The three woes of Revelation 8:13 belong to the last three trumpets and fall on the earth-dwellers, those settled and at ease on the earth. Each woe answers the trumpet about to sound. When the fifth trumpet sounds in Revelation 9:1, the tribulation is about six months from its end. The vision is an overview; later chapters return and fill in detail.
The star has already fallen from heaven. It is not falling now. Satan has been cast out of the third heaven and is given the key to the pit of the abyss. That pit is a chamber within the abyss, and the abyss is in Sheol, also called Hades, in the center of the earth, where some fallen angels are imprisoned for their former activity. When the pit is opened they swarm out like locusts. They receive the authority of scorpions, so they may cause intense pain, but they are not permitted to kill. They may not touch grass, green things, or trees, and they may not touch the men who have the seal of God on their foreheads. That seal is a seal of judgment, of the same kind seen in Ezekiel 9:4, when those marked in Jerusalem were not to be killed as Babylon sacked the city. It is not the seal of the 144,000. The 144,000 seal concerned protection for their ministry. This seal marks those who belong to God. The word is anthropos, so it is not limited to Israel. Gentile saints come through the tribulation as well: many are killed by the harlot in the first half for opposing the world religious system, and many are beheaded in the second half for their witness of Christ. Israel in the wilderness is already kept while God purges the nation. The only people these demons may strike are those who belong to Satan. His own followers attack his own people. His house is divided.
The shape they are permitted to take is given in similes, not as an identical portrait. Humans see angels only when those angels take a physical form, and that form is usually human. Here the locusts are like horses prepared for battle. The locust figure is the swarm. In Exodus 10 an east wind brought locusts over all Egypt until they covered the land, a plague unlike any before or after. These demons likewise come in numbers, not one by one, darkening the land and going out to harm men. On their heads are crowns like gold. They are victor’s wreaths, but only likened to gold. The Church alone among the saints receives victor’s wreaths, and those wreaths are gold. These are false wreaths, likely given when these angels followed Satan in his attempt to set his throne in the third heaven. Satan can produce a likeness of gold, not gold. He has a limited power to produce life, as the Egyptian plagues show, but not this. These are not the whole third of the angels who followed him. They come from the pit, a small part of the abyss, and their equipment marks them as lower ranks. Their faces are like the faces of men, their hair like the hair of women, their teeth like lions’ teeth. Long hair on a male face is shame, not honor. Nature itself teaches that long hair is a dishonor to a man, while a woman’s long hair is her glory and covering (1 Corinthians 11:14). They have breastplates of iron. In a later battle, higher angels wear breastplates of sapphire and gold. Iron marks the general ranks. The sound of their wings is like chariots and horses running to battle. They strike with the tail. This is not the ordinary appearance of a demon. They are subjected to this shape for this purpose. The simile is speed, a swarm not bound to the ground, and a scorpion strike. It is not a literal horse with wings running the streets. The strike is so painful, and the swarm so thick, that the one struck is not left studying the attacker. They hurt men for five months. When they stop, about a month remains to the end of the tribulation.
They have a king, the messenger of the abyss (Revelation 9:11). In the context that messenger is the one given the key. His Hebrew name is Abaddon and his Greek name is Apollyon. Both mean Destroyer. Satan is the destroyer. The passage does not place a king of angels inside Hades governing the dead. The popular picture of a red figure with horns and a pitchfork, dragging men down and making bargains, is fiction. Satan is a cherub, still an exceedingly beautiful creature, whose reasoning is false: he still thinks he can be like God, and it is not working. Hades is not the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the final place. Their king is over them while they attack only his people. The first woe has passed. Two woes remain.
The sixth angel sounds, and a voice comes from the four horns of the golden altar before God, telling him to release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates (Revelation 9:13–14). The golden altar is the incense altar of Exodus 37:25, acacia wood overlaid with gold, its horns of one piece with it. The temple was a shadow of things to come. Horns of the altar were the place of a cry for mercy when no sacrifice was available. Joab fled to the tabernacle, took hold of the horns, and was still struck down (1 Kings 2:28). Grasping the horns is a plea, not a guarantee. These horns, inanimate objects used to describe the plea, cry out because judgment is severe and no sacrifice remains to obtain mercy. Mercy is pity toward one suffering for sin, and it can mean withholding a penalty. Without that cry, the release would destroy all mankind. What follows kills a third.
The four angels were prepared for this hour, day, month, and year, and are released to kill a third of mankind. They are bound demons kept for this purpose, and their later description marks them as high-ranking. Angelic order is like a mountain and like a military order. Michael is the only archangel. These stand among the higher ranks, not the iron-breasted ranks of the fifth trumpet. They use the armies gathered under the sixth bowl. Revelation 16:12–16 belongs to the same time: the sixth bowl is poured on the Euphrates, the water dries so the kings from the east may pass, and three unclean spirits like frogs come from the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to gather the kings to battle. The four angels lead those armies. Trumpets and bowls run on one timeline. The number of the horsemen is two hundred million. That number can still be drawn from the East after the deaths already suffered in the tribulation. About half the world’s population dies across the period, and a third of what remains dies in this movement, the armies included in that third. They are brought to the Valley of Megiddo for Armageddon. This is preparation for the great day of God Almighty, at the end of the tribulation, though other events precede the final gathering.
John sees horses and riders with breastplates of fiery red, blue, and sulfur yellow, colors of royalty, confirming high rank. The horses have heads like lions, and out of their mouths come fire, smoke, and brimstone. The language is the language of his time for warfare he had no technical words to name: swift mounts, men upon them, and weapons that throw fire. By these three plagues a third of mankind is killed. Authority is in the mouth and in the tails. The tails are like serpents with heads, and with them they do harm. The mouth kills as they advance. The tail is what follows: after they pass, the effect of the weapons still harms those not killed. They are not permitted to harm those who have the seal of God.
The rest of mankind, who were not killed, do not change their minds from the works of their hands (Revelation 9:20–21). By mid-tribulation it is plain that God is the One doing and permitting these things. They still do not turn to the one true God. They do not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood. They seek protection from idols. The beast does not forbid other gods. He forbids any god above him, mimicking God. They do not change their minds about their murders, senseless slaughters; their sorceries, religious superstitions; their fornications, following after their gods; or their thefts. To change the mind is not remorse. It is to stop what one had believed should be done. These are the followers of the beast. They have no seal. Under this death they still will not walk in the truth.
Revelation 10 opens a parenthesis. The trumpet prophecy pauses, and related events are added. A parenthesis is not a place to insert what does not belong. The first event of the parenthesis stands where the prophecy is interrupted. That place is the battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ. Later events inside the parenthesis may move forward or back. The timeline has to be read from the context.
The Son currently has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He must reign until all enemies are under His feet. Death is the last enemy. When all things are put under Him, the One who put them under Him is excepted (1 Corinthians 15:25–28). He does not have authority over the Father, because the Father gave Him that authority. During the tribulation on earth the Son submits to the Father and works out the Father’s plan. He takes the scroll from the One on the throne, depicted as a Lamb that had been slain (Revelation 5:6–7). He appears with the golden censer, offering incense with the prayers of the saints, the work of the high priest in the Holy of Holies (Revelation 8:3). His prayers are offered with theirs. He is relating to Israel and to judgment on Israel under the dispensation of law.
The mighty messenger of Revelation 10 is again the second Person of the Godhead. No spirit being is called a mighty angel. The two uses of that term refer to the Son and His actions. The word is messenger, one sent for a duty, not a created spirit. He comes down out of heaven, the third heaven, clothed with a cloud. The only cloud of the third heaven is the glory cloud, and only God comes in it. He led Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21). A rainbow is over his head, the sign that the earth will not be flooded again, and deity. In Revelation 4:3 the rainbow was around the throne; here it is over his head. His face is like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. Fire is judgment. He is coming to judge. The same mighty messenger proclaims in Revelation 5:2 who is worthy to open the scroll. No angel could look on it. The Son proclaims it because He is worthy. The word translated mighty is potential, inherent strength, and it is not used of other spirit beings.
In his hand is a little book. That book is the title deed of the earth. Christ is about to claim the earth. He does not now rule the earth. He rules principalities and powers, but He has not yet asked the Father for the nations. When He asks, He will crush them and the world system will be destroyed. The little book, and the fig tree of Matthew 24 with the nation receiving its priesthood and the Jewish race remaining until these things occur, remain for the next study.
