Revelation Class #24 

We are in Revelation Chapter 9. As a review, remember that my premise is that Revelation is a book of worship. Number 1, it’s talking about how we really ought to be worshipping God. Number 2, we can look at the structure of the book of Revelation and we see that it’s in the form of what is called a Suzerain Treaty. Remember that the Suzerain Treaty was a treaty between the Great King (the conquering king) and the Vassal King, the one who had been conquered. It had a very stylized form. We have copies of treaties from extra-biblical documents, and we can see that form in a lot of different places in the Bible. Remember in Exodus 20, when God gives the ten commandments. Remember there was the preamble where the Lord says ‘I am the Lord your God.’ Next is the historical prologue, ‘Who brought you out of Israel.’ (The great king would say this is what I have done). Then there were the ethical stipulations, ‘these are the things you must do.’ (The great king would say to the vassal king). Then there would be the sanctions, ‘if you don’t do these things, this is what I’m going to do to you.’ Then there would be the succession arrangements.

  In Chapter 8-14 of Revelation are the sanctions. God is saying to Israel (I believe), because of your unbelief, because you have not accepted what I’ve told you about Jesus Christ, because you have not understood, these are the things I’m going to do to you. Remember my premise is the book of Revelation is not a book about something future to our times, but that it was a letter of comfort written to Jewish Christians. They had a knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament that far surpasses ours, and they would have understood all of these signs and symbols. Jesus is saying, these are the things that I am going to do to Israel, particularly he is talking about the things that were going to come to pass in 70 AD when God destroyed the temple in Israel. Remember after Jesus Christ had died on the cross, after his ultimate sacrifice Hebrews tells us, they continued to sacrifice bulls and goats and lambs. So God, because of their disbelief, because they didn’t understand Jesus Christ and refused to obey him as King saying we’ll have no king except Caesar, God sent the Roman army in and tore down the temple and dispersed the Jews.

  With that kind of a background, we now come to Chapter 9. Remember here there are a lot of “7’s” in the book of Revelation. We see 7 angels and 7 trumpets and all of these 7’s are melded together. Now we’re on the fifth angel.

Revelation 9:1  And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. (2) And he opened the bottomless pit; and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. (3) And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. (4) And they were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. (5) and they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. (6) And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; and they will long to die and death flees from them. (7) And the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. (8) And they had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. (9) And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. (10) And they have tails like scorpions, and stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. (11) they have as king ov er them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon. 

Now, what is the star from heaven? Lucifer. What leads us to that conclusion? He’s fallen from heaven. Remember when we went through Chapter 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters; (11) and the name of the star is called Wormwood ; We looked at the fact that it is a reference to Isaiah 14:12-15 where Isaiah is talking about Babylon. He was saying that because Babylon, particularly Nebuchadnezzar had said “I have done all of this,” that God was going to bring judgment. Babylon was one of the greatest cities that the world has ever seen. God took this great star and brought it down. But it also is talking about Lucifer. That Lucifer was a star, he was an angel. He refused to obey God and he fell from heaven and became the prince of this world.

In Jeremiah 9:15 we find out that Jeremiah speaks of feeding wormwood to Israel. That God says of Israel, because they have not believed, because they have been disobedient, “I will feed them, this people, with wormwood…” Then in 23:15 God repeats that promise of judgement. Also in Amos 5:7 God condemns Israel for having turned justice into wormwood. He is saying that he is going to make things bitter for them. That he is going to bring about judgment upon Israel because they also were acting like Babylon. They were saying ‘we have done all of this’ and not giving the credit to God. So you have here Isaiah talking about the prophecy against Babylon, then Jeremiah referring that to Israel. So he is really saying in effect Israel has become like Babylon. A pagan nation.

With that background, remember that these people would have understood. They knew the Old Testament backward and forward. So when they see this in context, they would understand that what God was saying here is ‘I’m going to bring judgment against Israel, who is the star who fell from heaven; who is the wormwood.’ This key of the bottomless pit is given to Satan himself. This bottomless pit, the word here means abyss, here again is a 7, it’s referred to 7 times in Revelation. Where did Satan get the key? It was given to him. It came from God. You see what we need to understand here is that even in this, God is in charge. He gives the key to the abyss to this fallen angel, to Satan, and allows him to open it up. What comes out? Smoke. (2) And he opened the bottomless pit; and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. (3) And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; These were not ordinary locusts.

Q: Is this a vision? Or is it literal?

A: That’s the question. Is what John seeing literal locusts that have these incredible things, breastplates, hair like women, teeth like lions, tails like the stings of scorpions. Is it something literal he’s seeing? Or is it something symbolic? I think it’s symbolic. I don’t think what John is saying is that there are going to be these incredible creatures that are like horses prepared for battle, on their heads were crowns with hair like the hair of women. I don’t think that’s what John is seeing at all. I think what John is seeing is the locust plague. What would be relevant about that to Jewish Christians? What would they think of when they heard about a plague of locusts? Judgment upon Egypt. When God brought forth a plague of locusts. It was a judgment plague. I think what we see here is that they would understand that God was bringing forth judgment against Israel, who had now become Babylon. Who had now become Egypt.

Q: So if this is a symbolic thing that John is seeing, what is the significance of God giving a key to Satan?

A: That God is in charge. That he is going to allow this to happen. This is going to happen to those who are not chosen. Those who do not have the mark of Christ. This was all in God’s plan.

Q: The ones that don’t have the seal of God are the Jews, right? The ones who are going to be destroyed are Jews who haven’t accepted Jesus.

A: Right. But remember that these are Israelites. These are Jews who are saying we are the chosen people of God. They are proclaiming to be of God, they’re using the name of God in vain. They’re saying ‘we are of God,’ yet they are not. They do not have the seal of God on their forehead. We talked about the fact that the seal of God comes from Ezekiel Chapter 9 where in Ezekiel’s vision a man in linen is told by God to go out and put a mark on the head of all of those whom God would save. Remember the mark was the Hebrew letter tau. In Hebrew, what it really says is go out and put a tau on the head of those whom I have chosen. The significance of that is that it is a cross. The original form of the Hebrew letter tau was a cross. So even in Ezekiel, written hundreds of years before Christ, God says go out and put a cross on the head of those whom I will save.

So when you see here in Revelation these incredible demons from the pit are sent out and it says they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads… you see we as Christians don’t have to worry about this. Even if it’s futuristic. Because it’s only going to happen to those who are not Christian. You see, even if you believe in a tribulation, when you read through the book of Revelation, there is never a case where the Christians suffer this kind of stuff. Read it carefully. I’ve done it.

Q: In Exodus when the locusts come, they’re commanded to eat the things and here they’re commanded not to. So is that since it’s Israel that is rejecting God, is it to show that the punishment is even greater that now he’s actually going to kill the people?

A: He doesn’t actually kill them though, does he? He torments them. They’re only tortured. They’re not killed. Remember, they’re given five months to torture men.

David Chilton, in Days of Vengeance goes into a whole bunch of stuff here. He talks about the fact that one interpretation of this is that there was a man by the name of Jessius Flores, who was a procurator of Judea. He was a Roman government official. We know this from extra-biblical accounts. We know this from Josephus who wrote the Jewish Wars (after Christ, just prior to 70 AD).

"Jessius Flores, procurator of Judea who for a five month period beginning in May of 66, slaughtered 3600 peaceful citizens and terrorized the Jews. Deliberately seeking to incite them to rebellion. He was successful. Josephus dates the beginning of the Jewish war from this occasion.”

In other words, he went out and started tormenting the Jews. As a result of that, the Jews responded. There was this incredible war, which ultimately resulted in the Roman army coming in and leveling the whole country, particularly the temple. I’m not sure I agree with Chilton on this. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know for sure what these things are, but this I do know. They are from the pit of hell. They are demons from the pit. They are released by Satan, but whose control are they under? God. You see, that would have been the message to the church when John wrote this. That even though all of these terrible thing are going to happen, God is in control. It’s not going to hurt those who have the mark of God. It’s not going to hurt those who are chosen of him, by him.

Q:  So do you think this corresponds to when Jesus said in Luke ‘when you see the Roman armies, get out?’

A: Yes. It’s talking about the same thing. As a matter of fact, Chilton goes into the same thing. In Luke 23:27 And there were following Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. (28) But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. (29) For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed. (30) Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ (31) For if they do these things in the green tree, what will happen in the dry?”

Here Jesus is talking about a great trouble that is going to come upon Jerusalem. Remember when we looked at Matthew 24, when we looked at Daniel 9 as the basis for that, we saw that what Jesus is prophesying in Matthew 24 is not the end of the world, it’s the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It’s the destruction of the Jewish system of unbelief. They had the form of religion, but they didn’t have the power.

Q: I think that when Jesus says ‘weep for yourselves and your children’, it leaves no room to interpret it anywhere but the past. These are their children.

A: Yes. He says in one of the other gospels, ‘it will come upon this generation.’ Remember we looked at that in Matthew 24 also. That these things are not talking about some futuristic thing, they’re talking about the generation that was alive then, and that generation suffered all of these terrible things that we see. So if we understand the Old Testament background, we look at what Jesus is actually saying, then we look at the book of Revelation, we say, wait a minute, that’s very clear. Again, I don’t know what these “things” are, but I know they’re from the pit of hell, I know they were released from Satan, but I know that God is in charge, and I know I don’t have to worry about them because I have the mark of God.

Q: Correlate if you would for me, where it talks about those who do not have the seal of god on their foreheads, in real life would you correlate that today because of the fact that we are saved believers in Jesus Christ. That this constitutes the seal. Correlate that if you would with other places in Revelation where it talks about the satanic seal, whether it be on your forehead or on your hand. Do you think that’s a symbolic thing as well, or a physical thing?

A: Remember that it’s a seal of God. The question is correlate the seal of God with the seal of Satan, the seal of the beast, as it were. The mark of the beast. Remember in the time of Jesus, the seal meant ownership. Remember that the tomb of Jesus was sealed, and that word had a very significant meaning. The seal was like a signet ring or an official stamp, and they would actually put a ribbon over the stone on the tomb and put a block of drip wax on it and then probably hit it with this seal, and the seal was Caesar’s. It was saying ‘this belongs to Caesar. Do not open it under penalty of death.’ So when we see that kind of thing in scripture, when Ezekiel sees God say to the man in the linen robe go out and mark those whom I have chosen on the forehead, he is saying ‘I own them. They’re mine.’

I remember in Frank Peretti’s book “Piercing the Darkness” at the end after this great battle and the righteous angels have defeated the fallen angels and the leader of the fallen angel says concerning the central character of the story — a woman that they’re trying to get, and the fallen angel cries out, “She’s mine! She’s mine!” And the leader of the righteous angels says, “No she’s not. She was always of God.” Peretti’s obviously not from a reformed church background (poor theology but exciting books), but he did understand. He did understand that this one was chosen before the world began. God had ownership of this person even before she was born, and God has ownership of us. That’s what this mark means. Are you marked with the beast or are you marked with God? Are you saved or are you unsaved? Are you righteous or are you unrighteous? There are only two kinds of people in Scripture. There are only two kinds of people, saved and unsaved; of God or of Satan; children of wrath or children of righteousness. Covenant keepers or covenant breakers. So that’s what it is saying, if you have the mark of the beast (I’ve read all the stuff about computer chips and all of that and I don’t know, it may come to that), but that’s not what Revelation is really talking about. What Revelation is really talking about is are you of Satan or are you of God. If you are of God, you don’t have to worry about it.

(11) they have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, That word in Hebrew means destruction. and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon. In Greek, the word means destroyer. It has the same connotation. One is destruction, one is the destroyer, it’s the same root. So what does that tell us that Satan is trying to do? Destroy! It’s really simple folks! He is trying to destroy the work of God, Christ’s kingdom. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (2) And the earth was formless and void, It was chaos. It was abyss. What did God do? He brought order out of chaos. Satan is trying to bring chaos out of order. He’s trying a false creation. Remember he is the father of lies. He is trying to undo what God does. He’s trying to say ‘God didn’t really say this.’ We need to understand that the chaos that we see in our society today is a result of Satan. It’s the work of sinfulness, we’re in a sinful world. We have the results of our old sinful nature hanging on. Even though God is bringing order into the universe through Jesus Christ, Satan is in there slugging trying to bring disorder. Trying to destroy, trying to bring destruction. So those who have the mark of the beast, who serve Satan, are headed for destruction.

  Comment: Satan was envious of us. That we’re of God.

A: I don’t recall reading that in Scripture, but I do know that the Satan was one of the most beautiful of angels, and this passage in Isaiah tells us that he wanted to be above God. He wanted to be like God. He said to Eve in the temptation in the garden, ‘in the day you eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and you will be like God.’

That’s the lie. That’s why when we see people today, what is the basis of all sin? I want to be like God. I don’t believe God’s word, that makes me God doesn’t it? That puts me above God. God’s not fair. What am I doing when I say something like that? I’m judging God. When we do those kinds of things, when people do those kinds of things, they’re saying in effect, God is wrong and I know better than God. What happens when we try to do those kinds of things? I know what happens when I try to take off and do things my way, destruction! Chaos! It doesn’t work! It’s when I let God do it that things work well.

Revelation 9:12 The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.

Wait a minute! Demons from the pit, and this is only the first of three woes! Wow! We must be in big trouble!

Q: Do you think the five months that they were going to be tortured has any significance?

A: Yes, everything in Scripture has significance. Chilton, asks, “Why does the locust plague last for five months? This figure is first of all a reference to the period of five months from May through September when locusts normally appeared.” Locusts actually appear during a five month period of the year. He points out that they appear all though that period, they don’t actually live for the whole five months. The unusual feature here is that these locusts remain for the entire period. Locusts normally live about one week, but they actually appeared during this whole period. I think it probably points to that. The other thing is, what does the number “5” mean in Scripture? The fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet means Grace. The Greek letter “hay” which we see first when Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldees. When God made a covenant with Abram, He changed his name to Abraham, by adding the fifth letter, or Grace. If you’re interested, there is a really good book on number in Scripture that goes through every passage in the Bible and shows how we know all of these things have to do with grace and completeness, unity and all the different things that numbers mean in Scripture. Remember, the Hebrews didn’t have a numbering system like we do. If they wanted to say the number 5, they used the letter “hay”, which is the fifth letter of the alphabet.  

9:12 The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things. (13) And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, (14) one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” (15) And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they might kill a third of mankind. (16) And the number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.

The sixth angel sounds the trumpet, and John hears a voice coming from the altar. What is significant about the golden altar, where was it located? It was in the tabernacle and remember that when you went into the tabernacle complex, there was the linen curtain completely around the tabernacle complex, then the first thing you came to was the altar of sacrifice. That was the bronze altar. The second thing you came to was the baptismal laver, so you had to wash. So you had to sacrifice and then you had to baptize, to wash your sins away. Then there was the tabernacle itself, this part was two compartments. The first part was the holy place. When you came in through the curtain into the holy place, on the right hand side was the table of the presence and on that table were the twelve loaves. The loaves of the presence, the bread, and wine. This was a communion table, where the priests every week would eat the loaves of the presence and they would have communion with God. On the other side was the candlestick, the seven-branched candelabra - the light of the world. Remember, the tabernacle was covered over with three different coverings, it was dark in there! So they had to have light in the darkness. In the back, probably right in front of the curtain that separated the holy place from the holy of holies was the golden altar. The golden altar of incense. That was kept burning 24 hours a day. The significance of this was that it represented the prayers of the saints. Remember we see in Revelation that the smoke of the incense going up is the prayers of the saints. So what that tells us is that we ought to be in this constant attitude of prayer, shouldn’t we? Praying to God all the time. You don’t have to be down on your knees with your eyes shut, but as you’re driving down the freeway, you can pray, ‘Thank you Lord for making that big truck miss me.’ A constant attitude of prayer. That’s what these people were praying for.

Chilton goes into a lot of background and points out that Jesus told the Christians they were to pray for the destruction of the ungodly. So it appears they were praying imprecatory prayers for the destruction of the Jewish system. Revelation very clearly says that in response to the prayers of the saints, God is sending out all of these judgments upon Israel. So when this voice comes from the four horns from the golden altar of incense, what would these Christians understand? God is hearing my prayers! God is answering my prayers! They would have understood that so clearly, and we don’t because we don’t understand all of this Old Testament background, but they would have known that. That God is hearing their prayers and God is pouring out judgment on this ungodly Jewish system.

(14) one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

W hat is the significance of the great river Euphrates? That’s where the garden of Eden was. At the head where the four rivers went out. What else was the great river Euphrates? When you look at the Mediterranean, with Israel to the south and the Euphrates to the north, where did all the invaders come from? The Euphrates. They crossed the Euphrates. To the north was also Assyria, then Babylon, but also to the north was Eden. So where is this destruction coming from? From God. That’s what they would have understood. That these overwhelming army hoards were under the control of God. That it was God coming in judgment again.

(16) And the number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.

Normally, the New American Standard is a literal translation, but boy did they do a terrible number here. They say the number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; but that is not what it says. What it says is I heard the number of the horsemen was double myriads. In the Greek it’s the same word, basically, and its double, the word for myriad doubled - ‘dis’ in front of it, and then myriads, which is many. So what it really says in Greek is double many, a lot. It doesn’t say two hundred million. It’s a huge number

Q: Is there an alternate manuscript or something? This is phenomenal because that would make such a difference.  

A: It’s unfortunate because they’re trying to show the hugeness of the army, but what happens when you put numbers in there, particularly for Americans, they take it literally. So what are we looking for then? We’re looking for an army of two hundred million people, aren’t we?

Q: When you look at the text, there’s no specific number there?.

A: No, there’s no number there. I could show you the Greek, and it’s a Greek word that means double myriads and myriads. What it is saying is that there’s a great number there.

Q: Did somebody start the first translation with this number and everybody else followed?

A: I don’t know. I think what it really has to do with is the fact of the mind set that we have today, and that even the New American Standard translators really are looking at Revelation in a futuristic way, and they’re looking for a great army. What do you say about an army? How do we talk in terms of armies? Do we say a great multitude of army? No, we talk about 14 brigades, or divisions or two hundred million.

Q: You told me that the New American Standard had a pre-millennial bias.

A: A lot of it is, unfortunately. When you read through the New American Standard, particularly in Revelation and Matthew 24, and we pointed out a couple of things before, they do think in terms of pre-millennial futuristic interpretation.  This is unfortunate because what we really ought to be doing is looking at what does the Bible really say? Not what some group of translators thinks it says, but what does it really say. Remember Bob’s first rule of hermeneutics - what does the Bible really say?

Q: Who are these troops under the control of?

A: God.

Q: Yes, I guess given that, I don’t see the problem what the number is. In other words, I don’t see how putting a number on of two hundred million has anything to do with making it future to us or future to this

A: That’s a good point. I think the point that I was trying to make there is that here is a case where we say something literally, but it isn’t really literal in Scripture. You’re right. As long as we understand that even that army, whether or not it’s two hundred million, is under the control of God, that’s the important part. I apologize if I made a big deal of it, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s two hundred million or four hundred million.

Q: If it had said the number of people that were living at that time that would be killed was precisely literally two hundred million, then we’ve got some problems. Because there weren’t two hundred million people living in Jerusalem at that time.

A: You’re absolutely right.

Q: The reason I brought up Eden is because when God put Adam and Eve out of Eden after the sin, at that point in time He placed the angels in Eden to guard, to insure that they would not return. Are we talking about the same four angels?

A: No. Actually I think in Genesis it’s the cherub with the flaming sword. I believe it’s singular.

You’re absolutely right that when God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherub at the entrance to the garden with the flaming sword to guard the way to the garden. About the cherub, the word ‘guard’ in Genesis has a double meaning. It can mean to guard in the sense of preventing entry. I also can be used in the sense of guarding to ensure the way is open. I believe that is the way it is used in Genesis. God was guarding the entrance to Eden to ensure there would be a way back into the Garden. Of course, that way is Christ.