Revelation 9:1-12
Fifth Trumpet: The Locusts from the Bottomless Pit
1 Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. 3 Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6 In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.
7 The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. 8 They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. 10 They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months. 11 And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.
12 One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.
The fifth of seven trumpets sounded loudly by the angelic announcer and John observed what will take place in the future when this occurs. A star fell from heaven to earth and it was a living being who would be given the key to bottomless pit where smoke arose and locusts followed out of that hole into the world already suffering greatly after a third of the vegetation, seas, waters, and heavens were struck. This and the other two remaining trumpet blasts were announced as woes to the world’s inhabitants. The smoke from the open pit darkened the air and blocked out much of the sunlight as the locusts struck the people who remained with scorpion-like blows of incredible pain. These were to target just the people who were not marked by God as His own and would not harm the remaining vegetation on the earth. The ones who are the Lord’s who go through the times of this tribulation will remain unharmed as the elect of the Lord of whom we are who are sealed and marked in Christ by His Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13-14) as His own, just as our Passover Lamb has done (Exodus 12:23, Revelation 7:2-3, 1 Corinthians 5:7) to save us from the penalty of our sin and the judgment (John 5:24) to come. Those who are not in Christ by faith through repentance to such assured deliverance will suffer painful judgment by these locust scorpions as they beg to die but cannot, a prelude to the lake of fire where the (Isaiah 66:24, Matthew 18:8-9) unbelieving who reject Christ and His gospel will spend eternity in agony for having turned away from Him instead of their sin. These locust scorpions creatures conjure up the images we often imagine that demons look like as they torment people in hell, but actually will be much worse in appearance and affect. Their description here is often made to seem as if future weapons or some such things, but the reality of God’s creation is much more fearsome to those who will not be at the mere mercy of human hands, but of His. These are also told as having as their leader Apollyon, the ruler of the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3) whose name means destruction or destroyer. We all know who is set on our destruction (Revelation 12:9, 17, Matthew 10:28, John 10:10) and have turned to safety in the Lamb of God who has promised us eternal life with Him, having forgiven all our sin and who will keep us from the evil one to the end that we may be with Him apart from sin’s presence afterwards. This woe to be announced by the fifth angelic trumpet is to be followed by two more terrifying ones calling once more for repentance which is to mostly unanswered by the hardened hearts of those refusing to believe and confess their sins to turn to His work on the cross to forgive them yet. How we who are in Christ do pray they would read and hear these words to take heart now and heed them before it goes so far and flee to escape the torment (Matthew 25:46, 1 John 4:18) of this certain judgment to come!
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