February 16 - The Fifth Trumpet (pt. 1)

February 16 – The Fifth Trumpet (pt. 1)
Revelation 9:1-2

The imagery becomes more and more difficult to understand and the terrors continue to worsen. How are we to interpret this? As we move into this nightmarish images, I may share some of the contemporary interpretations, but for othe most part, I believe, along with many scholars, that John related what he saw. These aren’t simply a first-century interpretation of possible 21st century events.

Horses with smoke pouring from their mouths could be tanks with armament on the front blowing shells, horse tails like snakes have been interpreted as the Parthians from the first century, shooting arrows as they rode away from battle. The locusts might be a fleet of warplanes flying at high altitudes. But, I’m going to simply allow John to relate his vision to us as we continually move forward to the ultimate end.

In Rev. 6:13 and Rev. 8:10, we saw two different stars fall. This time the star is identified as “he” and has intelligence. The star might be Satan – we know from Luke 10:18 that he fell from heaven. Others consider that it is just another fallen angel.

“The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.” (Rev. 9:1-2)

The Abyss really stretched my imagination. Scripture implies that it is a prison. In Isaiah 24:21-23, we find that the powers in the heaven above and the kings on the earth below will be herded together and shut up in prison.

The book of Enoch tells us that it is the prison abode of fallen angels. Luke 8:31 tells us the story of Legion, the man who carried many demons. When they begged Jesus to send them into the herd of pigs, they were desperately begging to avoid the Abyss.

This is a completely different location from hell. Demons don’t even want to be sent there!

The sun and sky are darkened again by the smoke from the Abyss. I’ve seen pictures of smoke coming from the huge steel mills in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The skies are darkened, but this must have been incredible!

And oh, the horrors that come from that smoke.