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INTRODUCTION
It is good to be back in Revelation tonight—we will pick things up in chapter 9, but a little review before we get there.
We have been studying Revelation since September and we made it through 8 chapters.
What we have established is that the book has seven cycles.
The Lord is using these seven cycles to show the Apostle John the way things will be until Christ returns, as well as how it will be when Christ returns
In the First Cycle, we saw how things will be in the church until Christ comes back
They will suffer
They will have sin to combat
They will have false teaching to reject
But if they endure, they will receive eternal reward when Christ returns and the Church will reign with Him forever.
In the Second Cycle, we saw this worship scene in heaven and a scroll in the hand of God the Father that has the history between the first and second coming of Christ written on it
John needs to know what is on the scroll so he can complete his task of writing about the ways things are and the way things will be, but there is no one worthy to open the scroll
Until Jesus, the slain, but victorious Lamb, enters in
He opens the seals on the seven seals on the scroll and we see how things will be until the Lord returns
There will be conquest—nation against nation
There will be war
There will be famine
There will be death
Christians will be killed for their faith
They will cry out for justice
And the Lord will answer their cries by returning and judging the world from His position of righteousness
And we saw in that cycle that the saints will not be judged by God.
That is because the slain Lamb has already received their judgment.
Instead, the believers who make of Jesus’ church are the sealed servants of God, who serve Him on earth
And one day, the church is the great multitude from every nation who worships Jesus for all of eternity with the angels and elders and the living creatures in heaven
And then, right before the holidays, we got to the Third Cycle.
This is where the Seven Trumpets enter in.
Cycle 1=7 churches
Cycle 2=7 seals
Cycle 3=7 trumpets
You can see the pattern—this is God giving us a perfect look at the time leading up to Jesus’ return and His return itself, from different angles
Same event from different perspectives
And the literary devices of the churches, seals and trumpets work to help us understand what God is showing us from each perspective
We established that trumpets are important in the Scriptures—particularly when it comes to warning people of judgment
The trumpets were a warning in Joshua when they were blown just before God judged idolatrous Jericho through the sword of His people
The prophets would refer to the trumpet as a sound of urgency when God was warning His people to repent of sin or face His discipline
And the trumpets are playing that role again in Revelation
In Revelation 8, the trumpets are sounded as a response to the prayers of God’s people rising up to Him.
The first four trumpets impact all of Creation
And there is agricultural and economic fallout as a result
But the judgments are limited
And from this we saw that whenever there are things happening in the world, God is doing something
His judgments are active in the nations everyday and will be until His Son returns
The first four trumpets demonstrate that to us
But Revelation 8 ended with this eerie scene of an eagle flying overhead pronouncing doom upon those who dwell on the earth:
That catches us up to Revelation 9, where tonight we will hear the fifth trumpet’s blast and see a horrific image of demon locusts rising up out of Hell
READ Revelation 9:1-12
SATAN (v. 1 and 11)
The first thing that we see is a fifth angel blowing his trumpet.
John told us in verse 6 that there were seven angels with seven trumpets, all ready to blow them.
The first four unleashed in verses 7-12
Now we have the fifth blowing his horn and when he does, John sees a star falling from heaven to earth
The star that falls is given a key and that is our first hint that we are not dealing with an actual star.
Instead, this would be symbolic language.
You don’t give keys to objects.
You give keys to persons—beings.
So we are dealing with a creature of some sort here
And I am going to argue that it is Satan.
This isn’t controversial.
Most Bible commentators agree on this.
What they don’t agree on is what is being referred to here.
First of all—why does he fall?
Some think this is a reference to his initial rebellion against God, but I don’t think that is the case.
Instead, I think this is referring to the blow that Satan’s domain took when Jesus came to earth and as the Messiah, assaulted Satan and his demons at every turn
And I believe this is the case because of what Jesus says in Luke 10 when he sees his disciples casting out demons:
And it is a foreshadowing of what we will see in chapter 12:
This is the old serpent from the Garden
The same enemy that deceived Adam to begin with
You see that he is given a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
In Greek, it bottomless pit literally means abyss.
This is Hell.
Bottomless because its misery and darkness is unending.
Satan is referred to directly again in verse 11.
He is the angel who is king over the abyss.
In Hebrew, he is Abaddon.
In Greek Apollyon.
Both names mean “Destroyer.”
This is who Satan is.
We know that from reading about him in Scripture.
We know that from his activity in the world.
We know that from Jesus’ teaching:
THE DEMONS (v.
2-10)
In verse 2, Satan opens the shaft of the pit and smoke like a great furnace rises up.
The smoke darkens the sun and air
This is how Satan works—in darkness
And this is also a sign of judgment—
And then, with the smoke come locust demons.
We have the demonic legions of our enemy—the fallen angels of Jude 6
And verses 3-10 explain to us what these demon locusts look like, what they do and how much power they have.
Let’s start with what they look like:
The description is terrifying, but I’m not sure we need to put too much stock in it because like the other images in Revelation, they are meant to convey meaning more than describe the literal reality of things
But if you add up all of the description, they:
Look like horses prepared for battle (v.
7)
They have what appears to be crowns of gold on their head (v.
7)
They have faces like humans (v.
7)
They have hair like a woman (v.
8)
Their teeth are like lion’s (v.
8)
They are war-like, wearing:
A breastplate like a breastplate of iron (v.
9)
The noise of their wings was like the noise of chariots going into battle (v.
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