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| Chapter 9 |
| Bible Text | Notes and Thoughts |
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1 ¶ And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 And it was commanded to them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he strikes a man. 6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. 7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for battle; and on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. 8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 9 And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots with many horses running to battle. 10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stingers in their tails; and their power was to hurt men five months. 11 And they had a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue the name is Apollyon That is, A destroyer. 12 One woe is past; and behold, there come two more woes hereafter. 13 ¶ And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which stands before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Loose the four angels who are bound in the great river Euphrates." 15 And the four angels were loosed, who had been prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year, to slay the third part of men. 16 And the number of the army of horsemen was two hundred thousand thousand, and I heard the number of them. 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them had breastplates of fire and of jacinth and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 By these three was the third part of men killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents and had heads, and with them they cause hurt. 20 And the rest of the men, who were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; 21 neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. |
We now move into the second group of trumpets. The sounding of these trumpets call into action what appear to be spiritual and demonic powers. v1-12 The Fifth Trumpet. On the sounding of the fifth trumpet a ‘star’ falls to the earth from heaven. John tells us that the key to the bottomless pit was given to the ‘star,’ this shows that the ‘star’ is a person. In Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:12-19 we have a record of the fall of Satan, once a great angel called Lucifer, the "Son of the morning" has now become the serpent and devil, Satan. It appears that on the sounding of this trumpet Satan is permitted special powers. God is allowing Satan this extra power because of the evil and wickedness of mankind, they preferred the Devil to God so God has removed some of the restraining control on Satan, and mankind is about to feel the full experience of Satan’s powers and abilities. Whether this ‘star’ is Satan Himself or one of His followers we are not told. Note that the giving of the key indicates that God has full control of all the Satanic followers. Luke 8:26-33. v7-10 The bottomless pit is opened and smoke pours out as from a furnace. Through the smoke comes thousands of creatures which John describes as like locusts, but look like armoured horses, with crowns of gold, faces like men, hair like a woman, teeth like a lion and wings allowing them to fly. They were wearing armour, breastplates of iron, and a weapon like a scorpions tail. These creature are told to sting and torment men for five months, but they were not allowed to kill anyone or touch those sealed by God or harm the grass or trees. v11 Their king Abaddon, refers to the Old Testament depths of "Sheol" (the Hebrew underworld home of the dead.) and means destruction. v13-20 The Sixth Trumpet. The effects of this trumpet continue on into the following chapters. The sixth trumpet sounds and instructions come from the altar to release four angels from the Euphrates river. Four angels are somehow locked up in this river, they must have been wicked angels to be in this situation. These angels had been locked away for this specific time and day. The people are the direct target of them, a third was about to die. v16-18 With the angels comes an army of what appear to be horses with riders, 200,000,000. This great cavalry army from hell spreads through the world destroying with death dealing fire, smoke and brimstone (an old name for sulphur). V20,21 With this terrible destruction you would expect mankind to turn away from evil, but John tells us that they will still murder, rob, continue in fornication, worship idols of wood and stone, not repenting of their rejection of God in anyway. |
Easy English Translation
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