with these people, they don't want to be saved. They don't want God in their life.

They, I think at this point, do they know that they're worshiping the devil? I don't know, but they know they hate the God of heaven, that much they do know. All right, so any questions before we move on?

The Bottomless Pit, Hades, and the Abyss

Okay, Revelation nine. Let's just go through these verses more closely and I'll try to explain the helicopter thing. One through 12, starting verse one, the fifth angel sounded, I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth, to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

So like I said, a lot of people think this might be Satan himself, that Apollyon or Abaddon is a name for Satan. I don't think that's the case. This is probably like a high ranking demon. Because if you think of God's angels, God has angels who are of a higher rank than others, right?

There's archangels, Michael seems to be at the top. So same thing with Satan. He has his principalities and powers and certain angels are higher than others. So Abaddon is probably like one of Satan's generals, if you will.

So there's a small minority view that says this is a holy angel, but because they say, well, why would a demon have the key to the demonic prison house? Well, it says the key was given to him. So I think God is just allowing this for his own purposes.

Why is God judging the earth? Two primary reasons, because mankind crucified the son of God. God still hasn't forgotten about that. He's not gonna forget until he punishes planet earth, mankind and number two, the world system known as Babylon.

That's what it's called in revelation. The world system has always persecuted the prophets and the saints of God. So Christians are being killed right now, certain places in the world today. They're not being killed in the United States that we're aware of, but there are places where Christians are being killed.

Christians have always been killed. God's prophets have always been persecuted and abused and everything else. So this is God, it's retribution is what it is. Verse two says, he opened up the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace.

So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. So it seems that the abyss or the bottomless pit, it's like a self-contained area, it's enclosed. This may be what Peter spoke of in second Peter two.

Peter mentions that the angels who sinned were cast into Tartarus. That's another word the new Testament uses for it that's translated hell. So Gehenna, Hades and Tartarus. So these are the angels that are chained in darkness.

So if Tartarus is the abyss, now it's just, it's being emptied and that would make these things demons. But John describes them as what? He calls them locusts. So are they demons or are they locusts? I mean, to me, they're demons that look like locusts.

The description doesn't sound anything like a locust.

Well, it doesn't sound like a locust. It sounds like a Cobra helicopter, right? That's what, I'm going to show you a picture and I'm going to show you why some people have thought that. I keep telling you that, but we're going to get there.

Verse three, then out of the smoke. Yeah, it says locusts came upon the earth. So that's what John says. And this is what I've been telling you all along in revelation, like we take the book literally unless there's a reason not to take it literally.

But the reason why you might not take it literally is because when John describes them, he's saying it's like this, it's like that. The word like keeps reappearing again and again and again. So it gives you the idea that, okay, it may not actually be what it sounds like.

All right, so about this helicopter thing, I don't necessarily hold to this position, but I can understand if John, as a first century Jewish man, if he has given a vision of the future, if he were to see helicopters, a group of helicopters coming over a mountain, how would a first century Jewish man describe what he's seeing?

He would probably describe it like this. So, I mean, that does make a lot of sense. So I'll show you a picture here. Let's see if I can, if the technology works for me, it'll pop up. Okay, see the picture here?

So wings with the sound of an army of horse-drawn chariots. So he's hearing this noise and locusts do, if you have a swarm of locusts, they do make noise, but he's describing like an intense, like loud, loud, loud noise.

And helicopters certainly do make that noise. Okay, he talks about a crown of gold. So there's the emblem. So this is what kind of helicopter, Marcus?

That's a Cobra, but that's an A -10 Warthog mouth that's got on it.

Yeah, well, you know, the picture, this is the only one I could find.

And the other one was a Huey.

Yeah, I've always, right. I've always heard people describe it as Apache helicopters, but technically it's Cobra.

All right.

So I don't know, there's an emblem here, maybe, you know, that could be seen as a crown of gold there. The faces of men. Well, if John is looking at a helicopter, he's seeing men in the cockpit, right?

Teeth of a lion. Okay, yeah, some helicopters, they do, they have painted those teeth with the eyes on the front. Yeah, the hair as a, like a woman, maybe that's when the blades stop and they kind of hang down.

I don't know, just throwing that out there. The breastplates of iron. Okay, I mean, it is iron, I guess, or whatever it's made of, steel. Tail of a scorpion. Yeah, you can see where it might look like that.

Okay, so this is why a lot of commentators have thought that, yeah, this is what John is seeing. Just like the mountain back in chapter eight that falls into the sea, maybe he's describing something like a nuclear bomb, or the blast of a nuclear bomb.

Maybe when he describes the locus, he's describing this.

Maybe it was Mount St. Helens.

Could be. This is all speculation, okay?

It also says that there are rear guns on a lot of helicopters.

Yeah, if there's a rear gun on the back, that would make sense with the stinger.

When they take off in the desert, it's gonna be a small.

Sure. Yeah, so, you know, you bring up the helicopter thing and someone's gonna be like, oh, well, that's absurd. Well, you know, maybe, maybe not, but in the book, four views, a parallel commentary by Steve Gregg.

I showed you the book last week. In his book, he quotes the famous author Hal Lindsey. Who knows Hal Lindsey? He had a really popular book back, I guess, in the 70s, The Late Great Planet Earth. That book was, it was like Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, but it was like back then.

It was just a huge book. Every Christian you knew had one. Okay, everyone was talking about it. Here's what Steve Gregg says about Hal Lindsey. Though Lindsey's initial comments, because Hal Lindsey is a commentator of sorts.

He's explaining revelation, trying to. Though Lindsey's initial comments suggest that he is expecting actual creatures, just as described, he mentioned with apparent approval, this idea of modern warfare and military power as a possible alternative.

So it sounds like Hal Lindsey thinks these are really locusts or really demons that look like locusts, but it may be, you know, modern warfare, helicopters. Here's what Hal Lindsey said. And I quote, Hal Lindsey said, I have a Christian friend who was a Green Beret in Vietnam.

When he first read this chapter, Revelation 9, he said, I know what those are. I've seen hundreds of them in Vietnam. They're Cobra helicopters, you know, in regards to the locusts. Hal Lindsey goes on, that may just be conjecture, but it does give you something to think about.

My friend believes that the means of torment that lasts five months will be a kind of nerve gas that is sprayed from the helicopter's tail. Okay, so that's how Lindsey take it for what it's worth.

Okay.

Everyone I've heard kind of ascribe to this, John wouldn't know what modern warfare and airplanes and soldiers who served in war.

Yeah.

Every last one of them.

Yeah.

I find that interesting.

Yeah, and you know, some of the, I think it's the Old Testament passages about Bible prophecy and the end times. It talks about them using swords and riding horses. And you think, well, if this happened like now, or in our future, they certainly wouldn't be using ancient weaponry.

Well, then there's a whole other theory that there could be one of those, what's it called?

Electromagnetic pulse.

Yeah, electromagnetic pulse when they explode. What is that E?

An EMP.

EMP, they explode the nuclear bomb in the atmosphere and it just fries everything electronic that maybe in the end, they really have to resort to that. Again, this is all speculation, but as far as Hal Lindsey goes, did Hal Lindsey teach that these are Cobra helicopters, the locusts of chapter nine?

Technically from this, Hal Lindsey did not teach that.

He also didn't dismiss it.

But he didn't, yeah, he didn't dismiss it. He said that is a possible alternative. So my personal opinion, they are demons. I believe there are demons. That seems to be what it says, taking a literally, but I can't rule that out completely.

It is an interesting theory.

Yes, Meg.

Did you just say before that when it came to the something like a great mountain last week that that could be something?

Yeah.

Yeah, because when we had gone over that last week, I couldn't help but think like, well, he would have never seen like a skyscraper or like I was thinking like maybe it could be like big buildings or something like that, but the nuclear bomb doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, it could be a lot of things. Yes, Marcus.

What is the, or have you seen what commentators say about the seal of God on their foreheads?

I have not, I have not found any real theories about the seal of God. Now, when it comes to the mark of the beast, which will also be in the forehead, there's a lot of theories about the mark of the beast.

But the seal of God, I have not got that far yet. So I'll have something for you by the end. All right, but again, these are things that you really can't have a certain answer for that stuff. And that's why some people, well, I don't wanna study revelation because it's all speculation.

Well, it's not all speculation. We know that there are gonna be these woes. We know that there are gonna be judgments. We know the big picture, the main point. Some of the details, yeah, we're trying to figure it out.

I know one of the things that I hear a lot of people and I've fallen victim to myself is being afraid that we'd accidentally take the mark of the beast, not realizing that's what it was. And somebody, one of my pastors comforted me by saying, as a Christian, you cannot take it unknowingly.

Right, yeah.

I just thought I'd put that out there.

Right, when we get to the mark of the beast in chapter 13, yeah, there's no possible way a Christian would accidentally take the mark, right. Okay, so back to the text, verse 11. It says locusts, so I'm sticking with locusts.

Now, not actual locusts, like demons that look like locusts because locusts don't have a king over them. But here it says that they have a king and the king is the angel of the bottomless pit. So the king of the demons is another demon, right?

And this demon's name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek, he has the name Apollyon. Okay, what does Apollyon mean? Or what does Abaddon mean?

Destroyer.

Destroyer, okay. Now, while we're talking about conjecture here, this is just an interesting side note. Since Revelation speaks of this demon opening up a gateway or opening up an entrance here to the bottomless pit, since chapter 13 is gonna talk about a one-world government, one-world system, who has heard, and listen, just show a little grace here if you think what I'm saying sounds a little far out, but who has heard of CERN or the Large Hadron Collider in Europe?

Okay, so long story short, the governments of Europe, along with funding from the United States, they've joined together, and a lot of people think that the end times government is going to be a reunion of the Roman Empire, so these are the nations of Europe.

Anyways, they have come together and they have built a giant particle accelerator underground, I don't know if it's beneath Switzerland, which countries, a few different, France, I think, and what they're doing, they're performing experiments underground, and some people have theorized that they're looking for something called the god particle, that's one thing that scientists are looking for.

Another idea is that they believe, many people believe what they're trying to do is they're trying to open up a portal to another dimension, and this is all over the internet, and for the record, I'm not saying that this is what they're doing, matter of fact, it's probably not what they're doing, but it's all over the internet that many believe they are trying to open a portal to hell, or they are trying to open up the bottomless pit.

Now, you're gonna get people, well, that's absurd, and somebody online is, they're pressing the stop button right now, and they're not gonna listen, because this is the stuff, this is the stuff of conspiracy theories, right, and that is a conspiracy theory.

Here's why I bring it up. It was reported, I remember this in the news, about 15 years ago, there were legitimate scientists who were concerned that CERN was going to accidentally open up a black hole.

That was reported on ABC, NBC, CNN, that legitimate sources really believe they could accidentally open up a black hole. Now, what is a black hole? We're not even sure black holes exist, but most scientists believe they do.

In a black hole, one theory is that they are like a portal to another dimension, another realm, or they act like a wormhole that would bring you somewhere else in the universe, okay? That's all kind of mainstream physics or science.

Yes, Marcus?

How do you spell CERN?

C-E-R-N.

Is that a necrostic or something?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what it stands for. So that was reported on all the mainstream news outlets. So when I think of, okay, opening up a black hole, and I hear this, the bottomless pit, okay, that's one thing, but that wouldn't be enough for me to bring it up.

I wouldn't bring it up just for that. What I find interesting, outside of CERN, they actually have a statue or an idol, if you will, of the Hindu goddess Shiva. And in Hinduism, guess what Shiva is? The destroyer.

So Shiva is basically the Hindu version of a badminton or a polio. Now, why would the governments of Europe set up an image of Shiva outside of CERN, this place where legitimate scientists believe they might open up a black hole?

Why would they do that?

I don't know.

So, yeah, yeah.

So just for the record, do I think that's actually what they're trying to do, opening up a portal to the bottomless pit? Probably not. However, it's been well-established that Nazi Germany during World War II, they were dabbling in the occult.

Most governments do this. Even our own CIA has used psychic mediums. They dabble in the occult to try to get an edge and try to see if there's anything to this stuff that they can kind of get a leg up in warfare.

So the Shiva thing is interesting. A couple of years ago, was it? Two years ago, maybe. Outside of the United Nations, which the UN would be like a prototype for a one-world government. Do you remember what they erected outside of the UN?

The beast of Revelation, the beast depicted in Daniel in Revelation, they set up a beast, this image that looked just like the one described in Revelation. The only difference, instead of a lion, it was like some other cat.

But why would they do that? Here's the thing. I just want you to know this. When the end times do come and the Antichrist takes power, he's not actually going to identify himself as the Antichrist. When governments do this type of stuff, if they did have some sort of plan to dabble in, they wouldn't actually report that to the general public.

They would deny it. When the one-world government is instituted, they're not going to say, hey, we're the one-world government that Revelation talks about. They're not going to say that, just like a false teacher never admits they're a false teacher, right?

And even people who do evil, they convince themselves they're the good guys. Now here is what the ministry website gotquestions .org says. I looked up the CERN thing and I looked up the statue outside the UN.

They said the statue at the UN is a vague precursor or isn't a vague precursor or a literal fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They said either way, it would not change anything. Christians are meant to serve, preach, and work faithfully knowing all end time events are fixed and are part of God's unchanging plans.

The statue does echo elements of end times prophecy, intentionally or ignorantly. And that at least is a reminder of how little the world knows or cares about God's word and his plans. But I submit to you, it's possible they know full well what it is and they're doing it as a way of showing you you know, we're in charge and there's nothing you can do about it.

So, Revelation chapter nine, hell has been unleashed and this is the first woe. The idea that people are evil and they're trying to do this stuff, that shouldn't surprise you, okay? That stuff, it's going to happen.

If it's not happening right now, it will someday. Starting in verse, we're almost done, verse 13. This is the next woe, the sixth trumpet, the angel from the Euphrates. It says, then the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, okay?

This is probably the altar of incense. So these are the prayers of the martyrs. They're finally being answered. God is taking vengeance on planet earth. The second woe, verse 14, when the trumpet sounds, four angels are released and it says they were bound at the great river Euphrates.

We don't know anything about these angels, who they are, why they're bound, except that they're there waiting to fulfill this purpose. Verse 15, so the four angels who had been prepared for an hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.

Now, I want you to think about this. If you go back to chapter six, you remember one fourth of the earth's population was killed in chapter six and now it's one third. So what does that equal to? That's half, at this point, half of the earth's population has now been killed because of these four angels.

They go out and they take a massive amount of life. Now again, at any moment, a person, because the world is gonna know what's happening. The people of the world, they're gonna have the ministry of the 144 ,000.

Later, we read about the two witnesses, right? When the two witnesses are killed, the earth, the people of the earth rejoice and they throw a party when they die. At any point, a person on earth could call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.